Mommy got a new toy

I got a Nikon D80 two days ago and I just love it! It takes such sharp, crisp pictures. I took a few pictures but you can tell I have no idea how to use it yet. lol.
They look a little "blue" to me, so I have to figure out why and set something different. I just don't know what yet.
And if your wondering about the long face on Malia, its because she HATES snow ! This is a girl who loves being outside, except when there is snow on the ground.

Christmas

Christmas was nice this year ! Malia got the gist of gifts fairly quickly, however she liked tearing the paper off more then what was inside at first. Here are a few pictures.

Doing the hokey pokey with Elmo


I love my Cinderella dress, but its a bit too big.


Um, Dad how do you stop this thing!!!!



My big brother, Dylan trying to play with my toys.


This is my big brother Dustin (who's holding me) Megan and big brother Dylan who is holding Delilah (my cousin) and in the front is my cousin Jaedan.


Me in front of the tree on Christmas eve.

A new kitchen

We decided to give Malia a few of her Christmas gifts early because I keep worrying about overwhelming her Christmas morning with all the excitement and gifts. We got her a kitchen set because her developmental therapist told us to do at much pretend play as possible with her. Well we put it together the other night and she LOVES it!! She is constantly "cooking" for us. The first thing she does when she walks up to it is turn on the light that's above the sink. The microwave, oven and dishwasher all have sound effects and when you put a pan on the stove it makes either the sound of something frying or boiling.

Here she is turning on the light.


Here she is making us Broccoli and french fries. Yum !!


Here she is making sure that the oven temp is just right for the taco, orange, corn on the cob, pancake, onion, plate,fork and eggplant that she put in there for us.


Giving it a good stir.


Giving a french fry a test taste.


She really likes her kitchen !

We got elfed !

I saw this site posted on one of the lists and decided to give it a try. Malia just loves to watch it, she laughs the whole time. It takes a while to load, so please be patient.

(copy and paste)
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1134458312

I love to color

At the office last week, on a whim I got out some crayons that we had there for years. I didnt have any coloring books so I broke down a big cardboard box and folded it flat. I sat it on the floor and sat down beside it and showed her how to color. Wow, she loves it !! She sat on the floor and colored for hours, so this past weekend we bought 3 really BIG coloring books and we have been doing it ever since. She loves when you lay on the floor beside her and color with her.

Laundry

Malia loves to help with the laundry. She more or less just takes everything out of the basket and throws it onto the floor. Then she goes into the laundry room and gets dirty clothes and brings them out to be folded with the clean ones. I really have to watch what she brings out. Here she was "folding" her big brothers under drawers.

Elmo and Christmas Trees

We put up our Christmas tree early this year because we couldn't wait for Malia to see it. My niece, Megan (who went to China with us) and Malia helped. Malia was pretty fascinated with the whole thing and wanted to take the decorations off after we put them on. We also went shopping (Malia LOVES to shop) I saw a pair of Elmo slippers and since she is obsessed with him, I got her a pair. I really didn't think she would keep them on her feet, she is tripping and running into stuff because she puts her head down to watch Elmo when she walks. She takes a few steps then giggles then walks some more, she did this for over 2 hours last night. She was having so much fun but it was kind of heart wrenching because it made me think about what she would be doing if she were still in China and that got me thinking about all the other children that I saw in the orphanage. She wouldn't be having this much fun and I'm positive she would not be walking yet either. I just see all the pictures I have of her while she was in the orphanage and how she always had such a sad face in them and now she cant stop giggling and smiling. She is such a joy to have, I want to go back......

Hanging with my big bro

Our oldest son came home from college this past weekend for the Holiday. We wondered if Malia would remember him because he left for college less then 2 weeks after she came home. But within those two weeks she was hanging all over him. It didn't take long this time either. Little kids have always liked Dylan, I think because he gets down to their level. She climbed up beside him and within 5 minuets she fell asleep.
Other big new this week is that Malia is calling me mama, YEAH ! She finally is trying to speak English, but then again mama is said the same in Chinese too. ;)






And here she is almost asleep.

Food

About two weeks ago Malia just sort of stopped eating, well not stopped but she ate very little. Considering she would eat anything at anytime I knew something was wrong. It took a little while but I figured it out, she wants to do it herself. She needed some help (and still does sometimes) but for the most part she can do it herself and she is soooooo proud of it. We make a big deal out of every spoonful she gets in her mouth. Here are some pics.

Heres a few more.....

New pictures

We had some pictures taken of Malia today. They took over 50 pictures of her and then gave me a disk with all of them on it. The photographer did it kind of free form, in other words his camera wasn't attached to a tripod. He just moved around to where he needed to be. I don't know about you but every other time I had any pictures taken the camera was always on a tripod and you had to sit in one place. Malia could move around a little, which I thought was neat.

MRI Results (well sorta)

Malia had her MRI done Monday. Her Doctor’s assistant called me today
(her doctor wasn’t in today) She told me that the radiologist who read the film said that it looks as if Malia had a “Torch Infection” in utero and that “Her brain took a hit” meaning that she had a stroke in utero, most likely from a high fever that her mother had.
I was told a torch infection means that her mother had an infection and that could mean anything form a urinary tract infection to herpes to German Measles.
Its her right front cerebral hemisphere that is damaged. So, the part of the brain that handles speech is not effected. Her Doctor is going to call me as soon as he comes back but I don’t know when that is. He wasn’t even going to take Malia as a patient because he is retiring at the end of this year but when he found out she was adopted he changed his mind for some reason. He was a very highly recommend pediatric neurologist that works out of Penn State University (Hershey) Hospital. I don’t know what we are going to do after December or who is going to take his place yet. Here are some random pictures........