Past 6 Months

have just flown by, but then again, the past 9 months has too. Here are some more pics -

Bella in her new hat and gloves from Aunt Wendy

Bella loves tossing Raggedy Ann out of her wooden crib and climb in there.
Pop-Pop and Bella. We were celebrating Pop-Pop's 70th birthday.

Uncle, Lily, Danny and Elaine come down for a visit in January. This was taken at Ming's Coffee Shop. We had an amazingly delicious breakfast there.

A visit from the Clouds. Lily and Bella get to visit every once in a while.

There she is in RA's cradle again!

What kind of baby picture collection doesn't have a generous sampling of tub pictures?


We get to see cousin Danny twice in 2 months! We all went to Owen's Station Hunting Preserve. This is Dad and Uncle sitting in the clubhouse, chatting while the boys went hunting for ducks.

Bella really enjoyed cousins Jason and Nick. Doesn't she look snazzy in Jason's glasses?

Dan - are you going hunting, or auditioning for a Dept of Transportation job? That sure is bright.

My boys...

Jane and the kids met us for Dinner after the big hunt.

Did we mention Bella likes to eat. Eat yogurt. Eat eggs. Eat french fries. Eat just about anything. This is her feeding herself yogurt for the first time. This picture was taken in March. Last week, she drank out of an open cup by herself and Grandma Chen says she's been doing it for a while.

Eddie at the Easter Egg Hunt at the Masonic Home where Troy works. He organizes the event each year and invites us.

Happy 2nd Birthday Isabella

Hard to believe we've been home with Bella 9 months now. After the huge bash we threw for Bella in March, we wanted to celebrate her 2nd birthday with a small reserved celebration at home... and of course, with Elmo

Bella seeing me get the camera ready, lined herself upright in front of the camera with her biggest smile. She loves being photographed.
Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop and The Nuss' lavished Bella with tons of Elmo gifts, clothes, puzzles & toys. Bella got cash and check gifts from Gong Gong, Aunt Wendy, Aunt Elaine and Uncle Matt.

Sunglasses from Aunt Denise and Uncle Troy. She wears them all over the house and carries them to bed with her. Don't think she gets the whole point of "sun" glasses yet.

We were headed out on Sunday for our (11th) anniversary dinner - yes with the kids. I said, "common Bella, let's go." She grabs her Elmo purse, Elmo cd player and sunglasses and heads for the door. LMAO.

June 15, 2008
She's doing very well. Loves going to the Chen's for daycare. Seems to learn something new every day. Tonight she said her own name "Bella" clear as a bell, then followed with "my name is Bella". At her 2 yr old check up last week, she got more shots, but after her next visit in December, she'll be all caught up with shots, and won't have to get them 4 and 5 at a time. She weighed 24.2 lbs and is 34.75 inches long. She is at 52 percentile for length and head circumference and 20% for weight. She fits well in 18 month sized clothes and while she'll rough it up with Eddie - she's all girl. Loves to wear new things. We got her a pair of (fake) crocs and she loves toddling around in them, showing them off. She loves books. Will ask anyone who's willing to read to her. She can do the shape sorter Aunt Wendy got her very well, can get all the shapes in almost entirely by herself. She speaks about 20-30 English words and maybe a few more in Mandarin. She's starting to say short sentences, like "night night Eddie".

Mama! He came! He came!

I'll always cherish the Christmas mornings, and even the days approaching Christmas, when Eddie is so excited he could burst - but Christmas morning, when I am woken up by the sound of little feet rushing around the house, down the stairs, then back up the stairs, then to my bedside "Mama - he came! He came!" I'll never forget the sound of excitement and anticipation in his voice that sounds like nothing else.

The black and white polka dot dress is from the Chen's the people who care for her while we're at work. This dress was a gift from Mom-Mom. She loved my putting her stockings on her for the first time. She kept feeling the silkiness on her legs and smiling.

Trying to get a decent posed picture of us is impossible. The one above, Eddie looks like he's being goosed, by the 3rd shot, Izzy is way done with taking pictures.

Izzy loved the gifts from Aunt Wendy. She's a real Picasso on the Magna Doodle.

Keeping Tradition

If you look through the Chung family albums - you'll notice lots of cemetary pics. Our family from New York used to come visit each year, and a trip to the cemetary to visit the departed was always part of our holiday celebrations. (Helps explain my strange personality I suppose.) So in keeping with tradition, we thought we'd take a few shots of this year's visit to my mother's grave. It was freezing, so Izzy stayed in the car - yes, by herself. See my car, at the top of the picture?

Here's a few more pics from the last series that I thought were cute.

This gingerbread house was a creation by Eddie, Bill, Matt and yours truly. (Not to name names, but Eddie, Matt and I take no credit for the purple-eyed, mammary enhanced working girl standing out front.) Oh, I do have to confess to the speared road kill in front of the house though. We got issues for sure. You'll have to contact me directly to get the full story of this year's gingerbread house. Think CSI.

The Nuss' come to visit and bearing gifts! Izzy's first Christmas gift.

She's digging the new Elmo See and Say toy, but can't understand why it can't be a cell phone too.
Izzy loves Elmo. Denise and Troy got her this very cool Elmo chair. It spins and talks!

Three Months Today

I love her expression in this pic. Too bad I didn't have the wherewithall to relocate the oh-so-attractive space heater before snapping the shot. I have the camera around and handy for just these moments, but somehow, when I notice she's looking particularly cute and may be in the mood to have me flash a camera at her oh, about 25 times - there's just not enough grey matter in my head to think of the stuff in the backdrop. Plus I'm almost sure that if I ever could put that much thought and coordination into it all, that by the time I removed all the unattractive items in the background and foreground, the moment would be over, and I'd never get any pictures of her. So here's a very cute picture of my Izzy and our space heater.
Its hard to believe - three months ago today, August 27, we were all sitting in that little room, pretty sure, they were about to bring the babies out to us, but not really sure how it would go, how long would we wait, were they coming in? Would we be called out? Adoption in China was a lot of not knowing, but finding comfort in being in a group and everyone else was sitting there, so why not? Many times in that trip, lost, in the dark, afraid - I found solidarity in these men and women we travelled with. I hope we get to have our reunion sometime. I would hate to lose touch with these, my brothers and sisters in the maternity ward.
My first time holding my Isabella. She was so scared. Wimpering, sucking her thumb. I'm sure full of uncertainty. I don't really look at these pictures often, because I find myself feeling so sad for how scared she was. So helpless I couldn't immediately communicate everything would be alright - that she was safe now. So sorry I couldn't do anything about getting to her sooner than we did.

Izzy's 1st Thanksgiving

Uncle Matt came down for Thanksgiving and it happened to be 6 days after his birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday and had cake for him. The kids, especially Eddie really enjoyed having Uncle Matt stay over.
Saturday, we went to Longwood Gardens to try to get some exercise, look at the pretty Christmas displays and maybe get a couple shots that would work for our Christmas card this year.
This is inside the new Children's Garden which I must say is pretty darn neato burrito.

Back to Work

Going back to work, leaving kids in daycare - no matter how good the day care situation is - has to be the hardest thing for any mother to do. This mother for sure. So Nov 12 came and it was time to get up early and get a shower, dressed, Eddie dressed, Izzy dressed, Is everything in Eddie's bookbag? Is Izzy's bag complete with diapers, wipes, change of clothes, bottles, snacks, bib...? Are all the forms for Eddie's school signed, folders emptied, homework assignments done, the box of baggies the teacher has requested, a can of coffee for the food drive, a picture of a tree for some project, oh and do the daycare people have all 12 numbers of where to reach us in case... aaaggghhh Bill helps out a lot which makes a big difference. Still off I go to work on Nov 12, crying all the way to work. This sucks.
But we made it through our first week. Now on our 2nd, but with Thanksgiving upon us, I have 6 almost uninterrupted days with my kiddies! Isn't this sweater the cutest? Izzy started daycare walking, falling, mostly falling. 2-3 steps, boom. 3-4 steps, boom. You know how it is. By Friday of the first week, she came back a steady walker. (with walking comes a lot of falling. Notice the red bump on her forehead.) She'll still fall, mostly when she's tired, or when I stupidly get a new pair of slippers that are as slippery as ice skates or to use a Bill-ism "as slick as whale snot". I doubt many people think of whales period, much less that they have snot or what it might be like. Being married to Bill, you inherit a lot of Bill-isms. There'll be more. Stay tuned. Anyway, that's how fast it goes. She's almost 20 lbs now, up 3 lbs since we were in China, less than 3 months ago. Her hair is full and thick. She's had a few colds, but kicked their butts in 3-4 days. She still smiles alot. First thing in the morning when I hear her cooing, I peer into her crib, and she's got a smile as wide as the Great Wall of China is long. The smiles we get at the end of the day are worth more than all the tea in China. She's doing great.