Lily's First Christmas - 2008

These pictures are from Christmas Eve at Grandma & Grandpa Lapair's house. This of course is Lily's first Christmas with us. She loved opening gifts, she even wanted to open her sisters gifts. Emily let Lily help her with some of her gifts. 

At the top of Grandpa's Christmas tree is an animated angel. Lily didn't notice it for quite a while but once she noticed it she was fascinated by it. We are sure she thought it was real. She was saying good-bye to it as we left. We lifted her up to get close but she didn't like that at all....too close!

Christmas morning the girls received a new wagon which they loved. As you can see by the pictures, it was a big hit with all the kids. Good thing they could all fit in.....even a place for the dog! If you look behind Micah you see a little space where the dog is sitting.

Happy 7th Birthday Emily!

On November 28th Emily turned 7! We celebrated her birthday last weekend because two of her older brothers just bought houses and were in the process of moving in on her actual birthday. Emily continues to be a tremendous blessing. She is being a very good big sister. She is learning patience, she's teaching her sister things, she watches over her to protect her etc. Thank God for our daughter Emily!

Mom's Little Helper

Lily loves to help her mommy. Today she was helping to fold laundry. She actually folded this dish towel all by herself. Lily is constantly saying..."Help you?". It's a blessing to see such a good heart in such a little child. We celebrated her sister Emily's 7th birthday on the weekend and I had to set up chairs and tables etc. to get ready for the party. Lily of course, had to help daddy carry in the tables and chairs. It takes twice the time to do things with a little one holding on to everything.....helping.

We have had Lily now for over three months. Her vocabulary continues to grow and she continues to adjust quite well. We just can't seem to get her hair to grow. The only part that wants to grow is the hair on top of her head! Her hair on the sides and back is still the same length it was when we first got her....how does that happen?

Ready for Take-Off!

Lily decided she needed a helmet to ride her tricycle. She saw her big sister Emily wearing a helmet on her two-wheel bike so she had to have the same. The only helmet I could find was this motorcycle helmet. It was so comical I just had to take a picture. Lily could barely navigate with this thing on her head!

Update

Fun & Play

The two girls are our neighbors.

Emily & Lily were taking turns pretending to be operating a food stand. 

This is Lily's first visit to the park. We have a nice park near our house and Lily seemed to really enjoy it. There has been so much going on it's hard to believe it took two months to get to the park. This was a very nice day, no winds or fires! 

Lily continues to learn new words. She is getting better at communicating with us and experiencing less frustration. She has lots of cute sayings now, when she wants to be picked up she says "uppy-down", she calls her yogurt "yo", so in the morning we hear her saying, "mama, yo", she calls a Kleenex an "achoo", oatmeal is "o". She tends to leave off the ends or beginnings of words. Book is "bu", Micah is "cah", her brother Nick is "ik". She still mixes Chinese and english words, sometimes I am daddy, other times I am baba.

  All in all she is doing very well. Lily is a very strong-willed child and when she does not get her way.....let the battle begin!!! Of course this is where we have to remember we are dealing with a two year old who had no parents to tell her what to do. We can tell that she did receive some correction and discipline, for example, if she thinks she did something wrong she will put her head down and become silent. We have to kind of  coax her out of it by making her laugh or something. She is showing signs of learning right from wrong and is starting to "get it" with some things. It's just going to take a lot of patience and repeating things again and again. Generally Lily is a very happy little girl, she wakes up happy and is full of smiles. She is also starting to pretend with us. Lately she has started this thing where she plants her face in a pillow and starts sobbing...pretend...then she tells her mother to do the same. She gets a big kick out of us making a fuss over her. She pretends with her dolls of course, they have to have their poopie diapers changed.

Two Months Home!

Home for Two Months, November 11th!

Lily is doing very well. She is now able to count to 10 with her cute Chinese accent. She is learning her ABC's and colors. She has become proficient at bossing her sister around!!! Of course Emily does not stand for it one bit! In other words, they act like sisters...

Our family has developed a very strange tradition at birthdays (we just celebrated Aaron's B-Day). Our sons have decided to modify the traditional "happy birthday" song. Instead, they do this thing that can only be described as a pack of wolves howling to the tune of happy birthday. Lily is giving her opinion of their singing abilities.....She's plugging her ear!!! But sort of listening too. It's one of those things you just have to be there to appreciate....or not!

Lily and Micah are going for a drive, she's in his lap. They went for quite a few laps around the house and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the ride.

It's hard to believe that we've been home for two months already! Lily's latest feat is that she is beginning to learn how to ride a tricycle. She seemed to catch on to it very quickly. The only problem is her legs are not long enough to reach the pedals all the way. She can barely reach and pedal but she totally gets the concept of pushing to make herself go. 

Yesterday we had our first visit with the social worker for post placement. She was quite impressed with Lily's level of understanding of things. The next visit is in Feb then August of '09.  We plan to re-adopt Lily so that she will have a California State Birth Certificate. 

Lily's First Halloween

Halloween at Nickelodeon in Burbank

Our son Aaron (Micah's dad) works at Nickelodeon as a storyboard artist so he gets to invite family to their Halloween celebration. It's pretty cool, they decorate the entire studio in different themes based upon the various shows that Nickelodeon has. The above character is from Kai lan, one of Nick's cartoons. 

Both Micah and Lily were fascinated by the dry ice in the fountain. Lily is supposed to be a butterfly

This is Lily's very first hotdog! It wasn't a big hit!

This display was part of Fairly OddParents, it was supposed to be a giant fish bowl and the balloons were supposed to be the pebbles at the bottom of the fish bowl. The kids had a blast kicking the balloons around. They also had giant caldrons of candy filled with every kind of candy you can imagine. 

Lily Singing

Lily likes to sing so we captured it on video. It took me some time figuring out how to upload to YouTube but it's finally there. We hope you enjoy her singing as much as we do. 

We think she is singing a Chinese song. We just wish we knew what she is singing.

Lily is learning so much. She can count to 5, knows many of her body parts, is copying us as we say the alphabet, knows what many different foods are, and many other things. When Emily is doing home schooling Lily wants her turn to do school. She says, "Lily's turn,Lily's turn." She is like a sponge and learns so quickly.

This is Christy. I want to thank everyone who has been praying for me. I am doing much better. I am able to get around without crutches and was able to sleep much better the last 3 nights. I am still having a hard time going up and down stairs, but the pain is minimal. I do not have rheumatoid arthritis. The doctor thinks it is some sort of inflammatory arthritis. We are still hoping to know for sure what caused the inflammation. I am very happy to be able to take care of my family again.

Lily & Micah's Birthday Party!

Happy Birthday Lily & Micah!

The Theme: Strawberry Shortcake & Cars (The Movie)

We're sitting here nice and patiently, can someone give us some cake?

Tonight we all gathered at our daughter-in-laws parents house and celebrated Lily and Micah's 2nd birthday. All in all there were around twenty five our thirty of us. Both Micah and Lily had a great time. The pile of presents looked like someone had just bought out Toy's R Us! 

Lily did great when it come time to open presents. Usually at her age they open one or two presents and then lose interest. She kept opening and opening and seemed to really enjoy it! Of course, who wouldn't when you're being showered with really cool gifts. She loved the stuffed animals. Ever since we've been home she's tried to take possession of some of Emily's stuffed animals, now she has two of her own. Lily also received lots of very cute dresses and outfits. It's so much fun to have a girl that we can dress up.

Of course neither Lily or Micah really had a clue that it was their birthday, but that didn't stop them from having a great time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!!!!!

WE LOVE YOU!

Lily got her first car on her 2nd Birthday! When she got in the car she sat down and looked puzzled as to why it didn't go! She had no idea that this car ran on Lily power!

We know that the law in California prohibits youngsters from having passengers but it doesn't say anything about dogs!

Lily looks so disappointed in this picture, it looks like she's saying "I'm sitting here but it won't go!" Later in the day she had fun when the car was moving under "Emily" power. Emily was pushing her around the house.

We wanted to do this comparison picture with Lily wearing the same dress Emily wore on her 2nd birthday. Lily obviously is a little taller than Emily was. Either that or the dress shrunk.

An Update on Christy's knee situation

As it turns out, both of Christy's knees swelled up. The left knee started swelling about 6 days after her right knee. After multiple visits to the doctor and specialist it seems she has some form of arthritis. At this point the doctors are waiting for more test results before they have a sure diagnosis. However, Christy is now starting to be able to walk without crutches and is getting around a whole lot better than a week ago. We want to thank those of you who have been praying and ask you to continue to pray for healing, direction for the doctor and the right medication to help Christy return to a normal life.

Also, thank you to our church family who have been a tremendous blessing and help to us during this time!

Tomorrow we are having a combined birthday party for Lily and our grandson Micah. This will be a first for all of us. Of course neither one of them have a clue what their birthday is but we are sure they're going to have a blast!

She's Officially a Citizen!

On Thursday, October 9th we received Lily's Certificate of Citizenship! She is officially an U.S. citizen.

Saturday, October 11th marked our being home for one month. It's hard to believe that we've been home for one month already. This has been quite a month so far. Lily continues to do just great. She has adjusted to our family and fits in like she was born into it. Of course we believe she was hand picked by our Heavenly Father to be part of this family. Lily is a very special little girl, she is smart, thoughtful and funny. The other day Christy was lying on the couch and Lily noticed she did not have a pillow for her back, she ran into the other room and came back with a pillow for her mothers back. What a sweety!

Lily has found her Profession!

We think we have a doctor in the family! Actually two, Emily has been saying for quite some time that she wants to be a doctor . Of course, she's been saying she wants to be a mom, a painter, a doctor and a toilet cleaner!!! We keep telling her that if she's a mom she'll have that last one covered. Don't ask us where she obtained that aspiration, none of us are professional toilet cleaners! Lily looks so cute in this little doctors outfit. I think she remembers her visit to the doctor in China where they thoroughly checked her out :)

For those of you who are praying for Christy, please continue to pray. The healing process is moving along but fairly slowly. We have been very blessed by the help we have been receiving from our family at church. People have been bring meals, cleaning our house and helping watch Lily and Emily. It is an absolute blessing to belong to a body of believers who put flesh on their Christianity.

Thank you to all at Tree of Life Christian Church for all your help!

Lily continues to blossom like a little flower. She continues to amaze us at her level of understanding. She is a very bright little girl. Of course we're not at all biased.

Request for Prayer

To all the believers who have been following our blog I would like to request your prayers. My wife's knee went out on Friday and she can't stand up or bear weight on it. We went to the doctor today and they said she has osteo arthritis in her knee and that it was probably aggravated by over activity. Please pray that the swelling and pain will subside and that she will recover quickly.

God's timing is amazing! We are so thankful this didn't happen while we were in China. Also, The Lord put it on the heart of one of our friends to arrange meals for us (even though we've been back for 3 weeks). She had no idea that Christy's knee had gone out but she had arranged for dinners for the next two weeks. It's always comforting in the midst of a storm to know that He's in it with us!

Thank you in advance for your prayers.

By the way, Lily is doing great! she is such a blessing to us and we are so thankful to have her in our family.

It's already been One Month!

Two Aunties and a Nephew

Tuesday, Sept. 30th Christy was watching our grandson Micah while our son and daughter-in-law went for an ultrasound. They were checking the baby out and........finding out that we're having a GRANDDAUGHTER!!!! We didn't think it could actually happen....a girl being born into the Hammersley family! Needless to say we're very excited to have another girl in the family! She is due to arrive in February. Pretty soon there will be three girls running around the house. EEEEEKKKKK!

It's hard to believe that we have had Lily for one month already. She was placed into our arms in Nanjing China on September 1st, 2008! She has done so well it's hard to believe. This little one is so smart and quick to learn. She is one of those kids who just "gets it". Several times people, strangers, have said how obviously smart she is. She is incredible at communicating even though there is a language barrier. It's so cute so see her use all kinds of hand gestures to make sure we know what she is trying to say! and trust me, she makes sure you know what she's trying to say! especially if she's mad (which isn't very often but it's cute to see her insistence). Lily is such a happy little girl. She just seems to be so comfortable with us and she is becoming more and more affectionate. She often comes up to us and gives hugs and kisses, she kisses the dog, her dolls, our hands, etc. My favorite time is when either Christy or I have been gone for a little while, when we get home Lily gets so excited, she runs up to us and gives us big hugs and kisses. 

When we were in Guangzhou staying in the Westin Hotel we went to the play room on the 9th floor. We noticed that Lily liked to play with pretend plates and utenciles. This has continued here at home, so, yesterday we brought Emily's little pretend kitchen down stairs for Lily to have. As you can see she loves it! She played for quite some time just arranging the plates and cups, pretending she is feeding her doll, talking on the phone. Very Cute!