Tonight was a special night - Lexie's first birthday party in America. We had our birthday party for Jesus with Erica, Gianna, and Anthony, and the kids had so much fun. We ate dinner and decorated cookies, then we had the kids each give a gift to Jesus. They wrote their special gift on a card, taped it up, and then they put it in front of the manger. Afterwards, the kids played for awhile and then we prayed the rosary for all of our special intentions; Anthony melted my heart as he prayed so intensely, holding each bead with such concentration. It was a priceless gift - we were dying just watching him. We sang happy birthday and blew out candles, which seemed very new to Lexie. I thought she handled it well, but she looked at us like we were nuts. She didn't cry, but I just noticed (in this picture) that she was holding on to the table for dear life. Bless her heart - she is one brave little girl; I think I admire her more and more every day.
She is transitioning so well. As I think I said before, we started some sign language, and it has helped so much. She can sign lots of things already - lights, more, please, all done, dog, bath, hot, flower. She understands a LOT of what we are saying already, which is shocking to me. It made me realize how much we weren't communicating while we were in China. I can say - go give this to Katie, or show daddy, and she'll do it, or do you want milk? and she'll go straight to the fridge. Granted, we have many times where she whines at my legs, and I have NO idea what she wants - but we're getting better at understanding each other. I've noticed that she's more interested in books this week, and I'm assuming it's because she can understand some of the words that I'm saying. I've stopped reading them word for word and just try to point out some of the pictures of words she knows. That keeps her involved, and I really am hoping she'll love books as Tori and Katie did when they were little.
She even said a couple of words - she said bye bye (only twice), mama and baba of course, ba for ball, papa (sounds kinda like baba), and jei jei (which means big sister), and dee-dee for Katie (my Dad's nickname as a kid) - and many words (Chinese we're assuming) that we don't understand at all!! She says one word to Tori all the time (I can't think of it at the moment), and Tori said, I hope that doesn't mean You Jerk or something. I figure it probably means my hero, seeing the way she looks at her. She's eating much more of our foods, things that she spit out when we first arrived. I guess you'll eat anything when you're hungry enough, right?
So, that's about all we've been up to for now. We're looking forward to sharing Christmas morning with Lexie and the girls and to all the time with our family over the next several days. I'll try to post some pictures of the Christmas fun, but for now, we wish you all a very happy Christmas day. We count all of you as very treasured gifts of ours. Thank you for sharing in our excitement over this little Lexie. God bless all of you!!
