8/6/2012 - Outside Girl
Our girl LOVES to be outside! One of her favorite things is to take walks in her stroller.
08-09-2012 - I'm a Climber
In just the couple of weeks we've been home Miss Chelsie has figured out how to climb onto the stool. As well as get into the cabinets and drawers. She does not like to be in the gated play area without someone in there with her, so we will be taking it down soon.
08-12-2012 - Playing in the Pool
Evan, one of Chelsie's friends let her borrow his pool for the remainder of the summer. As you can see she thoroughly enjoyed it. One of her favorite things to do is to throw her stacking cups out of the pool and into the yard for dada to pick up and bring them back to her.
08-15-2012 - Our Quick and Fearless Girl
Ok I only turned my back for one second and when I turned back around Miss Chelsie was standing up on her "bike". I'm not sure where she learned this but believe it or not, she is really steady when she does this. She actually starts from a sitting position, keeps her hands on the handles, puts her feet underneath her on the seat and stands straight up. She has a strong core muscle.
08-18-2012 - Dada's Little Helper
Dada needed to finish hanging up a lamp in Chelsie's room and as you can see he had a little help. She actually watched him climb the ladder one time and as soon as he got down she was up it lickety split!
Chelsie's 1st Hair Cut - 9/6/2012
When Chelsie came to us it appeared that the orphanage had given her a hair cut. The cut was a little crooked so we made an appointment with Mr. Dale to get it all straightened out.
Well our girls learned quickly to coexist and tolerate each other. As each day passes Chelsie becomes more comfortable around Daisy and when Daisy figured out that she gets petted, fed from the table and gets to run and play around the house she is all about Chelsie.
10-7-2012 - Chelsie's 2nd Birthday Celebration
Chelsie turns two! We had lots of friends and family that came to the house to celebrate this special day. One of the presents she got for her birthday was a wagon to put her dolls or items in to pull around but you can see below that she fit into it and liked that better. She also has a special friend that was agreeable to pulling her around.
There were so many special gifts she received we couldn't show them all but below are a few photos of some of them.
In the photo below you can see Chelsie signing read as her friend Evan was reading the card to her.
10-25-2012 - Time Out Chair or Not
Since Chelsie turned two and has become more comfortable with us she has started having temper tantrums so we decided she needed a time out chair. We couldn't find one that we really liked as a time out chair because they all are too cute. Chelsie's aunt C said she had one that she could use, it was ugly and would be perfect for a time out chair. Aunt C got it from the church she attended as a child and could remember sitting in it while attending Sunday school. Well when she brought it to us it was too precious and Chelsie loved it, so it became her reading chair instead of the time out chair.
10/31/2012 - Halloween
For Chelsie's first Halloween we decided to take her to a near by church's pumpkin patch. She liked searching through all the pumpkins to find the right one.
After picking the perfect pumpkin it was time to take it home for carving.
The neighbors let Chelsie borrow their wagon to go trick or treating in and she thought she was the queen butterfly riding around. We didn't go very far just up the street to a few houses but she really enjoyed herself. You can see all of her goodies she received in the wagon with her.
Chelsie and her pumpkin!
11-05-2012 - First Pigtails
Today Chelsie's aunt E was at the house and of course we had to play with the hair. So Chelsie ended up with her first pigtails.
11/23/2012 - Chelsie's First Christmas Tree
Today we went to the mountains and cut down Chelsie's first Christmas tree. We were a little aprehensive in taking her up the mountain as her little ears are full of fluid but she is a trooper and did just fine. She had a ball running in the tree lot and checking out all the trees. Once we got home and dada got the tree in the stand she was little miss helper as you can see in the photo below.
Chelsie's 1st Surgery - 11/28/2012
Today is a very big day. We had to be at the hospital at 5:00 am and little miss was ready to go. After arriving and getting miss Chelsie in her hospital gown she was all about playing with the toys, as you can see she preferred to be out at the nurses station instead of the room.
The hospital has wagons that they use for the children and that was one of Chelsie's favorite things while we were there. The hospital also gave her the bear that is in the wagon with her.
One last kiss from mama and dada before going to surgery.
She was in surgery for four hours. The first part of her surgery was tubes in the ears. The surgeon said they call what she had "volcano ears". The eardrum was actually protruding outward and when he made a hole for the tubes the fluid erupted like a volcano. He said no wonder she cried all the way home from China. The second part of her surgery the surgeon closed the soft palate and fixed the nose and lip. He originally was not going to do the nose and lip but told us the day before surgery that if the palate went well he may try. What a blessing! They called us back to the recovery room early because she woke up early from the anesthesia and they couldn't get her to calm down. When mama and dada walked into the room and began talking to her she calmed down immediately and the nurses couldn't believe it. After getting her settled they moved us to a room where dada held little miss for the next six hours until the anesthesia wore off. Aunt E stayed the night with mama and Chelsie, it was a long night as we were up and down all night. We had to walk the halls several times and had the movie Enchanted playing all night long. The next day the doctor said we could take our girl home.
12/6/2012 - One Week Post Op
Chelsie is doing great even though she is not napping unless she is being held and she is not sleeping well at night. She is having night terrors and crying for an hour at a time. The surgeon also informed us that her tonsils were huge and we needed to get her off the dairy so in addition to all she is going through we had to change formula. The change in formula and with her having to learn a new way to drink has caused LOTS of gas issues, so if it is not a night terror that wakes her it is the gas.
12/8/2012 - Friends Checking Up on Chelsie
Chelsie's friends Meghan and Jordan from next door came over to check on her. They love coming over to play with her and both are so sweet to her.
12/15/2012 - Chelsie and Santa
Even though Chelsie doesn't understand what Christmas is all about she loved it. She loved all the Santas we have and would walk around the house signing Santa and saying Ho Ho Ho. Here she is with one of the stuffed Santas we have.
12/17/2012 - Our Sweet Little Girl
We just thought this was a cute picture of our little angel sleeping.
Chelsie's 1st Christmas - 12/24/2012 & 12/25/2012
For Christmas Eve we went to cousin J and M's house and had the Lindsay traditional barbecue dinner with all the fixins. After reading the Christmas story and singing carols we exchanged gifts. Ok miss Chelsie got the hang of it really quick. She loved opening the gifts!
Christmas morning around our house was quite different this year. Santa has always come to the house but this year there were a ton of toys! Miss Chelsie got a bicycle, sit and spin, dress up clothes with jewelry, puzzles, stuffed animals, a doll, coloring books with crayons, musical instruments, hair bows and a vaccume. Yes a vaccume that is one of her favorite toys.
The following weekend we went to Aunt E and Uncle M's house for dinner and Christmas celebration with mama's side of the family. Once again miss Chelsie loved opening presents.
In the picture below miss Chelsie and Granddaddy are talking about the snow and snowmen on the bag.
1/17/2013 - Chelsie Decides to Eat
Oh my goodness! Today as mama was feeding miss Chelsie her lunch she decided that she wanted to do it herself and look at her go!
1/29/2013 - One of Mama's Favorite Pictures and Dada's Favorite Videos
After snapping about 20 pictures with my phone I got this one that I just love. Of course you know I took it portrait so I had to take a picture of the picture and the color didn't come out to good, but you can still my precious sweet pea.
Chelsie loves her bike, she rides it through the house like a whirlwind. It was such a beautiful day today that we went outside to ride. I captured the video below (sorry it is in 3 segments) that is really cute at the end.
1/31/2013 - Chelsie's Play Area
After the Christmas tree came down it left a perfect spot to set up a play area for miss Chelsie. She loves having her own little corner in the house, her toys are all right where she can get to them. She also is really good at picking them up, she likes to have them in their spot.
We have been working with miss Chelsie to try to get her to brush her teeth but she hasn't been interested. Well today miss Chelsie decided she needed to brush her teeth. She still only has six teeth to brush but she is a brushing.
2/2/2013 - Chelsie at Her Friend Evan's Birthday Party
Today Chelsie's friend Evan had his third birthday party at BounceU. This place had every kind of slide and bouncing equipment you could think of. Chelsie was a little apprehensive at first but after dada showed her how to do it, she had a ball as you can see.
2/4/2013 - A Box Full of Fun
Nothing is better to play hide and seek and peek-a-boo in than an empty box. Plus this box had an added bonus of bubble rap. We played for hours and even when dada got home from work he was able to help jump on the bubble rap to make it pop.
2/14/2013 - Valentine's Day
For Chelsie's first Valentine's day we signed and delivered several cards to her friends on the street. She really didn't understand what we were doing, but she was outside so she was delighted. After dinner she got her first cupcake. She enjoyed the iceing the most.
Also today a package was delivered to Chelsie and mama. We waited until dada got home to open it because it was from him. Dada helped miss Chelsie open hers and it was a stuffed puppy and a pair of pajamas with her name on the back side.
2/16/2013 - Chelsie's 1st Snow
Ok today was a long day. We heard snow was coming but it is taking so long to arrive. To pass the time we took several photos of little miss sitting on the counter in the kitchen.
To get Chelsie to take her nap now days mama has been taking her in the bathroom, shutting the door so it is dark and rocking her until she goes to sleep. So miss Chelsie does the same with her Mickey and Minnie Mouse. We had to put them to sleep several times while we waited on the snow.
Finally while Chelsie was napping it snowed and snowed and snowed. Daisy our dog whined the whole time as she loves the snow and was ready to get out in it. When Chelsie woke up we showed her the snow and then spent the next 30 minutes getting her dressed to go outside.
You can see why it took so long to get ready but our girl wasn't cold.
Daisy loves to catch snowballs and run in the snow.
The girls next door we good enough to share their sled with Chelsie and pull her around on it.
They also let dada and Chelsie go down the hill in the back yard. She had so much fun she didn't want to stop even though it was getting dark and past dinner time.
2/22/2013 - Playing Dress Up with Daisy
Miss Chelsie is a prissy little girl. She loves to dress up in frilly dresses and jewerly. Her favorite part is putting on and taking off the jewerly.
Ususally Daisy doesn't participate in dress up, she prefers to chew up the plastic play food or a stuffed animal. But today she decided she wanted to be part of dress up.
2/27/2013 - Sit and Spin
Santa brought Chelsie a sit and spin for Christmas. She really hasn't used it because she didn't have enough strength in her arms to make it spin. Well today she pulled it out and began using it! Although she can do it, she thinks it is more fun to spin one time then fall off and get mama to help her up.
