Our Backyard in Carmel

These pictures were taken on December 23, 2008 in the backyard of our vacation rental home in Carmel. When it isn't raining, the girls are having a blast running in the spacious back yard.

New Friends and a Power Outage

I still find it amazing how much the internet has changed our lives and how it helps us make friends. Just yesterday, I was contacted by a fellow blogger Mom who happens to live in the lovely town we are vacationing in. Stacey invited us to meet up with her two adorable children Austin and Ryleigh at the local children's library. How could we pass up such a great opportunity?

Only moments before heading out the door of our vacation home (to meet with Stacey and family), our power went out. I called the rental agency and hoped they could fix it while we were gone. After all, we weren't going to cancel our plans just to wait around for a repairman.

As it turned out, the power situation was a lot more complicated than anticipated and required the services of an electrician after hours in the rain. It was very cold, so we made a fire to huddle around. He finally got the power reestablished (temporarily) at 7:30 PM. We were warned not to turn on too many things at once until he could return the next day and add some larger breakers.

In the mean time, we met Stacey and family at the library. I just love the opportunity to meet fellow moms who have also adopted from China. Sometimes I just cannot think of things to say, even when I have so many questions swirling around in my mind. So Stacey, forgive me if my social skills were lacking, but I found your daughter (and Austin too) totally charming. I can tell that Ryleigh is a very intelligent little girl and she seems to have a gentle spirit about her. I can hardly believe she is still three. Austin seems like a wonderful son and his interest and excitement about learning is refreshing. I truly hope we will have more opportunities to get together.

I have attached some recent photos.

Below is what it looked like in our home for 2.5 hours,

The following pictures were taken with a flash,

Carmel by the Sea

We made it! We have been relaxing and enjoying ourselves ever since our arrival Friday afternoon. Saturday was sunny, cool, and beautiful. Sunday was rainy, but we stayed home and BBQ'd a nice dinner. Later, Dad took the girls to a children's museum in Monterey to keep them from going stir crazy.

We rented a home for two weeks and it is totally awesome! Here are some pictures of the girls from our first evening here.



Following are some pictures from Saturday:

Chloe's Christmas Production

Here are the pictures from last week's performance.

Keepin' It Cool

I have started to write a post at least three times in the past couple of weeks, but it seems I always get interrupted and then I just don't have the determination to continue with it. Now, I have the opportunity, but my photos are not on this computer, so I will just have to post without them and slip them in at a later date.

Christmas is very low-key for us this year (at least until now). We didn't decorate or get a tree or hang any stockings. We haven't gone Christmas shopping, although I have made a few small purchases online.

That doesn't mean we lack the Christmas spirit. In fact, we have been enjoying ourselves with activities that celebrate the season. A week ago, we took the girls to see the Christmas lights at our local zoo and it was the perfect night, cold, but not freezing. They also had a train ride and a carousel ride and the girls had friends with them to share the excitement. Monday night was Chloe's pre-school Christmas performance and she was a star (literally speaking) in the play. She was really hamming it up and curtsying between songs. I could tell she was nervous when she first got on stage because her little tongue was really getting a workout. She was licking the cardboard star tied around her head and she kept sticking her fingers in her mouth. It's a very strange habit (the licking), but she settled in quickly and eventually kept her tongue in its proper place.

We also took the girls to see the Nutcracker and they both loved that too. During the second act, Chloe couldn't sit still anymore, so she danced in place to the music, much to the entertainment of the people sitting behind us (they could still see over her head). So many people in the audience were commenting on our girls and how beautiful they were. I was a little surprised, because nearly every little girl in the audience was dressed to impress and I don't have new Christmas dresses for the girls this year. I am embarrassed to admit that my sewing addiction has been waning the past couple of months and I didn't make anything special for Christmas.

Now for the fun part! We leave today for 16 days of vacation in beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea. We have rented a house and we will be getting into the Christmas spirit in a big way. Stay tuned for lots of pictures, adventures and fellowship with friends!

School Pictures

I was so excited when Chloe's school pictures came in. She was picture perfect. We have had Pearl's pictures for a couple of weeks now, but I was waiting until I had them both to post. Last year, they were both darling and now this year, they are even better. I guess all that posing practice I have been giving them by constantly taking their picture has paid off. I didn't know I could choose the color background for Pearl, so I left it blank. I guess the photographer decided to continue the "purple" theme to match her clothes.

Thanksgiving Weekend

I'm not sure what happened, but we didn't take any pictures on Thanksgiving even though we had relatives from out of town coming in to share in our celebration. It was a small dinner compared to previous years. We totalled 8 including the girls.

The day was nice and relaxing and maybe that was one reason we didn't break out the camera. It was just so great to not worry about anything (other than the food coming out edible). Our meal was enjoyable and the fellowship was long overdue.

I haven't been out shopping yet. I absolutely detest crowds and try to do most of my shopping on line. I hope to make a few things this year, but we'll see how time permits.

My husband finally dragged me out of the house last night to have dinner in a nice restaurant and window shop in a very nice and not-too-crowded, shopping center. We all had a great time and the girls even posed and asked me to take their pictures. They must have been going through withdrawal.

The Good Life

There was a time when we were almost rich. We didn't worry about the price of anything and while our tastes weren't extravagent, we could pretty much have anything we wanted. Now times are a little tougher. We sold the vacation home and we have had our main residence for sale for over a year. We are eating at home a lot more and taking less weekend trips.

And yet, spending time with our girls and just being a family have made this a wonderful year. Four and five are such wonderful ages. The girls get more fun every day.

Tonight after her bath, Chloe came down to the living room to play and snuggle with Daddy. She is wearing a cute towel that was made for her by the wife of our local chief of Police. Pearl has a matching towel. Doesn't that fire look toasty?

Yes, these are great times!

New Pink Glasses

Well, I was hoping to get a better picture, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post about Chloe's new glasses. Dad picked them up Wednesday night and she has been wearing them ever since (I hope). Chloe picked out her own frames and I had to hold back my full opinion. I kept steering her toward the pretty metal blue ones (that made her look chic and smart!), but when she spotted the pink ones with the word "Disney" on them, it was all over.

Chloe's vision is fine, but her left eye tends to turn outward sometimes, so her opthamologist thinks this might correct the problem. Let's hope!

Student of the Month

Once again, one of my girls have given me an opportunity to brag. Pearl was chosen as Student of the Month. Her teacher's words were as follows:

"I nominated Pearl as Student of the Month for demonstrating the Character Counts pillar of Responsibility. Pearl is a very responsible kindergarten student. She is cooperative and gives her best effort every day, striving to finish all her work. Pearl also shows her responsibility by taking care of school equipment. She comes to school ready to learn and demonstrates a positive attitude. Pearl cares about each member of our class and is an excellent role model for her classmates. Pearl works very hard every day to improve her kindergarten skills and I look forward to seeing all she will accomplish this year. It is a pleasure having Pearl in our classroom and I am pleased to honor her as Student of the Month."

Pearl, your Mom and Dad are so very proud of you!

More on the Forget Me Knot Dress

OK, OK, I know this is supposed to be Chloe and Pearl's blog, but I am going to take an intermission for this post to share my excitement. In the previous post, Chloe and Pearl are wearing dresses that I designed and sewed. I took the simpler dress, Chloe's, and put together step-by-step instructions, along with a pattern, and packaged it into an instructional guide. I recently put the pattern for sale on etsy and on youcanmakethis.com and it has been selling fairly well the first few days. Yesterday, I received a message from one of the talented crafters who purchased my pattern and made a dress from it (see picture above). Her dress is soooooooooooo adorable! It is far cuter than anything I put together, yet it was my pattern!

Baubles and Bits, I LOVE your dress! And your sweet little girl is so precious that she would probably make anything look good. Your blog is excellent. I especially like all the free tutorials in the sidebar.

Pomegranates, Family & Rain

This weekend, Cousin Lisa and her fiance Brent made their annual pilgrimage to our home to seed pommagranates and make jelly. This year's crop was huge and the seeds were so sweet and dark, they were almost black.

We must have hand-seeded over 30 pommagranates and Chloe pitched in too. Her little fingers were quicker and more dexterous than Moms. She was a big help and she was even neater than Mom, who kept dropping the seeds on the floor and then tracking them around the kitchen. After filtering out the seed pits and pulp, we were left with over 20 cups of pure juice. Lisa and Brent left for home with 10 jars of jelly, about 15 giant pommagranates and 6 cups of juice. We have the same amount on our end.

Brent is a talented photographer, so Mommaratzi took the weekend off and asked Brent to take pictures of the girls. I am including a few of the shots. We also had some rain and did a little bird watching. Our trees are loaded with nearly a hundred birds. The turkey vultures roost in our Eucalyptus tree, about 40 of them. On the other side of our yard in the pine trees, white egrets noisily jockey for the best positions. I think there are close to 50 of them. Winter is a fun time to watch these large beautiful birds.

Chloe's 2nd Eye Doctor Appointment

Last week, Chloe had a follow up appointment with Dr. Yang to assess her strabismus and determine a course of action. For now, the recommended treatment will be glasses. We will be checking progress again in a couple more months. I am so grateful thus far that our issues with our girls have been so minor in nature. We have truly been fortunate.

No Make-Up for You!

This picture doesn't really show the extent of the swelling or the rash that borders her hairline. It was taken after she returned from the doctor's office and after she had a couple doses of medication to reduce the swelling and redness. Nevertheless, it is clear that she is suffering from an allergic reaction. The only make-up she was wearing was eye shadow and lipstick, but apparently that was enough. Even her wrists had rashes on them where she must have rubbed her eyes. We did a dress rehersal with make-up on Thursday for picture-taking and I noticed her eye was red the next day on Halloween. But being the poor mother that I am, I put more make-up on that red skin, not making the connection between the make-up and the rash.

She is almost all better now.

Halloween Highlights

Guess who's allergic to make-up? Pearl! Daddy had to take her to Urgent Care this morning. Oh, and it gets even better.

This is the first rainy day of the season. Dad and Pearl arrived 23 minutes early at the Pedi Center, so he decided to clean out the car. Somehow the electronic seat controls went out right after he pushed the driver's seat so far forward that he couldn't squeeze into it. The car was rendered undriveable. Mom and Chloe had to drive in the rain to come rescue Dad and Pearl. In case you were wondering, Pearl will be fine. I might even post a picture later.

Even with all that, it's still been a nice cloudy day at home. The slide show is pictures from yesterday. The costumes only garnered a 3rd prize, but at least there was an opportunity for the girls to get on stage to collect their award.