All Good Things Must Come to an End

I started this blog 4 years ago as we waited for Lexie to come home.  This blog has allowed me to keep track of every milestone that Lexie has reached, the good times and the not so great times of raising a child.

I've met some wonderful friends along the way who could relate to the ups and downs of adoption.  They knew exactly what we were going through and have been my support system ever since we brought our sweet Lexiebug home.  I'm so thrilled that this summer we get to re-connect with those amazing families at the happiest place on earth.

                           

We had hoped to go back to Taiwan for a brother or sister for Lexie.  Unfortunately, wait time, uncertainty, and finances forced us to withdraw from the program.  We now know in our hearts that Lexie has completed our family and we want to focus all of our love and energy on our precious daughter.

                         

It is with great sadness that this will be the last post that I will write.  This blog was such an important part of our lives.  Writing about the big and small events in our lives gave me proof that our dream had finally come true.

             

Lexie is now 4 years old and life is hectic with so much going on.  There's swim lessons where she has no fear of the water.  She swims like a fish and can hold her breath for over 30 seconds.  She goes to gymnastics and just graduated to the next level where she moves from the preschool gym into the big gym.  She still does tap and ballet and got to perform at the Academy of Arts.  She is now in a song and dance class where she is learning how to sing and perform choreography.  This year, Lexie starts preschool and boy, is she ready.  I hope preschool is ready for her!!

                        

Thank you to everyone who has visited Lexie's blog.  We loved reading your thoughtful comments.  We're sad to say goodbye, but very excited to start the next chapter in Lexie's life.  

Birthday Treats!

When Lexie woke up on her birthday, she had a fever.  We ditched our plans to take her to the bugs exhibit at the museum.  Even though she wasn't feeling well, she was still in a great mood, especially when she saw two of her favorite things - Nemo and balloons!

And who wouldn't feel better when you get to eat a cupcake for breakfast!

              

We did have a small birthday dinner with Nana, Papa, Taryn, Aunty Yve, and Uncle B.  She loved her Nemo cake.

                    

She's gotten really good at blowing out candles.

        

Right before Lexie's birthday, we celebrated Girl's Day.  She decided that she would wear a Chinese dress instead of a kimono.

      

One of Lexie's presents was to get a big girl bed.  It took a long time to convince her that she was too big for her toddler bed.  Once Lexie found out that she could choose her bedding, she was ready for her new bed.  She didn't want princesses, it was Hello Kitty all the way!

         

She looks so tiny in her new bed!  Lexie loves her bed and will tuck herself in at night.  She's been great about not rolling off her bed.

        

A Very Wet Birthday!

We had Lexie's birthday celebration at Sea Life Park because her favorite movie is "Finding Nemo" and she loves ocean animals.  It wasn't a sunny spring day, but a very rainy, dark and cloudy kind of day.  We have the most awesome friends because they made the day fun and we had a great time despite the wet weather.

We spent extra time in the shark tank because it was one of the few dry places at the park.

                

We got to feed the turtles, learn about penguins and meet a wolphin (half false killer whale/half dolphin).  All of the children got to feel the dolphin and feed her.

            

Then the trainer asked if anyone wanted to get splashed.  I guess Lexie figured if she was wet already, why not get even wetter!  

          

She sure made a big splash!

         

We got to take a family photo with our new friend!

        

Then Lexie got suited up because she was going to actually get into the water with some dolphins.

              

Lexie was so excited to see the dolphins.  We knew the water was going to be cold, but this girl is a trooper!

          

She loved getting dolphin kisses!

       

The weather could have been better, but I think that this will be a birthday that Lexie will remember for a long time.  

          

Happy Birthday Lexiebug!

In one year, Lexie has grown from a toddler into a little girl.  We look back at her pictures from her 3rd birthday and she was such a baby.  I miss that time, but I'm also so excited at what this sweet child has accomplished in the past year.

She is definitely fearless.  After a summer of lessons, she loves the water.  She loved diving and jumping into the water.  Lexie can hold her breath for a long time.  Grace and coordination may not come easily for Lexie, but she makes up for it with her sparkly personality.  She was amazing at her first performance on the big stage.  Lexie also showed us her focus and determination when she participated in the mini-Olympics at her gym.

              

Sometimes Lexie can worry us with her quirky behavior and the teacher in me tends to self-diagnose her.  One day, I think she has ADHD.  Another day, she shows signs of obsessive/compulsive behavior.  And I have to just remind myself that she's only 4.  Lexie does need certain things to be a certain way.  Thumper needs to always have 4 blankets for sleeptime in the right order.  Lexie's blankets need to be striped side out, but that's where it stops.  Everything else is pretty chaotic, so I'm not worried about those few things that she obsesses about.  Lexie is always on the go from the moment she wakes up until she sleeps at night.  It can be exhausting, but keeps us on our toes and always has us laughing so hard.

                         

Her memory is amazing.  Last summer, Lexie taught herself the sounds of the alphabet just by playing Starfall on the ipad.  Her writing improves each day where she writes all of our names from memory and copies words that she sees around the house.  She loves to draw and is now adding details to her pictures.  She loves to draw the heart on people's bodies and will draw curvy lines to show it beating.  I've been bringing home pre-decodable books that I use at the beginning of kindergarten.  She now recognizes about 5 sight words and is starting to blend short words like am, mat, sat.  There are days that her attention is not there and I think she's not getting it and the next day, she will read the book all by herself.  

                     

Lexie is still my skinny bones girl!  She just hit the 25 pound mark.  She's 36 inches.  We have her check-up next month so we'll see if she got bigger.  Lexie does wear 4T tops, but bottoms are usually 2T and that's with those adjustable waists.  She can sometimes fit into 12 month pants, but they look like shorts on her.  I love that her clothes last a long time!  

                   

Lexie loves Finding Nemo!  That has been our go to Friday night movie.  She recites lines from the movie and it's so hilarious because she will act out each part as we watch the movie.  We're hoping to get Lexie into a performing arts class.  She can hear a song once and will be singing it for days.  She also makes up choreography for each song that she hears.  Lexie's favorite show is Doc McStuffins and she now loves Sofia the First.  We will be going to the Princess lunch with friends this summer and we're hoping that Lexie will dress as Sofia.  Right now, she does not want to dress as any of the princesses, even though she loves to watch Tangled.  

              

Lexie is continuing to take tap and ballet classes.  She tends to be very lazy during stretching, but enjoys tapping because it's very noisy.  We found that she responds differently to different teachers.  Her first teacher, although very nice, was very much into form, discipline and learning the proper steps. Lexie was not interested in that at all.  She was in time-out many times for not listening or following directions.  Her second teacher is more fast paced and Lexie is doing better in that class.  Then we went to a make up class that was taught by a male teacher.  He was very energetic, the music was upbeat and Lexie was in awe of him.  She laughed and smiled and couldn't stop watching him.  It was her best class ever!  We're changing classes soon!

           

We can't wait to see what this year has in store for Lexie!  We are excited that we will be attending Taiwan ROCks this summer and we'll get to see our friends!  And another Disney adventure is in store for us.  Happy birthday Lexiebug!  Mommy and Daddy love you to the moon!!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

The days just keep flying by and we're almost about to celebrate the big "4"!!  We have been so busy!  We got together with our wonderful Taiwan families to celebrate Pey's birthday.  Too bad the birthday boy was afraid of the lions!

Then it was Chinese New Year!  This outfit was given to Lexie when we attended Taiwan ROCks in Dallas, back in 2011.  It belonged to sweet Hannah and finally, Lexie was able to wear it.  She looks so grown up in it!

                     

We had a fun celebration just hanging out and playing! These wonderful boys have become Lexie's brothers!  She loves them so much!

   

There was a lion dance for good luck until it was interrupted by a tiger!  They were trying to out-roar each other!

  

When we had some downtime, Lexie wanted to play with her zhu zhu pets.  They were not working for a long time even though we kept changing their batteries.  Lexie told daddy to try again and to our amazement, they started moving around again.  Well, this was the last picture we got of the 4 pets.  Lexie had Jingle on zhu zhu duty, but these pets are pretty sneaky and the purple one hasn't been seen since they were let loose in our kitchen.  

         

Then, it was off to another party!  We celebrated baby Boston's first birthday.  Lexie had fun playing baseball and doing lots of jumping and sliding.

        

         

We were all sick on Valentine's Day, but we still managed to have a little fun.  Each day in February,  I put a heart on Lexie's door telling her why I love her.  She loved counting her hearts.  We haven't celebrated yet, but as soon as everyone is feeling 100%, we will have a belated Valentine's Day with our little love bug!

       

We went to the zoo.  I love this sign at the entrance.  It shows how far Taipei is!

    

We were playing by a fallen tree and Lexie went into model mode and started posing for pictures.

             

The best part of going to the zoo was spending time with her best friends!

   

And on our few sunny days, Lexie loves going outside.  She can't get enough of her trike.  She loves riding it and we're thinking that next Christmas, we may have to upgrade to a bicycle!

      

It Was a Happy New Year!

We have been non-stop busy since Christmas.  Right after Christmas, we made mochi.  Lexie loved eating them.

This was the first year Lexie really enjoyed making the mochi.   Every time she heard that timer go off, she was at the table ready to make more mochi.  She loved playing with the potato starch.  She said it was like snow.  She loved putting it all over her face and growling like a tiger.

            

There were other people in the family who also liked putting potato starch on their faces.             

Lexie's favorite doll is her rabbit, Thumper, so she was thrilled that her cousin had some rabbits that she could play with

          

She didn't mind that she was in their pen with poop all around her.  Lexie could have stayed in their all day long. 

            

Then it was off to church to be blessed for the new year.  Lexie fed the lion for good luck.

          

Giving daddy a squeeze while we waited to be blessed and hoping that it wouldn't rain.

            

Lexie was having fun by pretending to be a tiger!

        

We were blessed by the priest and shook the bell for good luck.

        

Lexie loves posing with statues.  She can be such a ham!

        

Lexie has taught everyone in the family how to make a goofy face.

        

Grandma Sharon and all 12 of her grandkids!

      

So far, the year is zipping by pretty quickly.  Can't believe it's already February!  We are enjoying each day with Lexie, but wish we could push the pause button so we can freeze moments like this!