Christmas Pictures

Oh, what a fantastic week we have been having. Longji celebrated his first Christmas ever...what an exciting time for all of us. Below are some pictures from this week's events including Christmas last night at John's parent's house and this morning here at ours. We are headed to my parent's house later this afternoon. It was good to have all of the girls here also...we are truly blessed by our Lord! Enjoy the pictures today and I will try to post tomorrow some funny stories that we would love to share with everyone. Oh, and we have posted a special video for our friend, Lulu, who was in our travel group. She sent Longji a package for Christmas and all he has done today is played with the Bumblebee car she sent him...too cute! Gingerbread men in the making...with Grandpa and Jordyn. Christmas Eve snacks...a mix of Chinese and San Antonio cuisine! Above: Christmas Eve Above: Christmas Morning

Pancakes with Santa and Downtown San Antonio

Here are some pictures from this past weekend's events. Longji is greatly anticipating his visit from Santa! There is one picture with Longji pointing to Santa Claus telling him he was going to have cookies for him. He had just handed him his letter. All of the kids there were adorable in their Christmas pajamas. We had a great time and it was a treat that Longji got to sit on Santa's lap again at the end for the group picture. I am sure he knocked down a girl or two to get there...it wouldn't surprise me. Dinner and downtown was fun that evening. He loves the lights and the music of the season. I hope everyone enjoys the pictures.

Jingle Bells

Sorry it is so dark...

First Thanksgiving

Since Halloween, we have hit the six month mark! Still can't believe Longji has actually been with us for this long. This has been a fantastic week of bonding with Longji and we have truly spent some quality time together. We spent our first Thanksgiving with John's parents yesterday and we will spend tomorrow with my parents and family. Today we decorated the house and set up our first Christmas tree with Longji. I let him pick out some new ornaments (he picked blue) and we got out some older ornaments as well. John and I generally get a couple of ornaments every year being school teachers. Longji was so excited about decorating! Christmas music was playing and he hopped around the house singing "jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the bells." I tried to correct him, but he said "jingle all the way doesn't make sense." I really need to get him singing on video. We don't usually decorate this early, but this Christmas is a little extra special and we really wanted to take it all in with Longji. Now he has to wait three weeks for the celebration of baby Jesus and of course Santa's visit. We have our elf, Thomas, whom Longji named today, watching over the house. He will report to Santa nightly about Longji's behavior and any requests Longji has. This is a new tradition and I would recommend it for anyone with young children. You can find the book and elf at Barnes and Noble...The Elf on the Shelf. More pictures to come hopefully on Sunday from our second Thanksgiving dinner.

More shots, pumpkin carving, Halloween and Marble Falls

First, Longji had a fantastic pumpkin carving experience and a great follow up with his first Halloween. John and I actually went back and forth about participating in Halloween and we finally decided to let him in on the trick-or-treating experience. We carved our pumpkin last Friday and then Longji was able to wear his costume to Chinese School on Sunday. All of the students actually took a picture with their costumes on in front of the school. They were so cute. There was actually a hallway decorated in the Star Wars theme so we took pictures with Lonji in front of the wall.








We left school and headed over to John's parent's house. This was Longji's first official trick-or-treat experience. Jordyn stayed with us that evening and she decided to dress up and escort Longji door to door. She dressed up as Russel from the movie Up and she asked John to be Mr. Frederickson. I haven't actually seen the movie, but John and Jordyn knew what they were doing.


We then headed over to my parent's house where we ate dinner, chili dogs, and met up with some friends of ours and their girls. We had a great time watching Longji. First, he was trying to hand over his bucket because he didn't want to carry it and then he moved on to the light saber. We were laughing all night. This is typical Longji behavior. He never wants to carry his lunch box or backpack at school. He walked around without complaint, followed all of our rules and he had a fantastic time.

Unfortunately, the next day we had to take him back for three more shots. I absolutely hate doing this. He gets so stressed out and it is an all out horrible experience from the moment we walk into the doctor's office.


We had an uneventful week at school, but we did lose tooth #2 On Friday night. The tooth fairy generously left $2.00.He was very brave. Saturday we met my brother and sister-in-law and my parents in Marble Falls for the day. Longji went fishing with the boys and he did great. He loves to fish with Baba. He caught five fish, but Jordyn showed off her skills and caught the biggest fish of the day. Me...nothing. We barbecued that evening and headed home.




We are nearing six months with our little man and I still can't believe it has only been six months. It feels like he has been with us for six years. I cannot wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He has no idea what is in store.

Spelling tests

Longji has scored a 100 on his last two spelling tests! Way to go little man!! We are so proud of him. Even though he is only tested on half of the words he is still doing fantastic! And if you ask me, his handwriting is pretty good too. I will post some pumpkin carving pictures later once I extract them from the flip video. Looking forward to our first costume event...I will have to keep everyone in suspense as to what he picked out for a costume!

Chinese School Picnic

Today was the Chinese School Picnic and we had a fantastic time! Longji loved it! We picked up my niece, Avry, and headed to the park this morning. Jordyn was able to go with us too. Both sets of grandparents also came so we had a big crowd. I am going to post a bunch of pictures and hopefully I can get a cute little video uploaded of Longji singing some kind of Chinese song on the microphone. We are definitely looking forward to the Asian Festival this next year. We are enjoying the time with Longji where we are learning and experiencing his culture together.