A Trip to the ‘Bwead’ Store

One of the traditions Hannah and I started during last year’s trip to The Villages was to take the golf cart to Panera Bread each morning and pick up fresh bread or bagels for the family for breakfast each day.  We were excited to continue this tradition and Bec Bec was happy to join us. 

We hopped into the golf cart early Sunday morning and made our way to the ‘bwead’ store.

We love that we can take the golf cart almost everywhere we need to go.  I’d say that 80% of our travels within The Villages is done on a golf cart.  It’s so nice to be outside in November and enjoying the beautiful weather!

Something that has changed this year is how much Hannah has grown up.  Last year she was tucked in right beside me on the front seat and this year she’s old enough to be trusted to sit and hold on with 2 hands while she rides in the back of the cart.  *sniff*  Another sign of how quickly she’s growing up.

Our first of many trips this week to Panera Bread.  Mmmm!

And what’s the very best place to enjoy fresh bagels?  On the lanai with fruit and a cup of hot coffee!

It’s easy to see why we love this slower paced week filled with lots and lots of precious family time!

Ahhh…It’s That Time of Year Again!

Saturday morning Hannah and I were excited to board a plane with Nana and Papa and this year cousin Bec Bec too and head south to visit the grandparents at ‘The Villages’ in Florida.  This is the 3rd year we’ve come together and it’s a wonderful vacation that we all look forward to.H
Hanging out with Nana on the plane.
This year when we arrived we changed things up a bit and headed for Downtown Disney.  Since this part of the trip was unanticipated Hannah’s stroller was back at Mom and Dad’s house as they had driven it down with them.  Hannah is a good little walker but also took advantage of Papa and Grandpa’s offers to carry her.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s and then set to shopping!  We stopped at our traditional spot outside of ‘Little Miss Matched’ and took some pics.

Annual photo op VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Little Miss enjoying a train ride.  I know this one is blurry but it was so cute with her waving and really captured how much she enjoyed it so I put it in anyway.
One of Hannah’s very favourite treats are these big suckers.  In the end she tends to eat it for a bit and then tires of it and it ‘disappears.’  On this day she had it for a while but then when it was in transition from her hand to one of the adults in our group it accidentally hit the floor of the Disney Store and shattered.  As I quickly stooped to begin cleaning up the pieces a sweet cast member came over and reassured me that he’d clean it up but to please wait.  He was back in a minute with the exact same sucker that had fallen!  One more reason I love Disney – they’re always on the ball and do everything they can to brighten a disappointed little girl’s day.
We’re so thankful to be here Mom and Dad!  Let the fun begin!!

Our Candy Experiment–An Interesting Discovery

I mentioned in this post that I was going to try something different with Hannah’s Halloween candy this year.  She can make candy last forever so rather than dole it out over a long amount of time, Saturday was going to be a candy free-for-all.  When she woke up from her nap around 3:00 I told her it was a candy party and she was able to eat as much of her candy as she wanted until bedtime.  After that we were going to put it away for a few days.  She was all for this and quickly dug in.  She’s great at sharing so gave lots to me and I helped myself too.

I was guessing that by bedtime she’d either be spun out on sugar or in a post sugar frump.  Neither of those happened and she was still her happy, fun, energetic self.

What  I didn’t play into the equation was what it would do to me.  I couldn’t believe it and it wasn’t nice.  By the evening I was grumpy, impatient and felt rotten.  I was having to watch everything I said to her and how I reacted to her normal evening energy. 

So, it was an eye-opening experiment and one that I won’t repeat.  Hannah did great.  Mommy learned a lesson about how important it is to feed us a well balanced diet every single day.  I think of that normally when preparing meals but hadn’t ever tried something like this. 

Lesson learned!

3 Years That Seems Like Forever In the Very Best Way!!!

Last Friday Hannah and I celebrated our 3rd Family Day together!  3 years ago, shortly after 3pm on Monday, November 2nd, 2009  in Changsha, Hunan, China, God brought Hannah and I together – FOREVER!!!  Life changed in the most amazing way at that very moment and we are forever blessed to be a family! 

Hannah was just 8 months, 6 days old at our family day and the transition for her went very smoothly.  She had been prayed for for many years by many people and once she was in my arms I wasn’t putting her down!  She spent hours each day for a number of months, in a carrier.  I am so thankful that I had learned much about attachment parenting and was able to do this with Hannah.  Even now at 3.5 years old, when she’s having a rough day, if I pull out a carrier and put her in it she calms almost immediately and melts into me.  It continues to be her ‘safe place’ and grounds her. 

I was blessed that day at her openness.  While I thought it would be me getting to know her she was very interested in getting to know mommy too.

A gift for mommy – smiles and giggles!  I saw her dimple for the first time!

Now that Hannah is 3 1/2 she’s beginning to understand a bit more and yet still does not understand too much about her adoption and the way God chose create our family and bring us together.  She knows that she was born in China and we always speak of China in a very positive way but she has yet to grasp that I did not give birth to her.  That will come and I am praying that I will know the right time to share this with her and God will provide the words.  We watched the videos of our meeting and talked about the nannies who had cared for her and brought her to Mommy but still it did not seem to spawn any questions at this time.  More than anything, at her tender age I don’t want to scare her so that is part of my hesitation in not talking directly of it yet.  Also, she hasn’t really put 2 and 2 together yet.  3 close friends had babies recently and she saw their tummies growing and then the babies were all here but she hasn’t really spoken of it. 

One comment that did make me giggle though was the one day when I mentioned we were going to the hospital to meet her new baby cousin and her question was, ‘Mommy, why are we going to the hospital?  Babies come from China and we meet them at the airport!’  Heh…yes, sweetie, many times that is what happens!

Friday we celebrated 3 glorious years together!  Truly it seems like we’ve been together forever and I love, love, love being Hannah’s mom!  She’s loving, fun, outgoing, spunky, clever, adventurous, humorous, creative, kind, sweet and SO much more!!  There are not enough positive adjectives to talk about my amazing daughter!!!

Friday night we went out to a special restaurant she’s been asking to go to for quite a while now.  A wonderful Chinese food buffet near our home.  Grandma and Grandpa were already in Florida (waiting for us to arrive soon) but we were excited that Papa could help us celebrate this very special occasion!

Hannah, Mommy cannot express to you how much I love you!  You are the joy of my life and I thank God daily for the precious gift that is you!

Before I was quite ready to publish this post Hannah came up and said, ‘Mommy, I drew this picture of you and me together.’  Can I tell you, it’s the most beautiful drawing ever!!  It’s the very first time she’s drawn a picture of us and I almost cried when I saw it.  I am SO, SO blessed!

To close I want to share one final video that was taken the second day we were together.  Oh how I love this precious moment that was captured.  I still love to watch her fall asleep and last night she did so in my arms once again.  It’s as precious now as it was that night 3 years ago.

Happy Family Day Hannah XiaoFen!!!  I LOVE YOU!  xoxo

Sweet Cinderella

Hannah is all about princesses right now and by far her favourite is Cinderella.  I had borrowed a costume from a friend when we went to Disney in August and when we got home I bought her a Cinderella dress from a local Disney store.  Choosing her costume for Halloween was an easy decision this way and she’s currently saying she wants a Princess Party for her 4th birthday.  That works!

I’ll admit that Halloween is my least favourite ‘holiday’ of the year but Hannah had such fun!  It was an opportunity to spend time with friends. dress up in a costume and run from house to house where people filled her Princess pail with candy.  It’s easy to see what she had a blast!

Our fun began Tuesday evening when we were invited to a nearby village to spend time with the 2 families we’d been with at Disney in August.  The kids enjoyed cookie decorating

dry bobbing for apples and

pumpkin decorating.  Hannah is still a firm believer in ‘More is more!’  I think her pumpkin might be dry in time for next Halloween!

Halloween night we had fun with Ange and her family.  We are blessed not only to have the very best daycare provider but also to call this awesome family friends!  We had pizza for supper (along with the rest of the city I think based on the lines!) and then the kiddos couldn’t wait to get to the important business of Trick or Treating. 

In our little group we had Cinderella

an adorable little monkey

witch and

clown

What a group of cuties!!

Pre Trick or Treating excitement

A brief snippet of their trick or treating adventures.  The phrase, ‘Hannah, Wait for the boys.’ is one she heard more often than I can count.  It was a wet, cool night and my speedy princess wiped out on lawns at least 3 times but that never slowed her down.

Tonight we dumped out her candy to check out her stash.  She was in awe!  My little cutie immediately began to pull out the gum and hard candies and put them in a Mommy pile.  I also found a little package of pop rocks and gave her some.  She wasn’t too sure about them at first but soon after they were gone started checking to see if she could find more.

Now….it’s time to begin preparing for Christmas!  YAY!!!