Our Adoption Journey: December 2012

Wow, it has been a super long time since I have updated this blog. So sorry and I will try and do better. We reached another milestone with Chloe. We have now had her longer than she was by herself. We got Chloe when she was 17 months old and we have now had her over 17 months. When you ask Chloe where she is from she says "I China.". If you then ask her how did you get all the way over here? She explains how I came over and Kevin and Caleb came to get her. She will often add that she was waiting for us to come and get her. How sweet!

She continues to adore Caleb. She copies just about everything he does. If Caleb is sitting a certain way, she will sit that way. Recently Caleb had a performance at school and Chloe was trying to copy the dance moves at our seat. The person sitting next to us said she had a hard time deciding who to watch because Chloe was so cute. Despite her love for Caleb, she continues to be extremely jealous of him. She still does not like it if I hold Caleb or hug him or give him a lot of attention. She will often sit herself between the two of us so that she separates us. Caleb has learned to joke around with it and he is extremely tolerant of her. For the most part they get along really well. It is fun to watch them play together. Often when I watch them play, I think of what a blessing for both of them it is to have a playmate.

Chloe's speech continues to improve. She is talking a lot now. Sometimes Kevin thinks it is harder to understand her mostly because her thought processes are so much more complex. We still go to speech therapy once a week. For most sessions she works really hard and usually amazes me of what she will accomplish at a session.

For Thanksgiving we went to Vail Colorado. Chloe loved playing in the snow. This year she even tried skiing. She only lasted about an hour total, but she did really well. She enjoyed riding the magic carpet up the bunny slope and then would ski down into someone's arms. She looked so cute in her pink helmet. We will likely put her in ski school next year.

Chloe enjoyed Christmas again this year. She is however, afraid of Santa. When we went to go see Santa, the only way I could convince her to get her picture taken with Santa, was if she just stood next to his chair and we asked Santa to not touch her. She held Caleb's hand but was still very nervous and upset. Interestingly, she was not afraid of Mrs. Claus and readily climbed up into her lap and sat for a long time. A fun plus for us on Christmas was that it snowed. The kids had a blast playing in the snow and making a small snowman.