bye bye sarah!

Our babygirl, Sarah (on the right), will be joining her sister, Marie (on the left), to live and work in Chicago! It is going to be so hard on Bing a Ling to say goodbye and she will no doubt be looking for "Ah" for days on end after she leaves!
Oh crap! Bing just did a face plant into the kitcHen floor! Gotta go!

corn eat'in girl

kaelin's first trip to the zoo!

Well, sort of! If you don't count the Changsha Zoo that we visited while we were in China! On Saturday we took Kaelin to the Detroit Zoo and she loved seeing all of the animals! It was such a beautiful day,82 degrees and sunny! Although Bing is pretty good about sitting in the stroller, her favorite place to see the animals was perched up high on dada's or Marcus' shoulders! One thing she did not like much at all was riding the train! She was so cute! After we got off, she did her sign over and over again for "all done!" There was no way we were going to get her back on that train! Yes we did it backwards, you are supposed to ride the train to the back and then walk your way to the front! So we had to hoof it all the way back thru the zoo again! Good thing Bing got her way or we would have missed some really cool exhibits we didn't see the first time thru!

just pics!

Twins, Justin & Marie, and Bing after a storm!
Sisters!
Mommy and Bing
Smug!
On the verge of falling asleep in the pool!

Where did our baby go?

Kaelin is 20 months old today! Just in the last few weeks she has become such a toddler! We have even noticed that her baby fat is starting to disappear! I am getting all the pinching and kissing I can out of what is left on her little arms and thighs! She is such a girlie girl, too! She just loves her baby dolls, her favorite is an Asian doll! I did not encourage her to like this one the best, she chose her all on her own! She kisses her and pats and hugs her and says,"Awwwwww!" It is just too cute! She loves picking out what she will wear for the day, well at least for the beginning of the day, she actually goes through several outfits due to her messy eating habits and love of the outdoors! She is also a shoe queen! She currently has about 10 pair that fit her, but loves her little Crocs the best! Probably because she can get them on and off all by herself! She even pics out a hair "pretty" every morning! She also can't have her nails clipped without having them finished with a coat of polish! She always goes for the wild colors, but with mommy's coaxing, settles for a more modest pink!
Kaelin is also growing in so many other ways!
She can run like the wind!
She can jump
She can walk backwards
She can almost do a summer sault
She can sign about 25 words
she can babble up a storm, the words are almost there!
She can say please (peece) thank you (t-too) kitty (kiyee) dog (daw) bath (ba) just to name a few!
She can count to 3
She knows the color pink
She can climb anything
She has incredible balance
She loves to sing and dance
She loves Barney
She loves popsicles
She loves to pretend cook in the bathtub
She loves blowing bubbles
She loves drawing chalk on the sidewalk
She loves taking walks in her stroller
She talks on her little toy cell phone and pretends to call DaDa
She can get all of the shapes into the right holes of her shape sorter
She loves to walk around with her purse on her arm and her baby in her other arm, so cute!
She loves to swing
She loves to go down the slide
She loves her brothers and sisters and knows them if you point to them in pics!
She loves her mama and dada!
She loves life!

I could go on and on about our beautiful girl! Since she is napping now, I have to run and get a few things done before she wakes up full of energy, recharged and ready to go!

one year ago today.....

...we saw our precious daughter's face for the first time! We got "the call" at 3:47 pm that day! What a day it was! Talk about a nail biter! Well as you can see she was everything we had hoped and prayed for! It is so hard to believe that it has already been a year since that amazing day! I still have to pinch myself that she is home! what an incredible year it has been! Kaelin Bing Wen is the absolute pride and joy of our family! The way she is growing and changing every day is mind boggling! She is a true blessing to us all!

then...
now...

our little bathing beauty!

Kaelin experienced our pool for the first time a few days ago! The temp finally made it up to where we thought she could stand it, 82 degrees! She didn't really care to much for actually getting in with mommy, but she loved playing on the steps! She hasn't been in since since our weather has been rainy and in the 60's! Hopefully this weekend she will get to "swim" again!

Catching up!

Father's Day!
My Dog, Storm!
Pretty Girl!
I love corn!
Gosh, time just flys! Gary had a wonderful Father's Day this past Sunday! Although he got so many gifts he said that the best gift this year was, by far, our little Bing a Ling! Every time a holiday comes or every single day, for that matter, it is sooooo surreal that she is here and soooooo much a part of our family!
The weather has been gorgeous here, finally! We spend a lot of our days outside playing! We got a great deal on a gently used Little Tikes swing set and playcube at a garage sale! Bing just loves to swing and go down the slide! I just realized that I don't have any pics of her on them so I will take her out for a photo session after her nap and post them tomorrow!

more bing cuteness!

pigtails!
look at my big feet!
you're funny mommy!
mmmmmm, snacktime!
sleeping angelcool dudes!
pigging out!
look! a rainbow!
i love my big sister!

eating, sleeping, and sitting!

These are three things that Bing has decided she doesn't like anymore! Although you can't tell by the looks of her, my little Chinese dumpling is on a hunger strike! She absolutely refuses to eat! Well, at least the things I want her to eat! She still loves popsicles, marshmallows, ice cream, fruit snacks, and goldfish, but she won't eat the things she used to love! Eggs, noodles, cheerios, bananas, grilled cheese, strawberries, spaghetti, and her very favorite, mac & cheese! I think part of the reason is she just doesn't have time! Bing is a busy girl and is always going going going! Yesterday I was so worried about her not eating I used a little reverse psychology on her! I sat down with a bowl of cheerios and banana and started eating it in front of her making yummy sounds and smacking my lips! It worked! She was up in my lap wanting some and started making yummy sounds too, it was so cute! Well after about four bites she had had enough! She does still take a night bottle of whole milk and sometimes one in the morning so at least I know she's not going to starve!

As for sleep, well, it has never been her favorite thing but lately she has been horrible! She refuses to take a nap during the day and now she has been passing out around 5pm and sleeping until 8pm and then staying up until midnight and getting up wanting to play around 4am! Ha, is she kidding me? No way, girlie, mamma needs her beauty sleep! Usually I just stick her binky in her mouth and rock her with her blanky for about 10 minutes and she is out again, thank God! Then she is up and raring to go around 7am! I can't wait until she gets over this horrible phase! I know the days of her taking two naps a day are over, but OIY, this is ridiculous!

Now for the sitting part! Bing absolutely refuses to sit in her booster seat, we ditched the high chair a few weeks ago as she wouldn't sit in that either! She is also trying to worm her way out of the grocery cart and now is starting to wiggle out of her stroller! Thank God she still likes her carseat! (I probably just jinxed myself with that!) Ahhhhhhhh, this is horrible when I have a huge cart of groceries! The last time we went to the store I had nearly everything opened in my cart trying to bribe her to sit! There were nilla wafers, yogurt bites, fruit snacks and cheetos as far as the eye could see! Oh and of course, I got the cart with the wonky wheel! So there I am a cart full of groceries a squirming 18 mos old, food everywhere, and a cart that wants to steer sideways! I had two choices, to laugh or to cry! It was so ridiculous I just started laughing! Well, Bing started laughing too! That cheesy grin of hers was all I needed to realize that this had been what I had waited for for so long! It was actually a heartfelt and silly moment all rolled into one! Too funny!
Okay here is what you want the most, pictures of our sweet girl!

Happy 18 month Birthday! Mmmmm, I'm lov'in me some frosting!
Give me a kiss!
When I don't have a binky, toes are the next best thing!
Pretty girl!