Happy Birthday

Jadyn's Bunny, she named her Happy Birthday

Jadyn had a great time celebrating her birthday. We had a great time watching her get so excited.

Build a Bear was a fun place to celebrate.
She had to first decide what bear or animal she wanted to make.


The decision was hard


but with lots of help from Mommy, a Flower print Bunny was it!


We then stuffed our animals!


Ahh that looks more like it! She didn't care for the flat version.


Here is Kaleb's Pick, a Dog he named Doggie


and Quinten's, an Owl he named Larry


and Jeron's, a Wolf he named Fang

We also had a Monkey, a Chick and another dog made by Preston, Elijah and Abram.

The entire store sang Happy Birthday to Jadyn, the look on her face was just darling.

We wanted her first birthday party to be special for her and I think it was!

Happy Birthday to our princess!

First of all ....Happy St. Patrick's Day


Our St. Patrick's Day was spent at the Doctor's office. Jadyn started getting a cold last Sunday and she has just kept getting worse. Her Doctor was sure she had RSV, but the test came back negative. Jadyn was not impressed with the little metal wire with a ball of cotton on top that was pushed up her nose for the test. The nurse was fast and quickly handed her a sucker.

Her Doctor gave her a diagnosis of bronchitis and double ear infections and sent us home with a nebulizer machine and 3 prescriptions. I had no clue she had ear infections. Her right side is pretty nasty, she has a ugly cough and runny nose.

This girl needs to get well, she has a big party to attend this weekend as the guest of honor, celebrating her 3rd. Birthday!! We assume this will be her first birthday party, so we have planned something special for her.

Jadyn's is going here with 6 guests

After Build a Bear, we will have a family party at my Niece's house in Portland.

We have chosen Jadyn's favorite cartoon character as the theme... Kai-Lan


We cant wait to give her this
Warning... there will soon be another 3 year old driver on the road!
Stay tuned for party pictures!

29.6 pounds

and growing fast.....

6 months ago Jadyn was 21.5 pounds. She is not/was not on a special diet or high calorie food, but she is catching up to her peers, quickly.

We are seeing a new pediatrician, and she gave us a case of pediasure, I said wait, she is already flying through clothes. She is fitting into a 3t very nicely.

The goal is to have her as close to 35 pounds as we can by mid-summer. She will be having her second and final open heart surgery (Fontan procedure) and they need her to beef it up, as the Dr. called it!

Our girl is already getting chubby cheeks!


She's trying to hide them here!


ahhh there they are!!

We will do whatever it takes to get her big and strong!

Our girl has caught up!

Soon after Jadyn came home from China we had her tested for gross motor skill development, I knew she was very behind.

I really wanted to make sure we got her the help she needed. She tested at approximately a 12 to 14 month old, she was 30 months old. She did not know how to run or jump, she was very unstable on her feet. She looked like she had just learned to walk when we received her. Stairs were something she obviously had never been exposed to.

Her little legs weren't strong enough to even step up or off a curb.

Fast forward 4 short months since her great friend and therapist Jenny has come over to "play" and our girl is graduating! No more physical therapy. Jadyn just needed the opportunity and time to catch up!

She runs, she jumps, she climbs up and down our stairs all on her own!!

This is how it's done

One foot in front of the other!!

She has made huge strides and we are so proud of her!

I cant wait for springtime so she can play outside and continue to explore with her strong little legs.

Happy Chinese New Year!

The last 3 years we have had to celebrate Chinese New Year without Jadyn!

This year was different, we celebrated with Jadyn!

We went to a local celebration here in our town.

Jadyn enjoyed coloring with the other girls


and eating!


and posing for a group photo!

While in Portland this last weekend we celebrated once again, by going out for Chinese dinner with family.

Quinten and Jadyn deciding what fresh fish item to order....just kidding


Tea please!


Can you tell the Sweet & Sour Chicken was her favorite?

6 Months ago today......

We were handed this beautiful little girl, known as

Yang Jun Qi aka OUR DAUGHTER.
She was so tiny and scared.

This is our first glimpse of her!


I'm sure she was thinking who are these weird looking people!

One month after coming home, Jadyn had open heart surgery

there has been no stopping her since!

She has gone from wearing size 18-24 months to a 2-3 toddler, gained 7 pounds and grown over 2" She has learned how to run, how to climb stairs, to speake over 100 English words and count to 20. She is also fully potty trained.

Jadyn transitioned into our family so easily, she has had no problems bonding. Our adoption has been such a awesome experience for our entire family. I worried for almost 4 years about attachment, would I be able to love her as I do my biological kids?, will she love us? ect, ect. There was no need for worry!

I told our Home Study Social Worker the other day, if I could have handmade a daughter, I would have handmade Jadyn. Her personality is so outgoing and silly, she is loving, very smart, almost always happy and to top it off, she sleeps 12 hours a night. We are lucky parents!

She has recently been showing us a little 2 year old attitude at times, most often when she's tired. We will count in a firm voice, usually only to two and she figuers out that Daddy & Mommy are still in charge!

In no certain order, here are some things Jadyn loves...
to eat
her siblings
baby dolls
candy
Aunt Kim
playing outside
pre-school with Mommy

Salad (I have to mention this as she is the only child of ours that will eat salad!)

And here are some she doesn't love...
going to the doctor
fruit
our dog
being chased
telling her it's bed time
hair cuts (you'll understand why when you see the picture below)

Here is a picture I dont think I have shared on our blog. This is Jadyn in June 2009. Right after we accepted her referral and about 2 months before we got her.

6 months ago, August 2009

Our girl now!

Pre-school

Jadyn loves to learn, she shows a big interest in learning so I figured I better make the most of this time with her. We have started doing Pre-school at home 3-4 days a week.

After having 2 boys who would rather play with cars and blocks at her age, this is has a big change.

She will ask for "skool" and run to the cupboard where I keep her stuff. It amazes me how smart this little girl is and how fast she learns.

She can already count to 20. She can sing the ABC song (her version) she has the tune down but not the order yet, it's funny to listen to her try. She loves to do puzzles, glue, sing songs with finger play and color with markers.

Counting the strawberries

Big Girl!

Jadyn has some big news to share.....

I'm a big girl now.

Jadyn is POTTY TRAINED.

It took 1 day! She caught on really fast and hasn't looked back!
My boy's took weeks to get this far.

I'm still in awe at how incredibly smart this little girl is and how far she has come in the short 5 months that she has been home.

We are so proud of her.

The look of happiness on her face when we clap for her is so adorable.

I took her shopping with me today in undies (I know, I'm brave) but she has mastered this potty business so well, I trusted her and she did great!

Sunglasses required!

Because her bubble gum colored Gap snowsuit is really bright in this pure white snow!

We are pretty sure this is Jadyn's first time experiencing snow! or as she calls it "nose"
She loved it.

We put her in the sled and Daddy pulled her around!

Then Daddy decided she needed to try out the HILL, OK it's more like an incline, he waited at the bottom while I closed my eyes and gave her a push. Yes, she loved that too!!


Enough sledding, she was ready to try and figured this stuff out!

She took us on a long walk, I kept trying to turn around and head back home and she would say "no home, just walk Mommy"

Jadyn had a great time in the playing in the snow, so did Daddy and Mommy!

A Disney Christmas

We ventured away from our traditional Christmas celebration this year......With a trip to Disneyland!! We flew there Christmas morning!

We had a great time, the park was beautifully decorated for Christmas. Disneyland goes all out, just about every ride was in some way decorated for Christmas or changed to have a Christmas theme.

Even the Haunted House was decorated!

Jadyn loved all the characters, as long as they didn't come too close!

Mickey was no exception, here she is when she first noticed him, and then for the photo I had to join in so she would sit next to him.

While waiting in California Adventure park for Daddy and Garrison to finish up on a scary ride we went for a walk, look who we found...

Mulan... the one and only beautiful Asian Princess.
Mommy and Jadyn were so excited!
Jadyn went right to her and gave her a big hug!
I was so glad I had brought my camera to the park that day.

We had a great 5 days in sunny California. I don't think we would go back again at Christmas time, as the park was packed with people who had the same idea as we did.

The kids had a great time, that was our goal. We had to do a lot of one on one time as a 15 yr. old, 8 yr. old and a 2 yr. old have very different ideas of what a fun ride is!!

Jadyn was very cautious, telling us at times "I no like it" meaning she had no interest in going on that ride! It was pretty funny. She did learn to love the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, after about the 4th. time on it!!.





enjoying their balloon art