President's Day....

On Monday, President's Day, we went to the mall to have lunch with Joan and Jolee. Jasmine had her first Merry Go Round ride.
Then we went to Lee Lee's Market and purchased some Asian vegetables and two Vietnamese videos. Here is Jas and Jolee after their ride.

Nice weekend...

This weekend, we attended Damion, our neighbor's... 4th birthday party. We had football candy, football cupcakes, football everything. After all the candy, there was even more candy after the kids took turns hitting the Spiderman pinata. No more candy for awhile for Jas. She had kind of a fitful sleep last night, and I attribute that to all of the sugar for the past 2 days. We were told that Damion had more toys than he knew what to do with, so we got him a U of A hoodie, a shirt and cool pair of pants. He received lots of other toys from other people too.

Since it was President's day, the pre-school is closed... for some reason. So, we went into Phoenix to run errands... to the accountant (fun), then to the mall to meet Joan and Jolee for lunch. I will have some photos of that soon.

Photos:
Damion unwrapping presents
Spiderman pinata
pinata candy all over the place
football cupcakes
Jas on the swingset
Jasmine with Damion's present
Jasmine ready to go

Valentine's Day

This morning I woke up early as usual, with that 15 minute window of time to get a few things done prior to Jasmine waking up. For some reason, she didn't wake up, so I just let her sleep for awhile longer.. or so I thought. I went into the bedroom to wake her up because we had people to see, places to go and things to do. I found her sitting up in the bed with chocolate all over her face, the sheets, blankets, my pillow and her pajamas. She had opened up her little mailbox with chocolate in it and ate ALL of the chocolate which included multiple Hershey's kisses, a few small Reese's cups and a couple of other candy bars. Needless to say, she didn't want any breakfast. All of the sheets had to be washed, as well as all of the blankets.

Later we went to the Native American Music Festival at the Casa Grande Ruins. It was pretty much a waste of time. One hour drive there, 20 minutes wait for the bus ride into the place, 15 minutes to walk around because there was really nothing there, then 20 minutes wait to get out, and an hour drive home. The most fun part was painting your own flute for the kids. Jasmine is very intent when she is painting.

more photos:)

These were taken by Joan.....

Valentine's Celebration

This morning Jasmine and Jolee had their first modeling "gig" for the Casa Grande Senior Center. The event was sponsored by JC Penney. Earlier in the week, Joan, Jolee, Jasmine and I went to JC Penney to pick out the outfits for Jas and Jolee. We arrived and went into the special "dressing room" and put the outfits on, then modeled for the Senior Center party. They made it about halfway down the "runway", then began playing with the balloons that lined the walkway, so I had to lead them the rest of the way:) I am sue that David got some better photos which I can add later.

Photos:
just woke up and got her Valentine's present. A little purse filled with a stuffed dog and some candy.
Jasmine at home all ready to go
Jasmine giving Jolee her Valentine's present
Jasmine and Jolee
Story time backstage

Tet Party....

Today we went to a Tet Party at Kathy and AnnaLi's house in Chandler. There were about 17 Vietnamese adoptive families there....some new, and some we had never met before. The kids made lanterns, colored, and ate mostly Vietnamese food. Jasmine was very intent and focused on painting her lantern:) I have never seen Jasmine eat SO much food!! I guess it was because it was Vietnamese food. She had two bowls of rice/curry/Pho- the Vietnamese dish, 2 cookies, then 3 little cupcakes, ...... then she demanded more cupcakes!!!!- as you can see from one of the photos:) The kids played in the yard for about an hour, then had a little Vietnamese dragon run. Joan, Jolee and David were there too.


Photos:
Jasmine painting her lantern
Eating, and eating, and eating
"Get me more cupcakes...NOW"
Jasmine and Jolee
All of the kids- well, most of them....
Dragon
Joan, Jolee and David

Damion's birthday....

Today we took our next door Damion to the zoo and Red Robin for his birthday which is in a few days. We walked and walked and walked......and saw a few animals, had a nice lunch there, then a sundae at Red Robin. The best part was getting to brush the goats.