A Baby at Christmas Time

A baby and Christmas time can be such a fun combination. Chloe truly made our Christmas this year a special joy. To be able to see everything through her eyes for the first time was a pleasure. Greg and I were sitting in living room shortly after all the presents were opened and we were reminded that just a year ago there was no one to give Chloe a gift to celebrate the gift that God gave us in sending His son Jesus to Earth. How things have changed in her life. Wrapping paper scattered everywhere and so many new things that it was hard to choose which one to play with first. We were the blessed ones this year, to have special gift of Chloe in our family.

Chloe enjoyed playing with her new "cell phone" with Papa and Grandma

Her play sweeper was the hit of Season! She even moves the throw rugs and sweeps under them.

We've had lots of snow in Ohio this month, so Chloe got to go sledding for the first time.

Here's our "All-American" girl sneaking icing out of the tub.

Chloe's new friend Mya came to visit with her family. It's always great to get together with other adoptive families.

Chloe has discovered climbing and she does it all the time! She climbs on the coffee table, window sill, chairs, stairs. You name it, she's tried to get on top of it.

Chloe has begun pretending and one of her favorite things to play is babies. She rocks them, kisses them, and gives them a bottle. I even caught her today trying to get her baby dressed. Of course, she was sitting on top of her toy.Help Me Grow - our counties early intervention program -was back last week to assess Chloe and she's doing great! She is ahead developmentally in every category now. It's amazing to think what a little love can do. We were counting how many words and phrases Chloe is able to say and came up with over 35. Some of my favorites are: 'I love you' and 'we're home' when we drive up our driveway. She's also gotten pretty good at telling the dog what to do. :)

Chloe loves to ride on her rocking horse. She has only recently discovered that her sisters could serve as horses too.

Just a quick note on Jazmyne, Chloe's Jie Jie from the orphanage. Jazmyne was adopted as a special needs child at age 2 because she had 6 toes on each foot. She had surgery last week to remove them and is doing great. The casts come off next week. If you'd like to read more about Jazmyne's story, here's a link to their blog: http://jazzyrose.blogspot.com/