Celebrating a special 6 year old

Our precious Madeline Bei turned six years old this past Wednesday.  It's crazy how quickly time has flown.  I have been working on her China book lately (yep, I'm that much of a procrastinator) and am just amazed at how little she was when we first brought her home.

Our precious girl had a few requests that we made good on for this birthday of hers.  First of all, she wanted to go bowling.  And since Auntie Shell and Lydia were coming down from Connecticut to help her celebrate, we thought we'd going bowling at Splitsville in Downtown Disney.  We were somewhat limited in the times they gave us.  So we opted to go right after church, around lunchtime.  Since Havi is still too young to go to her class by herself, I sat with her and Auntie Shell in the cafeteria during church.  She's less distracted (read- LOUD) there than in the larger commons area by the sanctuary.

After church, we headed over to Downtown Disney.

 My sister's crew (including her in-laws) all met us there.
You can spy them waiting for us on the far left in the photo above.

 Every photo Patrick took of me with Madeline had this little photo bomber in the bottom right corner.  So we rolled with it.

I made my favorite rich and delicious chocolate cupcakes with a simple sweet American buttercream.  Then I asked my sister at the very last minute to pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top make some cute toppers.

 Unfortunately, the lighting was terrible.  And so the cupcakes look orange when, in fact, they were coral like the toppers, though not as saturated.  Oh well.

 For her birthday loot, she scored some cute hair accessories, a light up neon slate, a puzzle and framed photo of herself with Lydia.  The second thing she wanted, besides to bowl, was a pair of roller blades.  (For the record, she took one day before she was off and "rolling" on them with Caleb.  And now she can pass down her too small for her roller skates to Havi, who's more than happy to inherit them.)

 After bowling, we scooted over to Fantasia mini golf.  This was my feeble attempt at a selfie with the birthday girl who kept running away from me.

 See that gap in Lydia's smile?  Her tooth got very loose the night before, and I offered to pull it out for her.   

Everyone was a bit infatuated with the ball cleaner as we waited until it was our turn out on the course.

 *fake smile alert*

 Since it got so hot while we were mini golfing, we decided to get some ice cream.  The ice cream was melting pretty quickly.  So although I had my camera, I couldn't really snap any photos until I finished my humongous waffle cone.  I did manage, however, to capture Leah with her Grandma Marsha in their coordinated but completly unplanned outfits.

Before I wrap up this birthday post, I have to share the third and final request from the birthday girl- an ant farm.  Yep.  I don't know where she got the idea, but she wanted one.  So Patrick ordered the farm and the ants.  Everyone watches the ants all the time.  It's pretty funny.  And I want to say thank you so much to Michele and Lydia for flying down here and helping Madeline celebrate her special day.  We loved seeing you guys.  Can't wait until we do it again!

Well, although February was a slow month with my camera, March is proving to be the opposite.  I have some serious catching up to do- including some tennis updates and some every day fun.  

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  We'll be at the courts!

2013 Year in review

Here it is! Finally!  And if you know me, you know I couldn't keep this post brief, which is why it has taken so long to put together.  After looking back at each month of 2013, I realized just how jam packed our year really was.  And what a good year it was!

January

I committed to get in front of the camera more last year, and I'm happy to say I did that.

 We celebrated Caleb's 8th birthday at Disney World.

We saw Havi's face for the first time and accepted her referral!

February

 Baseball season started, and the dumplings got to meet Doug Flutie.

 Madeline loved going to her dance class.

Lydia came down from Connecticut to celebrate Madeline's birthday with her.

March

We took the birthday girl out for a little celebration.

We had a low-key but fun Easter celebration.

 April

We spent many afternoons at the park.

 We had so much fun at a very special wedding. The cousins had a blast together.

 We received updated photos of our precious peanut, Havi.

 We sold our first home.

May

Disney was a great place to celebrate my birthday with my favorite peeps.

 The dumplings went fishing and enjoyed sunsets on the river.

June

Madeline had her dance recital.

Then we traveled the globe to meet our precious Havi.  

We spent some time in Beijing, Taiyuan, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.

July

We took Havi to our favorite park and enjoyed finally being back home with her.  Caleb also started playing tennis.

 Madeline lost her first tooth!

August

We went camping with our friends and determined it was something we could get used to.

 We had fun celebrating Leah and Josh's birthdays.

  Much anticipated tennis tournaments began.

September

Tennis tournaments meant more cousin time.

 Our trailer was delivered.

October

So we began our camping adventures.  It's fun to camp at the beach.

 We walked with Team Gina.

 Caleb won his first tennis tournament.

 Gramma Ali and Grandpa Bob came for a visit.

 We had a little Fall fun with pumpkins and trick-or-treating.

November

We celebrated 6 years since meeting Caleb by taking him camping and going to the Magic Kingdom.

 Then we had a blast at our county fair.

 Caleb continued to play in tennis tournaments and do well.

 We celebrated Havi's 2nd birthday.

 December

We actually celebrated it twice when Lydia, Michele, and John came to visit after Thanksgiving.

 We had so much fun camping with friends.

 Havi's first Christmas was sheer joy.

 The year wouldn't have been complete without a south Florida Winter Carnival.

Wow!  What a year it was for us- full of love, fun, adventure, and togetherness.
We can't wait to see what 2014 has in store for us.