ONE MONTH LATER...

Well - so much for a post a week - maybe a post a month is more realistic -

Amy is doing great. We had a few battles revolving around going to bed, eating and wearing appropriate shoes - sounds like normal preschooler stuff, huh? So, Mark, like a saint, calmy took her on (and it took hours for some) but she got the messages: We do go to bed after stories are read, we do sit at the table when we eat dinner and you cannot wear flip flops to go feed the chickens! All the essentials were covered.

In the past month, Amy has swam in swimming pools - thanks to the Reisbigs, lakes (thanks to Camp Spalding and Sonnelands) and jet skiied/tubed at Priest Lake (thanks to Zieglers)! She has jumped on water trampolines, ridden on four wheelers, played ping pong, picked apricots, apples, and cherries. She has gone on the carrousel, played dress up, gone to a movie theatre, done lots of puzzles, coloring, and story reading. She has made cookies, play dough, fingerpainted, and stamped cards. Whew! I am exhausted recalling everything!

Anyway, her life has been very fun-filled and the language is coming more and more each day. She loves to tease and is not at all shy with our friends and family. She clearly prefers her siblings to Mark and I, but we have managed to weasel into her life with much intentionality. She does look to me for food and bathroom and toher "needs" and knows that we have a different role in the family than the kids. We have been very grateful to the Lim family at our church who speak Mandarin and have translated for us on two occasions which really helped us explain the difference between nutritious foods and ice cream. Amy is NOT at all interested in communicating with anyone who speaks Mandarin, it was surprising to us -but has been consistent. She did not want to speak even with the 16 year old girl we met in China at her orphanage - that had volunteered in Amy's class. We called her to give Amy an opportunity to talk with a familiar voice and say anything she would like to share or whatever, and she would have nothing to do with it! She did tell our friends here that she likes it here in America and she is happy.

I am waist high in ordering school materials and very excited to start school! Amy will do great I am certain as she is eager already to read wanting to point to every word on a page and repeating us when we say them.

We will post more soon - I hope.
Love,
The Everetts