Christmas Caroling, Birthday Wishes and Mei Li WALKS! :)

AG and her good friend. . . ready for a night of caroling!

Mama and Mei Li come along to help support!!

Singing songs of Christmas. . .

One of the beautiful homes made a great backdrop for our group photo!

Another Gigi group shot. . .

Hot cocoa after a night of caroling puts a smile on Mei Li's sweet face! ;)

AG helps Mei Li try her hand at ping pong. :)

Our 1980's wall mirror serves as a great artist's pallet! The girls LOVE drawing on it with dry erase markers!

It's present time!!!

My birthday girl :)

Mei Li is having a BLAST at Big Sis's birthday party!

The prettiest ornaments don't hang on trees ;)

Time to blow out the candles and make a wish

Look who followed me upstairs to put Mei Li to bed!! Mei Li loved the attention. . . Guess who didn't want to go to sleep!? ;)

Getting ready for Wii Dance party!

OH YES. . . and we built foam Santa's workshops, gingerbread houses and a sleigh!

AG has some of the sweetest friends!! :)

Getting their "dance" on!

Love this shot! Dance queen! :)

Break dancin'

The worm!!

AG just hangin' around :)

Daddy surprised the girls with "Hot Nows" from Krispy Kreme for breakfast. . . served with hot cocoa :)

Closing out a swell birthday party with a tasty doughnut breakfast! :)

We have had quite an eventful week at the White house!! Anna Grace turned 9 years old this week!!! I can't believe my little AG is NOT little any more. This is her last year in single digits. :( We had a birthday party to throw together and I had a LOT to get prepared before having anyone come over to my house!! Especially, since AG requested a small sleep over. Oh my!! Since coming home from China, I have spent my time and energy taking care of Mei Li, running back and forth to Dr. appts and surgeries and check-ups, and homeschooling Anna Grace. Lots of "house-keeping" details happen "when I can get to them", but that is not often enough ;). There is only one of me, and I do all I can to address the "most important" things first. Haha!!! So, last Saturday, I spent the day trimming the bushes in the front of our house!! You can actually "SEE" the house now!! ;) And, as the week has progressed, I've gotten carpets steam-cleaned and other house-beautifying details addessed. Whew!!! Just in time for the sleepover on Friday night. I told AG it HAD to be small, this year. No more than 5 girls. Mama needed a manageable group. And, I told her to carefully choose 5 girls who will enjoy one-another's company for an entire night!! Tricky business!! ;) These girls will have to get along well for 12-15 hours. AG has lots of wonderful friends in different places. . . the theatre, from school, from horseback riding. She wasn't able to invite everyone she wanted to. So, she picked a few that knew each other well for our "pilot group". Did I mention this was our "first" sleepover??

Drum roll. . . . It went so well, that we will do more. AG had a blast and the girls had a wonderful time! Next time, we'll pull in folks we weren't able to this first go-round. Now that mama knows what she's doing ;)

In other important news. . . and I'll leave you with this. . . Mei Li got her cast removed on Wednesday and the 5" pin removed from her heel. She got her nighttime brace to wear and we are still awaiting her smaller daytime brace which we will get this coming Wednesday. The daytime brace will protect her foot and keep it positioned properly while she walks. But, an amazing moment happened yesterday. I took her brace off and asked her if she could stand. She stood right up, put her weight equally on both feet and grinned a mile across!! Then, before I could grab hold of her or instruct her on the finer points of taking her first steps. . . .she was off like a bullet!! She took off walking and she hasn't stopped since! I caught some of these first steps on video and you can see it in my video feed at the top right.

I was invited to come perform my original song, "Snowflake Lullaby" (that I wrote for Anna Grace and recorded on my album, "Dancin' on the Wind") at Local Color Cafe's Christmas Show last night. Geoff, AG and Mei Li came out to support mom. It went great! Even though their CD player wouldn't work with my accompaniment track, and I ended up doing the entire song acapella!!! Haha!!! (that's called "rollin' with it!!! ;) Everyone seemed to enjoy the song, and I have been invited to come back to perform an entire show in March!! What an honor! This was Mei Li's first music venue, and her first time to see mama perform. She was PERFECT!! She enjoyed the music all night, and was thrilled when mama got up to sing. And, during the intermission, she got up out of her seat and went from table to table greeting the guests and telling them her name is "Mei Li"!! Truth be told. . . Mei Li was a highlight of the night! She walked everywhere. . .she made friends with every person she met. . . and she wouldn't let mama or dad pick her up. So proud to be walking. . . and correctly. . . for the first time!!!

AG did her best to hold her head up during the show, but she was suffering from a bad case of "stayed up all night last night" itis. Haha!!! She had a ball at her birthday sleepover, but it left her hurting the next night when mama had to perform.

I hope you enjoy the pics and Mei Li's video!! Thanks for following along our journey!! And, I hope each of you is having a wonderful Christmas season!! I know that we surely are. Little miracles every day. . . and reminders about the true meaning of this wonderful season. :)

Thanksgiving Memories

Mommy's sweet angel AG

Mommy's sweet angel Mei Li :)

Traveling home. . . got her bag, her doll and her chocolate. She's ready to roll!!

Yaya's 2 best girls. . . who are "not" ready to leave to travel back home! ;)

AG and Mei Li live it up in Uncle Ken and Aunt Beth's hot tub! Mei Li may not be able to put her whole body in, but it doesn't stop her from fully enjoying taking it as far as she can!! :)

Mei Li loving on her Yaya! :)

Aunt Beth and Mei Li "cheesing" for the camera ;)

Mei Li is not sure what to thing about this big "dog" ;) Her first experience meeting a cow!

But Uncle Ken is keeping her safe!

That's my girl!! On second thought, why not??? She reached right out and petted it right on its fuzzy top knot!! ;)

Totally enamored with her Uncle Ken, she delights in showing him a twig she found on the ground! I love to see her light up over the little things most of us walk by without a second thought.

Family photo. . . and AG and Mei Li stealing the show . . . with the beautiful Smokey Mountains in the background. Such a beautiful place!!

Feels good taking a family photo with the four of us!

Ice cream dreams!!

Sweet angel with almond eyes. . . How we adore you!

She is "ham and cheese" all the way!! ;)

Big sis got Mei Li a balloon at the restaurant. . . because that's what "big sisters" do!!

Yaya, Aunt Beth, Geoff and AG. . . 3 generations of Whites :)

It's hard to believe all that transpired in the month of November!! I've already blogged on Mei Li's casting and her surgery on her foot. . . as well as the visit with the neurosurgeon. So, I won't rehash all of those details. And, that lead us right up to Thanksgiving, where we traveled to Asheville, NC to visit Geoff's family. They were able to come down for a short weekend at the time of Mei Li's surgery, but thankfully, we were able to spend several days over Thanksgiving up in the mountains with them for us to have more quality time to spend. It was 4 days packed with great food and wonderful company. And, I do believe that Mei Li succeeded on a grand scale in wrapping each one of the family members securely around her tiny finger!! As Yaya so eloquently put it, "It would be impossible to "not" love Mei Li. She is sunshine on a cloudy day!" And, I don't think there are better words to describe her!

And, AG had a blast. She got to spend the night with Aunt Beth and Uncle Ken. And, she had some great one-on-one time with her Yaya (and AG cherishes every moment with her!)

Mei Li has only one more week to go with her cast. Then, OFF it comes! After that, she will be able to walk with a brace on her leg. Hoping she will have good strength in that leg once the cast comes off so she will be able to walk on it. It has been 9 weeks of casting that hasn't allowed her to walk. She will have to rebuild her muscle tone in that leg, for sure.

For now, I am trying very hard to keep her big toe from getting banged-up any worse. She doesn't have any feeling in that foot and she knocks the mess out of that toe when she crawls. She has even lost her toenail. I am cleaning it daily, putting antibiotic ointment on it and wrapping her like a mummy with gauze and paper tape. . . then applying two thick socks over the top. Can't wait for that cast to come off!

We just learned today that Mei Li's MRI of her spine will be be on Dec. 19th. We are eager to get that done and know the results. . . and then figure out the game plan from there.

I hope each of you had a beautiful Thanksgiving as well. We are cherishing every moment with our two girls. . . and we catch our breath over the thought of the incredible gift Mei Li is to our family. And, AG is such a wonderful big sister. . . it is a joy to watch her falling deeper in love every day with this person who was a dream in her heart for so long. Wow. . . never in a million years. . . we are most definitely counting our blessings!