8 months with Nyah...

Nyah continues to keep us busy because from the moment she wakes up until anywhere between 5-60 minutes after she is put in her crib, she is living life full force. She has totally embraced being 2... I have found 3 to be the difficult age with the others and have always wondered why the 2's had a terrible reputation... now, I know. Nyah is quite set in her ways and demands we all do things her way, on her schedule, and retaliates with hitting, kicking, and just ignoring. She is now well aware of the time-out seats in our house! She still basically grunts for things but believe me, she understands it all. Just in the past week she has picked up a bunch of new words though unless you know the context, you would never understand her. She shouted "Evan" across the ball field the other day and demanded more "Pizza" a few nights this week. She still is obsessed with shoes, hers and ours, and runs to put hers on when she senses someone leaving the house. She demands hair accessories now that her sister is growing her bangs out and is wearing them and if you compliment Brynn, you better have a compliment for Nyah too because she will fuss until you notice something about her. Here are some of my favorite photos of her from April:

Nyah had her first visit to the beach... liked to swim, loved the ice-cream cone, loves her daddy, tolerated the sand...

Nyah was completely dressed when she started jumping. The girl loves to take her clothes off. Not exactly a great hobby, especially when it is in her crib at nap time; we are trying to outwit her on that one...

Nyah likes to write... on paper, on walls, on herself, on her pillow, on the crib... this is how mommy's face looks when I see where she has written...

Nyah loves her siblings... loves to play with the boys and loves to harass Brynn. Here she climbed in bed with Caleb, who was home sick from school...

Nyah loves to put on clothes that others are putting on. If it is dance day, dance clothes. If it is soccer day, old soccer shirts (she is also into doing her own hair now too)...

Nyah loves to eat and give cheesy grins and make snarky faces...

And she loves to just look cute!!

More next month...

7 months with Nyah!

At the beginning of March, we had our only major snowfall of winter. Nyah screamed and cried when I walked towards her with the snowpants (how in the world does she even know they are not typical clothes??), cried when I tried to put gloves on her, and pitched another fit when the boots went on. I debated whether this was even worth it.

She was grumpy in the yard before we went to the hill and she was grumpy on the top of the hill and let us know it.

But one slide down was all it took. Look at that smile. She spent the rest of the time grunting and looking down the hill, wanting to go again. She is the wild one!

The Wanzai orphanage Yahoo group has mentioned on several occasions while I was preparing to leave for China that Wanzai girls have a thing for shoes. I laughed. I wear the same two pairs of shoes all cold months and rotate between the same two pairs of sandals all summer. I have one pair of running shoes. Nyah simply would not have an obsession for shoes because her environment just wasn't conducive to it. WRONG! The girl is never wearing shoes... her own that is. She spends all day going to our laundry room shoe baskets and picking a pair for the hour. Typically they are Brynn's because she those are big enough for her to get on but not so big that she still can't run around the house. SO funny! Since she is stubborn and difficult and runs from me now with the camera I have no pictures of this... yet.

The girl refuses to wear things in her hair if I ask her to but at least once a day she comes to me with an elastic hair band, just one, and insists I put it in. She then giggles when she looks in the mirror.

And she loves to dance. I have no pictures of this, but she even dances to the beat of the copier at the elementary school while we wait for Brynn's speech lesson to be over.

She also loves to be like the big kids... swinging on the big equipment...

and writing...

and this one... who sits like this? Her big brother Caleb while doing his homework, so Nyah, of course, did the same thing.

Not so funny in the moment but funny later is the fact that she now loves to strip off all her clothes before her nap and bedtime. That was okay until the diaper came off too but luckily, that only happened a few of the times.

Not so funny at all are the two-year old tantrums. She is tantruming frequently now... several times a day! I'm thinking two more years of this might put me over the edge. She knows exactly when to do it to for the most impact. We may not leave the house for a while (as if that is possible)!

And last but not least, here she is at Price's birthday party. What part of the cake does she like best??

But she does get clean... CHEESE!

Happy Birthday Nyah!

Nyah Pei Pei turned two on March 13th and we have spent three days celebrating her first birthday with our family.

The pictures above were from her actual birthday, when we had a "just-us" celebration after dinner with a small cake and ice-cream. She is really starting to try to repeat a lot of things so she joined us in singing Happy Birthday which was pretty amusing since she doesn't pronounce words ~ she really just makes noise to the right syllable count. And we worked all day at getting her to say "two" so now if you ask her how old she is, she holds up anywhere between 0 (if she is being her stubborn self) and 4 fingers and makes some one-syllable in length noise for "two." We gave her a big red ball which was immediately taken by her brothers for some game down the basement and we let her open a present from her Aunt Stacey, Uncle Ron, and her cousins Allie, Robbie, and Scottie... a bath toy she will love because that is one of her favorite places to be!

Saturday we didn't really celebrate... the girls and I went to the Children's Museum for a few hours and since she wore a birthday shirt, she received some well wishes. I didn't have the camera with me since our original plan was to just go shoe shopping, and well, while my Tr*c-f*ne can take pictures, they aren't really that impressive.

Today we had the big party... which we kept small because even small to her is overwhelming for the first hour or so and, well, she is still little and we can get away with it.

All the grandparents all came over and Doug's sister and family. This time I think she led the Happy Birthday song and she was not as appreciative of Evan's help when it came to opening presents. She loves them all... the new wagon; her new camera, phone and purse; and the pop-up tent and tunnel that thankfully, the older kids have not destroyed yet though they were making an effort at it.

I am a bit worried she will wake up tomorrow and think she is having more birthday time. Then again, she has been fussing since she went to bed three hours ago (I'm thinking belly aches) so maybe she has had enough cake and potato chips for a while.

Happy Birthday Nyah!!!

6 Months!

Again, I'm late. But there have been no major developments since the 1st and today so I think it is okay. :) Things are just going right along... I find it hard to believe Nyah has only been with us 6 months. It seems like forever... I mean that in a good way... time has just flown by.

Nyah is still busy, busy, busy and stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. She has picked up a few more signs (we are working on "sorry" now and with all her hitting, it is very much needed) and a few words... bus, bath, and book all sound the same but when she takes off it a mad sprint for the bathroom, it is bath, when she is looking out the front door it is bus, and the rest of the time it is book. She is starting to repeat phrases instead of just one-syllable words but they are not really understandable. She does have the word "cold" down pretty well and used it a lot during her first snow... which now that I think about it, happened the other day so that will be in the next post since technically that was month 7.

We finished our first 3 post-placement visits with the social worker... we have one more at 12 months. I think they are going to let us keep her!

Just a few pictures... she moves really fast and it is hard to get pictures at the moment.

This was during a visit to the Children's Museum. Yes, she tries to be helpful at home too.

Here she has spotted her brother Caleb heading home from a friend's house.

That is all for now; I will do another entry mid-month when we celebrate Nyah turning 2!

Month 5 for Nyah S...

Okay, better late than never. Busy around here. Very.

Nyah continues to do very well and her hair continues to be on the wild side. We have started our post-placement visits and there is little to talk about because right now things are going well. Nyah is still silly and goofy. This month, if she notices someone leaving the house, she will run to get her shoes and boy does she get mad if she is left behind. We are still trying to encourage her to talk more but have not had much success... now if I say, "Say Daddy" - which she has said before - she shakes her head no. Stubborn!!! Nyah saw her first snow in January and when I pointed to it and said, "Snow" she pointed to her nose! Close. She still runs away from my camera but I did manage to get a few pictures of her throughout the month. She tries to be very helpful with everything... even cleaning up. Enjoy!

Nyah likes Spaghetti-O's as much as the others...

and olives...

and popcorn (she has decent manners, really... Caleb made her laugh from behind me).

She also loves to do whatever the big kids are doing like homework...

and swimming...

and playing outside...

and bathing...

and, of course, pouting...

and just looking cute!

More next month and hopefully, on time!

4 Months in the S Family...

Nyah continues to keep us laughing and smiling, and well, searching. She is into everything and has earned a reputation for being a kleptomaniac... in a blink of an eye she can make things she knows she should not have disappear. She keeps us on our toes.

Here she is with Doug's cell phone...

In just the past week she has seemed much happier... more settled. She also, finally, is trying to say new words; while she seems to understand eveything we say, she had not said any new words in quite some time.

Here are a few outside shots. She is crying in the one because she wanted to take her hat off and mean mommy said no. It looks worse than it was since her eyes are so large and therefore hold lots of tears. She quickly recovered when she was allowed to snap the football.

Nyah helping me cook... crazy hair and cheesy grin!

The kids with Santa... as expected Nyah would not sit on his lap but was very interesting in his basket of candy.

Here she is in her crib and just waking up. She was so still and quiet. It was a rare moment.

Posing. I took a group shot of the kids in front of the fireplace and while the rest stood there, she would run in and out of the picture. Now when I pick up my camera she runs to that same spot. Or if she sees me taking a picture of more than 1 child, she rushes to get in the picture but only stays a second before giggling and running to me.

All the other kids have school pictures on the wall so I needed a similar one for Nyah... wouldn't want her feelings hurt.

I came out from behind the camera for a picture with my baby.

This month Nyah started yelling, "MA!!!" in a deep, loud voice if she realizes I am not in the same room. It is pretty funny. She continues to show us she is pretty close to two but we have started time-outs with her (but we are still within her view) and they help her stop what she is doing. I think she is frustrated because she can't communicate her views on the world around her.

Nyah still cries if she thinks I am leaving her and if she sees me put my shoes on, she runs to find her shoes and poncho. Early in the month she would only go easily to Doug if she could tell he was going somewhere. Now she goes to him often and thinks he is fun to be around.

More in 2009... Happy New Year!