School Days are here again

School starts up again in 11 days, and Holly is very excited. She has met her teacher Mrs Grover, and was fitted for a new school shirt. Clothes shopping for Holly and Myleigh was very interesting, as Myleigh picked many fashionable and stylish girly outfits, and Holly chose lots of t-shirts with characters and sayings. She actually picked, to my total surprise, some shirts with sparkles on them. Her love of Pandas prevailed and she chose a panda t-shirt she is in love with. Orange being her favorite color now, she wanted shirts that were orange, but, I insisted she break it up a bit. She also chose a pink, of all colors, Hello Kitty backpack. I thought for sure it would end up being something with race cars, or some such thing on it, but, no she went bonkers as soon as she saw it. In the end, she was happy with her purchases and so was mama.

Shoe shopping was just this week, and Holly chose a rockin pair of pink, yes she is into pink now, light up tennis shoes. To go with her girly shoes and girly backpack, she chose a pack of race car socks, so, my girl hasn't changed too much, thank goodness. I was feeling like we were kindred spirits with all the race car, trucks, rescue heroes, rough and tumble stuff she was into just as I was when I at that age. You can imagine my chagrine when the girly, pinky, sparkly stuff started to be a theme on our shopping trip. I guess at some point she may make the full changeover to girly things, but, I'm kind of hoping she doesn't lose too much of that tomboyness.

Her first post placement visit was this week, too. It was over a year late, we were lost in the shuffle some how with both our homestudy agency and our placing agency, and I had put it off, procrastinated, and just plain forgot most of the time. Things have gone so well with her adjustment that I didn't think too much about reporting back, to be honest. We did send a package of pictures and updates to the SWI back in February, but, we really needed to get this post placement report done for the sake of the agencies.

Holly was her usualy self with the social worker, just jabbering away, and enjoying the attention. He asked lots of questions and she did amazingly well not only understanding but giving clear answers. He was satisfied that she is healthy, happy, and well cared for. Next report not for another year, so, hopefully we won't get lost again.

The next big thing after the new school year starting is Halloween, at least that is what is on Holly's radar, and she is already trying to decide what she's going to be. So far she is thinking about Ironman. We'll see.

School is out for the summer!

Holly has graduated kindergarten, and is moving onto 1st grade. Her school has a new program that suits her perfectly. She has been placed in a classroom with no more than 15 students, and several teachers focusing on helping these students catch up to the rest of the 1st grade students, while staying with the same cirricullum used in the standard 1st grade, and participating in all the events and activities with the rest of the school. They will be just like the other 1st grade classes except smaller and more focused. I think she's going to love it.

Now that big sister Myleigh has outgrown the small two wheel bike, it has been passed onto Holly, who was so excited to get a big girl bike with training wheels. She's still working on mastering the brakes, but, is getting better each day.

We have found a young man in our neighborhood that spent a two year mission in Hong Kong, we're having him come over and see how much Chinese Holly can still remember. Her dialect was so different, but, perhaps there is some basic language she will have retained. We'll see.

A new year.

2011 is upon us, and the New Year brought with it many challenges for our family. Most were personal, and very private and we will be navigating them through the rest of this year. Holly has grown so much, she is such a tall girl for 6 years old. She's struggling a bit in kindergarten, and we may be looking at having her repeat this grade, or perhaps moving her onto first grade and see if it would be better to just have her repeat that grade instead.

She digs her heels in when she is afraid of making a mistake, and simply does nothing. Her teacher has learned how to handle this, but, the progress with reading and writing is slow. I see little steps forward, and she gets very excited when she masters a new skill.

I've been neglecting this blog for the past few months, but, really will try to get some pictures posted soon.

Holidays

Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving was just yesterday, and Christmas is on its way. Holly is the most excited kid on the planet this season, she really understands what each holiday brings, and is relishing each detail in ways that have made them brand new for all of us.



Halloween. The lead up was interesting, trying to give her an idea of why everyone will be dressed up, and preparing her for the scary and sometimes gruesome way people celebrate. We did the best we could without exposing her to the gruesome stuff. Choosing a costume was easy, she just wanted to be spongebob and that was it. She would see other costumes, usually super heroes, and would get all excited at the idea of dressing up like that, but, as soon as she saw her spongebob costume, it was love. On Halloween night she wasn't too sure about going up to strangers houses and knocking on the door, but, when Myleigh led the way, she was fine. After that first door, she was running from house to house. At one point she said "I so esited, I love Halloween." After a few houses, she decided she wanted to take a turn ringing the doorbell, so from then on they traded off on each house. After about two hours, she was tuckered out and wanted to go home, so, we made a round about path back to our house, as Myleigh wanted to hit some more houses before being done. Holly was content with what she had, and just walked along with us. Then, at home, the two dumped out their bags and the trading and gorging started. Holly even took a turn handing out candy to trick or treaters. She loved every minute of it.



Thanksgiving- The morning came with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. I missed it as I was sleeping after working til 7am, but, the girls tell me that she was most excited when she saw Santa at the end of the parade. She been telling us that she loves Santa and wants to hug him when we go to see him. That should be interesting. Then it was dinner time. If there's one thing Holly is very clear about, it's what she likes to eat and what she does not. The big hit for the day, egg nog, or as Holly says it, neg nog. She does not like cranberry sauce, or gravy.



Christmas, well , that's all month long, really. We set up and lit our outside decorations on Thanksgiving, as per our tradition, and she really liked that, but, her favorite part, so far, was decorating the tree this afternoon. Her only disappointment was when we ran out of things to put on the tree.



Next week is her 6th birthday, but, for us, it's her first birthday since we brought her home, so, it's a much bigger deal than just turning 6. She will also be blessed that day and her name officially written on the records of the church as Holly Jun Nicole Anderson. Her birthday present is a new razor scooter. We have been having her use Myleigh's old scooter, that has big chunky wheels and is harder to really get going because the hill on the way home from school is long and a little bit steep, so, it would have been harder for her to learn to manage controlling it if it rolled easily. Now that she has really mastered it, she should be fine handling the razor kind.

School Days

Holly started kindergarten on August 31st. It was so hard for her to wait a whole week after everyone else had started school, as the district here in our area has kindergarten start a week after all the other grades. I don't understand it, Im sure they have a reason that I won't agree with. Once it was her day to go to school, she was so excited. I was anticipating a melt down once we got to the room and the reality of mommy leaving her there with strangers set in, but, no. She took to school like a duck to water.

I had prepared her with the same kind of "the whole story" that I had done for church. I drew a map of her school, with all the rooms, including the classroom where Myleigh would be. We went through the day from how Mommy and Holly will first take Myleigh to school, we will wave goodbye and come back home. Holly will play and watch her shows, and then have lunch and get ready for school. Then how we will go to the kindergarten parking lot, mommy will park the car, mommy and Holly will go in the entrance and then to Mrs Peterson's classroom. Mommy and Holly will say goodbye, give hug and kiss, and then mommy will drive home and Holly will stay with Mrs Peterson and the other kids in her class. We talked about some of the kinds of things she will do in class, and then how the bell will ring when it's time to go home, Mrs Peterson will take all the children outside to wait. Then Myleigh will come and pick her up and together they will ride their scooters home.

So, that's pretty much how it unfolded for her. the only difference was that I brought her to class about ten minutes early, and she had some one on one time with Mrs Peterson, so she could walk her through the things Holly is to do when she comes into class, and just to acclimate her to the room a bit more before it was full of noisy kids demanding Mrs Petersons attention. I said good bye, she hugged me very tightly, said I love you mom, and we gave each other kisses on the cheek. When I left, I snapped a picture of the two of them looking at the first little story book the children will be learning from, and off I went.

That afternoon I waited very anxiously on the front step watching for the girls to appear, hoping that the day had gone well. It seemed forever watching all the children filing past our house, and then I spied them. Holly was on her scooter, way out in front of Myleigh, and scooting as fast as she could. When she got close enough to see me, she shouted out "Mommy!!" I went out into the yard, and she ran up to me, threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. I asked if she had fun at school and she said yes. After a few minutes of excited chatting about the things she did, I knew we had conquered another milestone.

Now, several weeks later, she still likes school, and has learned how to write and recognize three letters, including the letter H, which she proudly will tell you is the first letter in her name.

Pictures to follow.

Smores

Holly has discovered that roasting marshmallows is great, but, putting them on crackers with chocolate, Sheer Genius!!

Getting ready for the big day

the first day of school is just around the corner, and Holly is so excited. Im not sure how much of the whole school experience she really grasps, but, the fact that she gets to pick out her school supplies is very much a concept she understands.

She has made it clear that a Spongbob back pack is required, as are Spongebob shoes.

Her language aquisition is nothing short of amazing. Nothing gets past this kid, especially when it comes to going anywhere with Mommy. She loves to go shopping, and has, for the most part, opted out of riding in the seat of the shopping cart. She also knows that a treat is possible at the end of the trip, as long as she behaves herself and asks nicely.

The meltdowns are gone, and she has become a very affectionate child. She likes to give hugs and tell us she loves us, which just melts my heart. She does have one funny quirk, well, not funny if you're on the receiving end. She seems to have a limit to the number of people that can, on any given day, be part of her circle of trust. It's usually one of the older girls, she will act like she doesn't like them anymore. It can really hurt their feelings, and I tolerated it for a while thinking she was just having to get used to so many people in her formerly very small circle. Then she decided that Katie's friend Chad was in and Katie was out. Well, that was that. I stood her in front of Katie, and explained that she should not say mean things to her, she is her sister, and she loves her. I told her that when she says mean things it hurts Katie's feelings, and she needs to say she's sorry. It took just a few minutes to get the idea across, but, she soon apologized to Katie and we haven't had it happen since, but, only time will tell.

Holly has a tendency to be a tom boy and avoids all things girly, much to my chagrine. We took Myleigh to pick out her Baptism dress, and Holly was with us. While Myleigh played dress up, trying on dress after dress, Holly was bored and not too happy to be surrounded by lace and ruffles. I tried to convince her to choose a dress for herself, and she just snarled at me. I would pick up a dress and say, what about this, and she would just snarl or say "Can't want it" Which means in Holly speak "I don't want it".

Myleigh chose her dress, finally, and we were getting ready to pay for it, when Holly figured out that she wasn't getting anything. In her panic, she agreed to find a dress, and she made a beeline for a school girl uniform style red plaid dress. It was definitely her.

Next spring I plan to sign both girls up for soft ball. Holly will be an absolutely perfect fit for it, and Myleigh has wanted to play softball for a couple of years now. When I mentioned it to Holly she seemed to understand what I was talking about, so, Im wondering if she was exposed to it in China. I guess we'll see. I taught my older kids how to play, so, Ill be working on that with Holly and Myleigh.