Family Day Celebration

So one really good point of moving here is that now we are within 20 minutes of two of Kylie's Guangdong Gal sisters. Getting the schedules of three families to coordinate was no simple task, but we managed to schedule Valentine's Day (only 9 days after Gotcha ~ not bad) as our night to celebrate. Lottie's family hosted.

We played outside, ate a great meal, enjoyed conversation, frosted cupcakes, let the girls blow out candles on the Gotcha Day cookie while we sang "Happy Gotcha Day," watched Battle and Shannon's Gotcha Day video, and then watched our one year slideshow that one of our travel mates put together for us last year. There was much reminiscing and our conversations jumbled over one another as we relived that day two years ago. I've looked at the pictures and gone back over our entire trip on the blog several times recently, but for some reason when I heard Amy's (our guide) voice I got goosebumps as that sound really took me back.

We are so blessed to have added some precious friends to our family through this miracle of adoption! My only regret is that we couldn't find a way for all eleven families to get together to celebrate this occasion. Maybe a trip to Disney for Gotcha the year the girls all turn five is in order...

I love this shirt! The front says, "Ni Hao Y'all" but this is the side we saw the most as he ran from us outside...
It is Pinyin (the phonetic style of Chinese) for "Bye y'all."

I'd love to know the conversation that was going on here...
Sadly Lottie didn't want to have her picture taken at this point.
Two pretty good pictures of our family in less than a week? We're on a roll!
Kylie carefully shakes pink sugar on her cupcake.
And her brother just shovels it in...
My camera froze while they were blowing their candles out, (three candles because we were celebrating three girls, not three years) but this one is still cute. They were so excited to be the center of attention!

The girls danced their little hearts out while we watched their one year video. The picture on the screen was taken in China (actually on Feb. 12, 2007) and I love that she turned around so that you can see her "now and then" in this picture. It is so fun to see how all 11 girls are growing up! We can't wait to see the two year video!