IM BACK (with lots of pictures)

Sorry it has been soooooo long since i have updated this thing. time just seems to slip away. im planning on starting a new blg for the summer so if anyone is willing to help me out on the layout please email me at tochinaforchloe@yahoo.com. Everything is good here, Chloe is growing and talking like crazy! Here are a few pics from the past month..all were taken with my new Nikon D40 camera i got for christmas. some things about Chloe: she has taken a amazing facination with horses and is even riding! my best friend rides horses and has a pony Beauty and Chloe rides her and just loves it..she is quite the natural =] she also loves Barney as of lately and loves to sing all the songs with the children on the show.

On St Patty's Day!

With her horsie Sage

Easter 2008

Holding flowers!

Getting ready to ride!

such a sweet sweet girl!

Ready for summer (this picture was taken last week!)

Chloe's second birthday party (a little late)

I know i know im like two weeks late on posting this but you know what they say better late than never. lol. well Chloe's party was fabolous and she had an absolute blast like i knew she would. We started the week before her party telling her that she would be having a party soon and that she was going to be two so she kept going around the house saying "paryyy" and "i be two" while holding up two of her fingers, it was soooo precious =). Well we had her party at KidSenses and of course had an Elmo party since Chloe just adores him and was so excited about her "Elmo caKE!" it was one of her favorite parts i think! The cake was actually a cupcake cake shaped like elmo's head, sooo cute! Heres a picture of it...i got alot of attention walking around walmart carrying it hehe!


I wish i had taken a picture of Chloe's face when she saw her cake, it was priceless. she was so in awe of it and just kept on saying "elmo" "elmo"! She blew her candles out like such a big girl i was so proud of my big girl and just almost cried seeing the excitement in her eyes throughout the whole party. she makes me sooooo happy!!!
Those are my favorite picture of Chloe, i love her face and the joy in her face on both of them. She also looks sooo big in them.

Here are some more pictures from her party. Just click the collage to enlarge it....

Happy Birthday Baby!

Chloe had a great birthday even though i don't think she actually comprehends the whole birthday meaning she still had fun at our little family party. If you ask her about her birthday she continues to say "i'll be TWO" even though we keep telling her you ARE two, she cracks me up =). Tomorrow is the big birthday party so we are getting ready for that, Im giving her a powerwheels barbie ATV and i cant wait to see her reaction because she loves "mo-cycles".

The cake before she demolished it =)

So obviously the cake was a big hit =)

The horsey nana and pop gave Chloe for her birthday. She loves it!!

Long time no update

Man has it really been a month since ive updated?!?! wow. what a month! So lots of pictures to share and Chloe info to dish out. This post is probably going to be jumbled and all over the place as i have a lot of stuff to update on an information to share. Ive been super busy with school and other activities that I hardly ever get to snap pictures of miss thang anymore besides the pictures I am taking for my photography class (i will share some at the end of the sem.). Chloe is growing at lightning speed and continues to amaze me with her ability to take in information and learn new things. She can now name about 6 different animal sounds when asked and can point to her eyes, ears, nose, mouth and eyes when asked. She also LOVES to look at her books and will sit down and "read" forever if you let her. She has grown and matured so much since that day in december when she became my sister and amazes me everyday

Just a picture i snapped with my camera phone in walmart one day. is it just me or does she look soo big in it?

I snapped this picture of Chloe in her pj's on our nana and pop's porch last week and yes it got chilly last week so thats why shes wearing the jacket =]

Now onto halloween. Oh am i ever psyched about that and can't wait to take Chloe trick-or-treating, ive been dreaming about this for years! So Chloe does have a costume and im sure everyone wants to know what our sweet girl is going to be. Of course we HADD to dress her as a ladybug to continue the China good luck charm tradition alive. heh. So check out our little ladybug (she will have little sparkly shoes and cute makeup and accessories by 10/31)

She just adores this outfit and wants to put it on daily saying "abug"!

Like i mentioned briefly in the last post, Chloe is infatuated with my new bff Cady and just loves it when she comes and spends the night which is a lot as Cady is practically a member of the family. Cady is so good with her and we have such fun playing and acting crazy together, and did i mention she has lots of horses with is one of Chloe's favorite animals?! I take Chloe at least once a week to see the "orseys" and to watch Cady ride them and she loves loves loves playing outside with all the horses it just makes her day! I am still amazed at the bond Chloe has formed with Cady and it just warms my heart to see Chloe smile when Cady comes over. Chloe has a little pegboard in her room with pictures of family and of course Cady, she goes up to it everyday and points to the picture and says "ca-ey" over and over =]

♥ my two loves ♥

Love it!

Heres a video of Chloe talking to Cady's picture on the computer. i love her little voice it makes me happy =]

Last but not least we celebrated nine wonderful months with Chloe on the 18th and so here is the monthly chair picture along with the others...

I'll update again in a few weeks, i hope everyone is well =]

Taking a break

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, classes started last friday & im enrolled full time so ive been busy with all that not so fun stuff . Ive decided to take a bit of a blogger break again, im not sure how long it will be but i just really haven't had the time/energy to blog. The only thing ive been doing on here besides school stuff is myspace haha.

Heres a quick update....Chloe is doing great and is getting more and more comfortable with going to other people. we've had a really hard time getting her to let other people hold her besides our really close family that she sees everyday. Last week i had a friend spend the night almost every night so Chloe got used to seeing a new person and getting comfortable with her and will now reach out for my friend to hold her when shes around. Chloe even reached out for her today while i was holding her and it made me happy to see her trust build.

heres a picture of Chloe with a smily face balloon today!

i might pop in once a week and post a picture or two but im not making any promises and i really dont know when i will be back to regular posting.

My Glamour Girl

Chloe loves putting on sunglasses and walking around with them on, no matter whos sunglasses they are! This poor kid doesn't even have much of a nose so she has to balance them with her hands to keep them on which makes it more adorable if you ask me =). Sometimes she will tilt her head back to keep them from falling and i joke with her about being a gangsta because she looks like shes trying to be "cool", lol. She does have a pair of her own, little pink ones that we've had for a while but she prefers the over-sized ones like the ones i wear which are big (because we all know that big sunglasses are in) the bigger the sunglasses the cuter they look on her with her tiny nose =). I call her my little glamour girl a lot when she wears them because she looks SO glamourous!!

**as always, click to enlarge**

8 months a family!!!

Sorry for the lack in posting lately, classes started friday so ive been busy getting my schedule fixed, getting school supplies, etc.
Yesterday we celebrated 8 months since Chloe day! Its hard to believe its been 8 whole months since Chloe was handed to us, 8 months of amazing fun filled days with this precious child! I know i say this alot but its truly amazing the strides Chloe has made since day 1, just having the ability to trust us to supply her needs never ceases to amaze me. This has been the most amazing journey and i am forever grateful to have the opportunity to love this sweet girl.
I love comparing each month's picture to the previous ones just to see how much Chloe has grown so this month i added one of the referral pictures we recieved to this slide show.

Here are a few more pictures from our little 8 month photoshoot....

My Brown Eyed Girl (and bubbles!)

You probably know where im going with this post just by the title...so after seeing dozens of websites with this adorable shirt on them i finally broke down and bought Miss Chloe THE shirt everyone talks about, because everyone does love a brown eyed girl!

We have this pig bubble maker that spits out bubbles when you press the handle on the back that Chloe LOVES. We've had it for a while but Chloe was scared of it for the longest time and wouldn't even get near the thing yet seems to have grown to love it. Its so adorable the way she says "bubbles!" with such excitement, oh how I love this girl!

Lastly I wanted to post a cute collage of Chloe from yesterday after we got home from a day of shopping! Aren't her little Cr0c$ just to die for?

**as always, click to enlarge**

Beach pictures at last (and lots of 'em!)

Sorry it has taken me sooo long to post the beach pics but it's taken me forever to do the collages, probably because I took so many pictures during our beach trip! I LOVE Charleston and The Isle of Palms and cannot wait to go back (hopefully during Labor Day!). I think it would be an understatement to say that Chloe enjoyed the beach, she had the time of her life and charmed every single person she came in contact with!
Tomorrow afternoon our social worker is coming to do the post placement visit so Chloe will have on one of my personal favorite outfits for the occasion ( so i will be taking lots of pics) and even got her very first haircut today to go along with it (pics of that to come!) So this is pretty much it for playing catch up from my hiatus, so next time you see pics of Miss Chloe she will be sporting her new hairdo!!!

*The Isle of Palms beach!*

*Swimmin at the hotel pool!*

*Check out them piggytails!*

*I LOVE that dress, btw don't her new Crocs look cute?! heh!*

*A lot of random pics i wanted to share!*

As always **click to enlarge**

Beautiful pictures of my girl!

Im almost done doing collages of the beach pictures but wanted to post these pictures that Melanie over at Blossom Memories did for me of my sweet Chloe. I think they turned out great and i love the way she did them. Thanks Melanie for doing these for me i will definetely be contacting you to do more soon!

Im back...but not for long!

Just a quick post to let you all know everything is going good here, just been takin it easy this week and swimming almost everyday! We are getting ready to head out for a 7 month reunion with our China travel buddies, everyone but one family is coming so it should be a lot of fun to see all the girls again! Monday we are going on our yearly family vacation to Charleston so im so stoaked about that and am not bringing my laptop. Chloe is doing great and just loves being ouside enjoying the summer weather. I will be back in about a week or two and will be posting a bunch of photos taken during my hiatus so look for that and enjoy the rest of your summer! Of course I can't end this post without a few pics to give you a "Chloe fix" heh. Enjoy!

Happy 7 months! (will do a collage when i get back, i just wanted to post this months pic)

Playing by the pool

I just love my princess hair dryer!

Still finding a smile while drinking her juice in T@rget

Night night sweet girl!

Chloe's first Build A Bear!

This will probably be my last post for about a week because we have VBS at my church next week and my parents and I are over it so I will be pretty busy.

Yesterday me, mom and Chloe went shopping and took Chloe to Build A Bear for the first time so she could make her own stuffed animal. I think she was pretty confused by it all and made it clear that she did not like the animals that were not stuffed yet. They had so many to choose from but we went with the bear that is like "baby's first bear", its super soft and has its eyes sewn in so we don't have to worry about them coming off and Chloe eating them. heh. Anyway she had such a blast "making" her bear which we named "Xing Xing" because that was Chloe's nickname at MaoNan (her orphanage). We even put a little Hello Kitty shirt on her (the bear) and bought a little pink stroller so Chloe could stroll Xing Xing everywhere, which she did! She LOVES that stroller and strolled her bear all over the mall, it was so funny and adorable.

**click to enlarge**