Home with ShiYu

ShiYu is such a delight.  We get lots of special time together, as her siblings leave for school more than an hour before her and get home an hour after.

Its fun to see her try new things and use her big girl vocab that has absolutely flourished in the last year she's been with us.

Eating "Dragon Eye" for the first time.

She digs my crazy shakes. This one made her whole face green, big cup!


Here she is wearing a pair of shoes SHE decorated that she is very proud of (thank you montessori, for feeding her love for all arts and crafts!).  She loves writing letters, and shifts from the left to the right hand all the time (now she's mostly righty).


We have lots of boy toys at our house, and she can build with the best of them!


Here she is making a wreath with me.  This is her most favorite thing in the world to do... craft with me.  I feel so lucky.


Here she is rolling her own rosettes.  She's quite a natural!  All three girls love crafts and are at the age when little fingers like to be busy.


ShiYu is the first of my kids to tell me when she's sleepy.  She does just fine sleeping in a noisy room and loves the couch for her naps-- a full two hours still!


I have many videos of her telling me stories, this is a picture I snapped between one of her stories.  She is a chatty cathy.  When ShiYu first came, and we were getting to know each other, I was quite nervous that (though I could speak to her in her native chinese or my native english), the orphanage ayis said she didnt speak at all.

So I spent a lot of time just talking with her, just like friends do, I told her many stories that I'd never really shared before... adventures of childhood, stories about her siblings, about Tim and I etc.

Little did I know, roles completely reversed, and now she shares stories with me about anything and everything, while I just listen.  She talks a lot about Jesus, which I find interesting, because she is always the one to bring Him up.  We love you ShiYu... little angel girl!