Pesto, Pickles and Parties

We've been having fun in the kitchen lately. We bought a bunch of produce at our favorite farmer's market, along with other pretty items:

Willa and I made four batches of pesto.

We also had a pickle contest! We used two different recipes and made two huge batches. The girls did ALL the slicing. It was Willa's first experience with a sharp knife and she did great.

 The contest resulted in a clear winner! It was unanimous (although both batches were quite tasty).

We also recently attended a surprise party for sweet Molly at the American Girl bistro.

 

I met Molly's mom through the blog world. They live in Florida and it has been such fun getting to see them when they visit and have the girls get to know each other!

Fashion and Flowers

We've been having fun with theme weeks again this summer. The girls particularly liked Fashion Week, where they designed clothes for their animals (alive and stuffed), tie-dyed clothes with the neighbors, and Jia discovered a new role model in Vera Wang. There are some great books out there about her.

We also liked Flowers week, which involved visiting pretty places, and lots of sniffing.

We are all looking forward to Magic week! I did a magic trick for Willa the other day (disappearing coin). She became very excited and ran over to me, hugged my leg and exclaimed, "Oh Mama, you're magical!" Love her.

Summer

It's flying by! It has been incredibly hot, but we've managed to have fun nonetheless. Here are some of the things we've been up to this summer:

Hitting the beach:

 

Going to nature play areas:

 

Dressing up friend Katie as a creepy woodland bride (actually, they didn't think it was creepy, but I did):

 

Fort building:

  

 

Hitting the zoo:

Enjoying the butterfly garden:

 

 

Having art class with the neighbors:

Dressing up:

Doing watermelon nails! I saw this great idea here.

 

 

The girls also spent four days rehearsing a play with the neighbors. They had it in front of our neighbor's garage, and set up curtains, chairs and a sound system. It was about a group of three girls who misbehave at school and cause all sorts of trouble for their teacher and principal.

 

It was raucous and slapsticky.

 

 

The girls won in the end, and the teacher and principal retired.

 Let's hope it all remains fictional!

Travel Group Reunion

This weekend, we had our reunion with the two other families who traveled to China with us. Here are the three Qichun girls:

As usual, the girls got along famously! They played together for nearly six hours and enjoyed each other so much the entire time, as you can see!

 

 

 

  

 The eldest and the youngest (and new arrival)!

 

When we left, all the girls begged for another playdate soon...we'll have to get that in the works! We're so happy these families live so close and that girls are able to maintain such a great connection.

Jia Day Number 6!

On July 10th, we celebrated six years with our brilliant, beautiful Jia. We spent the day playing at a place called "The Works." It's a place where kids learn...how things work!

The highlight of our time there was making working compasses and cardboard race cars! The races were on!

I made one too and we raced them down our driveway after we came home. Such fun!

Jia loved her present this year. It was a book about Chinese folklore, one of the many gifts we purchased on our adoption trip for her. We learned the origin of the Dragon Dance and similar tales.

We also read Jia's lifebook again. I made it a while back and happily need to update it with new information! At the time of her adoption, we only had photos of her foster mother. We now know her name, and recently learned her address and phone number! We also received a message that she would love to hear from her foster children, so we are going to send a package of photos and a letter to her.

Our post from the day we met Jia is here. We have all come such a long way. Especially Jia, of course, our brave, strong girl. We love you so much sweet Jia!