It is hard to believe that we have been home for 6 months with Karine! Time has just flown by! She is doing amazing and we're in awe at how fast she is learning her new language. She understands everything we say to her and is now beginning to say words. We know that she will need some speech therapy as her speech is not very clear. We will soon be looking for a private speech pathologist. She's grown 5 centimetres since May. I realized how much she had grown when I saw her looking through the front window. Before, you could only see the top of her head.
She had so much fun on Halloween! The week before, I explained to her what she was going to do on Halloween night. Well, the girl didn't want to wait for Halloween. She was ready to go door to door. All week, she would show me how she would ring the door bells and would act out how the people would "throw" her the candy in her bucket.
She's been adjusting really well to her brothers and them to her. When we're at the bus stop and she hears the bus coming, she gets so excited. She jumps up and down. When the boys get off the bus, she goes off running to them with her arms open. It is so cute to watch. She loves to imitate others. When her brothers sit down to do their homework, she goes and gets her "homework" book too. It's a little activity book that she loves to scribble in as if she's doing her homework like them. We had our first snowfall the day before Halloween. She had lots of fun playing in it that she didn't want to come in. The snow only lasted a couple of days but I'm sure we'll be getting more soon as the weather is getting colder. At first, she wasn't too happy wearing boots but when she realized that they lit up, well, she changed her mind.
This past Sunday, we had her Baptism. She looked beautiful in her chinese dress that we got her in China. She thought so too! ;-) She had to go to every mirror in the house and have a look at herself. She loves girly things and anything to do with princesses. She was very happy when I told her that she looked like a princess. :-) As we're getting closer to Christmas, we're seeing a lot of Christmas decorations when we're out doing errands. She LOVES to look at decorated Christmas trees. It's going to be such a wonderful Christmas this year! What a gift she is to us!
I've been keeping her and I busy while the boys are at school. We go swimming every week, museums, the farm, the park. She really enjoys going to the children's museum as it's hands on play but her favourite as to be the farm. Every day she'll "talk" about the animals she sees at the farm. She loves the outdoors. We'll often go for walks. We took her a few times to the dog park and was excited to see all the dogs running. I wouldn't have brought her there when we first arrived from China as she was terrified of our little 15 pounds dog.
We feel so bless to have her part of our family. It is so much fun to watch her explore her new surroundings. I'm enjoying every moment that I spend with her at home. We are looking forward to seeing what the next 6 months will bring!
