Bai Jia Bei

Bai Jia Bei means 100 Good Wishes Quilt. In China when a baby is born, friends and family members each give a square piece of fabric to be sewn into a quilt. A smaller piece of the same fabric is given to be put into a scrapbook with a wish for the future for the baby. When 100 pieces of fabric are procured, the quilt is made. It gives the baby luck, energy and good wishes from the people who gave the fabric squares. It is handed down each generation.

I've been friends with a large group of girls since April 1999 when we all had a baby. We mostly interact online although many of us have met in real life. Without letting me know, they decided to make a bai jia bei for Anslee. These friends live all over the country so they all had to mail their fabric squares and messages. It was a big undertaking! Sondra did all the sewing and Alisa made the scrapbook. They both turned out beautiful! It was such an incredible suprise when we received the quilt in the mail!!

Thank you all so much. I know Anslee will treasure this forever!

Happy New year!

Happy 2006!!

Every year (except one I think) since we graduated from College we've spent New Year's Eve with the same couple who we went to school with. Our evenings have changed a lot over the years! We've gone from 4 of us to 8. This is the first year we've had four children total. Next year our friends will have added a new baby to our group!

Buster seemed to enjoy the festivities too!

Streamers are always a hit! We are still finding little pieces of

them when we sweep the kitchen.
This was one of Andrew's favorite Christmas gifts from Santa.Andrew is teaching Anslee all about the Georgia Bulldogs...
I hope everyone is enjoying the new year.

T

More Christmas pictures...

Andrew and his cousin giving an Anslee sandwich hug.

Andrew and Anslee opening their Christmas pajamas and new Christmas books.

Anslee and Granddaddy having a quiet time before bed.

We celebrated Christmas a day early with cousins.

Andrew's good friends gave him Georgia Bulldog pajamas.

Christmas Eve...

Every year Andrew gets new Christmas pajamas. These are this years. He made this gingerbread house at school. He decided to eat it midway through January. I don't think it could've tasted that good... See that little mark right under his lip? That's where Anslee "kissed" him (using her teeth).

We are waiting in line for Santa at the mall. I was suprised that Anslee wasn't scared or nervous at all about sitting on Santa's lap. After visiting Santa, we ate a cookie and went to build a bear. Anslee loves being in the stroller but if we don't have her harnassed in, she'll try to stand up in it. She is the most curious baby ever!

Christmas Eve we went to Church with Nana, Grandmommy and Granddaddy. Andrew's choir sang and Anslee loved the music. They both also loved lighting the candle at the end of the service when we sang Silent Night.

After the service we returned home and ate dinner. Then Anslee and Andrew opened their pajamas and put them on. We read some Christmas stories and then it was bedtime!

I am going to get all caught up on pictures and posts...

T

We're Back!!!

All,

Sorry for the lapse in posts. As you can all well imagine we have been very busy (and tired) since our return home.

I have been surprised by the number of people that were addicted to the posts. I hear that a lot of you needed this to go along with your cup of coffee in the morning. I hope you were able to find suitable replacements for your time in the interim.

After the 24+ hours of traveling back home we were wiped out. It took me a week+ to get back on track.

Things here have been awesome! I can not believe how quickly Anslee has integrated into our family. Honestly, I was expecting it to be much more difficult.

I'm not sure that Andrew could really believe it when he saw Anslee for the first time. After 14 months of talk, I think he thought that she was our snuffalufagus.

Here is Andrew with the welcome home sign he made for us. As important, you will notice in the background that our house has some Christmas decorations up and there are no leaves in my yard. Thanks Mike!!

This is a picture of the first time Andrew saw Anslee. It is about 4:30 am and we woke him up, but as you can see he was quickly wide awake.

We went downstairs and Andrew had his first opportunity to feed Anslee a bottle.

Hanging out in Anslee's room.

Big brother and little sister.

Check back I'll post Christmas and new years.