Almost a Month???

Life has been flying by ..... I can't believe that Gabi has been home with us for almost a month. She is learning English very quickly. Every day she says something new. I can't tell you how many times Jack, I or Hailee have stopped to look at one another and say "Did you hear that?" or "When did she learn that?"

The other night after dinner she said; "Hailee go, sit mama, sit papa -- Gabi do." She got up and cleared the table all by herself - a chore normally done by Hailee and Gabi. She wanted her window in the car open and said; "Mama window open little?" She's been battling a cold and when I picked her up the other day she told me; "School good, Gabi bad" and pointed to her head. I asked if her head hurt -- she said yes -- I told her that I had a headache too -- she stopped me so I could watch her hand motions as she asked me; "head big; head little Mama?" While grocery shopping we walked past the coffee -she pointed and said "Papa likes coffee" and as we headed to get milk she stopped and told me that "chocolate meilk (no typo) good." My personal favorite is "Hallow Schweetie."

She's still adjusting to school -- we've worked our way up to a 1:00 pick-up time. Tuesday she'll do a whole day at school -- until 2:30. I'll pick her up at that time for a while. Eventually she'll go to the afterschool daycare program until 4:30 .... we'll have to work up to it though.

Having stories read to her --- something she's really started to enjoy! She heads to the bookcase and looks at many books before making her final choice. Very cute!

During our time in Bulgaria Hailee and Gabi spent all of their time together .... they really seemed to enjoy each other. Unfortunately, since we've been home life has gotten in the way of them spending a lot of time together during the week. Hailee has been so busy with school, basketball, homework and just being a teenager that by the time she's ready to relax Gabi is heading to bed. It was nice to find them working on Lite Brite together .... here they are showing off their artwork .... Heading to bed .....
If there's something happening in the kitchen Gabi has to find out what it is. I was getting everything together to make muffins, she was amazed at those little paper muffin holders. She must have changed them around in the pan 10 times before she liked they way they looked and I could fill them with batter .....
Notice the papers in the pan -- a full row of pink in the middle and then 2 blue and 2 yellow on each side ...... imagine the look on her face when after baking we just pulled them out and threw them into a bowl ..... We were heading to church last week and Gabi decided to wear one of her dresses from Bulgaria -- Doesn't she look adorable? Ganka let her bring a few of her favorite things and this is one of them. Although, honestly, it was the most difficult jumper I've ever seen -- it took me forever to figure out how to get it on the right way.
We headed to the Racine Zoo and we had a great time. It's a small zoo but you can get very close to the animals. The colors were beautiful so we had a few "Kodak moments."

This is what I mean by close to the animals. Hailee loves that you can hear them "for real" because most of them are not in glass enclosures.

There was one area where we walked on a path with kangaroos hopping around on the grass near us -- black swans were crossing the path in front of us and a huge emu was nearby.

Gabi was very unsure about passing these swans, especially after she saw Lisa and Hailee go through first and the big one lunged for Lisa. We had to wait for them to get off the path before we could go.

A few days ago I noticed something new had been added to our entertainment center .... can you see what I saw??? All of the pictures in the living room are framed in silver --- except the new addition. The only person in the house with lime green framed pictures is .... GABI! She must have noticed at some point that she was not in any of the pictures YET (I'm working on it, honest) -- so she brought in one of the ones we did for her room!!! I was elated to find this .... to me it means she knows that she's part of the family, that she belongs -- and that she put this picture on the same shelf as the family picture just strengthens that feeling ....... what do you think?????

As if this wasn't enough -- Gabi has started to tell us how she feels about us ..... we've always said "I love you" quite a bit to each other. The response back is often "I love you, too" -- the other night Gabi piped up and said "I love you, tree" (meaning three) ..... those simple words made our hearts sing!!!!

Here's a little video that Gabi took at Hailee's basketball game (Hailee's #30 just in case you can't find her) -- when you're watching listen to the excitement in Gabi's voice when she sees Hailee .....