So Sweet!!!

I guess Brady is starting to like his baby sister because when we walked into Uncle Eric and Aunt Pam's house (Alan's brother and sister-in-law) for our Christmas Eve celebration he said:

"this is Emily, she belongs to our family"!!!! Really, could it get any better than that???

25th Day Being Home

Today marks 25 days we that we have been home with Emily!!! This morning Brady said to me, "I no like Emily, PLEASE take her back to Taiwan"!!! LOL I knew this would probably happen so I actually thought it was funny!!!

Merry Christmas!

I'm very, very happy with our Santa photo this year!!! Brady looks like such a proud big brother, and somehow we managed to get Emily to look in the right direction. She was VERY curious about Santa, she took a good long look at him before turning to the camera. And Brady surprised me this year too. He's never been "afraid" of Santa, but I wouldn't say he liked him either so I was pretty surprised when he walked right up to Santa and waited for him to pick him up. And after the picture was taken he stayed on Santa's lap and told him he would like a teddy bear and a rocking horse for Christmas!! He's getting one of those for sure!! :-)

Emily's Raspberries

Here's a cute video of Emily learning how to blow raspberries!!! She was our entertainment after Thanksgiving dinner!! LOL

First Snow of the Winter!

Last Saturday morning we were all hanging out in our bed having some lazy family time when Brady left to go downstairs but came running back shouting, "mommy, it's snowing"!!! It was SO cute!!! Boy was it ever snowing!!!! We knew we were "supposed" to get some snow but we had no idea was going to amount to as much as it did....probably a good 3-4 inches or so. Alan, Brady and I went out to enjoy the snow while Emily took her morning nap and then Alan and Brady went back out for more fun in the afternoon!! Brady had so much more fun in the snow this year than he did last year, so I'm hoping we get some more snow days for him to enjoy!!!

this is the view from our front porch

The snow was really coming down!!

a view down our street

Brady in his new awesome hat my friend Heather made!

I LOVE the expression on his face in this one!

Chelsea had a BALL in the snow!!! I'm sure she's looking forward to more too!!

Since We've Been Home

Wow, I feel like we've been busy since we've been home, but I guess that's because we got home the week of Thanksgiving and then of course we've been getting ready for Christmas too! We've been having fun getting to know Emily and watching her and Brady together. I have to say that most of the time Brady is very good with his new little sister, but of course there are "moments".....like yesterday when I had to explain to him that she is too little to have a pillow fight with!!! LOL (I'm not ever sure where he learned about pillow fights!!!). He's very sweet with her and checks on her if she is crying but then he'll turn around and take one of her toys away from her!!! I've guess I've got 18 years of that to look forward to!! LOL. Anyway, here's what we've been doing since we got home:

Emily loves her exersaucer and bouncer!! (if you look to the left and scroll down you'll see a similar picture of Brady and that too was just after we arrived home!!)

Proud Big Brother

I LOVE this one!!!

she's awfully proud of herself and her standing skills!

she had just figured out how to do raspberries!! LOL

Brady and my mom sharing a snack!! (Brady is usually pretty close to whoever has food!!)

Emily, Pop Pop and Brady

Emily showing off her new hat that my friend Heather made!!!

I'm not sure if Brady is pushing her away or if he was liking this!!LOL

a self portrait of me and Brady!

Brady took these two pictures of me and Emily "all my buyin self" (ah, that's Brady speak for "all by myself") I happen to think he did an excellent job!!

we put up he Christmas tree!!

A little mommy and Brady snuggle/tickle time!!

Getting to know Chelsea, who is being AWESOME!!! I'm not sure if it's because she's "used to" having kids around or if it's because Emily is a girl, but it's pretty amazing how different she is to Emily compared to how she was with Brady when we first brought him home!!

Playing together

having fun with all her toys!

Brady putting on a show!! He is SUCH a performer and we LOVE it!!

Our first picture as a family of 4!!! I LOVE IT!!! :-)

Flight Home

Our flight home seems like it was so long ago, but it was only 2 1/2 weeks ago!! All in all it was pretty uneventful, especially considering we changed our flight and came home 2 days early. We had to do a little seat juggling once on board because Alan was not able to book our seats together, but on both segments people were more than happy to switch with us so we could be together. I'm happy to report that Emily did really well on the flight, except for about an hour of the 11+ hour flight from Tokyo to Washington Dulles.

Alan and Emily in the United lounge at the Taipei airport.

The Taipei airport had this cool display of all these Oxen. I'm not really sure what the story behind them was/is but I thought they were really cool. (I have pictures of all them, about 12 or so, but I thought I'd spare everyone and just post this one picture!!).

AHHHH...one of the best things about flying a US based airline was being able to get a Diet Coke!!! In my opinion Coca Cola Light is NOT the same as Diet Coke!!

Our airplane

Miss Emily showing off her standing skills at not quite 7 months old!!

The nice people we swapped seats with took this picture of the 3 of us!!

Getting a diaper change on our seat, which fully reclined into a "bed"!!

Emily showing off her homecoming outfit!

Our friends and family waiting for us at the airport. A big THANKS to Viv for taking pics of US arriving.

Brady giving Emily the pink dog rattle he picked out for her!!

This is the smile I got from him when I asked if he liked his new baby sister!!! :-)

Day 5-The "Famous" Scroll Guy

Our final stop on Day 5 was to head back to Snake Alley to have our scrolls made. Pretty much everyone from our Yahoo Group gets one of these scrolls and we have one for Brady so it was a "MUST DO" this trip!!!

I was originally hoping to get a gold scroll done for Emily as red and gold are good luck colors (and red does NOT go with her room colors), but he no longer carries gold ones...bummer! So I then decided on white, but he didn't have white in the usual small size, but he did have the bigger one, so we went ahead and got that for Emily. Like Brady's scroll, it says, "Love, Forever, Family, Yi-Han" and I think it turned out just perfect!!!

This time we also got a scroll for our front entry way and another one for a Christmas present!! As luck would have it, we had just enough, I mean just enough money for the 3 scrolls!! I think we spent a bit more money than we anticipated at the Jade Market and because we were leaving the next morning we didn't want to change any more money so we just went with what we had on hand. In our defense, we would have had a bit left over, but Emily's big scroll was more expensive!! ( I had a moment there, when I thought we were going to have to ask Mr. Yeh for a loan!! LOL)

working on Emily's scroll

the finished scroll!!

working on the "Christmas Present"

our scroll, which says "Happiness, Longevity, Family" with our family name "Suan". This is by far, one of my most favorite "souvenirs" that we've gotten in Taiwan!!

He made this fan for us, free!! Alan says that literally translated, it says, "Beth loves Alan Suan" LOL!!! Appropriate though!!

Day 5-Lunch, Yamingshan National Park and the Jade Market

As you can see from all of these "Day 5" posts, we were very busy on our last day!!! It was already going to be a packed day, but once we decided we were leaving 2 days early, we had to squeeze a few things into the schedule!!!

We stopped at this little hole in the wall place for lunch for "cat's ear" soup!!! I was a little worried when Mr. Yeh, Angel and Alex were first talking about it but then I found out the "cat's ear" is just a noodle in the shape of a cats ear!!! SHOOOOO!!!! The soup was very very good!!

Mr. Yeh holding Emily so Alan and I could eat

the cats ear noodle

Angel and me enjoying our soup

Alex finished first, so he took Emily outside....he is SO good with babies, especially for a teenage boy!!

Next we went to Yamingshan National Park. This place was so so pretty and we had awful weather so I can only imagine how it must look in the Spring!! (So, those of you who will be traveling in the Spring make this a MUST SEE!!!)

I have no idea if there is a "story" behind this giant clock, but it sure is cool!!

a food cart in the park...Alex bought himself stinky tofu and a tea egg.

we also did a quick drive by of the springs

We then made a stop at the Jade Market, which was a lot of fun. I do find the whole place a bit intimidating, but it's still fun. We managed to find some cool gifts for us, the kids and friends and family so it was a productive excursion!!

these are pictures of Alex stringing a kids sized bracelet for us!!! The booth owner only had one and I needed two, so Alex got to work!!! ( I have no idea if he knew this woman or not!!LOL)