November Update Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.  His love endures forever. —Psalm 136:1 November is the month we celebrate Thanksgiving.  It is a time for thanking God for the amazing blessings He has bestowed on our lives.  This year we were able to celebrate that holiday with one of the biggest blessings that God has given us—our little girl. We have had another amazing month, watching Mary Joyce grow and learn more every day.  She is now wearing mostly 9 month sized clothes, which is pretty remarkable considering she was in 3 and 6 month sizes when she came home.  Some mornings when she gets up, Chet and I look at each other and say, “Did she grow last night?”  It is an amazing thing to see. She is playing in more sophisticated ways than she was just a short time ago.  Instead of just banging the stacking cups together or tossing them around the room, she now nests them inside each other.  She also is in that phase where she likes to put things into containers.  Some days, she may have 5 or 6 toys in her sorting cube, but they may or may not be the blocks that actually go inside the cube.  (Quite often, you even find one of her socks or shoes in there.)  One of her new favorite things is to bring a couple of her toys, hand them to us, and signal that she wants to be picked up.  Then she will sit in our laps and play with her toys.  We are loving this, because Mary Joyce hasn’t been much of a lap sitter until recently. She also still loves the cats, with Chloe being her favorite kitty.  Chloe has even taken to joining Mary Joyce in our laps sometimes while Mary Joyce is getting her morning bottle.  The relationship between those two is just adorable. Earlier this month, Mary Joyce had her first scary accident.  She was crawling in the den with one of her stacking cups in her hand.  She went from the rug to the hardwood floor, and the hand with the cup slipped, causing her to bump her head on the entertainment center.  There are very few sharp edges on that piece of furniture, but of course, she found one of them.  Being a head wound, it bled quite a bit, but once we got it cleaned up, it really wasn’t bad at all.  She did sport a band-aid on the forehead for a little while, which got her lots of sympathy.  It was almost completely healed, and then the other day, she bumped the same exact spot on a chair, and it bruised.  Needless to say, you will see that spot in most of the pictures for this month.  (On a side note, we were looking at Gotcha Day pictures the other day and realized that she had a spot in that exact same place when she came to us.  Somehow, I’m guessing she’s done this before…) Mary Joyce attended (with us) her first Georgia Baptist Convention this year.  She wasn’t overly excited about the whole thing, but she did enjoy the music.  We also were able to see our friends Spencer and Lisa, and their daughter, Elisabeth (another Jiangxi cutie who some of you may remember from their Adoption Voyages site) on that same trip. For Thanksgiving, we went to Chet’s parents’ home in Madison.  Mary Joyce had the opportunity to see her Grandmama and Granddaddy again, and she met her first horses.  She also got to play with her cousins, Carl and Erica.  She loved Thanksgiving food, especially the sweet potato casserole and English peas.  She also enjoyed the dressing and broccoli casserole.  We had a great day with family and friends. The day after Thanksgiving, we went to visit some friends who live in Chet’s hometown.  They also have daughters from China, all of whom happen to also be from Jiangxi Province. (Most of the China girls that we know personally are from Jiangxi, which makes for a neat “red thread.”) First, we went to lunch with Rich and Heidi, and their daughter Leah.  In yet another demonstration that Mary Joyce’s mama and Leah’s mama think entirely too much alike, the girls were dressed in very similar outfits.  Completely unplanned, but it made for some cute pictures.  Later that day, we visited with our friends Forest and Caryn and their children.  Their youngest two daughters are from China (Jiangxi), as well.  Mary Joyce really enjoyed playing with Jessie, Julie, and Shea.  We may have to recruit Jessie as a babysitter in a few years when she is old enough—Mary Joyce loved her, and Jessie was able to keep her entertained. Recently, we have tried to start Mary Joyce getting used to being apart from us for short periods of time.  We first tried the church nursery, and she made it for about 20 minutes the first Sunday (Sunday before Thanksgiving).  We were a bit worried about how she would react the Friday night after Thanksgiving, because we planned to leave her with Chet’s parents for a couple of hours while we went out to eat.  She actually did fine.  She cried for the first little while, but then she played with her toys and went through the rest of her evening routine, pretty much like usual.  That was a huge relief!  Then, last Sunday, she actually made the entire worship service in the church nursery.  Progress!!! One more thing that we have learned this month—Mary Joyce loves music.  We knew she liked it, but she has become more and more interested.  She will stand and hold onto our fingers when she hears any kind of music and rock back-and-forth “dancing” to it.  Sometimes she even “sings.”  It is so cute and funny to watch.  I think she really entertained the gospel group who led our revival services at church.  It was one of those priceless moments. This has grown long, so I will wind it up and get on with the pictures.  Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas!  First birthday and Christmas pictures will come next month. :-)   Mary Joyce and Daddy at the Park     Fun in the Laundry Basket   What do you mean I have spaghetti on my face?     That was funny, Elisabeth!     New Uses for the Exersaucer   Chloe Joins Us for Meal Time     A Little Light Reading on the Way to Grandmama and Granddaddy's House     Watching Granddaddy with the Horse   Erica, Mary Joyce, and Carl Thanksgiving 2006     Playing in Grandmama's Kitchen     I think I see it over there, Grandmama!   Looking out the Window at Leah's House (Like the outfits? :-) )     Visiting Friends: Jessie, Mary Joyce, Shea, and Julie     No, Mama, I haven't seen the kitty...   I think I can, I think I can...     Our Precious Girl     A Girl and her Kitty           This page hosted by