Christmas 2008

Pretty in Purple!

Lana is 7 and Lily is 4 1/2.

Lana Got Pierced Ears for Christmas!

Notice Lana's 1st grade smile -

she also got her two front teeth for Christmas!

Lana loves school and is reading like a pro!

Lily's New Violin!

Lily has been asking for a violin for months and finally got one for Christmas.

She can hardly wait for lessons to begin.

Happy Girl!

Lana has been home for 10 months now! Time really has flown by when I stop to think about all of the things that have happened in these past months. Lana's surgery in November, kindergarten, dance classes, swimming lessons, trip to the coast, visits with family, family camp, riding horses, summer school, bike riding (without training wheels!), Chinese school and so much more! We can hardly remember our family without Lana. She was meant to be our daughter.

Physically she is doing great, no restrictions (as you could probably tell from the list of activities above!) Lana has grown 4 inches and gained 7 pounds since October! She is beautiful! Lana had her cardiology check up last week and they are a little concerned that her left pulmonary artery is still too narrow. They were able to widen it in November during surgery, but it may need further widening. She is scheduled for another test next week to see how much blood is going to the right and left pulmonary arteries. Just an IV and pictures of her lungs to calculate the amount of blood going to each lung. If there is not enough blood going to the left lung, they will schedule a procedure to insert a stent to widen the artery. That should do the trick! Please keep Lana in your prayers.

Update, finally!

Lana and Lily

Where has the time gone? Lana has been with us for almost 9 months! Lana is doing great! She is a happy, healthy kindergartner. Her teacher says Lana is one of the most determined little girls she has ever met. Lana's latest accomplishment, the monkey bars! DaDa has taken the training wheels off her bike and Lana rides like a pro. We go back to Children's for a cardiology check up in July, and will probably only need annual check ups after that. Amazing.

Lily is excited for pre-kindergarten in the fall! She has been learning to read along with Lana. they love to pick out words they know when we are reading at bedtime. Lily also wants to take a gymnastics class as well as swimming and ballet! We are going to start with swimming and go from there.

We celebrated Lily's Adoption day in May. She has been home for 3 years! We also met up with our travel group and got to see Ava and Alice. They are all doing great! Beautiful and healthy girls.

Ava, Lana, Lily and Alice