Lella and LiLi

This post is for my girls.  Jie jie and mei mei.  Big sister and little sister.  Lella and LiLi (as Ethan likes to call them :-).  It's exciting for me to have two girls and watch them grow up together, to witness the dynamics that I never had.  So far, we've had our ups and downs with our girls. When we first adopted Liana, Ella treated her like a little doll but soon after coming home from China, she started treating her more like a sibling.  And I was happy about that. Liana basically adores Ella but it's not perfect, as sibling relationships never are.  It has been hard on Ella to give up being the only "princess" of the house.  She adores her little sister and loves to see her in pretty little outfits and tell her how pretty she looks or play dolls with her or read stories to but if she thinks Liana is getting too much attention, you can feel the jealousy in the air.  Liana likes to push Ella's buttons and call her "mean" just to get Ella upset or cry like Ella did something terrible to her when Ella tells her "no".  But she loves to play with her jie jie whenever she gets the chance.  Sometimes she is invited into Ella's room to play dress up, they love to paint their toenails and dance and sing.  She looks to her big sister and mimics what she does all the time.  There is still a big separation in their ages that makes it hard for them to play in a way that Ella would enjoy but I know that gap will get smaller and smaller as Liana grows and changes.  Despite the fact that Ethan is basically the same age as Liana, he and Ella can play really well together because he can talk very, very well for his age and he can keep up with Ella amazingly well.  Plus, they've grown up together.  Liana still has a lot of catching up to do but the gap is slowly closing.  I know how much Liana loves her jie jie and how much Ella loves her mei mei and I can see their bond growing more and more.  It's such a blessing to have these two beautiful daughters who are so very different from each other in some ways and so very alike in others.

We had a "girl day" last weekend which was a lot of fun.  I took the girls out to dinner and then to our favorite little girl salon to get their hair cut...Liana's first haircut!!  I dreaded cutting off any of the length that she had but it turned out so cute!!  She looks absolutely adorable and now, not all scraggly.  It was nice to have a big sis to watch first before she had to go through it.  She was about to have a melt down when I first put her in the chair but a dum-dum saved the day and she was fine.  It's so much fun to have "girl days" with both of these fun girls!

Ballerina girls

Styling Ella's hair...ouch!

Christmas cuties

Way, way too many bows!



Fishing!

Sweet mei mei and jie jie

Haircut time

So cute!