GO TARHEELS!!

Thanks for my uniform Lydia and Paul! I can't wait to wear it with "Zi i's" jersey!

GO HEELS!

She is definitely a first child

I started laughing the other day thinking about how many pictures I have of Ceilidh. You can definitely tell she is a first child. I am the third child and I have hardly ANY baby pictures. I guess when you are chasing other children around, you don't have time to take pictures. Well, here are a few more Christmas pictures. We have all had a wonderful Christmas, but I think Ceilidh has enjoyed it the most. She was so excited at one point on Christmas Eve, that she literally laid in the floor and started spinning in circles. HA She just didn't know what to do with all her excitement! Seeing people she loves, reading books about Santa, talking about Jesus, and opening presents; what more could a 18 month old ask for?!


Ian and Ceilidh hugging, aka: adorable!


The Clendenin great grandchildren minus 3 (Ceilidh 18 months, Zion 23 months, Ian 14 months, Charlotte 6 months)


Thank you Aunt Maia, I love my new dress!


Mommy loves my new cape!

Christmas Round 2

Ceilidh has not gotten out of her Little Tikes Car yet! ha She is carrying her Dora backpack around and saying, "Bye Bye" every time she opens and closes the car door. Daddy made his famous Christmas breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, grits, oranges, coffee, and toast/biscuits. Ceilidh got excited about the "grips" (grits). Here are a few more pictures from Andrew's parents celebration as well as some from our Christmas morning.


Stocking stuffers from Daddy






Are you getting the idea we love cookies around here?!


I love Uncle Paul!






Snuggling with Aunt Susanna


She kept putting the Santa hat on all by herself and riding around

Christmas Round 1

My memory card is getting full so I needed to get them on the computer! ha Christmas Eve morning starts the festivities for our family at Nana's house (Andrew's maternal grandparents). We perform a Christmas pageant every year so Ceilidh truly was an angel this year! wink Tonight, we will go to church and then on the ZZ and Pop's house (Andrew's parents). Tomorrow we visit Grandma (Andrew's paternal grandmother), and then we will see Grappy and Granddaddy (my parents) next week b/c they are with my brother this year. I'm sure there will be many more pictures coming throughout the next couple of days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

My husband deserves a medal

The glorious music (sarcasm is dripping all over the keyboard right now) of "The Nutcracker" begins resonating in my ears sometime around late September/early October. In all seriousness, I love certain pieces of the production, but after listening to it incessantly for 3 months straight, I want to run out of stores at the first beat of any Nutcracker music.

I begin teaching classes their individual dances at the end of September. The first two Saturdays of December, I am in the studio from 9am to 4pm; and then the week before the 5 performances we do, I am in the theater from 3:30pm until 8:00-8:45pm every night. Obviously this is not a schedule that is conducive to children. This is where Andrew's medal comes in. My sweet husband has helped with Ceilidh every second that I have been gone this month without one iota of a complaint. For this you deserve a medal. Now some of you may be thinking, well he is her parent. And yes I agree with you, but usually I am at home to help. So THANK YOU, Andrew. I love you so much, and could not have asked for a more involved father for Ceilidh!

On a side note: I learned how to sew tonight!!! I am pretty impressed with myself. ha I sewed tutus all night tonight!

"Ar" Tree

Ceilidh has called our Christmas Tree, "Ar" Tree since we brought it home. It is really funny. She never puts Christmas in front and she pronounces our as "ar." I know all children at this age are really into repetition, but I could probably give you a play by play of Ceilidh's whole day b/c she does the EXACT same routine everyday. One of those routines is running to the front windows after lunch and playing with the decorations in the window sill. The Christmas Tree is in the corner beside the windows so naturally she starts looking at the tree and ornaments. She has a few favorites and the order sounds something like this; "Momma, Ar Tree, Baby Jesus, Sanza (Santa), Momma, Cracker (Nutcracker), Quack Quack! I love the fact that this happens everyday but she tells me about the ornaments like it the first time ever seeing them.

Today she really did find a new one. She had already done the run-through of favorites, and she started saying, "Shobel (Shovel). I thought that's weird, and started asking her where she saw a shovel. She pointed to the tree and I remembered that yes we do have a "shobel" on the tree. The first year we got married Tim and Nicole gave us some of the cutest ornaments we have, and one is a snow shovel. Ha! So Nicole, take pride that your ornament is a big hit with Ceilidh. The baby Jesus and Carolina Nutcracker come in a close second, ZZ!

Congratulations Cait!

Just wanted to say congrats on another semester finished! We are so proud of who you are as a person most importantly, as well as the things you are accomplishing at the greatest University in all the world! wink We love you!!

Snuggle Time

One night at dinner a while back, my father-in-law asked us all at the table whether we were more inclined to abuse grace or nullify grace. Obviously just like everyone, I have moments in both extremes, but usually lean more toward nullifying grace. I have a really hard time breaking out of my legalistic theology of do's and dont's from God. I really feel God has been trying to break me of this for all while. One of my biggest issues is time alone with God. I feel really guilty when I don't make time for quiet time, sometimes to the extreme of letting it affect my idea of God's opinion of me. Yes, the discipline of quiet time is a great thing, but I am not loved more or less by my performance.

Well, the other night while I was putting Ceilidh to sleep, I started thinking about this again. Ceilidh was having trouble laying down, and had asked me to "wok, mommy, wok" (rock)when I walked back in her room. When I sat down to rock her, she laid her head on my shoulder and tucked her arms and legs into her body so that every part of her body was being touched by me. I have to say, even after she settled down I didn't want to put her in the crib b/c I was loving her desire to be so close to me. And then it hit me. Why am I any different than Ceilidh to our heavenly father? He loves my desire to be close to him even more than my love of Ceilidh's desire. I don't have to have all the answers, or do all the "right" things. I don't want to nullify his grace anymore, he did Beyond enough on the cross....I just want to snuggle.


If I believe that he sees me like this, one of his children, co-heirs with Christ, how could he not desire closeness with me?

A Big Friday!

This Friday, Ceilidh and I had a much needed visit from Nicole and Hudson! Nicole is one of those friends, that no matter how long it has been since we have last talked, I feel like we never missed a beat after catching up. I love her and I am so thankful for who she is as a person and who she is to me. I really love her baby as well! Here are a few pictures of the future Mr. and Mrs. Hudson Samuel Carey. HA Just kidding, even though that would be pretty cool if it were to come true!







After dance, Andrew and Ceilidh picked me up to watch the tree lighting in Pinehurst. This was my first time being able to attend the lighting and I'm so glad I did. There were a ton of people, free hot cider/ hot chocolate, caroling, a countdown to the lighting, and then..... SANTA (as Ceilidh would say)! We are really trying to keep the season focused on Jesus, but we are also fine with healthy make-believe such as Santa. It is really funny how excited she gets over Santa. I don't even really think she knows who or what he does, but she knows she really likes SANTA! ha After we got home and got her in bed, we could hear her talking about all the things she had done and people she had seen that day; momma, daddy, Santa, ZZ, pops, zi i i (zion), chrissmaz, and then a continuous repeat until she finally fell asleep. It was really sweet to listen to.

Happy Birthday Aiden!

Happy Birthday Aiden ( A day late!) I love you so much!

From abandoned infant to beautiful dancer

Willa is one of my dancers. I had no idea what an amazing story she had! I have had her in class for 3 years now and I have never heard all the details of her story. I knew she had lived in an orphanage, and had gone to China to visit the director, but I had no clue that she had been found alone on a bridge as an infant. I think adoption gets WAY too much negative media, so I am always excited when they actually report a good story. I love even more that I know Willa and her sweet gentle spirit!

This was in our local paper:
Visit by Chinese Is Special to Local Girl

BY JOHN CHAPPELL: STAFF WRITER

Willa Mitchel was just 7 months old when somebody found her lying on a bridge in China.

That unknown person took the little abandoned child to an orphanage where she would spend the next nine months of life before her "Family Day" -- the day she was adopted and brought home to the Sandhills of Moore County.

Now she is a sprightly 11-year-old American kid growing up as a Tar Heel. She knows only a few words of Chinese, but she listened closely last week as visitors from her native land spoke to county leaders. Willa and her dad, Roger Mitchel, were guests for a breakfast meeting to sign a friendship pact between a county in the land of her birth and the county where she now lives.

Willa and her parents stay in close touch with a number of other families in the state who have adopted children from China. She was one of 10 children who made a "homeland visit" at the same time as the Friendship Delegation from North Carolina was in China for the dedication of the monument in Guidong last year.

"We were there for a homeland journey," her father said. "We went back with 10 people. All these girls see each other twice a year. They all take part in Chinese New Year through the Triangle Area Chinese American Society (TACAS)."

TACAS is a 30-year-old nonprofit organization organized to foster Chinese-American cultural exchang-es, promote Chinese language and cultural education, and support the exchange of culture and arts among all ethnic, racial and professional backgrounds.

"Every child we traveled with is part of this ongoing cultural education that continues," he said. "Willa is the only one that doesn't have the opportunity to learn Chinese. We are trying to get something going here."

Some day, perhaps when there is enough demand for it, there will be teachers of Mandarin Chinese and classes here as there are in larger North Carolina cities.

"We did this for our daughter," Mitchel said. "We had 10 adults and 10 kids. I took our older daughter, Caitie, with us along with Willa. The whole purpose is to show these girls where they came from. We plan on going back again in five years. We took them all back to their original provinces, to their original 'finding spot' as they call them."

The finding sites vary as much as China.

"One city was all mud, where one little girl had been found in a motorcycle shop," he said. "We went back, and she met the woman who was the director when she came in as an infant."

The person who found Willa took her to an orphanage that happened to be one of more than 200 Chinese orphanages that take part in international adoption. The Maoming Welfare Institute (MWI) in Guangdong Province in southern China is about a six-hour train ride from Guangzhou (formerly Canton) through rolling hills past farmland, mining camps, duck and fish farms.

MWI had opened its new building when Willa returned for last year's visit.

"It was a different place," she said. "It was very nice."

The new facility has room for a daycare center, several beds for senior citizens and rooms for the children who await adoption. It has a total of 300 bedrooms. There is also a medical clinic with eight doctors serving both the center and the local community. It currently cares for children ranging in age from newborn to early teens who, due to various circumstances, are in need of families.

The American girl from China was seeing her hometown for the first time she would remember.

"It was really different," she said. "I was fascinated by all the people and how they lived. I was really amazed by everything, a great trip."

She went to the river and walked out onto the long bridge where she'd been found as a baby.

"I came from Maoming, and I got to go there," she said. "It was a great experience."

Happy Anniversary Kathi and Kevin!

13 years! wow.... I am proud of you guys and thankful for my three beautiful nieces and nephew! I love you.


Note: I am not responsible nor do I condone the Devil Blue indoctrination of my nephew! I have saved one Withers child at this point and continuing to do my best to save the other two!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yay!!! It's Christmas time! The Clendenin home kicks off the season by decorating the Christmas Tree while listening to Christmas music and eating cookies. This isn't Ceilidh's first Christmas, but last year she was only 6 1/2 months old, so this is really the first year she is "experiencing" Christmas. Thanks Aunt Susanna for helping us decorate the tree! We love you!


She kept asking to "help, mommy." She did a great job actually!


So some of our cookies look more like snow blobs rather than snowmen, but they tasted great. And yes that is Ceilidh's little hand taking advantage of mommy being preoccupied! ha


Hanging her stocking


She was pooped out before the lights were even on the tree! ha


Susanna and Ceilidh hanging one last ornament before Ceilidh went to bed


Hanging of the Sand dollars


The finished product! Stop by anytime you can, Ceilidh would love to show you her "choo choo choo choo!"