A lot has happened since Halloween

My girls have been telling me that it is time for me to update the blog. So, here it goes... Thanksgiving: we celebrated Thanksgiving up in MN with Paul's sister, husband and 3 daughters. Mikenna had fun meeting Veronica who is just a few weeks younger than herself and then the twins who were 6 months old. We all had fun just hanging out with one another. Two weeks later, our niece got married and Mikenna loved the dance floor. Veronica and Mikenna entertained some of us through dinner as they danced the night away. They were very cute! Mikenna, in her very pretty dress was trying to do the "worm" for everyone. After the wedding we set up our Christmas tree... I'm sure she was trying to figure out why we had a tree in the house. Anyway, Christmas was a bit mellow this year since she had never experienced Christmas in China. She was happy to get the presents but not as excited as I had thought because she had no reference point to gear her experience on. We went to the zoo on Christmas Day as a family. Mikenna had never been to a zoo so she was very interested in all the animals that we saw. I had told her that her birthday was after Jesus' birthday so after Christmas, she thought her birthday would be coming. Little did she understand that she needed to wait until the end of January.
Mikenna's speech is coming along great. I think she has been immursed in the language so much that she really should not have any problems. We are having her tested thru the school district in March to see if she qualifies for early intervention for speech and hearing(just to make sure). So, we'll see what comes from that.
In January, Mikenna and Lori had the wonderful opportunity to meet another little girl(Anna) and her mom. Anna was adopted from the same town as Mikenna. Anna is 2 years old and Mikenna would say,"My new friend, Anna" whenever she would talk about our visit. We hope to continue to get the girls together for play dates. We now know 2 little girls from Nanning, China. The other little girl is a relative of mine that adopted Ella about 7 months before we got Mikenna. We plan on visiting Ella and her family in June out in CO. We are SO excited!
Mikenna also made another new friend, Dave. Dave's family has been in the adoption process a long time and they were waiting for Haiti to give them court dates. Well, the earthquake hit and God allowed many miracles to happen last week and Dave and his family were united. It was SO amazing to see God's hand in every step of the way. All 26 orphans were not hurt in the earthquake and all 26 were able to get their visas approved to come to the US. So, we went over on Sunday and spent some time with Dave and his family. It was a very emotional week for the Malley family but God is faithful. All our children are wonderful blessings!