One Year

I blame it on second child syndrome...I never got around to updating Johanna's blog to commemorate her being home for one year! Better late than never, right?!

Stats:

-43 inches tall (gain of 2.5 inches)

-36 pounds, 4 ounces (gain of almost 6 pounds)

-4T shirts and pants (definitely no smaller than that, especially with pants-long legs!)

-size 10 shoes

-2 haircuts, including 1 major one to even out the bangs with the rest of her hair once they grew out

-sleeps from 8pm to 7am and takes a 90 minute nap each day that we have to wake her up from

-definitely an introvert

-meltdowns only occurring a couple times a month now (hooray!)

-fully fluent in English with an ever-increasing vocabulary and some lingering pronunciation/grammar issues

Activities:

-DU gymnastics

-Chinese dance classes

-Denver rec art classes

-Denver rec swim lessons

-Skyline soccer

-play therapy

-Music Together classes

-Children's Music Academy classes

-Chinese Heritage Camp

-camping, hiking, skiing

-Stephen Knight Center for Early Education preschool (Ms. Hilary/Ms. Bev's class)

Visitors She's Had and Places She's Visited:

-Grandma and Grandpa

-Mimi and Papa

-Aunt Morgan

-Uncle Justin, Aunt Cindy, Bryce, and Warren

-Godparents Uncle Jason, Aunt Amy, Elena, and Emery

-Various places in Colorado (Fruita, Twin Lakes, Granby, Aspen, Winter Park, etc.)

-Michigan (Holland and Traverse City)

-Chesterfield, Missouri

Favorite Things:

-the color pink (and also yellow)

-anything frilly, lacy, fancy, or princessy

-Frozen and The Little Mermaid

-wearing dresses, hair accessories, and fingernail polish

-eating meat (LOTS of meat) and also noodles...actually just eating in general!

-snacks (especially chips and sweets)

-singing along with the Moana soundtrack

-playing pretend with Jonas (for hours on end!)

-reading books, dressing dolls, building things, putting together puzzles

-art projects and drawing pictures

-practicing her letters (she's definitely left-handed)

-dressing up like a princess or wearing her China dress

-animals (feeding farm animals, small dogs, cats, etc.)

-helping me cook

-going to the park, zoo, museum, library, pool, etc.

-dancing, swimming, playing games (she can legitimately beat me at her Frozen memory game!)
-holidays (she loved being Tinkerbell for Halloween) and presents (she got her first baby doll for her birthday)

Other Items of Note:

-I still get asked a few times a week if she and Jonas are twins! He automatically answers now, "No, we are five days apart." Then I really get the confused looks from folks!

-Johanna doesn't seem to have retained any of her Mandarin, though we're suspicious she still understands a bit of it when others speak. We're hoping she gets into an immersion school for kindergarten next year, so she can get it back.

-Her heart continued to look healthy at her yearly checkup, so we hope she's good to go forever on that front!

Johanna is a sweet, eager-to-please, helpful, and intelligent little girl. She can be overly sensitive, awkward, silly, dramatic, and delicate at times. But she is thoughtful, honest, musical, quick-to-learn, and basically the little princess who has completed our family. She and Jonas are the very best of friends, and I can't imagine a world in which they weren't siblings. We love our little Johanna!

Follow @aubreekeys on Instagram for nearly daily pictures of both kiddos!