Oh, the difference a year makes!

It was one year ago today that we saw our sweet Emma Lee’s face for the first time. She is just the MOST AMAZING little girl! Emma has made us the happiest and proudest parents in the world.

I thought it would be fun to revisit those first photos of Emma – and ‘recreate’ them by taking similar pictures of her today. Just look at them together and see the incredible changes.

This is the first picture we saw of Emma:


And here she is today (boy is it tough getting an almost 2 year old to stay still!):


Here is the 2nd one - look at how she is gripping the arms!

Emma today:

Her Chinese passport picture (sorry it is so small):

Her passport picture now:

Aren't the changes remarkable? She is such a happy little girl and just the light of our lives! I love looking back at these pictures to remind myself just how much she has grown!

This year has had its’ challenges – we made pretty much every stressful change that we could this year: traveling across the world, becoming parents, moving, changing jobs, quitting mine to stay at home with Emma…yikes! But this year has also been so rewarding - the smiles, hugs, hearing Emma say mommy and daddy for the first time, watching her learn new things every day – sometimes you can see the wheels turning as she tries to figure things out – it is so incredible!

On another note, Emma has been quite sick for the past week. We have been battling an awful bug, but she is finally feeling better.

As I tried a shirt on Emma today, I realized it was one my mom bought her while we were in China because we were going to PA on our way home from China, and we only had warm weather clothes, and they were having very cold weather there. I dug around and found the pants she wore that day also. They both still fit her - well, sort of...

Here she is wearing the outfit as my parents dropped us off at the Pittsburgh airport. Notice that both the shirt and the pants are cuffed!

Look at the pants now - more like capris and the shirt is a little short and the sleeves are just right for 3/4 length!

Things will be very busy over the next few weeks. Emma and I are headed to PA on Thursday because my mom is having surgery (again) on her knee. We will be there for a week, then home for a few days to celebrate Emma’s 2nd birthday, then back to PA where Emma will have another party – hey, she will be 2, she may as well have 2 parties, right? We also need to make a trip to Richmond, so there is definitely a lot of travel in our future!