shadow box

The glare is pretty bad on this picture, but you can get the idea. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a darker background for the box itself. This is a shadow box of the outfit Mae had on when I received her. I also want to do one with her beautiful Changsha hand-embroidered silk formal Chinese outfit. She wore it this year for her 2 year pics but it was pretty big still, so we'll re-visit it next year. Once she's outgrown it, I'll do another shadow box with it and a picture of her (and her Huaihua sisters) on the red couch. Maybe at that point I'll buy a darker background and swap the boxes. Anyway, this will go in her room and probably inspire some discussion. I was looking for a post about shadow-boxing the gotcha event and came across a post joyfully announcing the first time the child said "China" in reference to herself. (China movie, I believe was the phrase.) I wish I had paid better attention, because Mae's been saying "Mae-Mae watch China movie, Mama. See SuSu" for a long time now. We point out Auntie Ellen in the movie (because she's met Ellen twice and knows her, more so than Daphne) as well as the other moms we can see in the movie, especially Angelina's mom, who fills the screen at the end.) She knows the names of her China sisters and we go through her book often too. If you ask her where she came from, she'll say "China!" with a true smile. Rachel, Elyana's mom, told me recently that a lot of stuff came up around age 3, so I hope we can spend the 2's learning and enjoying what we know of her past.