Jasmine van Zoest

(Long wavy hair)

Since her last birthday, a lot of things have changed. For one, Jasmine is much taller than she was last year. She is 87 cm -- 34 inches -- tall.

She will be celebrating her birthday in the Netherlands and will miss out on Christmas. Apparently Mr. Grinch stole our Christmas this year. He took everything, and then he stuffed the tree up the chimney. The last thing he took was the log for our fire, and the wall he left nothing but hooks and some wires. And the one speck of food he left in the house was a crumb much too small even for our mouse.

We hope to make it up to you, Jasmine, next Christmas when we will be back in San Diego. We hope by then, that our home in San Diego resembles Christmas. Christmas will always be Christmas just as long as we have we.

Merry Christmas to all!

(This series contain pictures of Jasmine avoiding the minus 2 degree winter outdoor by staying home and keeping herself busy with her paint brush and more!)

Dear Daddee,

You do so many thoughtful things that show what a caring person you are.

You have a wonderful way of making others feel good about themselves. Whenever help or encouragement is needed, you are right there.

Your enthusiasm makes it a joy to be around you.

So at Christmas time, we are sending you our love and thanks for being someone wonderful who has made our days happier and our life richer.

We hope your Christmas is wonderful and merry, as ours is because of your love.

Merry Christmas with love,
Jasmine and Pearl

Conversation between Jasmine and her Daddy from two weeks ago:

Dad: Jasmine, do you want to sit in the stroller?
Jasmine: No
Dad: Are you sure you don't want to sit in the stroller?
Jasmine: Yes
Dad: Why not?
Jasmine: Uhmm.... Diaper!
Dad: Do you need a diaper change?
Jasmine: Yes

Jasmine has definitely left her babyhood behind. In the last two months her language development has grown rapidly. She can make full sentences and has a much more extensive vocabulary. She can communicate her needs and feelings so much better now in both Dutch and English. She has also understands how to use pronouns quite well -- such as when she said, "I am cold!"

Lately, she has also started to categorize things. She likes to line her toys up in a straight line and organized it by size. She can take a DVD disc out of the player, so she can watch her favorite movie. She is also quite good at understanding descriptive categories such a "big" and "small" or "short" and "tall".

Jasmine is also able to count to 10. For as long as she does not feel pressured, she can count straight to 10 without skipping numbers. 1 month ago, she was not able to count to 5 so well. She would skip the numbers 2, 3, and 4. She has also started to ask lot of questions. She asks us "How many?", "Why is that? "or "What was that?" on a regular basis now.

In this series are pictures of her wearing her holiday dress. She looked über cute, but we were unable to take good shots. She wouldn't let us!

A video of Jasmine when she was 6 months old. Aunt Jenny and Aunt Nancy were baby sitting Jasmine and captured this video. Looking at this video, we realized how much Jasmine has grown.

Jenny, thank you for creating this video of her.