Shades

"Hey mom, think dad could see better if he wears these?"

Christmas

We had a really good Christmas this year. Usually on Christmas morning, the kids tear into their presents and I try my best to get photos of them opening their gifts (all at the same time). Opening presents usually doesn't last more than 15-20 minutes max. This year, we decided to slow things down a bit....we all took turns opening one gift at a time and sharing it with the family. The girls loved this as they were able to enjoy their sisters' joy as they opened gifts. It took us almost one and a half hours to open gifts this way!

This was the first year that the 5 of us drew names and made a gift for one another. (The girls read about doing this on a McD's happy meal box, and asked if we could try it.) The girls absoluately LOVED making gifts and have asked that we make this a family tradition. Definitely a fun tradition! Since dh can't see well, Emily and I helped with the gift he made for Claire which was two photo ornaments. Claire made a similar ornament for Allyson; and Allyson decorated a wooden box for dad (to empty his pockets each night). Emily painted a cute wooden photo holder for me, and stamped Asian fans all around it. I made a pillow for Emily using a t-shirt that someone gave us when we returned home with her 10 years ago (she said it was one of her favorite presents!).

The week before Christmas, the girls invited a few friends over to decorate Christmas cookies. Everyone took a nice tray of their festive creations home. We also had friends Chun and Ravi over to decorate cookies later that evening. They made some very creative cookie/candy sculptures (including the marshmallow guitar player and the razorback pictured here).

The week after Christmas, we went visited dh's brother's home. They live on a small farm and have several horses. Of course the visit wouldn't be complete w/o the kids riding the horses. One of the horses was feeling a bit spunky, so Uncle Tommy led her around so she wouldn't run away with the kids. :-)

Christmas Card

We did another home photo shoot this year, hoping for the perfect shot for our Christmas cards. I didn't like any of the shots from the first try, so we scrapped those photos and started over one Sunday after church. We ended up using this photo of the girls just playing around with their antler headbands. Of course, the girls dressed the dog up for the photo too! :-)



And then, this is another set of photos I really liked. DH didn't want to use these because it's a repeat of our 2004 photos....but I think we'll be doing these again in the future anyway!

Cookin' Up Christmas

The girls sang in the children's choir at church again this fall. The theme for the Christmas program was "Cookin' Up Christmas". The characters of the program were modeled after the big name stars of the Food Network. We had Bobby Grey, Emma Lasagna, Martha Steward, Allie Brown, Paula Queen, and even Betty Rocker. :-) The part of Paula Queen (aka Paula Deen) was played by an adult who used a strong southern drawl to tell the story of Jesus' birth. Emily played the part of Martha with an attitude. :-) Ally and Claire didn't have a speaking part, although they did have a song duet, and I must say they sounded really good! (imho)
All of the kids decorated aprons to wear during the performance, and finished off the outfit with a chef hat. Everyone remembered their parts and did a great job of singing. Way to go kiddos!

Gotcha Gifts

As I mentioned in the previous post, Emily's 10th anniversary of her adoption day was in November. Due to scheduling conflicts and the Thanksgiving holiday, our group planned our celebration weekend for November 30th through December 2nd.

On the afternoon of the 30th, I packed everything for the trip and picked dh up from work. He said he wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home for a bit while I went to check the girls out of school early. By the time we came back home, dh was really sick...and ended up being admitted to the hospital later that evening.

Emily was absolutely heartbroken at the thought of missing her gotcha day party. She was sad that her daddy was sick, but there was some major sobbing going on when she heard we couldn't go on the trip. I remembered that a friend was driving to Little Rock the following day for a Hannah Montana concert....so I made a few phone calls and asked for a few favors. Emily was able to get to Little Rock, and her China travel group picked her up there. She was THRILLED to be with her friends for the remainder of the weekend!!

Emily's China travel group always exchanges gifts for "gotcha day". This year, I made pillows for each of the girls. The pillows have their names and a Chinese girl embroidered on them (clothing colors selected to match their bedrooms...hopefully!). The pillows are finished off with matching beaded trim and back fabric. Don't know what I was thinking when I decided to put on beaded trim...nearly lost my mind sewing that stuff on!! LOL We weren't there for photos, but the other parents sent this photo of the girls with their pillows.

Gotcha Day - 10 years!!

It all happened 10 years ago....the day we first became parents! Little Lu Ran-Ran was placed in our arms on November 21, 1997. Our WONDERFUL travel group got together to celebrate our 10 year adoption anniversary (aka gotcha day) - more to come on that later, but for now, my mind is reminiscing a little.....

I still remember walking into that conference room in Hefei, China...feeling excited, scared, anxious, nervous. I was SO nervous that at first I didn't even see the nannies holding the children!! I felt like I had blinders on. I only saw an "official looking" woman and the conference table. I was the first one into the room...I walked to the table and pulled out a chair....only to be told NO! by the woman. She then told me to go around to the other side. THAT'S when I saw the babies!! There on the couch were 4 nannies, holding 4 beautiful and precious little girls. When Randy and I turned to look at the babies, one of the nannies pointed to the child she was holding and said, "Ran-Ran" and then pointed back at us, smiling and saying, "Mama & Baba". I melted. There she was...only a few feet away, OUR daughter! The little girl we had waited so long to hold. We had to wait a little longer before we were able to hold her though, as the officials wanted the adoption paperwork completed first.

The next few minutes are a blur...with the 4 families completing paperwork, answering questions about our incomes, why we want to adopt, will we promise to love these children as our own, etc. The final step was to put our thumbs into red ink and "stamp" the papers.

THEN we were allowed to hold our children! Emily was dressed in a little onsie, a pair of split pants, and a little quilted jacket. Before she handed Emily to me, the nanny removed the split pants for the orphanage to keep. I cried a little when I first held Emily, but she just looked at Randy and I with wide eyes. Her little hands grasped the little caterpillar toy we brought with us. Randy and I were totally and completely in love with this child! I remember Randy saying over and over how beautiful she was. This was OUR DAUGHTER!!

Once we came out of our own fog, we were able to observe the other families in the room. Trish (a single mom) was singing to her tiny little one, the Gary's were smiling and taking photos of their daughter, and the Wood's were consoling their grieving daughter. Three of the girls were very close in age (14 months), however, the Wood's daughter was 2-1/2.

Fast forward 10 years. Our group of 4 first-time parents became "families" together. We also became close friends. We have gotten together every year for the past 10 years to celebrate our adoption day. We also get together every year for China camp. We have also tucked in a few extra events throughout the years such as a trip to Silver Dollar City, and many scrapbooking retreats for the moms. On top of all this, 3 families in the group returned to China earlier this year for a birth land tour! We don't live really close, but not really far apart either. The longest drive between us is 6 hours. We believe that our bond as parents has helped to bond our children together as well. The four little girls adopted that day in Hefei are now such close friends. They mail letters and cards, and send emails to one another. They make gifts for one another. They LOVE getting together for their gotcha day weekends and China camp...when they see each other, it's like they've never been apart. The girls are even scheming to go to college and live together when they're older!! :-)
We are SO thankful for this wonderful group of people. They are such blessings!!

Little Nurses

Ally and Claire LOVED the nursing accessories they were given when their dad was in the hospital. I think everyone in the family was subjected to a few pretend shots.

Backtracking

Since I got behind on blogging, I'm backtracking a little.
Claire made this cute little turkey at school prior to Thanksgiving. She wanted to make sure I put a picture on the blog! :-)

Whew!!

Finally back with time to update our blog a little!! What a CRAZY few weeks we've had!!

On November 30th, dh became ill with severe stomach pains and vomiting. As the symptoms became worse, he finally relented and allowed me to take him to the ER. After a short (ha!) 4 hour wait in the ER, dh was admitted to the hospital. Xrays and blood tests were done...and 2 days later, dh was feeling better, so he was released from the hospital. Diagnosis was a bacterial infection in his stomach.

Only four days later on a Thursday evening, the pain and vomiting had returned...this time much worse, so at 9 p.m. we headed for the ER again. They graciously assisted us with another 4 hour wait (have to give them credit because 3 hours and 55 minutes WERE in the treatment room after all). :-)
DH was again admitted to the hospital for another round of xrays, MRI's, blood work, etc. Diagnosis was "pancreatitis". The main treatment for this is to hook up an IV and withhold food/drink for at least 5 days...so that's what they did. DH wasn't allowed even a drink of water. They also put a tube into his stomach to drain all that yucky bile (pretty gross stuff I must say!). On the final full day of his hospital stay, dh was given a liquid lunch (he thought the Jell-O was heavenly! LOL), and then 'solids' for dinner. I think they call the meal a 'solid' because it really doesn't qualify as tasty food....it's simply a solid piece of meat that has all of the "taste" removed. :-) Since dh was able to keep the foods down, he was then released the following day (& much rejoicing was heard around here!).

During dh's hospital stay, I spent many hours there with him (it's a sad, boring place to be alone!). The remainder of the time I spent getting the girls to/from school, getting homework and school projects done, and then taking the girls to visit their dad. One of the nurses took quite a liking to the girls, and outfitted them with masks, gloves, empty syringes, etc.
Allyson and Claire thought their accessories were SO much fun...and they tried their hand at doctoring dad (of course, I HAD to take a picture of that!). :-)

BTW, for anyone wondering.....80% of people who have pancreatitis are alcoholics, 10% have a small gallstone causing irritation, and 10% don't really know why. DH falls into the final 10%. He had his gallbladder removed in March, but they "think" maybe a micro stone was causing the problem -- and it either passed or was removed via the tube. We just hope dh never has this problem again....he was one very sick puppy!!!

Behind...

on posting to the blog yet again! A quick recap: we had Thanksgiving with our families, shopped a little on black Friday, and put up the Christmas tree.
We have SO much to be thankful for. Will try to post more details soon!

YouTube Video

Thought this was a pretty powerful video.....

Poop!

It is apparent now that I've trained Emily very well when it comes to taking photos and scrapbooking.

Last week, Emily's class went on an overnight trip to the Natural Science Center. The kids were allowed to bring a camera along if they wanted to...well, of course Emily took hers. Before she left, I reminded her to just have a good time, and take as many pictures as she wanted...of anything and everything around her.

When I uploaded the pictures for developing, I had quite a surprise! There on the screen before me was...poop!! lol Not sure what kind of animal left it on the trail, but there it was...a big pile of poop! Emily said the leader did try digging through the poop to figure out what animal it was from, but they just weren't sure. Oh yes, and we have a picture of the leader digging through the poop too!! :-)

Emily is going to make a small paper bag scrapbook with her photos, and take it to school to show the science teacher. I hope the teacher is as proud of the poop picture as I am. LOL

I was going to add the picture to my blog, but decided against it at the last minute. Hope I don't disappoint anyone!! LOL

Quilts

Emily finished her FIRST quilt several weeks ago!! She sewed 100% of the quilt top by herself -- the first thing she has ever sewn. I gave her instructions on how to operate the machine, but once she learned the basics, she took off. I'm not a quilter, so I didn't help at all with this project (just drove her to the quilt store every now and then). Emily was SO excited to take her quilt top to the store to have it quilted. She chose a bright green fabric for the backing, and then chose a daisy pattern for the quilting (& green thread of course). One of the sweetest things about the quilt is that is was quilted by her grandpa (my dad). Yep, he's the official quilter at the store. Both Emily and grandpa did an awesome job on the quilt!!
Emily will be working on another quilt soon. She already picked out the fabric!

Painted Horse

One of the local florist shops has this horse statue outside that they paint throughout the year. I've seen the horse painted as a soccer player, decked out for the holidays, covered in flowers, wearing a pink breast cancer ribbon...you name it, and the horse has probably been painted that way. I just realized this past weekend that we've been ignoring this little piece of our town. Claire has ALWAYS remarked about how the horse was painted though - since she was old enough to talk, she would notice this horse when we drove by. Last month, the horse was painted in pretty pink/green/white stripes and really stood out. I thought then that I should stop and take a picture, but as usual, never really took the time to do just that....so, when I noticed the painting had changed again, I decided to document the ever-changing scene. This is what the horse looks like now....pretty hearts on a black background. I just wish I had taken pictures of all the previous paintings. I wonder what's next.....

FFFF #55 Candy

The photo challenge this week is candy. Candy is something we have a lot of right now, so I sat Ally and Claire down for pics with their stash. Believe it or not, this is 3 gallons of candy! (Thank goodness we didn't get candy from ALL of the people at work and church!!) Emily has already sorted through hers and disposed of everything that wasn't a pack of skittles (she still ended up with a gallon bag full)....she just wasn't home when I snapped the pics.

I don't know if it's because the girls haven't felt well this past week, but they're really not eating much of their Halloween candy (yay!). :-) I have helped them as much as I could by eating all of the Mary Janes they had though!! LOL

More candy photos can be seen here

Doctor, Doctor

Being *sick* of ourselves, Dh and I went to the doctor this morning. :-D
We both got prescriptions that will (hopefully) put us on the mend. The girls seem to be a little better this afternoon, so I'm hoping they won't need to see the doctor again. We had to wait about 30 minutes for our meds, so we did a little shopping. When I got home and took everything out of the bag, it cracked me up (doesn't take much for me does it?). This is what we bought...ah, starting to feel better already!! LOL

Sick and Tired

I'm sick and tired of being....well, sick and tired! :-O It started last Monday when Claire started feeling yucky. She had a sore throat, but no fever so she had to go to school on Tuesday (besides, that was their 50's day program, and we didn't want her to miss that). She went to school on Wednesday also, but I picked her up early for trunk or treat. She soon had a fever though and really didn't enjoy the evening. Then, she missed 2 days of school and I took her to the doctor for meds. (She still isn't feeling great though and her cough remains.)
On Saturday, *I* start feeling yucky and have a sore throat. (Of course! I was the one taking care of Claire and closest to all her germs!) Next thing I know, Randy says he has a sore throat...then Emily. Thought we were doing ok since we still had ONE holdout in the family who wasn't sick...until this morning. Allyson woke up with a sore throat and cough...no fever as of yet though. :-( We're headed to the doctor again this morning, hoping to get meds for "something"! I can tell that (for me) what started out as a sore throat has already turned into a sinus infection. As much as I hate going to the doctor, I know I need to get it treated (the last time I let it go more than a few days, I ended up with severe bronchitis). Jeez, we REALLY need a doctor in the family!!!!

Why...?

Why is it that smoke detectors always tell you their batteries are low in the middle of the night? OK, so we should have changed them out back in the spring, but we just got busy and forgot (like a lot of people I think).
I just don't understand why that annoying little "chirping" sound couldn't go off in the middle of the day when I'm wide awake. When I could go buy a battery and get it installed before bedtime. Instead, it happens around 2 a.m. when we're in a deep sleep. We both hear the chirp, and Randy immediately says "OH NO" with a groan. Soooo, we get up and walk around downstairs waiting for another beep so we can figure out which detector it is. It beeps again, but nope it wasn't the detector in the hallway. We wait for another beep...and follow it to one in the living room....of course, if just happens to be one that's up really high. Randy grabs his house shoes and trudges out to the detached garage for a ladder and brings it into the house (running into walls with the ladder because it's so big, not to mention the fact that he's half asleep and he still has vision problems. Not truly wanting to, I do the right thing and offer to climb up to grab the offensive detector. Randy thinks he can do it though, so up he goes...still half asleep and on wobbly legs. He had to climb to the very top of the ladder (really glad *I* didn't have to climb up now), and turns the beeping plastic thing. It's a little hard to budge, so being the ever so impatient person he is, dh practically rips the thing off the wall. Once he finally got the wires disconnected, he took the beeping carcass and plunked it out into the garage and went back to bed.
Guess I'm going shopping for lots of batteries today.

A Little Girl and An Old Bridge

Every week when I take the girls to piano lessons, I see this wonderful, old bridge. I keep telling the girls that we need to do a photo shoot on the bridge, but we always forget to go back there. Yesterday, I just happened to have the camera in the van, so I grabbed Allyson and we took a few photos while we waited for Emily to finish practice. These are a few of my favorite shots. A real photographer could get some great photos here. I wish I could have taken more photos, but as luck would have it, my camera card was full....hey, is my last name "Murphy"?

More on Halloween

On Halloween, I checked Ally and Claire out of school a little early so we could get them dressed in their costumes - then we rushed over to pick up Emily from middle school. Emily quickly put her costume on in the car as we drove over to daddy's office for trick-or-treating. Yes, we trick-or-treat from offices, instead of houses. This is a big thing at the office...there were kids everywhere! The girls took only one piece of candy from each area, but they still ended up with a big Wal-Mart bag full of candy (see, no need to go to houses now!).
We left the office and went to church for trunk-or-treat. Each year, we try to come up with a different theme to decorate our van. We won first place last year with a Chinese theme. This year, we did a Noah's Ark theme...complete with dh dressing up as Noah (ok, I think he looked a little like an aging Billy Ray Cyrus! ick..LOL). I painted a display board backdrop, and dh designed a rainbow using swim noodles. We added in a few pairs of animals and some Christmas lights to finish it off. We didn't win first place this year, but we still won a free night at the Marriott and dinner at Dixie Cafe. OK, we'll settle for that I guess. lol

Being the ever-so-rushed and frazzled mom that I am, I completely forgot to get a good picture of the girls in their costumes....so I quickly snapped this one of the girls on our way out of dad's office. Emily really didn't want to dress up (she thinks she's too OLD!), but we told her she couldn't walk around and ask for candy...so she went as a female Sherlock Holmes. Allyson was thrilled to be a dead bride, and Claire was a cute pink poodle. We found the little poodle mask and then I glued pom poms to a sweatsuit...I still need to get a pic of the little poodle booty with the tail! lol Claire won the costume contest at church, but that was about the only thing she enjoyed during the evening. She ended up having a fever and sat in the van...poor baby. :-(