Medical Check-Up

Max had his first medical check-up today. He weighed in at 27 pounds, and is 34" tall. We will go back in two weeks to begin redoing all of his baby shots. Even though the orphanage said Max had shots in China, our doctor (who is a 3x China dad) just thinks it's best if we do all the shots again. In the meantime, we get to do the poopie samples to check for parasites (oh what joy!). :-)

Blogger Vs. China

Just wanted to let everyone know that I *did* try to post on this blog while we were in China. Unfortunately though, the rumors were true and blogger was blocked....so I had to post our entire trip on the babyjellybeans site. You can click on Max's photo at the top left to read about our trip. I'll leave the babyjellybeans site up for a few more weeks, and will then order a keepsake CD and close the account.
Thanks to all who followed along on our journey. We very much appreciate all those who prayed for us and the other families during the trip. God is so good!

We are HOME!!

We are finally HOME and are now a family of 6! I never would have dreamed that we would be SO blessed with these 4 precious children. I am so thankful that we were chosen to be their parents.

We've been home 4 days now, and Max is adjusting well to his new home. The temper tantrums we experienced the first couple of days in China have all but disappeared. I think he has figured out that we are here to provide enough food and that we're pretty fun to be with. :-)

I need to put our little guy down for a nap right now, but will post some more updates soon.

We're On Our Way!

We're finally on our way! We've made it to LA and are now waiting for our flight to Tokyo. From there, we'll head to Beijing and should arrive around 9:15 p.m. on Thursday. Will try to post more from Beijing. :-)

Room - Revised

Ooops! Posted the pics without window treatments. This is the end result with simple window treatments. I had a very small amount of fabric left over from the quilt, so I tore it into strips and tied it across the curtain rod.

Max's Room

We *finally* have Max's room finished! We used Emily's old bed frame, but didn't have a headboard...so it just felt incomplete. On Friday I went to the Habitat for Humanity resale store and bought an old wooden door to use as a headboard. The paint on the door was peeling, but the wood was in really good condition...and for $30 it was a steal (I probably could have gotten it for less, but I was in a hurry). I had my step-dad remove the glass panel from the top of the door and then cut the door shorter for me. I then just spray painted it with a colonial red color and did the "wipe on-wipe off" thing with some burnt umber acrylic paint to age it. I flipped the door upside down for the headboard, so the part that shows is actually the bottom of the door. I am so happy with how it turned out! Oh and the r/w/b quilt on the bed is one I made (& my dad quilted it for me).

The wooden frames were just cheapos from the second hand store (both for $1). I did the same aging paint job on them as the headboard. All of the other furniture pieces are hand-me-downs: the drawer unit is the baby changing table we used for all 3 of the girls - w/o the changing part on top; the chair is one we've had for about 20 years; the table set is one that my step-dad made for Emily about 10 years ago (2 more chairs are in storage); and the lamps came from the piano downstairs. I think this is what I would call a recycled room! :-)

Last Day of School

The girls *finally* had their last day of school yesterday. ...hooray! All 3 girls made the A honor roll again. We are very proud of them....way to work those brains girlies!
It's hard to believe that Emily will be entering junior high this fall. - where has my baby gone? :-( Emily applied to be on the yearbook staff, and was excited to hear that she made it and will be going to a workshop this summer. This past week, Emily also tried out for the choir (one-on-one with the director), and just heard yesterday that she made that too. She also received a letter yesterday stating that she will be placed on the pre-AP math test track (which she had to meet certain criteria for)...so she has a big year ahead in school!
Allyson will be in all pre-AP classes as well this fall when she enters her final year of middle school. Can she really be almost 11 years old?!
Finally, Miss Claire will be entering 3rd grade. When did this happen?!
Wow...time really flies!

Little Emperor's New Clothes :-)

We *finally* did some shopping this weekend and bought our little guy some clothes and a couple pairs of shoes! Nothing like waiting until the last minute. :-) We didn't buy a lot - waiting to see what size fits best - but he has enough to get through a week at least.

Birthday Cake For Max

After reading numerous stories that the swine flu was causing travel delays to China, we decided to send a belated birthday cake to Max. It was seeming more and more that we wouldn't travel until later this summer, so this was our way of reaching out to Max. We also sent another camera just in case our first care package didn't make it.

Ann at RedthreadChina was kind enough to send an email stating that the cake made it to the orphanage, but that this particular orphanage was "very serious" about releasing information. In other words, they wouldn't share the photos. :-( I replied that it was ok because we just received confirmation that we are traveling next week. Then yesterday, I received the following photos!! I guess the orphanage had received confirmation that we are adopting Max?! Whatever the reason, I am SO thankful for these little blessings! And can I just say that I want to bring home the little boy with albinism as well!! I do hope he's on a waiting list somewhere!

Life School Musical

The Children's Choir at church had their spring performance on Sunday evening. The title of this year's program was "Life School Musical". Allyson was a teacher's helper, Claire was a cheerleader ("Love"), and Emily was a scaredy-cat drama queen. For those who know Emily, is this a FAR stretch from her personality, but she pulled it off so well. She had several "I feel faint" lines, and it was pretty funny watching her. Allyson and Claire also did a great job with their parts, and the overall program had a really good message. This was Emily last performance in the Children's Choir as she has now graduated past 6th grade (sniff). We're hoping a youth choir can be organized for kids her age, so they can continue to grow musically.

S'mores!

Last Friday, Randy went camping with his brother at Lake Eucha in OK. The girls SO badly wanted to spend the night there, but couldn't because they had choir rehearsal on Saturday. Instead, I took them to the lake after rehearsal just so they could have s'mores and ride in the boat. I think they had a yummy time!

Thief

We kept wondering why we had to keep refilling the dog's food bowl, when she's been inside most of the time lately. I walked by our big window one day and was startled by a bird quickly flying away from the patio. As the weeks passed, I continued filling the bowl, and would often see birds on the patio soon afterwards. I watched the dog bowl for awhile one day last week, and this is what I saw. Mr. Blue Jay had no trouble helping himself to the dog food. I only put a few pieces in the bowl and watched as the bird came and gulped down bite after bite. When the food was gone, the bird stopped coming by....but as soon as he heard me drop more food in the bowl, he was back. Little thief!

Consulate Appointment !

OH MY GOODNESS!!!! We are officially headed to China to get Max!! We received confirmation of our consulate appointment this morning. We need to arrive in Beijing on the 11th or 12th, and our consulate appointment is the 22nd....so I'm guessing we'll have Max in our arms on the 14th. WOOOHOOOO!!!!

I'll get the password to the jellybeans site to everyone soon. A fellow adoptive mom who used to live in China told me that blogger was blocked in China due to the upcoming anniversary of the Tienanmen Square event.

Travel Approval !!!!

We FINALLY have travel approval!! We now wait for confirmation of our U.S. consulate appointment...but we could be leaving as early as June 11th. Yikes! That's only 12 more days!! We are ready, but then again, we aren't ready (meaning our boy still needs lots of things!). :-) We will be doing some major shopping in the next few days. Fun stuff!
Hang on Max, we're coming!
NOTE: I *do* plan on blogging about our trip, but I've heard that some people have trouble logging on to blogger in China. Due to this, I have set up a separate jellybeans site. It's still a work in progress, but I hope to have it finished this week, and I'll post a link in the left-hand column on this blog. The site will be password protected, so if you want to follow along on that site, just email me for the password. :-)

Young Chefs

Emily and Allyson have entered an age where they enjoy helping in the kitchen. OK, so they loved to "help mommy" when they were toddlers, but then they found other things that were more fun as they got older. They both helped with dinner last Monday, and decided they wanted to cook a meal by themselves. As you can imagine, this made me a very happy mommy! :-) The girls went through a list of easier dishes and agreed on lasagna. Emily even went so far as to make a menu board for their 'restaurant'. They worked well as a team and the meal turned out great! I vote they make a meal for the family at least once a week! :-)

"I" Chart

Another one of Allyson's writings...
The students were asked to fill out an "I" chart with descriptions of themselves. This is what Allyson wrote about herself:

Daughter

Little sister

Big sister

Mommy's girl

Love puppies

Granddaughter

Daddy's girl

Nice personality

Great friend / friendly

Love noodles

Love dumplings

Very caring

5th grader

Play piano

Asian

Adopted

As I read Allyson's list, I couldn't help but smile. It just made me happy that she described herself in many ways before listing "adopted". Yes, she was adopted and I want her to be proud of that, but it isn't the first thing she uses to describe herself....as she is SO much more than that! I know that at school, she is asked about being adopted a LOT lately, and I just pray we are helping her to deal with the questions in a healthy way. Reading her paper just made this mom's heart feel a little better. :-)

If I Was In Charge of the World....

Allyson brought home some of her papers from literacy class yesterday. As I was going through her Tuesday folder, a couple of papers caught my attention. This is one of the things she wrote:

If I Was in Charge of the World

by Allyson

These are the rules I would make:

• Can't cuss in school
• Don't kill animals you won't eat
• Can't murder
• Everyone goes to church
• Free books!
• No possums!
• Have manners
• NO kidnappers!
• No cats

Wouldn't it be great if we could really adopt some of these rules? I had no idea she didn't like cats or possums though. :-)

Fun Friday

Feeling the need to get away for a couple of days, I jumped at the chance to take a short trip when dh suggested it. The girls still have 2 weeks of school, but we decided to let them take a day off on Friday (this is a rare thing for sure). We only went as far as Tulsa, but it was a much needed time away to just play and relax.

Our first stop was the Tulsa zoo. We were a bit disappointed that there seemed to be several "temporarily vacant" signs throughout the animal displays, but we had a great time anyway. The highlight for the girls was a camel ride.

3 strong girls...

After the zoo, we headed to lunch. We had originally just planned on stopping at Claire's favorite place (McD's), but saw that Casa Bonita was open and had lunch there instead. They don't have the greatest food in the world, but the girls love the atmosphere of the place. (Although, I think Emily and Allyson could eat 20 of their simple cheese enchiladas!) After lunch, we let the girls play for awhile in the arcade. When finished, they combined their tickets so they could get a nicer prize (a beach ball for the pool, and lots of candy).

Our next stop was at the Mardel store to get a new large print Bible for Randy. Claire enjoyed listening to the music while dad shopped for new songs to sing in church.

Our final stop for the day was the Doubletree Hotel. The minute we got to our room, the girls put on their swimsuits, and then we were off to the pool. The Doubletree had a wonderful pool...Randy and the girls swam while mom found a lounge chair and enjoyed a couple of hours of doing absolutely nothing! :-)

Claire is really doing well with her swimming, but she must have the most buoyant booty in the world! LOL No matter how hard she tries, she just can't get her booty to dive lower in the water. We've never seen anything like it...she swims along, but her little bottom ALWAYS pops back to the surface!! :-D

We did a little bit of shopping on Saturday and then headed home. So glad we took the day off on Friday, as the rest of the weekend was rainy!

Wordless Wednesday

Soakin' Up the Sun

When we got home from piano lessons yesterday, the house was so quiet. Allyson was busy at the kitchen table doing her homework. I looked in the office, expecting to find Emily at the computer, but she wasn't there. When I asked where Emily was, Allyson told me she was outside doing her homework. Confused, I went into the back yard and this is what I found. Emily had moved some furniture out into a sunny spot and was indeed busy on her homework...while soaking up some sun! :-)