One Year!

Can you believe it was a year ago today that we walked into a Beijing orphanage as the parents of 3 children and walked out as the parents of 4 children?!  Head over to our adoption blog to watch a video I made for this special day.

http://lovejourneytochina.blogspot.com/2011/01/one-year.html

Claire's 8th Birthday

My baby girl is 8 years old today.   It's official, I sound completely crazy when asked what ages my kids are- 12, 10, 8 and 8.  Let me tell you, that raises an eyebrow; especially if I tell them my last two are 8 months apart and my kids aren't with me.  I tell them sometimes just to see their face.

It has been a joy watching Claire enjoy and soak up the special attention her birthday has brought.  She has shared with us that she would have a small cake on her birthday in China but never a birthday present.  She was very loved by her foster family and having a small cake is more than most children waiting for adoption receive but she has definitely been waiting for those presents.
She patiently waited through all the birthdays in the family and commented frequently about "my first birthday in America!"  I was a little worried she was expecting a pony or something with the amount of her excitement, but no, she was just looking very forward to her special day.  I found this t-shirt months ago and tucked it away for today.  Now the whole world will know it's her birthday and I'm sure she will be quick to tell them it's her FIRST birthday in America.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Thanksgiving

This is the day of the year we are supposed to pause and ponder what we are thankful for.  I've been trying to explain today's holiday to Claire, who is celebrating her first Thanksgiving with us.  I think she understands what being thankful means; after explaining it to her the best I could she stopped, thought and then said "I'm thankful for being in America."  So are we babe; so are we.

We are doing our big Thanksgiving meal on Friday but I've already been in the kitchen for a few hours this morning preparing.  It is about now that I wish I had an entire wall bank of ovens.  I have my recipes all printed out and organized, just as any Type-A Thanksgiving cooker would.  You all do that too, right?

I am so thrilled to open our home to our family and fill their bellies with good food, at least I hope it's good!

The view this morning

Matthew had time to turn a few cartwheels before catching the bus.

And Claire had time to laugh. Of course, when doesn't this girl have time to laugh? It's one of the things she does best.

A Picture Story

One evening we decided to hike up to a lookout to view the sunset while overlooking the river.  I bring you a picture story of how our evening went.

The kids started off with way more energy and stamina than I did.

But Claire stopped and said something like "don't worry Mommy, I wait for you."
Oh, thanks sweetheart.

Me: Lets get you all together and take a picture, OK?

Yea, they were all thrilled about that, Matthew obviously the most thrilled.

Me: Well, I need new pictures for my frames so let's get one of each of you alone.  Thankfully, that did work, the pictures from this post are their individual photos from that night.

Claire: I need to go potty!
Me: Hmmm (looking at my wonderful husband),..well, honey I'm toting around this camera, would you mind taking her?

So off they went.

The other kids were growing restless and trying to find things to do at a place that doesn't really have things to do; except look out over the river, of course.

Let's make our footprints in the sand.

Me: How about let's take some pictures of the views from here guys.

Jacob: No, that is kind of boring Mom; let me think of what we should do.

Yes, that park bench looks like a mighty fine place to entertain ourselves.

We kept moving towards the general direction of the only restroom, hoping to intersect J and Claire on their way back to us.  But, it was still taking quite some time for us to meet up so Jacob pondered more activities.

This looks like a fine hill for us to run down and nearly fall on our faces.  Sound good to you?

Wow guys, that was fun.  I think we should really try to make ourselves one with nature.  Care to join me?

Well, since we're doing this lovey dovey thing and you can lean on me and all that, how about you remind me to take my allergy meds next time.  OK, bro?

Me:  All right, Claire is back!  OK guys, gather together and let's try getting a few pictures of you before it gets too dark.  Mmmkay?

Emily takes charge of the gathering and gets her long arms around all of them.
Matthew:  Do not touch me!  Get your arm off me!  Don't!

Claire: Will you please don't touch me?
Matthew:  *Insert scream grunt here* Get off me!
Claire: I don't want any picture.

OK, well that was fun!  Let's move on.

Dad is always best at changing the mood so we find a picnic table and he starts making up "I dare you to fill in the blank" games.  These start out simple enough but the kids must always out do each other.

Shortly after this last picture the inevitable happened; Matthew fell off the table as he escalated his tricks.  The only other people at the lookout were totally giving us looks and I wanted to yell, "Yep, we're THOSE parents!"  I was really disappointed that I didn't get any pictures of Matthew falling off the table because after he promptly stood up, brushed himself off and let out a smug "I'm fine!" my mother's panic turned into "darn, that would have been a great picture!"

I chased Claire around for awhile trying to get her picture because she had been avoiding me.  I got her to slow down enough to put her hair behind her ears.

When she realized I got her picture she laughed and said "I don't know why you always take my picture, Mommy?"

Because I can, and because I love to!

With that we got a picture of the sunset we came for and made our trek back down the hill.

What a fun, impromptu evening overlooking the river.

Sunday School

And, not in the traditional sense.  

We made the decision to put Claire into Chinese school and all of the ones in our city meet on Sunday afternoon.  Even before enrolling her I thought about how our Sunday had good potential of becoming very busy and stressful with church in the morning and Chinese school in the afternoon.  So, we made the decision to move our church attending to Saturday evening instead.  There are many churches in our area that now offer services on Saturday and we had tried it before and liked it so now it will become our routine.


Claire wavered between scared and excited for Chinese school to start.  She has forgotten most of her Mandarin so we feel as though she's at a crossroads.  Either, pick it back up by willingly partcipating in her Mandarin class or refuse to participate due to fear and lose it all together.  It sounds as though her first class went smashingly well today.  I am so excited for her to be in the company of other Chinese children and continue to learn Mandarin.  All the other children in her class are children with parents of Chinese heritage so they hear Mandarin at home.  This will make school fairly difficult for Claire because we aren't able to help her figure things out as well as we'd like.  We have the textbook and Google translate will tell you anything so we will muddle through the best we can.

While Claire was at Chinese school Emily attended sewing school with Mom.  She's been asking for several weeks if I would teach her how to sew so I thought today would be a good time to spend some time with her and the sewing machine.

In a couple of hours Emily sewed her first project, a pillow for her bed.  She was quite proud of her work and I am too; she is proving to be one crafty girl.

6 months in the making

This may look like any standard 'ole picture but this picture has taken 6 months to fully mature. See that little girl with 1, ONE ponytail? Claire's hair has been growing since we met her in China. She has had a couple of trims to try and even up the layers she had before but other than those trims she hasn't had any hair cuts. I was able to put her hair into pigtails about 6 weeks ago but today was the first time I got it into one ponytail, successfully. When I finished fixing her hair she reached back to see what I'd done and got very excited.

"Mommy, you one ponytail?! Oh yay, that is cool!"

I guess that sums it up well. We've had our little girl home with us for six months today; I can't believe they have gone by so quickly but at the same time it feels like she's always been here.

the end of kindergarten

Recently we attended the end of the year program for Claire. They didn't dress the kids up in cap and gowns for the traditional kindergarten graduation but this program was very cute. The kids sang several songs (we now know why she loves the song "My Country Tis of Thee") and then went through the class showing their picture and saying what they want to be when they grow up. Imagine our surprise when Claire said she wanted to be a doctor; what about all that medical anxiety?!

Here is Claire with her teacher who has been amazing and helped Claire adjust with so much patience and understanding.

On the last day of school we pulled into the driveway and as I was helping the kids out of the car I look back and see Claire crying, big crocodile tears running down her face. I asked her what was wrong and she was able to sniff out a "Ms. V..." She doesn't understand yet that Ms. V will get new kindergartners and she will be OK in a new classroom with a new teacher. I anticipate the first week of school to be a bit rough but hopefully nothing like the very first week of kindergarten a couple of months ago.

These two girls are a couple of Claire's friends; we hear their names the most. She is such a social butterfly and loves having fun with her friends.
One of her friends "N" asked me on a recent field trip "does anyone in China have blond hair?" I told her no, mostly everyone has black hair and she said "so is that why Claire loves my hair?" I had to laugh because if a blond haired person visits China you will nearly be assaulted; everyone wants to touch blond hair and have their picture taken with blond haired people.
Claire has become very aware of the American flag; so much so that she points it out every time she sees it. Do you realize how many American flags are flying just on a simple drive to school? We cannot say our country isn't patriotic if you base it solely on number of American flags flying! Claire tells us that she likes the China flag and the American flag and we always tell her that we like them both too. One day she made this picture for me to scan and email to her foster family showing both of the families she loves.

chains

I think we need to install a few chains on the doors and additional locks on the windows. I can already see that boys will be looking for ways to get in to see our girl; good thing there is a great daddy to stand in the way!

Flower War

It all started as a photo idea; let's sprinkle the flower petals from the cherry tree over Claire while mom takes her picture.
OK, let's do it!

It didn't take long for Claire to show her disgust with this idea.

Matthew figured out he could shake the branch and make more petals fall.

Claire started hiding handfuls of petals behind her back to try and ambush the others.

That provoked Emily to start scooping up her own handfuls off the ground.



Matthew started getting a bit sneakier and hiding a bit more.

Claire thought long and hard...

and decided her best tactic would be to hide.

When that didn't work she resorted to gathering up her own handfuls.


Then it was a free for all with flower petals!




Toby checked out all the action but quickly decided this was too much, even for him.

Soon the patio looked like this,

and the grass was carpeted with a beautiful shade of pink,

and the petals followed everyone inside.

You might notice that Jacob is absent from these photos. We convinced him to join us outside for the fun but after a few handfuls thrown his way he was convinced that flowers being thrown on him was not the ideal way to spend the evening. If you look closely in the 6th picture you can see him standing behind the tree.

You can also see a few more pictures from the flower war on Claire's blog.