Giggles

I hear giggles from the boys room... They SHOULD probably be sleeping, but it is so good to hear them laughing together.

We've had some wonderful spring weather lately, and it has been so nice to spend time outside. It was even warm enough a few days last week for the boys to go swimming.





I had taken to the boys out to the swamp back at the very beginning of spring when nothing was green except some skunk cabbage just starting to peek out of the ground. This time the skunk cabbages were giant. It's so nice to have green again, and even the little boys appreciate the beauty of the flowering trees that are in bloom everywhere now.

Post Placement and paperwork God is still GOOD!

We had our post placement visit today for Kai Wei, it also served as our homestudy update--as we need that to extend our I-171H(the permission from immigrations to adopt an international orphan). I'm getting so tired of paperwork! But I thought the visit went well. Especially considering I thought it was about 1:30 and was just putting the boys' lunch on the table when the doorbell rang--this was after discussing the neighbor's dead chicken with them and making sure they washed their hands before eating due to handling the dead chicken--and after coming home from dropping Rebecca at the airport to go away for the summer. It was an eventful day! And not without some sadness, due to both Rebecca's departure and the dead chicken (killed by the big daddy chicken as Kai said--You really have to see the hand motions and facial expressions to appreciate this--the boys were absolutely fascinated. . .)

Anyway, I think it was the best day yet for Daniel and Kai Wei together. As Daniel said, even when they did disagree they "worked it out" I don't think I heard any fighting and they had a lot of fun playing outside in the BEAUTIFUL spring weather.

It seemed a little strange to be telling the social worker that the hardest part of the adjustment, besides just trying to parent a 10 year old boy who doesnt speak your language, was the relationship between Kai Wei and Daniel. I love these days when we see how good it can be. Other times there is just a lot of miscommunication and competition and I guess a wondering on both parts, "does SHE (that being me) love HIM best?" So I'm thinking over time they will come to realize a person can really love 2 people or even more (like say 8)just fine. I think as Kai's language skills get better there will also be less of a problem. As many issues they fight over are what they THINK the other person is saying--not always what the other person is actually saying!

Anyway, back to the doorbell at 2 pm--I actually thought they came early! (They because our caseworker, had an intern with her) They asked questions about Kai Wei's adjustment and activities and I showed them his school work and when it was time to talk with him he was very reticent. I suggested we look at pictures and he jumped right on the computer and pulled up some pictures similar to the ones here on our blog. He didn't have a whole lot to say. But I think she felt she had the chance to see him in action. He and Daniel were up and down and in and out and fairly visible shouting happily every time they came in the room. After almost 2 hours everybody else started to arrive home and answered the obligatory immigration questions--"have you ever been finger printed(yes, more times than we remember at this point!), treated for drug or alcohol abuse, arrested, been the object of an unfavorable homestudy, been denied for adoption(soon to be 18 year old Tim really like this one) etc.

Oh, by the way--we got ALL our paperwork back really quickly. Even my FBI fingerprint check went OK. I was really concerned, because the day we went down there all my fingers but one failed and Kai Wei was telling me I was a bu hao ren (bad guy)! It can take up to 6 weeks to get the results back and I was worried we wouldn't have them in time to apply for our extension which is due in mid May. So none of us is a hardened criminal and hopefully the USCIS can do our extension paperwork quickly. . . and we can go get Sarah Grace.

As Annie said, we are all getting tired of the wait again. It seems so sad to us. And unfortunately I feel like I just made it longer. All this month I've had this email from the orphanage telling me what extra documents the judge wants and I've gotten them all together and we were just waiting for Dana's Dr. appointment. WELL, apparently after being a high school and college graduate I still can't read. All these weeks I thought the email said these documents did NOT need to go to TECO--but they did--so they are back on my desk and I guess I will send them to TECO this morning. . .Will this paperwork(and the cost involved!) never end!?

On a happy note, last week at Bible study I asked for prayer for Sarah Grace and that the judge would rule favorably and quickly on our behalf. The man who prayed prayed such an awesome prayer asking God to be with her and work this as a positive in her life and a time to draw close to him. It was so beautiful because it was all the very things I have been praying and hoping for her and us too.

I constantly need to remind myself that God is in control and he loves us and wants the best for us.

We have a webchat tonight with Sarah Grace, please keep her in your prayers too--and this judge!

Spring is here!

I got home from work early today, and what a great day to be able to leave my windowless classroom early! It's Friday, and finally feeling like spring. The trees are all blooming, the breeze is blowing, and it's warm enough to wear sandals.

Kai Wei asked if I would go outside with him, so we set off to ramble through the woods. Before we left he asked if we could pack a snack, so we put juice boxes, apples, carrots, and peanuts in his backpack. He was excited to show me all the places he and Daniel had explored the other day. We crossed little streams on fallen logs, fought with the overly abundant pricker bushes, jumped the muddy areas, and finally ended up in an open meadow. He was always on the look out for deer tracks (we found dozens) and would point them out to me, saying "mei guo lu!" (the word for deer in Chinese is really mei hua lu, but the first time he said it my Mom thought he said mei guo lu since mei guo means America and it just made sense that they would be American deer. He thought that was pretty funny and almost always refers to them as mei guo lu now). He was very disappointed when, after sneaking quietly up to the meadow, there weren't any deer grazing there. We often see deer when we are driving, but he almost always misses them. We are used to looking for them and know how to spot them, but every time we say "mei guo lu!" and point, we have already passed them or they have run away. He must be starting to feel like we have some vast conspiracy tricking him into believing there are deer around.

We had our snack in the meadow, and while we were chatting and enjoying the weather, I happened to see a bluebird! Kai Wei spotted it too, and when it flew off we saw another one. We tried sneaking up on them to take photos, but flew off before we got close enough.

Our route home was a little more direct since I was leading the way. We took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants, and waded in the stream for awhile to avoid the prickers.

What a marvelous way to spend a spring afternoon!

Here are a few pictures from the past couple weeks

Baby dragons, bunk beds and haircuts

On Friday, Kai Wei and Daniel watched Eragon, a movie about a dragon and its rider. After watching the movie, they decided to be dragons. Everyone knows that baby dragons alternately growl and making baby dragon chirping noises for attention. They also, apparently, need to hop since they are still too little to fly. The baby dragons came into the our bedroom, where Rebecca and I were rearranging furniture. Friends of ours had a futon bunk that they weren't using so they passed it along to us. We moved it to where Rebecca's bed used to be, moved her bed to where my bed was and collapsed the bed that I was sleeping on so that it fit back under Sarah Grace's bed, and put the mattress from the trundle on her bed. I now have a box spring and mattress instead of just a mattress on the trundle bed (which I'm VERY happy about) and Sarah Grace finally has a mattress on her bed, so now I think we are 100% ready for her to come home. Once we get the mattress from my grandparent for the trundle we'll have beds for 5 in our room! I'm foreseeing some sleepovers in the future.

The baby dragons were thrilled with the new bedroom arrangement and managed to hop there way up to the top of the bunk bed using there very stubby wings for support. Even though they could manage that, when it was time to go downstairs for our video chat with Sarah Grace, somehow they weren't able to hop down the stairs, so they conned their big sisters into piggy back rides.


Sarah Grace was not as excited about the new room arrangement as the boys were- she told us she would rather sleep in the boys' room! There aren't any other girls her age at the orphanage, and she is quite a tom-boy, so she enjoys playing with the boys.

Kai Wei and Ssu Ya usually seem pretty happy to see each other, but they don't talk all that much. Sarah Grace doesn't really carry on conversations well through the webchats, and it takes some prompting for Kai Wei to tell her much. The first few times we talked when we suggested he tell her about something we did, he asked us to tell her in English! This time the social worker who was there asked him a few questions directly and he was more ready to answer in Chinese. We weren't always sure what he was saying! Though, the one time he said something that surprised her she said, "no, that's not true" and then translated what he had said. (he had told her that he was going to sleep in Rebecca's bed and she was going to sleep with a bug is how the social worker translated it. I think what he was saying is that Rebecca was going to sleep in her sleeping bag, because whenever we sleep in sleeping bags he pretends to be a caterpillar and then comes out and tells us he is a "piaoliang hudie" (beautiful butterfly). We had told the boys they could sleep on the bunk bed and futon that evening since they were excited about it).

Somehow we got on the subject of Kai Wei singing and Ssu Ya said she wanted to hear him sing. So we turned on his favorite song (Bible Story by Scott Kripayne) and he performed for her. We should really take a video and post it- he is so cute when he sings. He loves to listen and sing along to the songs Rebecca and I have on our cellphones, and has even started to sing the lyrics to my Juanes songs in Spanish!




Sarah Grace had gotten her hair cut. I was disappointed because it was actually growing out a bit when we talked to her on Easter and I thought they might just let it grow. She's still beautiful anyway. I think this haircut makes her look older though. Our baby girl is growing up while we wait for her. It's been over 9 months since we got her referral. I never though it would take this long once we got the referral. Kai Wei coming home made the waiting easier for awhile- we were all so focused on him and getting to know him, and seeing how his adjustment would be. Now that he has been home for a bit and things are settling down to a new normal, the wait for Sarah Grace is getting harder again. Over Easter we got some clothes for Sarah Grace from Abby, and as I was putting them away in her now nearly full drawers in made me sad. Here are these drawers full of clothes that she is probably starting to grow out of, just sitting here. I can't wait for her to come home, so we can start on a new adventure of discovering a new normal for our family.