Five days from now...

...we will be at our hotel in Zhengzhou spending our last night as a family of five!!  We received our letter from the Chinese government granting us permission to travel to our son's province to complete our adoption, and we leave on Sunday!!  We are SO thankful that we were able to get the travel arrangements made so quickly.  One of the major reasons why I am so thankful is that we have some dear friends who will be traveling at the same time, staying at our same hotel as they adopt their precious son!  Six years ago these friends stayed at our house awaiting the birth of their first child, well before we were even thinking of starting our own family.  Now six years later, as of next Monday there will be NINE children between our two families!  What a sweet privilege it will be to welcome our sons into our families together!

We can't wait to share more stories of our time as we take our whole family on our trip to get Isaac!  We arrive on Sunday, and then Monday morning we get Isaac!  Tuesday is the day the adoption is finalized, which also happens to be Jeff's birthday.  On Wednesday we will travel to the city Isaac has been living in to apply for his passport and visit the orphanage that he and David grew up in.  We are also anticipating the opportunity to meet the foster family that Isaac and David had lived with for over 2 years!

Ok, I'm off to panic over more details that I'm just sure I'm going to miss!

Cinderella

A couple of weekends ago, I had the great privilege of escorting my little princess to watch the Ukrainian Youth Ballet perform the ballet version of Cinderella.  It combined the two greatest loves of Miriam's life - princesses and ballet.  We almost didn't get to go through a ticket mix-up, but through the incredible thoughtfulness of a friend, we were able to make it work.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it was a magical night not soon to be forgotten!

All dressed up in our princess dress and ready to go to dinner and a ballet!

Mama and her princess

Relaxing on the subway and thoroughly enjoying all the happy attention from everyone around her

Pure joy

Showing off her own ballet skills!

Patches & Eyewear

Ok, so there have been a lot of posts lately revolving around glasses.  That's because a lot of our life has been revolving around that lately.  First Miriam got her glasses, then her eye patch (or eye sticker as we refer to it around here), and finally Elijah got his glasses.

I have been nothing but blessed and amazed by how well they have both done.  Elijah actually just let us put his glasses on and has never once complained.  Every once in a while he will pull them off if he is either very angry or doing something like jumping repeatedly in a ball pit that isn't so easy with glasses on.  But mostly it has been such an easy process!  No small miracle for a 2 1/2 year old boy!

Miriam has also done a great job with her eye patch.  She wears it most of the day, usually taking it off for 1-2 hours each day.  Her brain doesn't know how to use her left eye well, so even though she should have near normal vision while wearing glasses, she actually has very poor vision even with the glasses.  So she wears the patch to force her brain to re-learn how to see from that eye.  We haven't done any official doctor follow-up yet, but I'm pretty sure I know her eye is making improvements.  She will likely wear the patch for 6-12 months since the learning process is a slow one, but she's a brave little princess who doesn't mind wearing her eye sticker most of the time.

Here are some pictures of my beautiful kids in their fashion eye wear!

Miriam's first eye patch - in honor of the 4th of July!

Miriam with her sweet friend Abby who came to an "Eye Patch Tea Party" to help encourage Miriam as she began wearing her eye patches.  They decorated their own eye patch and Abby wore her's along with Miriam.  So blessed she has such great friends!

Check out the glass slipper eye patch!  Yes, you can now all be amazed at my skills of eye patch decoration! :)

I think Elijah has the personality to fit the glasses!

My handsome boy!

 Of course David couldn't be left out of the glasses wearing.  For the first few days after Elijah got his glasses, David wore this nearly everywhere.  And always upside down.

Life with Elijah

Yep, this picture pretty much sums up what it is like to live with my full-on little man!  He does everything 120%, both the good and the ugly.  There is literally never a dull moment when he is around, and he brings out much laughter and many heart-attacks.  Just today we were at a pool celebrating both America's and David's birthday, when for the 27th time I lost track of Elijah.  I yelled across the pool to Jeff, "Do you know where Elijah is?".  When my friend laughed at my slightly panicked expression, I informed her that I end up asking that question approximately every 20 minutes all day long.  And that boy is FAST!  Seriously, nobody should be allowed to move that quickly who has such poor impulse control.

Here are two recent stories that highlight the joy it is to have a little boy like Elijah in our home.  The first happened just a couple of days ago when Elijah decided to go poo on our dining area floor instead of the potty (both boys spend most of their time at home with naked bottoms since they use the toilet much more consistently that way).  I walked into the room to see a large and stinky deposit on the floor and the bottom half of Elijah covered in mess.  I quickly scooped him up and set him on the bathroom floor when the doorbell rang.  It was three men who had arrived to check our gas meter.  All three of my kids were completely naked and the pile of poo was not more than 2 feet from them, so all I could think to do was grab a towel, throw it over the pile, and pretend there was nothing unusual happening.  While I was on the phone with Jeff asking where our gas card was located, Elijah decided to run back into the room to say hello to everyone (he can't ever pass up a chance to be mr. social) and the poor gas meter man who was in the house had to try and dodge a very unpleasant attempt at a hug.

The second fun adventure with Elijah was on stage at church for David's dedication.  We made the last-minute and fool-hardy decision to take our whole family up front for the dedication time during those nostalgic and naive moments where we thought about how sweet it would be to have the whole family together.  So Jeff is holding David and I am holding Elijah.  In less than 10 seconds he is squirming and asking to stand by himself.  I whisper urgently, "If I put you down, do you promise to stay right next to mama?"  "Yes", he replies, and like a complete moron I decide to believe him.  Of course in no time flat he has started to wander across the back of the stage and I am trying to subtly (in front of 400 people) move slowly after him.  As soon as he realizes he's being followed, he breaks into a full-out sprint across and off the stage (did I mention he's fast?).  So I have to give up all pretense of calmness and go sprinting after him lest he actually makes it out of the sanctuary.

Once he is retrieved, I haul him back on stage and vow to not put him down for anything.  In another moment of mama brain lapse, I put on a bright smile and whisper to him as he screeches and squirms, "Do you want to tickle mama?"  Instead of tickling me, he begins to swat vigorously at my face and I hear gasps of surprised amusement from both the congregation and the pastor.  At this point I am desperately wishing I had brought a roll of duct tape to tie him up because I could get away with it and no one would think badly of me for doing it.  But instead I find the pacifier and he magically decides to snuggle down happily on my shoulder.  That's my boy.  Slapping one minute and snuggling the next.  As we climb down off the stage, I smile at Jeff and say, "Yep, we are officially 'that family'".  You know, the one that makes everyone else feel better about their kids, because no matter what else they did that day, at least they didn't run away and then slap their mom in front of 400 people.  You can view a part of the service on youtube courtesy of the other family having their son dedicated at the same time at http://youtu.be/ZBRKLfwEIRY   Yep, it includes both the escape and the slap.

I love that kid with all my heart!

Glasses & Sound of Music

This past week, Miriam got her long-awaited glasses!  When we went back for the follow-up visit with the opthamologist, we discovered that Miriam is very far-sighted in her left eye (+6.0), and because that eye is so bad it has a tendency to cross.  Even more, because she has not really been able to see out of that eye, her brain has stopped using the eye.  Even when she has glasses to correct her vision, her left eye avoids trying to see and she still predominately uses her right eye.  So, in a few days in addition to her glasses she will start wearing a patch over her right eye to force her left eye to learn to see.  I'm pretty sure she is going to hate the patch mostly because at first she will have a very hard time seeing anything and will have no depth perception at all.  But the good news is that she LOVES her glasses, and thanks to some encouragement from loving friends and neighbors, she is convinced everyone who sees her in her glasses thinks she is even more beautiful with them on!

It turns out that Elijah also has some significant vision problems.  He is very far-sighted in both eyes, and has astigmatism in both eyes as well.  He has a much more pronounced tendency than Miriam to cross his eyes.  So, glasses for little Elijah as well, and likely surgery down the road to correct his crossed eyes.  And here I thought all the vision problems in our family were going to come from Isaac! Elijah's glasses got ordered today, so in a week or so he should be getting them.

One of the first things that Miriam wanted to do when wearing her glasses was to re-enact the wedding scene from the Sound of Music where Maria marries the Captain.  So we decorated (didn't make it into the pictures) and Miriam convinced her brothers to be the bridesmaids. :)  Miriam of course was the bride and Abba was the groom.  Enjoy the video of the service. :)

Trying on the glasses for the first time!

Look, I can see myself in the mirror and I'm so cute I can hardly stand it!

The wedding party

Family Vacation

To celebrate the start of the summer for us and to get some much-needed family rest time, we spent a couple of nights at a local hotel as a mini family vacation.  The hotel has an indoor/outdoor swimming pool with two kiddie areas, a playground, and an awesome breakfast buffet.  And really, who needs anything else to make for a good vacation?

Things the kids LOVED to do:

1.  SWIM!!

2.  Yell at the top of their lungs in the hotel lobby to hear the echo

3.  Go out for pizza at a cute little mall that has two play houses out front

4.  Jump back and forth on the beds in the hotel yelling "chicken!!!" (don't ask, I don't know)

5.  Eat approximately 8 waffle pieces and 4 hard boiled eggs at each breakfast

6.  All pile onto mama and abba's king-sized bed to watch a video

7.  Get very little sleep because they are too busy being excited talking and laughing at bedtime and naptime.

8.  Give mama a heart attack by strategically trying to wedge their bodies into the revolving door

Great fun was had by all, and we were so glad we went!

We love pizza!!

And we love to swim!!

6 months!

I know, can you even believe it's been 6 months since we brought David home??

It has been a tough but sweet 6 months.  I've said it a million times, but David is incredible.  He has jumped into our family with both feet and never looked back.  And I've so enjoyed the process of seeing his personality and heart slowly unfold before us.

When he first arrived, he said only a handful of words, and now he often talks in 2-4 word sentences.  About half English, half Chinese.  We speak to him more in English now than Chinese, and he has no problems at all understanding the vast majority of what we say.  It's been such a helpful growth process for him to learn to use words instead of tears and whining to communicate what he needs and wants!

We are learning that our little boy's chief desire in life is just simply to be with people he loves.  He doesn't care what he is doing, so long as he is doing it with you.  Jeff can literally ask David to anything, and as long as they are doing it together David is happy as a clam.  The down side to this is when you want to accomplish something that David can't help with, and then he is completely devastated.

David is also the most generous person I think I've ever met.  Seriously.  Almost without exception, no matter what he has, if someone asks him for it he will immediately hand it over with a huge smile.  And nothing makes him happier than to wander the house and look for things that he thinks someone will want and give it to them.  The other day he was sitting in my lap watching a video when Miriam asked if she could sit in my lap.  I said, "Not right now sweetie, I'm holding David.  Later on I can hold you."  David immediately got down, patted my empty lap and said, "Jiejie (big sister) sit!"  And he giggled in delight when she got in my lap instead.  Such a precious little heart to serve and bless others!

And can I say that with every week that goes by, David becomes more of a Daddy's boy.  I mean that kid L.O.V.E.S his Abba.  If he never had to leave Jeff's side, he would be happy the rest of his life.  David and I have a strong bond and he definitely loves me as well, but if he had to choose one parent it would be no contest at all.  Which makes me very happy for Jeff because the other two kids are definitely more Mama attached.  David actually starts to hyperventilate sometimes when he sees Jeff he is so excited.  It's the cutest thing in the world to watch him greet Jeff with every ounce of his little self consumed with joy.

Some of the ongoing challenges include trying to help him learn to use words when he starts to get agitated and upset about something.  He often reverts to just a steady whine and refuses to actually say what it is that he needs or is bothering him.  He is also incredibly stubborn when he thinks that something should happen a certain way and it doesn't.  If he thinks that right now is supposed to be the time to set the table and you tell him "no", he will burst into tears and refuse to be comforted until he's allowed to do what he wants.  Which often results in long bouts of crying because that strategy doesn't work in this family.  But we are learning that if we can help him understand that it's ok for something to be different than he thinks, he can accept it much more easily.  Just don't mess with that boy's expectations!

David and Elijah's relationship has probably been the hardest part of the adjustment of the last 6 months.  Mostly in that Elijah went from an outgoing, generally happy and goofy little boy to a sullen, stubborn and extremely temperamental little boy when David came home.  At first there was a lot of physical aggression from Elijah, who would often hit/push/pinch etc. David for no reason at all other than that he was in the house.  Then after the first couple of months that settled down, but Elijah continued to be easily frustrated, confrontational and withdrawn.

It was so hard on my heart to see my happy little boy seem to disappear!  There were times I cried myself to sleep in fear that my sweet Elijah was gone forever.  But honestly just in the last couple of weeks, it's like someone flipped the switch back to where it is supposed to be in Elijah's heart, and we've seen our happy and easygoing little boy come back!!  He doesn't answer EVERY question with "No!", nor does he instantly fall into a screaming fit if even the tiniest thing isn't exactly what he wants it to be.  I can say, "How about we do that later?", and he says, "Ok mama!"  You have no idea how life-giving that is to my heart!  And he and David are making good strides in playing together and actually starting to enjoy each other.  I think David's increased ability to communicate has helped a lot with that.  They still definitely push each other's buttons often, but they also laugh and play together without the need for constant supervision.  Hallelujah!

To be honest, I think God knew that I needed to see some real growth in Elijah's heart before we bring Isaac home.  I have much more peace about throwing our family into another round of chaotic adjustment after seeing that even if it is hard, everyone will eventually settle down and it WILL be ok.  If When there are struggles and somebody is falling apart, I know that the pieces will eventually get put back together.  And not just put back together, but made into something stronger and more beautiful than before.  A family richer, deeper and more full of the real kind of joy for having gone through the hard together.  Six months and the beauty and joy are only just beginning to shine through.  How amazing it will be to see it grow!

 Checking out the construction zone outside our neighborhood

 A favorite activity - catching tadpoles in the creek in front of our house

 Being silly while checking out how much we've grown!

 Look, I made a frog cookie!

 Playing in the back yard pool

Yep, still love dressing up with big sister!