Good News and Bad News

Good news first - we had a cake sent to Simon, along with a letter and pictures of our family and we got back pictures of him sharing it with some friends ! As you can see, his friends got their pieces first, but he got two pieces, all to himself. In all the ten pictures we received, he never once looked up at the camera. He is always staring down intently at his cake. Isn't he adorable !

Now for the bad news. Our other son, the one who still does not have an American name, will not get his cake for ten more days. It seems that on the way to school he found a firecracker and a lighter and managed to do enough damage to his hand and face, that he required a hospital stay. I don't know whether to be more worried about his physical well being or about the kinds of things he might try after he gets home. :/

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss !!!

At this very moment, I am sitting in a beautiful theater which is about to be occupied by 1500 elementary school kids who are about to see the Cat in the Hat come to life. My kids have already seen it many times, but have asked to come twice today because tonight will be the final performance. We are very blessed to have this priviledge. We have read many Seuss books this week - each child has read more than one On Their Own !! Yipee! Everyone can read !

Pretending

After the snowiest winter in memory, the crocuses and daffodils are blooming and the weather is unseasonably warm. We are pretending it is spring. Today we even cooked hot dogs over a fire in our backyard. Tomorrow we will go geocaching and won't even need jackets. If you don't know what that is, google it. It is tons of family fun. Or call and invite yourselves to join us, we'd love to have you come along.

The Reason for Two

When you are in the midst of all the miserable paperwork for an international adoption, it is helpful to keep in contact with other people who are walking the same path. They can give you advice and console you when you have a glitch, as you inevitably will. Some of these people are just beginning the process and haven't been matched with a child yet, so there are frequently conversations about specific waiting children whose pictures may be seen on various blogs and agency websites. People say things like " have you seen Davey on so and so's new list? Isn't he adorable?" So of course, you go over to so and so's new list to look at Davey and while you are there you see pictures of 10, 20 , 30, other children who wait ( of the 2000 plus on Chinas special needs list at any one time). You know that many of these will never be chosen, but when you find a Special One, you go to all your blogs and you say "did you see Kent, on Agency's new list?" hoping that someone else will see what you have seen and choose Him. And so I did. For two boys. The first was last fall, for Simon, from our agency's list. The second one, in January, was this boy, posted by another agency, from the shared list. I fell in love with those dimples. I said , "see him, isn't he cute?" and many agreed. But, it turned out that he was meant for us. We are rejoicing !

Chinese New Year

The Chinese part of our family, Ric's mom and Dad, invited us to their house to celebrate Chinese New Year. Ric's brother Brandon, also lived with an American family for many years, until recently. Rachel, the blonde, is his American sister. My children, (two of whom speak Chinese) Nellie, Dominic, and Andy are Ric's American siblings. Brandon, Ric's Chinese brother, does not speak any Chinese. lol

We began our celebration, as they would in China, watching some of the day long TV programing which would include, singing, dancing, acrobats, and magic shows.

The younger children played games while the older ones kept in touch with their world.

Ariel was pretty unhappy that she no longer maintains the 'child' label and wasn't invited to fill a bag with goodies, which include red envelopes filled with varying amounts of good old American dollars.

The real highlight of Chinese New Year, of course, is the food, much of which you will never see at a Chinese restaurant !

Random Winter Fun

Happy Days

Mighty warriors of all ages.

Jerry's mom and dad came for a visit.

My mom and dad couldn't come, but they did take us out to Mexican.

The other kids loved sledding, but Rosie's favorite part of the snow was building snowme. She built one all by herself !

Why Wouldn't We ?

This is Simon. He is ten years old and according to the paperwork we received "loves peformances and often sings and dances". Does that sound like he might just fit in to our family ?

At our age, every time we adopt we are pretty sure it is for the last time. It took a year after Andy's adoption before we could even discuss going back for Dominic who had finally become available. We brought Rosie home with Dominic because we were pretty sure it would be our last opportunity to give a child a family. The serendipitous thing about their adoption was how easy it has been. Although far from perfect, I have four new loving affectionate children. I am hugely grateful.

So we began to think, if we could adopt again, Why Wouldn't We? Did you know that people don't adopt boys? It's true. Everyone wants cute little girls. Waiting child lists are filled with boys who are never chosen. So, on paper, we chose Simon and China has given us preliminary approval. But in Truth, God chose Simon before the foundation of the world, to be part of our family (as He did us, to be part of His) and we are so excited !

Now the only question is - "Will he be coming home alone?"