Little Guy

The dream of Little Guy joining our family has ended.  No miracles headed our way.  He has paperwork missing and can not be made paper ready with the CCCWA to be adopted internationally.  I just got the final 'no' in an e-mail.  I called Eric to let him know and told him I was handling it better than I thought I would but now I'm sitting in my van waiting for the girls in dance and bawling my eyes out.

I am relieved to finally know and it is as we expected but it still hurts.  He has no future and very little hope of anything changing for him.  So unbelievably sad.  Could everyone send some thoughts or prayers his way.  I wish there was more we could do.

We've offered to pay for his surguries and or foster care.  This hasn't happened either.

Welcoming Dagen!

Welcome Dagen!  We look forward to lots of time spent playing with you and your family!

Came home to a display of lone sox.  The mystery continues.

The girls managed to successfully move the babies in with Stella!  I don't think she loves the times they are chasing her and landing on her in play but she clearly likes the cuddle time.  Ratties are just so sweet!  Fei got this picture of them cuddled in a kleenex box.  Lola on the left, Lia in the middle and Stella on the right.

Lili's room is underway!  Crown moulding is up, he's re-doing the base moulding and adding coffin bars on the ceiling.  Walls will be Oolong Tea green and the ceiling will be midnight blue to match the night scape of her wolf border.  Floors are being stripped and refinished.  Eric spent all day Sunday chasing wires, trying to fix the electrical in the room.  Wild.  10 live wires in one box!  Found some more knob and tube.  It's days like that one that make Eric want to move :)  I'm grateful he's so clever to have figured it out and get it all fixed.

Once her room is done, we move onto Fei's new room and then to do a room for our son, who ever he may be.  Jia needs her floors stripped and refinished too.  It never ends. 

Nicole brought over ceramic easter eggs for the girls to paint. 

They took it very seriously.

Meiling and Jia played hard for the whole visit. 

It's taken them a while to mesh, they are so cute together.

Witty's Lagoon

Who likes bears?

Eric takes scenery pictures, with no kids or pets.  How odd.

As always, what a gorgeous group of girls.

I called Debbie to see if she was up for a playdate and she told me they were on their way to Witty's Lagoon for a nature walk to learn about black bears.  Right up our alley, so we picked up Anna and Abigail and met Debbie and her kids.  Great little hike to a really cool lagoon and we stopped every now and then to hear a little bit more about black bears.  The kids reported that they knew all of it (Thanks Jerry's Rangers) but I learned lots.  In particular I had no idea how tiny the bears were at birth or any of the particulars about their hibernation.  All in all it was a great start to Spring Break. 

Eric took the quad apart on the weekend and found the loose wire.  I'm sure he's already learning more about the quad than he wanted too.  Fei was really enthrawled watching him take it apart and put it back together again.  I can imagine her working on it herself one day.  Once it was fixed both girls were eager to ride it and Lili talked me into riding with her.  Um, it moves way too fast.  I have NO idea how Fei got this picture.  Seriously, the photo should be a blur.  Love my hair blowing back.  Too funny.

After we hiked at Witty's Lagoon, we took the girls to see Chris racing RC trucks.  That's radio controlled trucks.  Lili and Fei got one each for Christmas so they were pretty thrilled to see what the races were all about.  Lili in particular wants to get racing.  In the mean time, they only use their trucks in the house.  Not sure if they are trying to keep them clean and nice or not.

Our kids have two weeks off for Spring Break, then Easter before back to school on the 2nd.  We got all excited and tried to plan a road trip with Penny and girls to Disneyland but the hotel situation was pretty sad and the big girls weren't too keen to go when it's busy.  Penny ended up not getting the time and we all just scrapped the plan.  For a couple days though, I was going to be in Disneyland on Easter!  Now we're trying to find stuff to do here. 

Still finishing up paperwork on the dossier, Sunrise requested a few changes in wording on the application letter to China.  So we sent that off on Friday.  Fonnie thought our dossier would be ready to go to China this week (dtc).  It's starting to get a bit exciting.  It's not looking good to be adopting Little Guy, we feel that if it was all a go we certainly would have heard something by now, there is always hope for a miracle though.   Sunrise will be looking for a match to a little boy with special needs under the age of 3 for us.  We won't know what the need is until there is file for us to look at.  That's a bit wild.  With Little Guy we knew the need and were comfortable.  If we get a match off the Waiting Child list we'll have three days to accept or decline.  Sounds exciting and scary all at once.  As always a huge leap of faith.  After our file arrives in China, it will get logged in, this is currently taking about two weeks.  Once we have a log in date, Sunrise can look for a match.  There are new files added to the list every month.  We don't know how many families are in line ahead of us with Sunrise with a similar request.  Most families are looking for girls.  All to say, we have no clue what will happen, how long it will take or who we will be adding to our family.  Jia is talking about a baby brother non stop these days, she is putting things aside for him, talking about the things she will share with him and sometimes she says she is going to love him because he is going to be her best friend.  Awww.   

Cowichan video.

This video about our valley is awesome.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHC9D11xA4c&feature=share

Lili's new bike.

She's thrilled.  We're happy the size is ok, it's right on edge. 

Little Monkey #3

Interesting days with Miss Jia.  She is getting too clever and quite mischevious.  Last night the girls and I were in the bathroom playing with the rats, Jia was getting too rambunctious so we sent her out and told her to find Daddy, moments later I heard the door chime, wasn't sure where Eric and Jia were so I went to check, yup, she had her shoes on and was just coming back in!!  Yikes.  She was looking for Daddy, who was asleep on the couch.  The knob was missing on the lamp last night.  I thought the fridge was awfully cold so had Eric check because it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if she'd set it to freezing.  Oh and yesterday morning Fei saw Minnie mouse running around the big rat cage!  Rats will eat mice, they are not friends.  We're not sure what Stella thought of her visitor, thank goodness she didn't hurt her and even more thankful that Minnie didn't run away, she's soooo tiny, I have no idea how we'd ever find a mouse in our house.  Fei managed to catch her and get her home.  Jia was quite happy to confess that she let Minnie out.  That is a whole new problem to deal with.  Poor kid had to endure lots of lectures last night about safety and what the rules are.  She can get into trouble in seconds.  Last night I was trying to get her ready for bed and was looking for her, Fei told me she was on a shelf.  ?  She was indeed on a shelf.  Our little monkey is certainly keeping us on our toes.

Bamfield

Lili's class went camping to Bamfield.  A marine science center.  She had a great time there.  Her teacher called ahead and arranged a B-day cake for her.  One of the Dads on the trip bought her a Bamfield T-shirt.  She was tired and happy to be home.  It was all good.  She took lots of pictures.  Obviously not that many of herself.  I picked a few for on here.  Looks like she got to touch lots of icky interesting things.  When I was scrolling though I found a picture of Little Guy and I together, we're holding hands.  Aww.  I almost cried just seeing it.  Had no idea she took any pictures at Changting.  It was literally the only picture she took that day.  Sigh.  Wish I could post it, he's so sweet. 

Camp, loss, baby rats and Birthdays

Mixed bag post today.

Our Lili is off to her Grade 5 camp trip to Bamfield this morning.  Had to get up at 4am.  That part was fun.  Jia of course woke up and ate a full breakfast, I had to convince her it was still night to get her back to bed :)  Lili was good to go, having been to stay away camp a couple times before certainly helps.  It's her 11th Birthday tomorrow, she isn't thrilled about being away for that but I think it will be ok once she realizes the day is still fun.  We took photos of her gifts and wrapped them up so she can open them at her leisure.  We got her a blue boys 18 speed mountain bike.  She wasn't quite as keen with her girly cruiser as Fei and I are.  I couldn't send cake so she picked out a treat to share with her classmates, jolly rancher suckers.  I made a carboard cake and stuck them in the top like icing.  Turned out great.  Not sure the teacher wanted to lug them on the trip  or leave them in the class for another day but either way, Lili loved how it turned out and thanked me for the effort.  What Lili doesn't know is that her teacher called ahead and ordered a cake for her at camp.  So sweet.  Can't wait to pick her up on Thursday and hear all about the adventure.

We had to say good bye to Sophie girl last week.  It was expected so it was handled well by everyone.  She was our only biter, she was deaf, didn't hang on very well, she never potty trained and peed her bed every day but she was the prettiest rat ever and we still loved her, she is missed.  She almost made it to two years old.  We certainly aren't getting any great longevity from out sweet girls.  Stella is still with us, she is a year and a half.  I was hoping to find a resue girl the same age to keep her company but we've had no luck finding one.

Lili has never been too artistic.  Perhaps a double jointed finger issue but she is starting to do some doodling that looks pretty good.  She brought home this little lion and Jia was very impressed and wanted to draw a lion just like Lili.  Fei was away for most of the weekend, Lili and Jia did some bonding, which they really needed.  It was very sweet to watch.

Miss Hanna had her 10th Birthday on the weekend and she choose a skating party.  I had hoped to keep that a secret from Jia and just let Eric take the big girls but Fei excitedly told Jia we were all going and Jia talked about it for days.  She even took to skating around the house with very precise and correct moves to show us how skating is done.  So, she was over the top excited by the time we got there and totally zoned out when the skates were going on.  A surreal moment for her.  Then they finally hit the ice and she hated it.  Too slippery.  She went once around with Eric holding her and then once again with a walker and then she wanted to go home.  I sat her with me to watch, keeping her skates on, thinking she would change her mind, but no, she was done and really wanted to go home.  I think that's the first time she's been really dissappointed with a new experience.  Lili and Fei don't get skating very often, they were clinging to the walls for the first couple laps, Lili managed some skating on her own and Fei held Eric's hand for the most part.  They had fun though and would like to go again. 

Now the most exciting news of all.  We went to the pet store yesterday to buy a couple snails for Jia's fish tank and the lady at the pet store told us she just got in a litter of baby girl rats, five weeks old.   Eric and I had decided to let both girls have babies, so they can play together and we'll use the new cage for them since they'll just annoy Stella who wants to sleep most of the day away.  It was hillarious watching them try to pick one from about 12.  They were constant motion and it was hard to keep track.  I think the lady in the pet store was enjoying their careful consideration of which one would be best.  We weren't allowed to hold them because they weren't hand trained and so jumpy.  I was pretty scared about that since all of our babies have been trained when we got them.  Eric went in to get snails at a different place and by the time he got back to the car the two babies were already comfortable to be held.  That quick.  Not kidding.  It was amazing.  Now it is total love, there is just nothing cuter (in our humble opinions) than baby ratties.  So fun.  Lili was a bit sad to leave her new baby but Fei and I have promised to cuddle her lots.  They are so fluffy when they're this little.  Lili's little girl fell asleep on her belly last night and Lili got the cutest pictures of her.

Introducing Lea

Introducing Lola

Lea fell asleep on Lili's belly and stayed there for an hour nap!  Fei's Lola napped in her hair but we couldn't see her to take pictures.

She took a few pics with her phone, these two were the cutest.  I think this last one is the sweetest rat picture any of us have ever taken.

School stuff still on the front line.  I'm still managing to stay out of the stress.  Eric is involved.  Some crazy stuff coming about.  Eric is finding it draining and tedious, just going around in cirlcles over the same issues over and over again.  Wish it wasn't going to take so long to find out the verdict.

We think Sunrise has everything for our dossier as of yesterday.  I think we're waiting to hear when we are DTC.  Amazingly still no word on Little Guy.