New boys name for the list.

 

Luk

 

meaning - sixth

 

He will be our sixth family member so this one is pretty cool.

 

It is pronounced loook but we would use the shorter familiar sound of Luke.

 

All of us love it and it's the front runner right now.

Jia's new best friend D.O.G.

I bought this robot dog at the thrift store yesterday for .50cents.  Three AA batteries and he was good to go.  He walks, backs up, barks, chirps, pants, ears move, bum wiggles, tail wags.  Very cute.  Jia was over the moon excited about him.  She loves him and it was instant.  She's named him D.O.G. (Dee-oh-gee).  Fei and I wanted him to move around so we could see everything he does but Jia had a hard time putting him down.  She just keeps picking him up and hugging and kissing him.  So incredibly sweet.  Please excuse the hair-doo, Daddy just doesn't care about these things on his watch.

Rainy weekend

Fei and I got up early on Saturday, I took her out for breakfast and then went to a Parents Unite sale, spent $20 and got a pretty good haul.  Doing jungle theme in Little Brothers room so was happy with finding the cute jungle animal hooks.  Jia has been wanting that toy vacuum cleaner for a while now and she was thrilled to have a Dora movie.  The big girls had the same one on vhs.  We put it on for her in the living room and we all remembered all of the songs.  Too funny.

Thank you Mom/Gramma for our new Keens.  We all just love them!

Jia in particular is having her first real love affair with a shoe.  She takes them off and puts them on one of her little chairs, the shoe cubby isn't good enough for them.  She actually got a wipe the other day and cleaned them!  She wants to wear them all of the time now!  She wanted to sleep with them on the first night.  I think they'll make the perfect summer/camping shoe for all of us.

Jia found a shelled peanut in the rats food bag and then packed it around the house for an hour feeding the elephant.  So when we grocery shopped, I got a whole bag of them (fit for human consumption) and we brought them for our play date.  The two littles had a riot peeling them.  Jia told the cashier when we bought them that they were for the elephants and the cashier said "I don't think we have elephants around here" and Jia told her "ya' we do, dat's why we gots the peanuts". 

They are just so cute!

Eric verathaned Lili's floor on Saturday, it looks fabulous.  It was very stinky though.  His arm is killing him from all the repetitive movement of refinishing her floor.  We tried to get out for most of it but it was such a rainy weekend.  Ended up doing a long grocery order on Sat. at Wal-Mart and going for donuts at Tims just to escape.  Lili and I went to see The Host on Saturday night.  I was impressed at what a great job they did following the book.  I had no idea how they were going to portray that movie, especially the two voices in one head.  Sunday Eric went riding and the girls and I planned to see the new baby goats at Beacon Hill with Debbie and Emily but it was just raining so hard.  After our stormy drive there we were quite happy to just hang out at Debbie's and let the littles play.  Jia just adores Emily.  They are so cute together.  Lots of giggling, screaming, chasing and hugging. 
 

For anyone who remembers this story

An update on the family that was arrested in Ghana last year, falsely accussed of trafficing their four adopted kids and two bio sons.

http://themoghadamsjourneytoafrica.blogspot.ca/2013/04/our-stuck-story.html

The floor

The floor was the hard part to deal with in Lili's new room.  Eric is half done stripping the floor in this picture.  It's all done now.  It turned our better than we hoped for.  He needs to stain it and put varnish on but that part is super stinky, so we're waiting for some days that it's convenient to sleep in the trailer.

 

I was looking back through the blog to our trip to Jia, looking for the name of our Beijing guide, it was Mr. Yang.  Anyways, one of the things I thought was funny was how many nap pictures we got of Jia.  Not much has changed.  She loves to shop but even more she loves to nap while we grocery shop.  I think she likes the sounds of the big stores. 

This morning Minnie Mouse came to visit on her way to the Mickey Mouse Club House.  She was gathering up her friends, Fei who was Pluto and Lili who was Daisy and me who was Mickey Mouse, when we got to Dad I asked who he was and she said 'oh, he's just a dog'.  She loves dogs a lot so I think that was a bit of a compliment?

 

Jia "Mommy, lets make silly faces"

Me "ok, lets see what you've got"

Me "isn't that the same face Jia?"

Jia "no, it's different"

Me "Jia, do you need your fingers in your mouth for all funny faces?"

Jia "uhm, huh".

 

DTC!!! DTC!!! DTC!!!

Date To China, Dossier To China or Documents to China, any way you say it, our file is on it's way to China!  Now we wait for a Log In Date, LID.

When I made the DTC, Jia wanted to help, but I had her do her own letters instead, notice the fabulous job she did of painting her Jia.

Chinese Boy Names

We need help.  Seriously, not kidding, we need help.  Any and all suggestions appreciated.

We would like a Chinese name that sounds familiarish to a Western name.  Something short, preferably 3 letters.  It must have a Chinese character with a decent meaning. 

So far we have

Jin  - gold
Bo  - precious
Bai - pure
Ren  - benevolent

I love the name Bai  (Bay) but it is close in sound to Fei (Fay).  She loves the name and is hoping we'll pick it but when ever I call it out she answers.  She swears it's because she isn't really listening and she would listen harder if her brother was here with that name.  She also comes running when any one of us call HEY.

I really like Bo, but my first dog was named Beau and the kids think that is weird.  Eric doesn't like the b o spelling and thinks it will be a problem for him.

We all like Ren but we all prefer Bai.

We all like Rai or Rei but it's a Japanese name.  It is used in China but I can't find a character for it.  Fei clearly hears the R better than the B.

Hopefully some of you have some great boy names for us to consider! 

Waiting child list

Questions answered.

We've had a lot of people asking why we're going with special needs this time.  Thought some of you might also be curious but too polite to ask. 

First...any parent of any child can become a parent to a special needs child at any time. 

Next, it's pretty much the only reasonable way to adopt from China any more.  Their are families still waiting in the non-special-needs line up, China has matched up to Oct 2006.  We adopted Jia 2 1/2 years ago from this line up, she was a May 2006 kiddo.  In two and half years the line up has moved five months.  There aren't any agencies left in Canada that are taking applications for this line up that we know of.  The NSN line up doesn't guarantee a child with out needs anyways.  We do consider ourselves pretty darn lucky with Jia.  She hasn't presented any medical needs.  She is however very intense, full of drama, extremely demanding, loud and quite difficult in personality often.  We laugh daily and say 'thank goodness she's so cute'. 

We have three children, two of them have special needs.  Going by the special needs list, Lili and Fei both have a few.  They each have a label that would have made us seriously consider adopting them had we known.  Of course now that they are ours we have no issues with the needs and we all just deal daily.  No big deal in our world. 

We have requested that what ever need our son has not be life threatening or life shortening.  We have requested that he be healthy with a need that can be corrected or managed fairly easily.  Neither Eric, Lili, Fei or I have any reserves about adopting special needs.  We have NO idea what need our son will have, we are anxious to learn everything about him, where he is, how old he is, what he looks like, what his needs are and how soon we can go get him.

A lot of people in China adoption fight for the term 'waiting child' but I prefer special need, all children waiting for families are 'waiting children' in my opinion.

I'll also say that I do believe that all children being adopted internationally are special needs to some degree.

Why not another girl? or Why a boy? Really funny.  We've spent years trying to say we didn't ask for 'not a boy'.   Now our answer is the same, we haven't asked for 'not a girl'.  You just can't win with this debate in adoption.

Oh, and why China?  because it makes the most sense to all of us for many reasons but mostly cultural celebrations will just be easier if our children are all from the same Country.

Next issue that needs a bit more clarification,  I've had a few Mom's from the China adoption circles want us to fight harder for Little Guy.   We've done that.  We've had three different contacts in China try to get him paper ready.  The Director of his SWI has been firm all along, since the beginning that he can not be adopted internationally.  It's been eight months.  The very last thing Eric and I want is an unethical adoption.  I've had lots of people suggest reasons why he might not be adoptable.  We don't know the answers and will likely never know with any certainty.  We have our own suspicions about what is happening.  I've read that 80% of children world wide in orphanages are not really orphans.  Hague rules dictate very clearly that a child moved internationally must be a legal orphan.  Little Guy is missing paperwork.  He can not have a file sent to CCWA in Beijing.  He can not be adopted internationally.  Even if we moved to China, we couldn't adopt him without being citizens.  Some SWI's raise children and then have them stay at work at the SWI.  I actually hope this is the case, it's not ideal by any means but it would mean he is in a place that accepts him and he'll have a future there.  We are extremely sad that he isn't joining our family.  I read sad stories about orphans every day, he isn't alone in his plight.  I do feel comfortable knowing I've done all that we could reasonably do for him.  For everyone who knows me, you know I can be pretty pushy when I need to be :)  In this case, we are bowing out as gracefully as possible.  Secure in the knowledge that every child with paperwork in at CCWA needs a family and one of them will be our son.

Camp

The big girls went to a camp retreat this weekend.  Jia was very upset that they were camping and she wasn't.  She told Eric and I in great detail how smores are made, even though she hasn't ever actually eaten one.  So, I decided to set up a tent for us in the living room and we made baby smores, teddy grahams, miniature marshmellows and chocolate chips.  Very tasty by the way.  She was completely thrilled with our camping set up.  She was so excited that she was up until 12:30 the first night and 11:30 the second night!  I'm exhausted.  I was pretty happy to take down the tent on Sunday afternoon :) 

 

 

On Saturday I decided to take Jia out of Eric's hair and let him get some work done.  Jia and I went for a lunch and playdate with friends.  I'd asked Jia who she would like to play with and she said Kalum.  Thankfully they were home.  Here they are playing pirate.  Too cute!

Lili and Fei had fun at camp, the rain didn't interfere too badly.  Lili was thrilled to get home and see that Eric had painted her room.  It's not done.  Needs another coat of green and whole lot of touch up on the trim. 

I finally called our adoption agency on Friday afternoon to find out how the matching works with them.  I was pleased with most of what I heard.  I was a bit shocked to hear that it would likely be about five months to get travel approval after we are matched.  Versus the approx. two months we had with the girls.  Totally different process with the shared list.  Hopefully the speed ups I'm reading about on Rumor Queen work in our favor because that part of the waiting would be tough.  Our file should go to China this week.  Can't wait to announce a log in date.  Once we're logged in, we'll be officially waiting for a match.  This is starting to feel very real.

Hip Hammock

Hands free.

So, we're moving into plan B, which is to log in with China and have Sunrise look for a boy for us.  Our request has gone in as respecting birth order.  So, a boy under 3.  Could be a baby, could be a toddler, could be 3.  I'm imagining a two year old.  Keeping a one year gap between him and Jia.  Obviously we don't have much control and ultimately it doesn't really matter to us.  Having said that...we were preparing for a four/five year old and I have been passing on the baby gear.  Which I did after Fei too, so this isn't a new situation and it's not a big deal since I shop used for baby gear anyways.  I did have a friend asking me what we would need if we are referred a baby and I told her we were good, still have the high chair and strollers.  Not sure if we still have a crib or not.  Have to ask Eric.  We'll need car seats, but we would have needed them anyways since Little Guy was so tiny.  The only thing I could think of that I sorta regret passing on was Jia's baby carrier.  Told Eric I thought I'd like a hip hammock this time around.  That was Monday, Tuesday I went to the thrift store at lunch time and bought a brand new Hip Hammock for $2!!  I was crazy excited about that.  When I got it home, Jia took one look at it and said "I want in that!".  We tried it with her and it worked fabulously.  I know lots of people who swear by them for older/heavier kids.  I carted her around for half an hour and we were both still comfortable.  She didn't want to get out.  I told her it was for her little brother and she quickly said "but I'm the baby!".   I know in the pictures, the strap should be on my neck, but I don't like the straps on my neck, so we improvise, works just as well but less painful for me.

Easter

Nicole and family had us over for an egg hunt.  I'm feeling all mopey and grumpy so it was really nice to have some fun.  She totally spoiled our girlies. 

The girls love the show Good Luck Charlie and there is a part in the opening that shows the whole family with soothers in their mouths.  When I saw these bunny teeth, I thought of that and bought them imagining the girls thinking it was hillarious.  Turns out that only I thought it was hillarious, they're good sports so they went along with it anyways. 

At Butchart for the annual bunny hunt.  Gorgeous day.

Our little cutie, looking all stylin' in her favorite dress.  Lili, Fei and I wore black to match her, she was just thrilled about that.

Oh, how we'd all love a cabin in the woods like this one! 

Jia got to ride on the bunny!

These are new, they're at the toy boat pond in James Bay.  Half Full.  Lili just learned about the displacement straw looking like it's broken.  She knew immediatly what these were supposed to be.  The rest of us were clueless.  When we left and got in the car and looked back we could see the words Half Full on them.  They spin and were lots of fun apparently, because Eric and I had a hard time getting the girls to move on.

Eric is in work clothes and I'm in jammies but Lili really wanted a picture of this sandwich.  Her favorite food.  Mom, this picture reminds me of that old picture of you and dad in work clothes after a day of yard work from Squamish.

 

The kids are all about playing outside and they don't like to come in.  There is a small section of fence in the front that needs to be done.  I've been asking for years.  Eric is finally on it.  Can't wait.  I want the gate closed, the front door open and kids and animals coming in and out.  We did that yesterday but Eric had to stay out to watch Isabel.  I don't trust her to stay and our road is busy and she is clueless about cars.  Isabel normally plays with us in the back yard, so she was one happy puppy to be running free in the front yard!  Fei got a handful of catfood and worked at training Isabel to walk beside her.  Cute.  

 

Our file goes soon to China.  I'll of course let ya'll know when we're officially waiting.