Fathers Day

Our day just didn't go as planned.  Eric was going to ride and the girls and I were going to have a lazy day in the backyard.  But, Eric's friend who has moved into our apartment and is going to be helping out around the house and yard in lieu of rent didn't get the lawn mowed during the week.  Eric usually makes sure it's mowed mid week so that the grass smell is calm by the weekend, he does this for Fei.  In the end Eric ended up mowing on Fathers Day.  The arrangement isn't working quite yet.  By noon he was thinking he still had time but then he got busy with some other projects and then just kept going.  I felt way too guilty about relaxing when he was working so hard, so the girls and I got going on housework and then after lunch moved our efforts outside.  Jia played near where we were and helped out a bit too.  I found some old shells that the big girls bought when they were little, I set Jia up outside with a bucket of soapy water and she cleaned those shells for about an hour!  I can see it will be fairly easy to entertain her outside this summer.  She also discovered that if you smear chalk on really thick you can make hand prints with the chalk.  We had to strip her down at the door yesterday :)  Anyways, Mom and Dad came over with their left overs from Avery's grad celebration and we had ours so we shared dinner, sitting on the back deck in the newely cleaned table and chairs.  Then we all met my brother and his dog and went for a walk on a new dyke down the road from our place.  We brought the stroller in case Jia needed to rest, she hadn't had a nap yet.  She ended up walking the whole way but Mom and Dad's dogs enjoyed a nice push.  In the end I think Eric was pleased with how much work and clean up got done around the house.  Next year I might have to take his choice away and force an outing.

A new trail cutting knife for Daddy.  It's too funny how big it is :)

 

This has nothing to do with Fathers Day.  This is Jia and Emily, Emily came for a playdate last week.  How do you like to enjoy eating your chocolate chip cookies?!  They had so much fun together.  Jia was so sad when she left and then she promptly ran to the couch and crashed.

Love it.  Look at the wind in everyone's hair.

Fei loves walking Isabel.

It was starting to drizzle as we left home so I brought Jia's umbrella.  She used it for most of our walk.  No rain of course and it was windy enough that she had a few scares with being blown around and then would hold my hand or put the umbrella away.  Only to get it back out and try again.  Oh the talks and lesson we had last night just on wind alone.

Group shot, minus Lili who is taking the photo.

 

Miss Avery is Graduating!

My neice Avery is graduating high school this year.  We went to a family celebration on Saturday.  Her ceremony and dinner/dance are coming up.  Can't wait to see her all dolled up.  Good job Avery!

The girls had fun playing with their cousins.  Jia was calling Ty her new best friend.  Cute.

She isn't one to miss a nap :)  Lili just had to finish this book she started that morning.  She didn't join in until it was done.  She's always liked books, but she is becoming a very serious book worm.

Blog

I've had a lot of people comment that we need to change the name of the blog.  Seems it was a good idea we didn't since we're once again waiting for 'just one more'.  At this point I can't imagine adopting again after number 4.  Never say never though. 

Anyways, Jia's referral picture has been up at the top for an awfully long time so I just removed it and put a question mark in to hold the gadget until we have a referral picture of our son to put up there.

I did hear about a 3 1/2 year old boy that whose file was with a US agency for three months and they didn't find a placement for him so his file was returned to the shared list.  Eric and I spent a few days reading and re-reading his file and staring at his pictures and watching the videos and we researched his needs and looked at YouTube videos and talked to everyone we could with knowledge of his needs.  He has three special needs, two of them were simple and not an issue for us at all, the big issue was limited mobility with the third need.  The file was confusing. listing worst case diagnosis and then one paragraph later stating a mild case.  So many unknowns.  I was pretty keen on day one, on day two we were both feeling we needed more information on day three I was sufficiently scared but Eric wanted to proceed.  We're so not on the same page sometimes.  The child is beautiful and it's hard to not move forward and ask our agency to find his file.  Right now we're back to just waiting to see who our agency finds for us.  So different from the way we were matched with the girls.

Piano recital.

Lili and Fei's year end piano recital.  It's 6 minutes long.  They both play two songs and then one duet together.  As always, I'm in awe of them.  They are simply amazing.  Youtube link below.

http://youtu.be/tLSJLaK1BFQ

Eric was away this weekend, he went to Armstrong to pick up his friend Scott and help him move back to Duncan.  He's staying in our apartment.  We don't know how long he'll be with us.  It's all been calm and peaceful.  We're hopeful it will work out ok.

It was great closing the gate at night with Eric gone.  We thought we'd give Isabel free reign in the house through the night so that she could guard us but she just cried until we put her in her kennel.  Yesterday  Scott startled Isabel and she leapt up to eat him so she does have a protective guard dog gene.  Once she realized there was no threat she turned into a wiggly excited girl.

We had a scare on Friday night with our Izzy.  It was fun fair and we were in a hurry to get going.  Jia told me Isabel was having a nap.  I said 'that's nice Jia'.  We left for Fun Fair and later when we got home Isabel was missing.  Not in her side yard!!  Eric was outside looking everywhere and calling her.  I joined him with Lili and while we were calling in the back yard Eric talked to neighbors and people out walking.  It was major panic time.  We told Fei to stay in the house and watch Jia.  Instead she got Jia's shoes on and they joined us outside calling and looking.  I finally decided that if she was around she would have come so she must be further away and went in to get my keys.  Then I remembered Jia telling me that Isabel was having a nap.  Yup, you guessed it.  I ran upstairs and there was our girl, in her kennel, thumping her tail like mad.  I let her out and she barreled down the stairs and out the front door, so excited to see all of us.  I have no clue why she didn't just bark.  I hesitate to write this part of the story but it is funny.  While Eric took off to let everyone around know that she was found, the girls and I took Isabel in the house and Fei said 'ya' I could hear her upstairs while you were out calling her'.  Arg.  I asked Fei why she didn't tell us she knew where Iz was and she said she didn't know she should tell us.  And there folks is the disconnect for our Fei.  We of course were all so relieved that Izzy was fine, safe and happy.  I then spent the rest of the weekend acutely aware of where everyone was at every second.

Fun Fair was fun of course.  The girls really enjoyed working at ticket sales with Gramma.  Thank you again to Gramma and Grampa for volunteering at the girls school.  Weather held and the school made a good sum of money.  It was all good.

 

Saturday we stayed home, trying to keep Fei low key and stress free before the recital.  Fei and I settled in and got her last poster project/book report done.  She still has to memorize the speech but we got the rest done.  Jia happily worked away drawing pictures and then surprised all of us by using tape and hanging them on the fish tank for her fish to see!  So cute.  We didn't manage to keep Fei stress free, she had a couple moments on Saturday but on Sunday when it mattered she was great.  No issues.  No complaining.  No meltdowns.  She was confident and spoke clearly and played beautifully and was gracious afterwards.  First year that she wasn't clinging to me and shaking.  I just live for these moments!  Major, major progress.  Oh, and again, the youtube link is at the top of this post.

After the recital on Sunday we went to a market to visit Nicole and family.  They were set up selling jewelry that they've been making.  Impressive display.  While we were there we got to meet a baby duck that someones' cat brought in.  We were all wishing we had our own baby duck to love on.

My flex day was yesterday and Eric and I finally took Jia to the preschool and got her registered.  She got to meet both Miss Trish and Miss Annette.  She played with toys, read some books, Eric showed her around the school and she even got to use the tiny bathroom.  Tiny toilet, tiny lowered sink.  She was delighted.  She seemed happy there.  She's talking about 'her school' and says she wants to go.  I'm thrilled that we get to start her off with no reservations.  The ladies were amazing with Lili and Fei and it will be great for Jia too.  Jia learned about frog tadpoles the other day and they had a tank of tadpoles there!  Very cool, they were all growing back legs and one of them was a frog already.  Fun times ahead.

Jia was so exhausted from the days events that she slept through our picnic dinner at the bay.  There is really nothing more beautiful than a sleeping baby.  Ok, well, old enough to go to pre-school in September big baby but still my baby.

Way behind in posting.

I'm lagging here.  Too busy at work to keep the blog up to date.  Way too busy and tired at home to load the pictures.  This post will be random and rambly.  Certainly not in order.  Here goes.

Our old house was 100% fenced.  When we moved to town, we had no fence and an old dog with questionable hearing and sight.  Eric very quickly fenced the side yard.  Then the back for the kids but we waited until there was nicer weather.  The front just didn't get finished on the one side.  I've been asking for nine years.  I'm not sure if Eric finished it because he heard me whine about it to a friend or it's the idea of another little kid running around, but he did it!  He finished the fence 100%.  The girls and I were so excited to let Isabel out front.  Izzy and Jia were busy for at least an hour opening and closing the door and going in and out.  I love, love, love that the front yard is fully fenced.

Is is super exciting that Sunrise is looking for a match for us.  I'm trying hard to not think about it every second of the day.  So far I'm not really thinking it's 'the call' when the phone rings but it does cross my mind OFTEN that it could be any minute.  We're also aware that it could be months and months from now.  I know this will dissappoint but we won't be allowed to post pictures at referral time.  We'll have to send a letter of intent, wait for PA.  Some agencies say you can post after pre-approval (PA) but mostly it's understood that you can't post until you have a LOA (letter of acceptance from China).  That could be a few months past referral.  Certainly we will be carrying his pictures with us, so just ask and we'll show you, just not allowed to post on the internet.

Fei's class had pioneer days at school, she was adorable in her old timey dress.  Love it.  Lili wore the same one.  I had hoped to find L's photo and post them together but I'm short of time.  They were pretending to go to school in 1871.  The teacher was so engaging, the kids were all quiet and hanging on her every word.  I stayed a little bit, it was just fascinating.  I could have stayed all day but was later for work than usual.

rehearsal

rehearsal

rehearsal

 

 

 

 

 

Possibly the best part of Jia's day, cold sparkling apple juice in a wine glass :)

 

All three girls were flower girls in cousin Letitia's wedding.  They were adorable.  The wedding was lovely.  Fun was had by all.  Jia decided last minute she didn't want to walk with Fei in the procession so she sat with us.  Thankfully I don't think the bride minded.  We had all discussed ahead of time that it was a good possibility she'd drop out.  Fei and Lili did a lovely job.

Still have to post dance recital pics and video, perhaps tomorrow.  Need to load the video to youtube and I'm out of time for today.

LOG IN DATE!!

 

We're expecting!!

Log In Date in the adoption world is like saying 'we're pregnant'.

 We're three weeks along.

 

Pretty darn exciting!  With a log in date of May 7/2013 we can now be matched with a waiting child.  We are now officially waiting for a call telling us about a file on a little boy that might one day become our son!

 

Fonnie let us know in an e-mail today that they have already begun searching for a match for our family.  I can hardly stand how exciting this is!!

Ist camping trip of the year.

Off to the river.

Five families, 12 kids.  Not all in this picture.

Lili and I went home for a shower and when we got back little miss was very upset and really wanted Mama, she fell off her bike while trying to roll down a little hill.  She told me she fell off her bike and broker her arm, that's why she couldn't walk.  I didn't want to miss the group walk and play at the river so thought I'd try using the old sling, it was awkward and we were slow moving but it worked.  Jia loved it and was dozing all the way.

Isabel did fantastic on the trip.  I was extremely impressed.  We were starting to think she'd never leave puppyhood behind, but she was just great all weekend.  She loved camping, loved all the walks, loved all the attention from the kids.  She loved the swimming too until she got caught in the rapids. 

10 of the 12.  Jia refused to get in the picture, she was still cuddling with me, still upset about falling off of her bike.  Dagen isn't in the group picture either.

Here he is all smiles with Mommy.  Getting ready to walk in the water with Dad.  So cute.  Such an infectious laugh.

Rocks, sticks and dog poop bags.  It's all good.

Crashed on the walk back.

Next four pics stolen from Shannon's facebook, phone pics, not so clear.

Kalum is in a pout by the tree and in a total act of solidarity Jia joined him.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I doubt she had any idea what Kalum was even upset about.

Water pump!

Lacie joined the kids in walking the log.  Too funny.

Firewood, worlds greatest stacking toys.

The first trip out is always the most work.  Big thanks to Eric this year for doing most of it all on his own.  He and the big girls even went out at noon and set up in the pouring rain, well, Eric set up and the girls sat in the car and watched a movie while eating their wrapzone lunch.  Jia was visiting Gramma and Grampa for lunch.

So, the only thing we forgot was ladies deodorant, so Lili and I had to use Eric's speed stick.  Not bad for the first trip out. 

Jia woke up on our last morning and said 'is it morning?  are we done camping?  can we camp just one more?'   She is totally gung ho to get out there again.  We barely saw the big girls.  They were busy, busy with their friends.  Love these group camp outings.  Super busy though.