Camp, potty-training, and favorite movies

We sent Taylor and Jillian to Camp Barakel last Monday. It was Jillian's very first time going away to camp. She looked petrified as she rode off with the rest of the kids from my parents' church. Taylor has been there quite a few times and was really looking forward to it. My Mom has called twice to let us know that both kids are doing well (my Mom went along to volunteer in the kitchen). It's a bit odd to only have six kids here--and usually just five, since Ryan is often out of the house. Molly has missed Jillian quite terribly and has had several meltdowns, but is trying to be brave. She had Chloe have already made Jillian some "welcome home" cards in anticipation of her return on Monday.

Meanwhile, dreaded potty-training chore has begun in earnest for Jordan. He is doing remarkably well, although there have been some unmentionable moments. Blech. As I looked through the pictures on my camera, I came across one that Molly had staged and taken of Jordan reading the paper while sitting on his potty chair. She is so funny!

Last night we decided to watch one of our favorite family movies--Nacho Libre. Yes, I know, we are deep literary thinkers. Ryan has been wanting to put a mask on Jake to make him look like Nacho in the movie. This morning the time was right.

He ended up looking more like Batman than Nacho, but we tried. He then left and came back modeling his own fashion accessory... These sunglesses belong to Jillian's Build-A-Bear, and she would be most unhappy to know he was playing with them in her absence. He loves them, though, because they are so tight on his head that he can put them anywhere and they stay lodged there.

"I A DUDE!"
A certain unnamed friend was disappointed that I didn't line all the kids up for a 4th of July photo this year, so I am going to try to appease her with the following shots. I have been trying to take some photos that I could use in lieu of taking the kids for professions pictures. There are several reasons for that, which I won't bore you with. I haven't been successful getting usable shots of the older kids yet, so I will have to keep trying. I'm struggling with the lighting, so if any of you can give me some tips, I would love it!

She smiles...

We just received this picture of Zoey, and for the first time ever, we have been introduced to her coy smile. What a blessing it was to receive these pictures!


We also received some photos of her leg and foot. We were quite startled by them because they look different than the ones we have from when she was a baby. We don't feel that we have been misled, it's just that when she started walking and putting weight on her foot, her true condition became much more obvious. We have an x-ray that was sent to us a few months ago from China, but since we haven't been to see Chloe's orthopedic surgeon since then, we hadn't asked him to give an opinion yet. After seeing the photos of her foot and leg, I pulled out the x-ray and looked at it closely. Dr. Karin has noticed that she doesn't seem to have any ankle bone, nor any heel bone. (Yes, I know I am so intelligently explaining this in my non-doctor terms..haha) And if I was a real doctor, I would have noticed the lack of foot bones when we first received the x-ray. It's also obvious from the pictures that her leg length difference is much more severe than Chloe's, since she is bending her 'good' leg quite a bit while the other one is straight. It just makes me want to get on a plane and bring her home for an evaluation!

We have sent these photos to Chloe's ortho, and are waiting for his response.

Summer's greatest invention...flip-flops

I love summer...and I also love when my kids can wear flip-flops. No need to find socks...no need to tie several pairs of shoes...just slip those flip-flops on and the kids are good to go.

Or at least that is how it SHOULD be.

We currently have 367 pairs of flip-flops in our house. I say 'pairs' loosely, because we can rarely find a matching set. One time I pounced on what I thought was a matching set--held them up triumphantly--only to realize that they were not the same size. Hrmph...back to searching under beds, behind couches and in the wastebasket.

I have to give my kids a one hour warning prior to leaving the house. "All of you need to find a matching pair of shoes." I used to say, "All of you need to find a pair of shoes." I now need to clarify that they need to be matching, after taking SaraGrace to the store the other day. I glanced down at her and noticed that she was wearing these:


They weren't even remotely similar. She just chose two random flip-flops and then hopped in the car, out of sight of Mommy. It worked for her! (And to think I used to always make sure my kids had socks that matched their outfits and coordinating hair bows...)

Baby Jake has decided that he also wants to be like his older siblings and wear flip-flops. This is a child who hasn't been walking all that long, but he has managed to learn to walk in flip-flops. He insists on putting them on all by himself, and even though he has a 50/50 chance of getting them on the right feet, he almost never does. He also doesn't realize that there is a certain toe that should hold the shoes on. His feet look like this:



I was comforted to hear my sister giving her kids the same speech today as they were getting ready to leave the house. "Where are your shoes? Why can't you find at least one matching pair?" And don't even get me started on socks...we never having any matching pairs of those either!

Package Delivered Safely

Our dossier made it safely to China. This may seem like a 'DUH' statement, but when you have spent months putting together the paperwork necessary to adopt, you can have all kinds of weird thoughts or nightmares about the package not getting there. Indeed, there have been awful reports of adoption paperwork being lost, or damaged beyond recongnition, etc. Thankfully, ours made it safely!

From FEDEX website:

Jul 3, 2008 3:01 PM

Delivered BEIJING CN


And now we wait....



We did receive a wonderful surprise from a new Chinese friend who sent us a picture of our Zoey! She told us that Zoey smiles a lot--which was nice to hear because we do not have any photos of her smiling. I requested one! :) I think this picture shows a twinkle in her eye, though, and a slight smirk. Our friend will be traveling to the orphanage again soon, so maybe she will be able to catch a smile with her camera.

Trot, Trot to Boston....

I guess the subject line gives away the punch line, but yes, Jeff has accepted the job offer. The good news is that we don't have to move until Ryan graduates from high school next year. It would have been wild and crazy to have to move before his senior year and also try to go to China for Zoey, so we are very relieved that Jeff's employer is being reasonable about the timing of the move.

Ryan was so mature about the whole thing. It was very touching how he was willing to go (now) so that he didn't 'stand in the way of Dad's career.' However, the tears in his eyes just about flipped my heart over. Since Jeff's employer had already said we could wait, we let Ryan choose when he wanted to move--now, or after he graduated--and of course, he chose to stay another year.

Jeff will be doing some traveling to the Boston area - but probably no more traveling than he was already doing.

Happy 14th Birthday, Taylor!!

It seems like yesterday that we returned from a trip to Mackinac to find seven messages on our answering machine from our adoption agency. Taylor had been born--and in the era of no cell phones--they couldn't find us all day to let us know. It was a mad dash for the next two days to get to him...but we made it!

Now he is this huge kid--we can almost see him growing daily--haha. He passed me up this year (wah) and is obviously far from done growing. He still has an obsession with fireworks and is trying to figure out how to parlay that into a career. ha.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy! We love you!

4th of July Photos

Ryan spent his eighteenth birthday having a rollicking good time with his family! At least we hope he did...he seemed to be having fun! Shelby's younger brothers came over to join in the festivities and had fun helping Taylor put on his annual fireworks extravaganza. We had perfect weather--sunny and in the high seventies, so no serious sweating on the deck during the cookout. Our hearts are full of thankfulness for the children God has blessed us with and the fun day we had making memories with them. My parents were able to share the evening with us--which was an answer to prayer as my dad had been not feeling well all week due to a kidney stone.


Water balloon fight

Loading the potato gun

Wearing the tattered remains of the pinata

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Ryan!!!

Happy 18th Birthday to our precious Ryan!!! He is 18 today and we can't believe how fast the time has gone.

THEN....



AND NOW....

Our dossier is on it's way to China!

We received an email from our adoption agency today that started out, "Congratulations...Jeff and Karin, your dossier was sent to China today!" Hooray!! We have a tracking number, so we can follow that precious packet of paperwork as it makes its way around the globe.



If there are no slow-downs due to the Olympics, we hope to travel in late November to get Zoey Faith.

Summer fun

Our city had some pre-fourth of July fireworks this weekend, so we decided to take all of the kids. This is the first time we have let the little ones stay up late for this event, so they were excited. They had never seen 'real' fireworks before--only the small ones that older brother, Taylor, shoots up on the 4th. Everyone except Jake loved them. Jake shook and cried and began urgently saying, "Bye-bye, bye-bye!" Since we were sitting right next to our car, Jeff put him in his carseat in the car--and every time we tried to coax him out to sit with us, he started screaming. At one point, we got him out and tried to show him how pretty the fireworks were, but again, he began yelling, "Bye-bye, bye-bye." We gave up--and put him back in the car, where he was much happier. Chloe, SaraGrace and Jordan, loved watching them, though, so it was a successful night!

Ryan, Shelby, and Shelby's brother, watch from the top of his truck cab.

Taking refuge in the back of the van during a brief rain

Watching the fireworks from the bed of big brother, Ryan's truck.

Jordan actually RIDES it this way!! No clue how he came up with this odd position.

"I've been working out!"

"Yeah...me, too."

Sweet Jia

I am posting in the hopes that some of you will be willing to offer up some prayers on behalf of one of the children in my LWB foster care program. Jia is urgently in need of heart surgery and will die if she doesn't get it. There is a hospital in the US that has agreed to do the surgery free of charge. (You have no idea what a HUGE hurdle that is!!) Unfortunately, there are some issues from both the US and China that are preventing her from getting the visa that she needs to come here. It seems to be at an impasse and that is why she needs your prayers. We need God to move some mountains for this little girl. She is so precious...and is the life of the party at the foster home where she lives.

Thank you for taking some time to advocate for this little girl. I will let you know if God opens the doors for her to have surgery.

Happy Birthday, Miss Molly

Our little Miss Molly turned eight today! We are so thankful that God has allowed us to have her in our family. We have had three days of birthday to accomodate everyone's busy summer schedules. Her 'party' was on Sunday and she wanted Sponge Bob decorations and cake. We did the best we could with what we had to work with. haha

Her 'best present ever' was a bike but I just realized that I haven't taken a picture of her on it yet.


As I typed this, Jeff convinced her to let him pull one of her loose teeth. She wouldn't let him until he put her favorite song on..."Brave" by Nicole Nordeman. He is rocking her right now and she is sitting in his arms with kleenex sticking out of her mouth. Too cute!


Happy Birthday, precious Molly. We love you!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Happy Father's Day to my sweet husband, Jeff--who is a GREAT dad!! And Happy Father's Day to my dad and Jeff's dad, too!!

Ryan wanted to surprise Jeff with a rolling tool box this year. This is something Jeff has wanted for years and years. Ryan and Taylor pooled their money (with some additional help from me), and Ryan took charge of purchasing the gift. He and Shelby shopped around for the best price, found one at Sears, brought it home, put it together (in a very hot garage), and loaded Jeff's tools into it. It was a very special surprise for Jeff!

RYAN PUTS THE TOOLS IN PLACE


JEFF, with the big boys and Shelby (Taylor had just eaten a popsicle that turned his lips and teeth all blue)

IT'S HERE!!!

I went to the mailbox today, mentally counting the weeks we had been waiting for our Immigration paperwork (I171h) to arrive from Detroit. Our social worker had told me to expect another four weeks. Much to my shock and delight, the much coveted piece of paper was on the top of the stack of mail when I opened the mailbox! Woohoo! I faxed it to our adoption agency and am hoping our paperwork will be sent to China very soon. Once it is sent, we will have approximately a four month wait to travel to get Zoey.

Some of you have been asking about our trip to Boston. I'm sorry I haven't updated you yet. We awakened this morning to the sound of SaraGrace vomiting and she continued to do so for hours--so I have gotten nothing done today. I am praying that the rest of the family doesn't get sick, since Jeff will be out of town for the rest of the week. argh....

The trip...it went well. Jake was a trouper--although was a bit scared of the loud plane noise. He was completely terrified on the first flight home, but Jeff was holding him and he ended up just shutting down and falling asleep to avoid his fear. He very much enjoyed being an 'only child' for a few days and we had fun spoiling him!

We found some homes that would work for our family--although the prices are double what they are here. We knew that ahead of time, since we had looked at quite a few online. We had a great realtor who was very friendly and had lined up a lot of homes to look at. I love looking at houses so it wasn't too hard for me to enjoy myself. I had expected a lot of raised eyebrows when people heard about our family size, but not once did we experience that. In fact, some told me they wish they had chosen to have more children and said how blessed we were. Well, that was refreshing!

I love American history and it was really cool to be seeing road signs to places I had read about so many times. The scenery is beautiful...lots of trees, rocks, etc. But wow...it was COLD! The first two days we were there it was 61 degrees and rainy. I was freezing! The last day, it was 91 degrees. Go figure.




We had enough time before our flight on Saturday, to drive to Newport beach so that we could see the ocean. Jeff put Jake's feet in the frigid water and Jake wasn't too sure if he liked it, but at least he can now say that he's been in the Atlantic ocean!



"DAD! LOOK AT THAT CRAZY GUY IN THE FREEZING WATER, STANDING ON A WEIRD LOOKING BOARD."

God hasn't been too clear about whether or not we are supposed to move to the Boston area, so we are just continuing to pray and seek Him about it. We'll keep you posted.

New pictures of Zoey Faith!

We were so happy to receive pictures of our Zoey Faith today!! (This will post tomorrow, but I am writing it on Wed.) An adoptive family visited the orphanage and were kind enough to take pictures of Zoey for us. Apparently, their daughter had been in the next crib and she and Zoey were little buddies. You can see their daughter in the first picture, standing up in the crib next to Zoey, hair in pigtails, and wearing American clothes.





We are grateful that she seems to be doing well. We are still waiting on our immigration paperwork from Detroit. It used to take about four weeksk, but for some reason, it is now taking twelve. ugh.

And on to other news.....
Jeff, Jake and I will be heading to the Boston area early Thursday morning, courtesy of Jeff's employer. This is not a pleasure trip, though. A few months ago, Jeff's boss asked him to relocate to the Boston area. After some deliberation, Jeff turned the job down and we thought we were done with that. Last week, his boss asked him again. So....we have decided that this is not going away, even if we close our eyes and wish really hard. (smile) We have been praying and praying about what to do. Jeff's boss understands that we will not move until next year when Ryan graduates from high school. Neither one of us have any desire to live on the East coast. It is so far from both our families and is a different culture than the midwest, where we were both born and raised. However, we are trying to remain open to what God might have for us, so have been praying that He would clearly show us what He wants us to do. So far, it's not yet clear. (If any of you know of any good churches in the Boston/Providence RI area, please let us know!!) Boston Children's Hospital is there, so our kids' medical needs would be taken care of.

My first reaction to Boston was, "NO WAY!" We had dreams of moving to Nashville--which is a totally different kind of place than Boston. Then I remembered how often I told God, 'Here am I! Send me!" Hmmm...well, I guess if He wants to send us to Boston, I had better not say, "NO!" Wherever we end up--here in Michigan, Boston, or Nashville, I know that God has something good in store for us and I don't want to miss out on what it might be.

Well, unless I want to miss out on having anything clean to wear, I had better get back to laundry and get something in a suitcase. No matter what the outcome of our trip, we are excited to have a mini-vacation! :) Our three oldest girls became hysterical this morning at the prospect of us leaving. sigh.... My mom is coming to watch the kids, so I hope she hasn't lost her mind by the time we get back on Saturday!