Daddy and Lei

Belated Halloween pics

I took the kids trick or treating and Lei was all about it ;-) He raced to each door and had impeccable manners, thanking each person when he left. Audrey's dress was a little long and we had it pinned up all over the place. Her shoes were a little high and at one point she fell down someones stairs but was still in one piece and ready for more. Rachel really enjoyed it but insisted that I visit each house with her and come to the door which I did proudly.

Leaf Hunting with my Posers

Our Homeschooling Journey has began

After having Audrey and Lei in public school for almost 3 months, it became abundantly clear to me that this was not God's plan for our family. It was a totally necessary move to keep our family sane during Lei's transition into our family and Rachel's adjustment to our new family dynamic, but It wasn't the right choice long term. I started out thinking about homeschooling next year, then thinking about homeschooling after Christmas, and then thinking "If I'm going to do this, why wait?". So, we became an official homeschooling family on Monday and I already know this was exactly what we were supposed to do. Audrey and Lei are rested, relaxed and totally into their school work. Neither of them expressed any real regret in not returning to school. Rachel seems to be thoroughly enjoying having her brother and sister around all the time and they are all getting along much better than I could have ever hoped for.

We have started out using Abeka's Phonics, Reading and Writing program and Saxon Math. We are using the reading list from Amblesideonline.com as well. We don't have a formal science or social studies program yet, but since this is Kindergarten, we didn't think this was critical in any way. For Bible we are just memorizing verses from the KJV now, but plan to either create our own curriculum or look into others soon. An FYI, I love Abeka phonics and so do the kids so far !
Saxon math seems well thought out, but the K5 version is too easy in my opinion and I think alot of kindergartners could start with Saxon Math 1 and do fine.

I'll post more as we go along, but I'm wore out tonight !

"I love you all of my days"

I rarely think to post some of the wonderful things the kids say to me, but this one is really special because it comes from Rachel. Over the past few days Rachel has told me on more than one occassion "Mommy, I love you all of my Days". It hasn't been that long ago, that Rachel didn't say "I love you" in any form whatsoever, but now she says it more than anyone else in the family and we are eating it up :-)

I am extremely happy to report that Ms. Rachel is making so many leaps and bounds since she turned 3 that I can't even keep track of them. She is becoming very social and just plain sweet towards other kids, mom and dad as well as her brother and sister (when they aren't attacking each other lol ;-)

Her speech is improving exponentially now and things she said just a couple of weeks ago that I didn't understand, I understand completely now.

Long story short, Ms. Rachel is doing awesome and she is just giving the whole family warm fuzzies :-) Just had to share ....

Lei's 6th Birthday

Lei turned 6 the end of October and the day after his surgery at Vanderbilt Children's hospital. Needless to say, we celebrated his birthday the weekend before his surgery. Lei was very excited to receive his first video game (Leapster) and a new basketball which he specifically requested. Lei is going to be a very successful athlete, mark my words ! He's been in gymnastics for just a couple of months now and he is amazing to watch. Here are some pics of his birthday party we gave him. Oops, also wanted to mention that Daddy made Lei's birthday cake and it was pretty cool ;-)

Rachel's 3rd Birthday !

Rachel's birthday was the end of September and I'm ashamed that I'm just now posting pictures, but we had a wonderful family birthday and she just loved every minute of it. I also brought strawberry cupcakes to her preschool class and we had a little happy birthday celebration there as well. The pictures speak for themselves. Our little munchkin just insn't that little anymore and she is full of big ideas ;-)

Audrey's 5th Birthday

Audrey's birthday party was at her grandma and grandpas house the day before we left to bring home Lei from China. We had a great turnout and lots of family were there. Audrey's birthdays are always memorable.

Long Overdue Update

Yes it has been a ridiculously long time since I've updated our blog but it is definitely a side effect of how busy we've been. I truly feel like I've lived at either the doctor's office or dentist for the past three months. All three kids have had their physicals (Lei has had two, one was for dental surgery), all three kids have had dental cleanings, Lei has had one tooth extracted and a crown and a pulpectomy (nerve repair). Lei had his final surgery to correct his so called special need last Thursday at Vanderbilt childrens hospital and it went perfectly. I can't say enough good things about Vanderbilt; the hospital and the staff were exceptional. Lei was the most exceptional in how he handled everything that was thrown at him and his recovery has been amazing. The sad news is that he has to have dental surgery to finish up his extensive dental work on November 6th. Once his dental surgery is complete, he should be as healthy as anyone I know and actually healthier than most!

Enough about our medical and dental adventures now because I want to say how well Audrey and Lei are doing in Kindergarten. They are both getting ready to receive their progress reports for the first 9 weeks and we couldn't be pleased more. Lei is mastering english so fast it makes my head spin. Unfortunately he has lost the majority of his mandarin but this was expected since none of our family or friends speak more than a few words of mandarin. His english is very broken at times but then he will just spout out perfect sentences too. I can only imagine that he will be speaking completely understandable english in a few months.

Rachel is doing much better these days and adapting to our expanded family really well. She's now sleeping in her own room, in her own bed and getting along with Lei much better. She is also becoming more social and interacting with other children which is wonderful to see. She has attended two birthday parties in the past two weeks and had such a good time.

I'm going to have to keep this short tonight since it's late but I just wanted to say that while the past 4 months have been a definite character building experience, our family is so much stronger for having went through it. I just thank God everyday for blessing our family with these children.

As soon as I can, I'll post more about everything going on as well as some current pics !

Spilling the Beans

Well anyone who knows us knows I've been talking about homeschooling for over a year now and I seriously wanted to do this. As much as I hate to say it, the timing to start right now has been about the worst it could possibly be. Putting it mildly, our family dynamic is drastically changed since Lei came home and I'm lucky to keep my sanity just taking care of the kids much less actually teaching them. Ok, cutting to the chase, Audrey and Lei attended their first day of Kindergarten today and appeared to really enjoy it. One huge blessing that we have is that our elementary school has an ESOL department with a woman who speaks fluent Mandarin. She tested Lei today and said he qualifies for ESOL classes (I was thinking duh ;lol) Ok, enough of my sarcasm, Lei and Audrey went to school all day today and when I picked them up they were both very excited and had lots to tell me. Lei started spouting out some english and was using some pronouns which he hasn't been doing. He kept pointing to me and referring to me as "you" which was I was loving. His most memorable sentence though was "Baby Jaguar is a cat" hehe. He also kept saying "animal" so I guess that was the word of the day ! When we came home, Lei got out his folder with his work and he was so proud and tried to explain everything to me, even what he had for a snack. His teacher really knows how to treat her students because from what he told me, it sounds like they had chocolate dipped strawberries ;-) Audrey on the other hand had goldfish, poor lass ! Audrey's reaction was exactly what I had anticipated since this child is a veteran of preschool and just a wee bit spoiled ;-) Audrey of course commented on the sufficiency of the playground equipment, the fact that she would prefer to eat in the cafeteria from now on (I sent her lunch), and that she enjoyed the tour of the school, the end. Audrey expressed to me that she enjoyed her first day of kindergarten but she was a little nervous. I of course told her that it was normal to feel a little nervous the first day of school.

Rachel and I had a mommy and me shopping extravaganza, ok, well not exactly since it was just Target and Wal-mart. We played the game "I'm an only child", and Rachel was loving every minute of it ;-) We actually had several people approach us and make over how cute Rachel was which I know she was eating up. I have to mention this one crazy lady though who certainly meant well but severely stuck her foot in her mouth when she said "I just love those kinds of children". I have heard so many ridiculous comments over the past 4 years that they hardly bother me, especially when they are not meant the way they come out. Of course they do bother me when Audrey is with me, but I will say that when I have Audrey and Lei too, nobody comes up to us which I appreciate. I guess when they know the child won't understand their comments is when they feel the need to openly share what they are thinking ...

I don't want to forget to mention that when the teacher was bringing Lei and Audrey to our Van today, I was standing outside the Van and when Lei saw me he just had the biggest smile and came running up to me so excited. Tonight he asked me to carry him up to his room to go to bed and he sat in my lap while we said prayers. It's a pretty unbelievable experience to bond so strongly with someone that you don't even speak their language.

Lastly, I know I always make it sounds like Lei is perfect which in my eyes he is, but he is also a typical 5 year old and going through a traumatic transition period. He doesn't cry very often at all but he sure does have a temper which I think is amplified by the fact he can't ever fully express to us what he is mad about. The closer we get to him emotionally the more he seems to be open about expressing how he "really feels". Tonight he was acting out because he was mad at one of his mei mei's and I finally had to get really firm with him which I rarely do. I guess this just means he is officially really one of ours now ;-)

The pictures I'm posting are from just before school and Rachel riding her tricycle after we came home this morning from taking Lei and Audrey to school, and Lei in the bathtub last night. Its weird the things that come to mind when you adopt a child older. As I was helping Lei get his bath, it occurred to me that I didn't have any pics of him in the bathtub and I have so many of the girls. It's so sad that we missed his baby/toddler years, but I'm so glad we have him now !

The Transition continued ...............

Hmmmm, I was going to wait until I was rested before I posted and as you can see it's been almost a month and I'm still not rested so decided I better go ahead ;-) We are all feeling and acting somewhat human at this point which is a huge improvement over our first 3-4 weeks home. Without a doubt this adjustment period has been the most difficult of our adoptions. I totally underestimated the effect having a new 47 lb addition to the family would have on everyone. That being said, I'd do it over again in a heartbeat ! Our new son is so amazing I can't even tell you. He is very artistic and loves to draw and color, He is extremely intelligent and can print almost as well as I can, He is a perfectionist which I'm not used to but I'm liking better every day ;-), He is a serious Chinese nationalist at the age of 5 which has been interesting. He loves China immensely and speaks passionately about it whenever given the chance. As one of our travel families so perfectly put it, "He is not your typical orphanage kid". When you meet Lei you will find a child who is ahead developmentally if anything and who (other than dental care) is as healthy as his new sisters.

Lei refers to the orphanage director as "Mama" along with some chinese words which I don't understand but I find it interesting that she was a mother figure to all the children at his very small orphanage. Lei has a couple of photo albums from the orphanage and at least a couple times a week we get them out and he tells me about all of his friends and the director. I find it very unusual because he understands some of the childrens special needs and actually will explain them to me. Last night he was explaining one of his friends and showed me a picture and proceeded to mimick a cleft lip repair and even pointed inside his mouth I'm guessing referring to palate problem and swallowing. It was really mind boggling to me that a 5 year old was describing this to me. Another thing he was showing and mimicking to me was the "Gotcha" days of some of the children I had photos of that were from a couple years ago from the orphanage (other families had given to me). He would talk about their "Mama and Baba" coming from Mei Guo (America) and then he would mimick crying and I wasn't sure if he was talking about the parents crying or the babies or both. What an amazing thing for him to remember and I'm so glad he has his own Mama and Baba now :-)

The language barrier has not been easy but we have not had any major issues related to it. I'm so happy that over the past week Lei has really started taking off with his English. Because he was so proficient in Mandarin it took a little longer than we expected for him to become motivated to speak english. His pronunciation of just about anything is fantastic. The other night he came up to me and said "hummingbird" as plain as day. We have a feeder outside the kitchen window so we talk about the birds alot and he obviously has picked up on it. Also, this morning him and Audrey were playing a game and I hear him say "It's my turn". Now that he is enjoying using English, I think he is going to learn very fast. He is so self-driven and motivated to learn whatever he wants to it is scary.

Audrey and Rachel are doing really well now, but this transition has been as hard on them as anybody. Ever since we arrived home, Ms. Rachel has had some major sleep issues and we've ended up co-sleeping with her. The poor thing broke out in eczema patches all over too which she only does when she is seriously stressed. Audrey has developed a major case of premature PMS lol. She has always been my most even tempered non-moody child but as I said before, we've all had major adjustments ;-) Lei has been fairly content with the exception of getting really mad at his sisters occassionally which he gets over fairly quick if left alone.

Ok, I've said more than enough, but I'll end on a funny note. The other day someone came up to Lei at the gymnastics center and started talking to him. Audrey was standing there and she promptly intervened and told the little girl "He doesn't understand you, He's still Chinese" ;-) This may be my favorite quote of all time lol.

Above I've posted a few Pics we took before church this morning.

First Slide Show with New pics of Lei and the girls

I put this slideshow together last night using pics from our first days home until now. I used a song that another adoptive mom used recently to make a slide show of a large number of adoptive families children which I loved. I just could not resist using this song because it was perfect for our situation. I will say though that Lei loved his "big family" (what the orphanage director called his nannies and other children). He was obviously given alot of love and good care there so I doubt he will ever regret the time he spent there. He was not your "typical orphanage child" because his orphanage was in no way typical. Although the conditions were not great (ie, building and furnishing), he was definitely treated like a member of a big family verses an orphan which is why he has handled his transition to us so well once home. He was taken on lots of field trips and even playdates at a beautiful city park which we visited while with him and the director.

Yes, we are still alive ;-)

Yes, we are still alive, but barely lol ! This past week has been brutal and I wish I were exagerrating. It has not been brutal due to the jet lag although that wasn't fun either. I am here to tell you that we have all had a very healthy dose this week of sibling rivalry and major adjustment issues. I think there is light at the end of the tunnel though so I hope the end of it is close ;-) Our main clashes have been between Lei and Rachel because I think their personalities are both very strong, not to mention Rachel has just had a really hard time since we came home. If I would have known how tough our absence was on her, I think I would have taken her with us to China. Lei is doing wonderfully and adjusting just fine. He hasn't openly grieved again since we came home, but I'm sure in time he will grieve more. He is speaking some english now, but it is taking time. Tonight when it was bedtime, I said to him, "Come on Sweetie" and he promptly repeated the same thing back to me lol. He has a great sense of humor too. He is calling me Mommy and calls Audrey and Rachel by their names now, albeit yelling their names alot because they are taking his toy, etc lol. He is very comfortable with his daddy and openly says "I love you" to him all the time. He already seems to be attaching to us and tonight he kept wanting me to pick him up and hold him, all 45 lbs of him lol ;-) which of course I loved ! Our biggest hurdle right now is giving everyone enough attention so that nobody feels left out. Due to Lei's age, him and Audrey interact and play better together which I think evokes alot of jealousy in poor Rachel so we are trying to really make an effort to include Rachel in their activities as well as do some special things with her. Honestly, adopting out of birth order is probably a bigger deal than we had anticipated. We know everything will be fine eventually but getting to that point is going to be challenging. Ok, well I've said more than enough so I'll post some pictures of the crazy crew ;-)

Hangzhou Airport and Guangzhou pictures