asiaramblin

rat tails

2012-03-08T09:30:00.000+08:00

Last night Keturah, just before bed, asked me to put two hairbands in her hair.

"Pigtails?"

I'm not completely sure why I thought this would clarify anything, because except for a very few exceptions, Keturah doesn't usually wear anything in her hair. I guess she's more of a 'natural look' kind of girl . . . well, that and the fact that her hair is really still coming in and putting it "up and out of the way" isn't all that practical for her day-to-day life. All of this to say, I don't wear pigtails, and she doesn't wear pigtails, so what are pigtails anyway?

It didn't help, that while I was separating her hair for two hairbands, Patrick jumped in with:

"Pigtails!?"

"How can my little girl have pigtails? She's not a little piggy!" True. That would be Moyer.

"She's a rat!" Yes, we do live in a country that recognizes the zodiac. Keturah, is in fact, a rat--and knows it.

"Okay," she replied. "Rat tails, then."

And that was that.

pb review

2012-03-07T21:43:00.000+08:00

A little while back now, we ordered natural peanut butter from some boys in our community that have gone into the nut butters business. Patrick talked it up big to the kids, and we served it as a special treat one evening after dinner.

While I was scooping the peanut butter into little bowls, Moyer, who knows the makers of his peanut butter, got pretty pumped about the big reveal:

"I know! We should taste it, and if it tastes good, we can message them to let them know! And tell other people they should try it too.”

Can you tell he has a marketer for a daddy?

Now it probably helped that we put a tiny sprinkling of chopped dark chocolate and peanut chunks on the top, but the final reviews were quite favorable.

“Natural peanut butter is YUM!”~Keturah

“This is yummier and gooder than . . . than . . . than I thought it would be!” ~Moyer

mancala morning

2012-03-06T21:12:00.000+08:00

Last week, on one of our sick mornings at home, I taught Moyer and Keturah how to play mancala.

(This was actually how we began our Wednesday, the same morning that we received our adoption miracle. If you kept up with all of our rejoicing, and the adoption posts that followed, you probably understand why our mancala morning wasn't much of a posting priority around here . . . )

During the beginning rounds, Moyer was quite a student of strategy. Between tissues, he caught on, and eventually evened our scores.

Keturah was more interested in simply moving the beans around. Oh, and posing with said beans, too.

She was so into transferring the beans for the sake of moving them around, that she volunteered to put them away all by herself when we were done.

Speaking of being done, can you tell that her big brother's done? I'm pretty sure it was more than intense strategizing that wore this guy out.

He was fighting a bug, alright. I'm pretty sure that mancala was the first and last activity of that particular day for Moyer.

So thankful that we're not still sick and stuck at home around here!(But we are still missing Marilla, and still praying, just for the record.)

house help

2012-03-05T08:00:00.000+08:00

Moyer's not the only one that's pitching in around here.

Keturah, in addition to her newfound interest in the culinary arts, has become quite the dish washer.

This one's got a very independent streak, and required no instruction. (When I taught Moyer to take out the trash, I initiated, and we went over every detail together, side by side.) She just informs me when she is done.

"Mom, I washed my princess plate."

The first time this happened, I found it back in the cupboard where it goes, still a little crusty.

This last time I pulled the camera out in time to catch her drying it with a hand-towel, after having rinsed it off in the bathroom sink where she washes her hands. This time, though, she placed it back on the table, and let me know that she'd be eating her dinner off it as well. (She'd just "washed" off her lunch remains from that day.)

She, by the way, earns no wages for this self-assigned job.

We'll talk about that when her help is a little more helpful, perhaps. Which I hope is soon, actually, because as some of you are aware, we had to let our real house help go this winter.

We love Gui Lan. She was fantastic help. And worth every kuai we payed her. The reason for her dismissal was actually very complicated, and due in large part to the Hague Convention.

Now, in theory, we love the Hague Convention. We are all about the protection of children, and are thrilled that our little girl is protected by it's regulations. But in practice, there are a few rules that we don't personally find that helpful. One such rule states that anyone over the age of eighteen that is regularly employed in your home, must get all of the same approvals as the adoptive parents.

For us, for Yi Nan, and for Gui Lan, at this specific time in the adoption process, it seemed best to not jump through all of those hoops in order to keep her on in our home for eight hours a week. We said our goodbyes this winter, just one week before our home study.

We miss her. And we miss her help. (Can you see why?)

We're thankful not only for the season we were able to employ her here, but for her gracious understanding of our current situation as well.

Thankful too, for kids who are at just the right stages for filling in.

Mostly.

out the window

2012-03-02T20:20:00.000+08:00

Patrick and I have planned on adopting for ages. Really, since before we were married. So as we waited for Patrick to turn thirty, and for a couple of other logistical ducks to line up, we had lots of time to make plans. And as we’ve had the privilege to watch so many in our community walk this adoption road before us, we’d made some decisions as to how we would go about that process.

Here are some conclusions we’d come to by the time we were able to submit our application to adopt:

As beautiful as fostering is, the legal uncertainty of making a little one ours after months, or even years, in our home made fostering out the question for us. We wanted to adopt. For our family, adopting from China made the most sense. Fostering as a route to adoption would have also been an option for us in another system. But the system here in China makes that a logistical, heart-rending nightmare of a road. No, though it would take longer to get a little one through our door, we’d take the traditional adoption route, thank you very much.
We’d take our little girl as young as they come. It’s uncommon in China adoptions to receive infants, but we’d go for as young as possible--meaning that our hope was to welcome a nine to twelve month old into our arms on gotcha day.
We were open to two. Two little girls, or a girl and a boy; we’d heard that two at once is a possibility in China these days, and had two girls’ names ready to go. We indicated this desire on our application to adopt.

So here’s the deal. All of these conclusions about adoption, and how it was going to be for us, are just not that important anymore. Marilla is so much more than an adoption philosophy or list of ideals. This little girl, and this story of her adoption that we’re honored to be a part of writing, has tossed that list completely out the window:

We're not fostering Marilla, but we would. Of course we want our little girl in our home as soon as possible--even if she’s not quite legally ours. Number one is no longer an ideal. Not because we can foster her, but because we’d do it in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.
(I dare-say, as inconsistent as what I'm about to say is with my former philosophical stance on adoption, I love this little girl so much, that I’d foster her even if we knew it would not end with her legally becoming a Smith.)
Marilla was thirteen months old at the time we reviewed her file. I cannot tell you why her age didn’t matter that evening last fall, except that we knew this is our little girl. Although we will be picking up a nearly-two-year old on gotcha day this year, the gift of Marilla makes her age completely irrelevant to us.
Marilla is not part of a pair. We were only referred one child. And although still open to writing more adoption stories, we also acknowledge that our hearts are full with our daughter. I’ll admit that my desire to adopt two from China has not been completely extinguished. Unextinguished flames and all though, I am so full with Marilla and this desire to be united with her, that I cannot imagine holding two pictures in my hands during this season. Open to two? Yes. Satisfied with one (for now)? Most assuredly.

There's more.

A longer list of ideals.

More of that 'important stuff' that's gone right out the window.

But far better than holding on to any specific adoption ideals, is the fact that when we tossed all that stuff, we made some room for change.

You could say that we had hearts for adoption.

But at this point in our story, I believe that it's a little more accurate to say that we have a heart for our little girl.

rejoice

2012-03-01T09:14:00.001+08:00

We are so blessed that others have decided to pray with us. We long for our little girl, and we are praying that she'll make it into our home very soon.

One of our friends observed yesterday, "I think God must be tired of waiting too."

Some of you have been through this process yourselves. Others of you have watched closely as friends and loved ones have adopted internationally. There may be a few of you, though, who are unaware of the hurdles that yet keep us from Yi Nan . . .

The step that we've been praying through these last few weeks has been in the hands of US Citizenship and Immigration Services. On January 24th, immediately after our home study was completed, our agency filed for a clearance called the I-797 on our behalves.

On the day that this was filed, our agency, who supplies very thorough and accurate information, told us that:

"Currently, it is about 75-90 days for approval, from the time they receive your file."

Our agency is not cleared to send our dossier to China until that USCIS clearance has been obtained. We, as you know, prayed. And asked others to pray. And wondered just how long this road to Marilla would be.

You would think that we would be breathlessly counting the days, but though we are aware of the calendar, as you can see, we can't even seem to keep ours up to date!

But if God is marking the days--or better yet--if the current adoption timelines are irrelevant to Him--then does it matter?

Yesterday the I-797 arrived in our mailbox.

That's 34 days after filing.

We stand in awe.

Psalm 34:1-7

¹ I will praise the LORD at all times.
      I will constantly speak his praises.
² I will boast only in the LORD;
      let all who are helpless take heart.
³ Come, let us tell of the LORD’s greatness;
      let us exalt his name together.
⁴ I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me.
      He freed me from all my fears.
⁵ Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
      no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
⁶ In my desperation I prayed, and the LORD listened;
      he saved me from all my troubles.
⁷ For the angel of the LORD is a guard;
      he surrounds and defends all who fear him.

Still fighting a bug.

Still staying inside.

Still missing Marilla.

Still praying.

And we REJOICE.

Won't you join us?

still

2012-02-28T21:42:00.000+08:00

Still fighting a bug.

Still staying inside.

Still missing Marilla.

Still praying.

Join us?

join us

2012-02-27T15:41:00.001+08:00

Today, due to a nasty bug that's been circulating our community, the kids and I are staying inside and resting.

Part of that rest is needed for our physical bodies to regain health.

Part of our rest day, though, has been reflective. And good for our spiritual strength.

Moyer, after an extra couple hours of sleep this morning, out of nowhere said, "Mom, let's check what time it is in Oklahoma!" He loves the little widget on my desktop that shows a world map with the dark and light being projected on the map in real time, and the little red dots that mark the time in the various time zones where we have loved ones.

After we checked Oklahoma, the West coast, the East coast, and the UAE, we checked out Marilla's current home--which just so happens to be in our time zone.

"You mean it's the same time in the morning at the orphanage as it is here right now? Hmm, I wonder what Marilla's doing today."

I asked him what he imagined that she was doing. "Playing."

Keturah piped in with, "I think she's finger-painting!"

Although I don't doubt the good care she's getting in her orphanage-home, I did tell Keturah that finger painting was not a super-likely activity for Yi Nan and her friends.

And this conversation, like many moments in many of our days now, made me long to bring her home more keenly.

Today, would you join us in praying Marilla home? There still is so much paperwork that needs to move between so many checkpoints. In the face of this long and arduous wait, we seek encouragement not from current adoption timelines, but through the Word.

^2:10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

This morning, I have prayed through Ephesians for our little waiting one. And I am encouraged.

^3:17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

I share with you today, asking you to pray with us.

^3:20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Be encouraged through the Word with us.

Be encouraged through prayer with us.

And in joining us, know that you've encouraged us as well.

garbage guy

2012-02-24T17:00:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago, I taught Moyer how to take out the trash.

Not only has this been a huge help to me, but it's also reinforced all of this money-talk around here lately.

You see, as Moyer was telling his daddy at dinner one evening all about the great mao plan we'd made, Patrick (after congratulating me on such a brilliant way to put all of that mao to use) asked Moyer what would happen once they'd spent it all.

"You mean, how do I get more?"

"Yes, son," Patrick said, "now it's time to talk about wages."

After they talked about this concept, Patrick told Moyer that he could earn one mao for every full bag of trash he took out.

In case you missed our first money-talk post this week, folks, that's 1.6 US cents per garbage bag. And Moyer is thrilled.

Now momma's starting to see the value of mao too!

banking

2012-02-23T16:30:00.000+08:00

Moyer is thrilled to report that our trip to the bank was a success!

We not only took all of his rolled up mao, but we took along the little pile of fen too.

The bank was happy to take ALL of Moyer's change. (Yes, even the fen.)

The cashier who counted it up, gave Moyer back these nine fen, which, as she pointed out to him, don't quite make up a mao.

He happily stowed them in his coat pocket. Now that we know the bank will take even fen, these are just as good for saving up as mao!

When the cashier was finished counting up our rolls and the loose bag of fen we gave her, she brought back twenty-six kuai, and seven mao.

Moyer and I counted it, took a few moments to document his first big banking experience, and zipped the bills into his coat pocket. Then we headed on to other errands.

And you know what? Even with those big bills burning holes into his pockets, Moyer was not tempted to spend any of it.

Even when we walked by the balloon guy.

A couple of weeks ago, towards the beginning of all of this money-talk, he and Keturah asked for balloons from this vendor. Patrick and I said, "no," but did stop to ask how much each balloon was, so that if Moyer and Keturah wanted to save up for one, they could. (Not unlike our first experience with the coin-op rides by the play place.) They filed these prices away, and wondered if they had that many mao at home.

Not so long after leaving the bank, when I saw the balloons up ahead, I wondered how this street side vendor would be navigated. I asked Moyer if he remembered how much the balloons were. He told me that the dragon balloon he'd had his eye on was fifteen kuai. I wondered if he understood that fifteen kuai was a pretty significant chunk of the change he'd just cashed in.

Before I could present all of my thoughts on the value of money and the wisdom of a balloon purchase though, Moyer blurted, "but mom, I don't want to buy one."

I asked him why.

And he told me that he was saving his money.

Turns out, all of this money-talk has made an impression on him. Moyer is beginning to understand the value of mao.

rolling in mao

2012-02-22T16:30:00.000+08:00

That very evening, we dumped out the entire bank of mao, and got busy rolling.

My thought, that I shared with Moyer and Keturah, is that if you need to trade in lots of coins of little value for bills or coins of greater value, than the best place to go is the bank. That's what I'd do in America.

So that's what we decided to try here.

Not even knowing if "mao-rolls" exist like the penny rolls I remember filling as a child, we just used white scrap paper, and labeled the total on the outside with a marker.

And while we were at it we sorted the other coins into piles of fen, American coins, and "other" currency.

Moyer was quite impressed with the numbers he got once we added up all those rolls of mao.

After all that rolling, we sure did hope that the bank would take 'em!

'Cause we're pretty sure that the lady at the play place won't . . .

coin-op inspiration

2012-02-21T16:07:00.000+08:00

As Moyer and Keturah have begun to understand the value of mao, I've been able to explain a few of the choices we make money-wise, with some degree of success.

For example, if we take the free bus to a local shopping center that picks up at quarter past the hour, we save around ten kuai in taxi fare. Make it twenty if we catch the same free bus back. That's a lot of mao.

To make the concept saving kuai where we can a little more tangible, I purchased a play place punch card that we can use at the same shopping center. The value of one punch on that card is approximately the value of one taxi fare there. And another punch on that card can be covered by the taxi fare back. So if Moyer and Keturah both play at the play place, we can help to pay for those punches by taking the free bus both ways.

I think they get it!

The first time that we planned a bus and play outing, both Moyer and Keturah were lured in by the over-stimulating cacophony of coin operated rides and games, adjacent to the play place.

Of course.

So instead of pointing out the boundaries of the play place, encouraging them to enjoy it, and firmly saying "no rides," I crouched down, showed them the coin slots, and the prices on the machines. I explained that each one kuai token was would cost them ten of their mao from home. I told them that they were welcome to count out enough mao once they got home, and bring it back next time.

They began making plans right away.

And that afternoon we bagged up the equivalent of three kuai, the price of a carousel, and two kuai, the price of another desired ride.

The next week we took our baggies back to the play place.

As we stowed their shoes and coats, I handed Keturah the first baggie, and told her to give it to the lady in exchange for tokens.

The gal on duty handed it back to Keturah, and Keturah brought it back to me.

Thinking she didn't understand what it was that Keturah was looking for, I took it back. "We want tokens for the rides."

No can do. She informs me that they don't take mao. Just kuai, thank you very much.

?!?!

There goes our coin-op inspired learning opportunity! I was very happy to let Moyer and Keturah put to good use our annoying piles of unused mao. Even for frivolous coin-op rides designed to lure in easily duped children and their doting caretakers. But I was not so keen on reaching into my own pocket for a larger bill, and allowing this lady to break it in order to distribute the proper number of tokens to my kids. We'd be out five kuai, and we'd still have a pile of unused (but carefully counted!) mao in our possession.

Now what?

Well, I decided to pull Moyer and Keturah into the conversation.

"Guys, this lady says that she can't take mao."

There was of course a little bit of panic, but we pulled ourselves together enough to salvage the situation. One of the baggies contained a whole kuai from Moyer's collection, and another contained two five mao pieces, which the lady would accept. I dug into my own coat pockets to donate a kuai bill, and we exchanged our two kaui and two five mao pieces for three tokens--enough for the carrousel.

They had a blast slipping those tokens into the machine and riding it around and around, we worked through the unmet expectation of not getting the two-kaui ride they'd planned on, and we began brainstorming ways to turn all of our mao into kaui . . .*

*Even more money-talk to come!

the value of mao

2012-02-20T16:31:00.000+08:00

As you know, we don't deal much in US dollars around here. We tend to think in RMB, or the Chinese Yuan. More commonly, though, we call it the "kuai." (Kind of like saying "buck.")

Lately, Moyer and Keturah have been exploring another denomination of Chinese currency.

The mao.

A mao, or more formally jiao, is like unto an American penny. But instead of being one one-hundredth of a dollar, it's actually a whole tenth of the kuai. But the dime analogy doesn't really work, due to the actual value of that tenth.

To make this really clear for those of you not dealing in Chinese currency regularly, this is what the value of a mao looks like in today's economy:

1 kuai = 16 US cents

1 mao = 1.6 US cents

So for the purposes of this post you can think of these little silver units as US pennies and be pretty safe. And yes, just so you know, in this currency, it does get smaller. We've got fen too. And one fen, is actually only one one-hundredth of a kuai. So if you do the math, you can see that fen are pretty tiny, and though we have a pile of them laying around, are kind of at a loss as to what to actually do with them!

Sometime this winter, I pulled out all kinds of coins in all kinds of currencies (US, Korean, Hong Kong, Thailand, and a few others) for Moyer to play with. He really got into sorting, by both value and country. I took a few opportunities to teach him the US money system, but for the most part just let him enjoy organizing. At this point, all coins were valuable in his economy. And at this point, we continually had coins all over the apartment. (The distribution of which Keturah contributed to more than Moyer, actually.)

Then he started to realize that mommy valued US coins more than the others. I always asked him to store them separately. The small quarter collection in that pile is valuable when we go back to the States, and it's also useful to keep them separated for teaching purposes.

He also realized that the change from daddy's last trip to Hong Kong wasn't insignificant either. I helped him count up the actual value one day, and it was pretty clear that his Hong Kong money was worth more than all of this other coins together.

As he gathered information, it was easy to see transformations in the way he ordered and stored all of these coins.

And then, Moyer made an amazing discovery.

Although the Chinese coins we had kickin' around, were not actually worth very much compared to a US or Hong Kong coin, they are valuable here, in China.

Moyer began taking meticulous notes in the market, and grocery store, and treasured each mao that I let him keep when he paid for and carried produce for me on these trips.

He began banking these pieces, and ignoring the rest.

As in, I'd say, "Moyer, I want all of the coins picked up before daddy gets home today, okay?" from the kitchen, and several minutes later Moyer would report back and tell me he was done. I'd ask, "you thoroughly searched every room of the apartment? Even under the beds?" Moyer would assure me, that yes, mom, he couldn't find another single one. I'd thank him, and we'd both proceed with dinner preparations.

Do you know what I'd see upon leaving the kitchen? Coins. Everywhere.

"Moyer . . . I thought you told me you picked up all of the money."

"I did, mom."

I'm sure you've guessed by now, what he meant was, all of the "real" money. All of the money that matters here in this country. Sure enough, upon closer inspection, I couldn't find a single mao anywhere in our home. If it was Chinese currency, it was in his bank. Hong Kong change, US quarters, they didn't count in his economy anymore, and didn't make it into his safe.

All of these coins underfoot were a little frustrating at times, and is was a little like pulling teeth for a while there to get all coins safely stowed, but overall, I've been really fascinated by the learning process that all this money-talk has sparked in our household . . . *

*This is your cue to expect a few more money-talk posts around here. See you tomorrow!

daddy's (almost) home

2012-02-17T20:34:00.000+08:00

For the last three days it's been just the three of us.

As beautiful as these children are, I miss their daddy.

As short as three days is, compared to the lifetime of a single mom, or the seemingly endless deployment of a military spouse, I still miss their daddy.

I must say, in the final stage of daddy's absence--no matter the duration*, we're all counting the minutes until Patrick walks back through the door.

*Is it completely pathetic of me to admit that regular office hours even seem too long on some days?

Not many left to go now!

(Welcome home, babe.)

favorites

2012-02-16T16:40:00.000+08:00

Our plan is to make it to the new campus every week this semester.

We get up early, board the bus, spend time reading and checking out books from the library, and then playing at the Early Childhood Center, before boarding the noon bus home again.

A few favorites my kids have really latched onto at the new campus:

This stuffed shark accompanied Moyer while he browsed books in the library this week.

Keturah is ALL ABOUT the sandbox in the ECC. She especially loves that she can go in there barefoot, and strips off her socks first thing when anywhere in it's vicinity.

To be honest, both kids love the sandbox, but I found Moyer's attachment to the library shark just too cute to not document.

lovers

2012-02-15T17:30:00.000+08:00

As much as we are completely head over heels for our little loves--all three of them--we didn't miss out on celebrating each other Tuesday evening.

Although Valentine's Day is catching on here, it's not for children. The local schools don't ask parents to send in sweet treats or hold Valentine's day exchanges. (Remember those paper bag mailboxes you decorated in elementary school and hung from the front of your desk to collect all of those cheesy pre-made endearments in?)

But TGI Friday's prepares a set "couples" menu, the chocolate vendor in the market sells out, and the florist marks up the red roses. This holiday is for lovers.

In fact, 情人节 (Valentine's day, said: qing ren jie), is literally translated, lovers' holiday.

(We're kind of wondering, by the way, if Yi Nan's caregivers are thinking that it's a little odd for us to have made Valentines for her, in light of the cultural connotations . . . any culture experts out there with thoughts on this?)

Anyhow, after feeding our little loves, and getting them into bed, my love made me a very yummy cream-cheese themed candlelight dinner.

Complete with chocolate . . .

. . . that he remembered to buy a few days early.

little loves

2012-02-14T17:00:00.000+08:00

We got to celebrate our littlest love in a very special way yesterday. Today, we woke to a special day with our other little loves.

Moyer and Keturah were both delighted with their gifts from daddy, and handmade Valentines from mommy.

Moyer's Valentine was themed "hot," because Patrick had picked out a thermometer that they can hang outside and read daily together.

The little things Patrick selected for Keturah were all "cute." She was thrilled with her socks, headband, and new comb.

And they loved sending daddy around our apartment to find the candy they'd decorated and hid for him too . . . even the most simple of celebrations is sweeter with these little loves in our lives!

littlest love

2012-02-13T18:57:00.000+08:00

On Saturday we made and sent off valentines to our littlest love.

Marilla's probably never celebrated Valentine's day before, but this particular package was more about us. Patrick had picked up small Valentine's day gifts for our other little loves last Friday, and it seemed appropriate to include Yi Nan in this expression of our affection as well.

So I put together a little outfit~from Keturah's toddler days~complete with hearts. I pasted pictures on pretty paper alongside Mandarin endearments, and strung it on a red ribbon. I bagged up another disposable camera to send along, as I've been doing every few packages. Patrick sat down and hand-made a "from your baba" card for his newest Valentine, and then the four of us together, walked to the post office to send it all kuai di.

Yay, China Post!

An advantage to China-adoption, from China, is definitely being able to send a package with quick results. It cost us 32RMB, and the lady behind the counter told us it would be delivered in two days! I love kuai di.

But she also told us that we wouldn't be able to send the camera. The postal clerk pointed out that it contained batteries, which were restricted by China Post. She assured me that the discovery of batteries in our package would hold it up. So after failing to find a way to remove just the batteries, Patrick and I removed the camera from the package, and sent along the rest.

The entire walk home I was just giddy with the blessing of China Post--how delightful to know our package would be in our daughter's hands in just a few days. And due to the star jammies picture we received, we also know that our first package, sent from America this fall, also made it. What a gift to have this confirmation!

Then, that evening, I realized something.

Marilla's second package, the one containing her blankey, was sent from here, via China Post, once arriving back in China. In addition to the blankey, it contained a photo book, a letter to the orphanage director, some toys for the other children, and a disposable camera. No-ooo!

What if that camera battery had caused the package to be confiscated? What if the battery had prompted a tax on the package contents--that the orphanage wouldn't pay . . . what if the plane carrying that package blew-up, due to that battery?!?

I wouldn't have sent the camera had I known that batteries were restricted!

I should have been more clear with the postal clerk that day about the exact contents of the package--I'd just told her, "this blanket, some pictures, and some toys." If only I'd realized that batteries were considered hazardous by China Post!

After much of the above stressing, a good deal more philosophizing with Patrick and our friend Rob that night, and finally just accepting the package's fate--whatever that may have been--I could at least be grateful that Yi Nan received our first package, and could rest in faith that our second package's fate was not actually dependent only upon those batteries.

And as much as I wanted Marilla to get that blanket from us, that blankey is not, actually required for our little one's well-being.

Breathe.

Thankful. For so much. Even for a package that doesn't quite make it--perhaps even because of some unseen, better, purpose for our daughter. Our plan for her included a special transitional object. But our plan is never the one we want to bank on. So I'm thankful for the realization that we're not in charge and we don't actually have any control in this process.

Happy Valentine's Day.

For me, today, a valentine's day gift came early. Mid-day Patrick called from the office. He listened to how my morning had gone. I told him about the valentines I'd managed to construct for Moyer and Keturah during their rest time. He then told me about a text message he'd received.

From China Post.

We both get lots of text messages that we don't bother to read. Junk mail. Weather reports. They're all in characters, take a little time to wade through, and are a dime a dozen.

Patrick happened to comprehend the characters for "post office." He turned to an office mate, and asked, "does this text say what I think it does?"

Turns out Patrick was right.

Turns out that China Post not only tracks your kuai di deliveries, but texts you once they've been signed for.

Marilla got her Valentine's Day package this afternoon.

And Patrick discovered that his phone housed messages from China Post for all of the packages we've sent her from here. Starting with the blankey package. Yi Nan's orphanage signed for that one on January 4th, as it turns out.

Thankful.

For our littlest love. For the privilege of sending her packages. For China Post. For a package received.

For a love lesson learned.

photo nerds

2012-02-11T10:42:00.003+08:00

This week while I was uploading pictures for my last posts here, and on my sister's blog, Moyer asked if he could edit the ones that I wasn't using.

He's watched me tweak and adjust a time or two, and has "helped" once before. In general, he believes that not using the full range of the tools available is somewhat tragic.

So I gave him full editing power over this one.

I kept the actual controls in my hands; there's too much that could happen to my entire library if I were to turn over the whole laptop . . . but I did honor every request he made to slide any bar over to "100%, mom!"

And he actually used the terminology, too. Yes. Vibrancy. Saturation. Sharpness. White balance--cooler or warmer?

Keturah on the other hand, just directed, "More purple! All the way purple, mom!"

free

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000+08:00

Our household is embracing many new "freedoms" lately.

As in we've gone . . .

gluten free (wheat, rye, barley, & oats)
corn free (from whole kernel to corn syrup and corn starch)
dairy free (except butter at this point)
egg free

While the boys are playing along--in house, at least--the girls are the ones that seem to be benefitting from these new dietary ~~restrictions~~ freedoms. In support of Keturah I'm both gluten and corn-free, but really only adhere strictly to the gluten part. Keturah on the other-hand, it seems, is constantly getting new foods added to the "possible sensitivities" list.

She's okay with that, though.

Which I think is rather amazing for a three-year-old. It helps that she has two gluten-free aunts, who talked up the GF life big this fall, and that her grandma is corn, egg, and dairy sensitive. She understands that she's not in this alone.

And she kind of likes the "celebrity" status that it gives her. It is not uncommon for us to hear her proudly tell someone offering her food, that she's a "gluten and corn-free girl!" Now she tacks on there, "and egg free and dairy free," too.

Yesterday at lunchtime, I entered the kitchen telling Moyer and Keturah that I was making hash browns. Keturah's, I said, would have tomato slices, and Moyer's would be topped with cheese. (Moyer hates tomatoes, and has since the very first time we offered him one as a baby. If there's an area in the food department that we indulge Moyer in, it is in never making him eat them. He does, however, consume tomato soup, sauce, and ketchup on a regular basis. Keturah, on the other hand, can't get enough tomatoes.)

Keturah's response to this?

"Why don't you make Moyer's with eggs?"

I thought this was a kind gesture, to be thinking of her brother, so I reemerged from the kitchen and asked Moyer if he'd like an egg with his hash brown. He said that he would, and we both thanked Keturah for her very thoughtful suggestion.

So by the time lunch made it to the table, we had three variations on the hashbrowns theme:

Keturah's was dairy free. Moyer's was tomato free. Mine incorporated a little of everything.

This system works well often. For example, every morning for breakfast, Patrick makes Moyer and himself oatmeal, and Keturah millet. But honestly, it's just easier overall, especially at dinnertime, to make one meal that fits everyone.

Last night it was soup. Soup that turned out so well, that I posted the recipe over on my sister's gluten free blog, Think Outside the Breadbox.

The disadvantages, of course, are that we're got a smaller list of ingredients to use in these family-friendly meals, and we're really not able to go out to eat. Advantages, though? We're eating more produce, more simply, and more healthfully overall. (Not to mention saving money from skipping the restaurants.)

And with all the "____ - free" recipe searching I'm doing on-line, I may as well be enrolled in a cooking class.

story telling

2012-02-09T08:00:00.000+08:00

Moyer and Keturah have piles and piles of digital files--a few of which have even made it into scrapbook form--from birth to their current ages. For them, the only challenge to filling in the gaps is figuring out which hard drive the pictures from any particular stage of their development are stored on. And if I get stuck and can't locate the picture I need from our files right away, there's always the blog. We started asiaramblin back in 2006, halfway through my first pregnancy. Their lives have been well documented, and their stories are quite intact.

Marilla's story is different. We've begun to piece it together in the pictures we've been given. And as beautiful as she is, as clearly as we can see her growth, as blessed as we are to have pictures from four different stages of her development, these pictures will never really tell her story.

I wish they would.

From the time stamp on the photos, we can assign ages to each of the pictures except the first. (For whatever reason the metadata on that one has been removed. The dates on the following three photos place Yi Nan at 10 months, 14 months, and 17 months.)

Patrick and I have known, ever since we planned to adopt from China, that our adopted little one would not come with a history. That's the way it works here. Yi Nan's birth mom is not known--in fact, cannot be known--for Yi Nan to be legally adopted in this country. Her birth father? The circumstances of her mom's pregnancy? The reason for her abandonment? The unknowns abound. And at this point in our adoption journey, we've accepted that. We couldn't have applied to adopt from China without accepting this fact.

That doesn't mean that we're satisfied to leave it at that, though. When we go to pick her up later this year, we hope to visit with her caregivers. Any opportunity to glean any information of our little girl's history, we'll take.

We're thrilled to have what we do. Development reports and pictures are far from nothing.

Marilla's story is getting told. The snippets of known information are smaller. Less narrative. With larger gaps. But with or without the bits of her story that we're being let in on, she still has a story.

We can't wait to let her tell it.

cooking class

2012-02-08T07:30:00.000+08:00

Keturah had her first cooking lesson on Monday!

"Aunt Angie" is teaching Keturah and a few other young friends how to prepare 中餐. (Chinese lunches) They're even making a cookbook!

Yesterday, not long after she traded in her cape and undies for real clothes, I overhead Keturah tell Moyer about her new love of the culinary arts:

"I could cook all day!"

How early is too early to start assigning KP* duty around here?

*as in Kitchen Patrol, not Kim & Patrick, in case you're wondering.

the other side

2012-02-07T11:06:00.001+08:00

My friend Cheryl tells me that her second-born daughter, who is Moyer's age, often wonders what Moyer and Keturah are doing. For example, when she's waking up, she knows that it's actually Moyer and Keturah's bedtime.

This time zone thing does make life a little more interesting.

For example, if you're reading this in "real time," right after I posted, and you live in the States like Cheryl and her kids, it's your evening. Monday evening.

But I'm posting on Tuesday. Tuesday morning.

Weird, huh?

So when my kids put on their blankeys as capes this morning with their undies, instead of getting dressed, and played like that for a few hours, I wondered if Cheryl's daughter ever says as she's going to bed at night, "Moyer and Keturah must be getting up soon. Maybe they'll run around with their blanket-capes in their undies all morning . . . "

There's no telling what's going on on the other side of the world in a given moment, eh?

profoundness

2012-02-06T07:30:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, in traffic, on the way home from fellowship, our taxi "sped by" a bus.

Keturah's animated obervation: "We are speeding up the bus!"

Patrick and I were not at all sure what this meant, and the clarification she offered was of little value either.

At this point, Moyer, also clearly confused, tells Keturah, in no uncertain terms, "Keturah, that's a very random factor."

I looked at Patrick with what must have been question marks in my eyes, because he said, "Don't look at me!"

To which Keturah replied, very matter of factly, "Look at Moyer."

making space

2012-02-03T23:28:00.001+08:00

Moyer, Keturah, and I spent the day on Monday shifting furniture.

Not so long ago, I got to thinking about making space for Marilla in our apartment. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the best solution was to flip the guest/office with the kids' room.

Instead of explaining why this works well, though, I'll just show you.

See? (Just for the record, the masking tape hop-scotch is not part of the permanent decor. It comes in handy for illustrative purposes, though, because in their previous room, hop-scotch was out of the question.) Plenty of room for a new bed (Moyer's old crib/toddler bed) for Yi Nan, closets, dressers, and of course, Moyer and Keturah's bunk beds.

Yeah. Those bunkbeds. We hired a guy through a furniture company to take them apart when we bought them from the Thorpe family. And we hired a different guy--through the same company--to reassemble them once our apartment was painted a week later that summer.

It was 60 RMB per time.

And those bunk beds are very sturdy. And very heavy. So that 60 RMB, we decided, was well worth the time and labor it saved us.

So obviously, when I started to make plans to flip the rooms, I knew that we'd enlist the furniture company again. I gave them a call mid-January, and they told me to call back after the holiday. So on Monday, Patrick's first day back at the office after CNY, I did just that.

"Oh, the workers who take apart furniture won't be back until the fifth," the secretary tells me.

I ask her if we can set an appointment for the following week, and we talk details. I tell her that I'm not moving homes, I just need the bunk beds partially dis-assembled, moved to the next room in pieces, then re-assembled. She reminds me that it will cost money. "Sure," I say. I recall aloud in Mandarin that the cost is 60 RMB.

No, she tells me, it'll be twice that.

If you're wondering why--like I was--it's because the guy they send would be performing two services instead of one. Taking apart and putting together.

If you know me at all, you know that this jump in price is not only hard to handle, but reason enough to re-think hiring someone.

And I know, 120 RMB is still less than 20 USD. But it's not less than ten dollars anymore. So I begin to wonder if I could pull this off myself.

Now, keep in mind, that this was on Patrick's first day back to the office. Which means that about the time I was considering the alternative to hiring this furniture company, I was sitting down to lunch with Moyer and Keturah. These kids, by the way, are all about Bob the Builder, and DIY. And I had just read an inspiring DIY post, by my friend Teish, involving lots of tools.

I am not saying that Moyer and Keturah, or even Teish, are responsible for what ensued that afternoon.

I'm just saying that they were my cheerleaders.

And pointing out that the key player in dis-couraging me from such a feat was at the office.

Although it was his power-drill that proved rather handy.

(When it wasn't splitting screws, that is.)

So the up-shot is that between the power drill, a lot of time, a couple of cardboard sliders that I taped down on top of the door jams, and a lot of muscle, I was able to move the vast majority of the furniture before Patrick arrived home.

The bits that I didn't fully anticipate:

Although I was able to re-assemble the bunk beds in the kids' new room, there was NO WAY ON EARTH that I could ever lift the top bunk back onto Keturah's bottom bunk and frame by myself. Once I realized this (when I took it off), I knew that I'd need Patrick's help after work to just "put the finishing touches" together.
Even though I had measured all other parts of the large wardrobe that was in the kids' room, I neglected to actually measure its height, and because it "looked" shorter than the door frame, I didn't give a second thought to emptying it, and pushing it right through. Five millimeters doesn't sound like such a big deal does it? Well, that extra half a centimeter pulled Patrick back into the room-swap equation again. The only way to get it anywhere now, was to lower it to it's side and manipulate it awkwardly around the doors and hallway. I'm all about DIY, but I was pretty committed to lowering that closet to the floor. (Versus dropping it.)

Poor Patrick arrived home to much disarray, and a little more furniture shifting than he'd actually signed up for when I began envisioning this project.

He didn't even find the kids' enthusiasm at all spirit-lifting. And he wasn't very amused by my descriptions of their helpful natures, how incredibly proud Moyer was of all of his "jobs," or even the recount I offered of all the times they quoted Bob the Builder when the going got tough.

To be fair, though, he was concerned for my safety.

(Did I mention that the bunk beds are really heavy?)

And I hope, that if I were given the opportunity to back up and re-do that phone call with the furniture company, that I would have just made an appointment for a guy to come on the fifth.

rock star

2012-02-02T21:50:00.001+08:00

Remember this fall when we sent this package to Yi Nan?

The kids wear these jammies regularly, and love them. Did anyone else notice the "rock star" theme?

Well, check out this little rock star!

On Tuesday morning, we were up on the early side, getting ready for a morning embassy appointment in Beijing. In addition to notarizing a little bit of non-urgent adoption paperwork, we were getting Moyer's passport renewed. It was dark outside, the kids were still sleeping, Patrick was working on coffee and breakfast, and I was getting myself ready, when I heard a loud whisper from the front of our apartment.

"Sweetie, you're gonna want to see this!"

Huh? (Have I mentioned before that I'm used to my coffee served bed-side?)

"Kim, come look at your daughter in her new jammies!"

I sounded to me like Keturah must have gotten up, put on something novel "as jammies," and then gone back to sleep. Patrick's urgent whisper made me assume that our second born had pulled another can't-miss-this-manuveur, and I'd better come quickly before she woke up and I missed it.

Sounds reasonable, right?

I came quickly.

And didn't see Keturah anywhere in Patrick's vicinity. The apartment was still very quiet; both children clearly still asleep.

Confused, I looked at him. He directed me to his laptop, where he had opened a picture of a little Chinese girl . . . wearing star jammies like her jie jie's.

"My youngest daughter." I never expected that Patrick had been talking about Marilla.

We didn't request an update. And we're not at a stage in the adoption process where updates are usually given. In fact, I had really expected that the next news we heard of Yi Nan would be just before we travel, much later this year.

This update, forwarded on by our agency, included all of her current stats (including 15 teeth!), the fact that she's walking, and beginning intelligible speech.

I soaked in our daughter, amazed at how much she'd grown and changed.

Without us. (More waiting pains.)

But not pain without pleasure. She's well. And growing. And we've received unexpected word of this great news.

Could I be any more thrilled that our little one is thriving?

There were two pictures included in the report. Patrick flipped to the second one before I'd even really processed fully the first. (No matter, though--we've got loads of time to gaze at these pictures before we get to gaze at the girl . . . )

Could she be any more beautiful?

Could we be any more blessed?

world view

2012-02-01T19:22:00.000+08:00

Just this evening, while jumping on this year's birthday gift*:

"When you jump on the trampoline, the whole world goes up and down, up and down."

As Patrick observed, "tells you a little something about her world view, huh?"

*which was a really good idea, by the way . . . not only does it help an active girl to expend a little extra energy in a small space, but it happened to fit the polka-dot theme as well!

chapter books

2012-01-31T21:18:00.001+08:00

After we got back from Austin this winter, kind of randomly one day, I started reading The Cricket of Times Square. We'd just encountered a cricket in a children's magazine, and Moyer and Keturah really didn't have any context. So I pulled the aforementioned title from our shelf, looked through the pictures with them, talked about crickets, and asked them if they'd like to read it.

The answer was yes. We averaged about two chapters a day, and made it through in a couple of weeks. Not only did both of them love it, but I was a little surprised by how much they "got."

We went back to picture books for a little while, and then, just the other evening "Uncle Rob" read aloud the first two chapters of The Trumpet of the Swan.

Moyer's hooked. He was disappointed this afternoon when I only read one chapter. I was disappointed to only make it through one* chapter too; it was a delight to watch his responses to the text. For example, when the mother Swan tells her husband the Cob all about what it was that first attracted her to him "back in the day," Moyer giggled and smiled and squirmed and stood up in his seat and nearly turned red with embarrassment. The Swan, by the way, had been attracted to the Cob's "finest, most powerful, most resonant voice of any of the young male swans in the . . ."

I stopped to ask him how he would feel if a girl told him that he sang really well. He giggled, but wouldn't look me in the eye. I turned the question into a yes or no:

"Would you like it if N___ told you that she really liked your voice when you sing?"

This time Moyer blurted out a "yes!"

*Keturah was extra tired, and routine time-outs from the story to explain concepts like "dumb" as in "blind, deaf, or dumb," went south quickly. After they understood "If you can't see/hear/talk, you're blind/deaf/dumb." Moyer asked, "What if your nose can't run?" And before I could even explain that running isn't actually a basic, desired function of a nose, and can't really be compared as sight is to the eyes, Keturah started giggling and asking "What if your bum, can't . . . ?" Just for the record, she actually started giggling SO hard, for SO long, that not only did it make getting through chapter five a little laborious, but she also never did finish her question! (For which I think we all can be glad.)

All of this to say, we're enjoying chapter books together these days.

playing photographer

2012-01-30T22:00:00.002+08:00

First up, this is not a photography blog. I love photography. This has something to do with my love for art, current stage of life, and presented opportunities. I am not, however, a professional. But sometimes I get asked to do semi-professional work. And even though this is not a photography blog, this is the place that I share that work.

Now onto the subject at hand.

I got to play photographer for our friends, Tim and Ventia, at their gorgeous wedding this month. (That's Ventia's mom popping out from behind up there, by the way.)

It was by far my biggest photography engagement to date. And I couldn't have done it without lots of help--lots. In fact, the first thing that I did right was to ask a fellow-art-lover-and-learning-photographer to assist. Ada was amazing. Not only did she help me manage information, details, schedules, people, and equipment, but she also managed to photograph me photographing!

And she captured several images from the day that made it onto my favorites list. (While, being in charge of all of the aforementioned duties too, folks. This is no small feat.)

Impressive, eh?

So with Ada by my side, our day began with details. I kind of like details.

And those details happen to include feet pictures. (I'm still not sure what it is I love about feet pictures, but I don't think I could stop myself from taking them if I tried.)

What's not to love about any details placed within such a gorgeous wedding setting?

The historic Astor Hotel has tons of character.

But then again, so do the bride and groom!

Tim and Ventia, as usual, were fantastic, naturally photogenic subjects. It was really a lot of fun to be with them for so much of their big day--even for Tim's first look at his bride.

And I can't not mention the adorable bridesmaids. Also, very photographable.

Know Tim and Ventia, and can't get enough of their wedding? Rest assured, there are more. Lots more. (In fact, Ada and I were not the only ones wielding cameras that day!) I'm going to stop with one last favorite, though . . .

. . . and let the bride & groom take it from here.

extremes

2012-01-27T15:30:00.000+08:00

Keturah's still under the weather.

Yesterday, just after her not-quite-long-enough nap, while I was trying to get in an afternoon rest time for myself, Keturah appeared at my bedside:

"Mom, can I color?" She was holding a Pooh Bear coloring book and a package of twistable crayons.

Just to be sure that she hadn't been pillaging in places forbidden, I asked, "Are these from our activity bag?"

"But, mom, I want to color."

I clarified, "I think it would be great if you colored, Keturah. I just want to know where these came from."

Over-tired and worked up, Keturah tells me, not in a very calm way that they're indeed from the red and white activity bag. I assured her that it would be fine with me if she colored with them.

She climbs onto the bed and sets up shop beside me--right next to my pillow. "Mom, I want to color with you." Okay, I tell her, but I'm just going to watch. It's my rest time.

"But I want you to hold the book!" With a little delicate negotiation, we work out a solution--with my head still on my pillow, I rest my arm over the edge of her coloring book, holding it opened for her.

She carefully colors one of the pads of Pooh Bear's feet blue. Impressively, she colored it completely and stayed within the lines. Then she was done.

With coloring.

But not done with coloring.

As in, she was done coloring herself. But she was not done with the activity "coloring with mom." Which somehow meant that now I'm stuck coloring while she watches (and directs) on my bed, next to my pillow, during my rest time.

This did not work out, and did not end so well.

This extremely unreasonable behavior from my daughter was balanced by another episode not so long later. Keturah appeared again.

I was in bed. (I slept off and on once my rest time got started . . . actually, I was kind of down and out yesterday too. Thank goodness for daddy and CNY vacation week!) Patrick was sitting beside me, checking in. Keturah, carrying a couple of torn out pages from the Pooh Bear coloring book, delivered them to us, announcing that "this is very important paperwork."

We were both amused; I assumed that her documents were daddy-inspired. Playing "office"perhaps?

Then she informed us, "because we're getting a baby."

Oh, it's adoption paperwork!

Keturah went off to fill in more forms, Moyer joined her, and eventually I think they prepared the baby a care package too:

"More paperwork?" I overhead Moyer ask her.

"Actually, it's a present, " she tells him.

"For the baby?" I watched Moyer bend down to help her over on the far side of our bed. I don't know what their play entailed after that, but I'd heard enough to fill my "how-incredibly-sweet-is-that" quota for the day . . .

Is the sweet end of the spectrum more-so because we get to see the other extreme too, I wonder?

stuck inside

2012-01-25T14:49:00.000+08:00

One benefit of celebrating the Chinese New Year here in this country, is that Patrick gets the week off work, and we get more family time at home. Which frees us up to celebrate big.

But heading to the office the next day or not, the CNY aftermath leaves us with cranky, tired kids. And cranky, tired parents.

And then this year, not so far into the cranky and tired stage of our CNY vacation week, we realized that Keturah was sick. So now we're kind of stuck inside. (Which is not such a bad lot in life for a few days, but does get a little old come Wednesday!)

This is Moyer earlier this week, when he asked for about the seventh time (while Patrick, Keturah, and I were all still lounging in our big bed very late in the morning):

"But what are we going to DO today?"

Patrick realized that Moyer, not being sick like his sister, or old like his parents, needed a little direction to his day, and challenged him to build a train track in the living room that connected and used as many of his track pieces as possible. When he'd completed his goal, Patrick took these celebratory pictures. Doesn't he look proud? And tall?

I can't get over how much these kids have grown lately.

And then there's Keturah. This is her, content to lounge, requesting that I take her picture with Gracie on our bed. Before we realized that she was really sick. (It was the going back to sleep in our bed ALL MORNING that really clued us in.)

Doesn't she look like such a big girl? Again, I'm amazed at how tall and 'grown up' our kids are looking these days.

I guess if I'm going to be stuck anywhere, I'm grateful that it's inside with my husband and growing-up kids!

in the mail

2012-01-24T13:36:00.001+08:00

After your successful campaign, Jen, we'll be slipping that lovely dragon pair in the mail to your home address at our first opportunity.

Congratulations, Jen, and Happy Chinese New Year to ALL of our contestants! Okay, and Happy Chinese New Year to all of our readers out there that didn't enter our annual contest as well . . .

And in the "other exciting things in the mail" category, as Patrick tweeted . . .

. . . this morning we woke up to an e-mail from our agency stating that our home study is officially complete, and USCIS approval has been filed for! If you know much about waiting in adoption, this is really encouraging news.

Thanks for celebrating with us.

For us, this CNY, the reasons to do so abound.

it's time to vote!

2012-01-23T11:57:00.000+08:00

Apparently there aren't so many Asiaramblin readers out there in the market for cute, sparkly dragon decor . . . but that doesn't diminish Moyer and Keturah's excitement about our "dragon prize." Moyer, in fact, has been trying to award them all weekend to the "winner of our fireworks contest!" Don't worry though, faithful contestants, we've managed to hold that dragon pair for one of you.

Because we love all seven contest entries so much, it makes it extra hard to choose just five.

But with Patrick's help (he's a tad more decisive than me) we've decided that Grandpa and Amy both are the recipients of our honorable mentions:

Grandpa took the direct approach:

Cha de hen yuan: Love of money is the root of all evil.

And Amy, took the indirect, though masterfully crafted, approach:

Cha de hen yuan: Ancient Chinese proverb; A saying that reflects a situation where a clever person puts up a false front in order to gain the advantage over someone else.

For example, the wise general acted like a lunatic in the court of the evil emperor in order to avoid suspicion. The emperor failed to see his actions as "cha de hen yuan" and so was eventually ousted from power when the wise general raised a coup.

Thanks, Grandpa and Amy, for entering this year's contest! We hope you'll try again next year!

~this year's CNY table "mats"~

That leaves the following five contestants as our five finalists:

1. Ameri-Bajan:

cha-de-hen-yuan
noun
a chartered boat used to carry domesticated fowl between tropical islands in the Caribbean
e.g. the chadehenyuan ran aground when the birds determined it was time to bail out

2. Grandma:

cha de hen yuan: A chicken in the pot, 15 cents.

3. Cheryl:

cha de hen yuan:

This is a bit of common trash talk.

Roughly translated in English, "My moped is faster than yours!"

4. Jen:

cha de hen yuan:

Often seen on handwritten signs in shop front windows in China, it simply means, "unattended children will be sold to the circus".

5. Homesteading Mommy:

cha de hen yuan: "Beware the Yellow River".

While it literally means what it says... basically don't fall in the Yellow River, its more commonly used as a polite and dignified way to alert someone to a stream in the street originating from a small child's split pants.

So now it's up to you (any and all of you!) to choose our 6th annual contest winner!

See the poll up at the top of our sidebar to the right?

Click away. Have your friends click away.

Whichever contestant the poll reveals as the favorite in twenty-four hours (mid-day on Tuesday, our time), will be receiving a pair of dragons soon! (As in this year. Sometimes this mailing prizes around the globe gig takes a while.)

last chance

2012-01-22T16:47:00.000+08:00

On our way home from fellowship this morning, we noticed that one of our downstairs neighbors put up this year of the dragon "blessing" sign.

We'll have to find out where they get their CNY decorations, because these weren't available at the market where we purchased this year's prize.

This afternoon we've been gearing up to celebrate the coming of the new year tonight--and so have our neighbors. As I type, Moyer and Keturah are racing from window to window to see where the latest batch of firecrackers are being set off. They can hardly wait to light their own Roman candles tonight!

We know that our friends in the west probably won't be setting off any fireworks tonight, but you can ring in the CNY by entering our contest . . .

The rules state that we'll be selecting the five finalists on New Year's Day, Monday. That means that you have until we get up and around (after a late night) tomorrow morning, our time, to enter. Let's say, we'll post our finalists at around 10:00 a.m. That means you probably want to be sure we see your entry by 9:30 a.m. or so . . . Sunday night in the West.

I know all of this time zone stuff is confusing, so for clarity's sake, we'll be looking for your entries a little less than fifteen hours from the time of this post. (Does that help any of the time-challenged among you?)

春节快乐! Chun Jie Kaui Le! Happy New Year!

welcome to our 6th annual win chinese new year's stuff contest

2012-01-20T19:48:00.000+08:00

If you haven't read the rules yet, go do that. If you want a glimpse of the prize, well, salivate away.

Now get your game on!

Here is the Mandarin word or phrase that we've selected for you to define--Balderdash style:

差的很远

cha de hen yuan

You know what to do.

Submit your definition in the comments of this post when you're ready.

If you're reading from Facebook, or Google Reader, you need to come over here to the blog to enter.

And if you really are commenting challenged, it's okay to e-mail us your entry. We'll submit it with your name in the comments of this post for you.

the prize

2012-01-20T14:30:00.000+08:00

This is my first year in China celebrating the same zodiac animal twice. My first CNY, back in 2000, was also the year of the dragon. If you're counting, that's twelve plus years! As of this year, though, our annual contest will have only covered half of the twelve year cycle.

(Wow, I wonder how long we can keep this up! Can you imagine, twelve years of contests, covering all twelve of the Chinese New Year featured animals? I think you should aim to collect them all! Hey, some of you are well on your way . . . how many Asiaramblin annual contest prizes have YOU won?)

This year we're pleased to present this lovely year-of-the-dragon wall decor as Asiaramblin's 6th Annual Win Chinese New Year Stuff Contest prize:

You want a shot at it? (The dragon pair, not the kids.)

Better go review the contest rules.

But if you've already been there, done that, join us on our dragon-prize market excursion. Patrick wasn't able to participate in the prize-selection this year, but Moyer and Keturah filled in and helped me pick out just what you need.

They also helped me pick up a small stack of "blessing" door signs, which we intend to use as table mats this year. IKEA, I'm sure, has a new line of year of the dragon merchandise, and as much as we enjoyed last year's bunny mats, I thought we'd skip the IKEA trip this year, and go with a local purchase.

What we passed up in our market excursion?

This lovely three dimensional golden dragon door decor. (I'm told that it's the "best" CNY decoration you can buy this year.)

And the firecracker lights . . .

And, as you can see, other fine CNY stuff.

Though it was all tempting, this year we've planned for only one winner, and only needed one prize.

But you will notice that it is a pair of dragons, which is of course, luckier than just a single dragon.

And they're holding firecrackers.

And did I mention they're double-sided too?

And sparkly? You want these dragons.

So report back in a few hours for the official start of our 6th annual win Chinese New Year stuff contest!

contest rules

2012-01-19T15:00:00.000+08:00

Today, we'll share this year's contest rules.

Tomorrow, we'll show you the prize.

And then the game is on!

You'll have the weekend to submit your entries. Then on Monday, January 23rd, the first day of the year of the dragon, the winner will be selected.

This year, to win the CNY dragon paraphernalia that we've yet to reveal, you'll first need to wow the judges with your language skills.

Here's the deal:

On Friday night (China time; but our participants in the West will note that it's actually Friday morning in their neck of the woods.) we'll show you the characters for, and pronunciation of a carefully selected Chinese word or phrase.

For example: 筷子 kuai zi

Now if you speak even a little bit of Mandarin, you know that the actual definition of kuai zi is "chopsticks."

However, in this contest, that knowledge will get you nowhere. Anyone submitting an answer of "chopsticks" will NOT win the prize. You'll want to think of this game more like you think of Balderdash than of a vocabulary quiz.

As in Balderdash, we're looking for phony answers. We want you to bluff your way through a definition. We want it to be plausible, humorous, interesting, and not in any way related to the actual definition of the Mandarin word or phrase that we select.

Are you up for the challenge? Often, we ask you to e-mail us your entries, and to refrain from using the comments to enter. However, this year, a valid entry must be made in the comments.* The advantage of submitting early on is that you get the corner on whatever angle you had in mind for your definition. The advantage of submitting later in the weekend, is that you can see what you're up against and try to one-up the other contestants. You choose your strategy. We'll sit back and watch.

Then we'll select five of our favorites.

And post them here on the blog on Monday, January 23rd, CNY's day. (That would be Sunday night, for those of you in the West.)

But only one will walk away with the prize. Here's how:

This year, anyone who wants gets a say.

If you're a finalist, you can vote. You can ask your friends to vote. You can vote for yourself, or for another finalist. Anything goes.

If you're not a finalist, you can also vote. Although, unlike the finalists, you may not be very motivated to ask all of your friends to vote. Anything goes, though, so as you will.

Twenty-four hours later, on the second day of the CNY(For those in the West, sometime on Monday night, actually), we'll announce the results of the vote, and our 6th annual contest winner!

*If you for any reason have technical trouble commenting here on the blog, you may e-mail us your entry, and we can then submit it for you in the comments.

If you've got questions, ask away. (This may be a good time to test your ability to post a comment.)

Or you could just warm up with a phony definition for kuai zi.

~last year's CNY place settings~

reasons to celebrate

2012-01-18T21:30:00.000+08:00

If you've been keeping up with us for very long, you know that we've got more than a few reasons to celebrate around here these days.

1. This year, we're adopting a beautiful new blessing.

2. This week, we are no longer waiting for two pieces in the paper-chase to that blessing!

3. This semester, our international school community has been blessed with a new campus.

And if that's not enough,

4. This weekend marks the turn of the Chinese New Year!

Which means, of course, that in addition to getting adoption paperwork into the mail, and getting our hands dirty on campus, that we're getting ready to host our annual Chinese New Year contest.

~2011 was the year of the rabbit~

So if you're new here, you can get your game on by checking out past contests. (Hint: click on that link above the cute bunny picture for our contest history.) And last year's race for the rabbits rules had our readers hopping for three days.

This year, the Chinese New Year falls on Monday, January 23rd. We'll announce the contest, prizes, and rules sometime between now and then.

Get your thinking caps on!

guard duty

2012-01-18T15:00:00.000+08:00

You may remember that the International School has a new campus. While we were gone this fall, much work was done on the building, and swiftly upon our return the big move was made.

Our family gets to participate in the process.

We joined in with several other families to function as "guards" at the new campus on Sunday night.

It wasn't the Great Wall or anything, but the new library was not altogether a bad place to camp out for the night.

And this week we've got a couple of shifts getting our hands dirty at the new campus . . . during daylight hours.

Thankful that under ordinary circumstances, we can leave the night rotation to the security professionals!

waiting

2012-01-17T21:11:00.000+08:00

This theme is so incredibly cliché in the adoption world.

I hesitate to type that title at all.

Of course we’re waiting.

Waiting for that last police clearance from the state of Texas.

Waiting for our local Tianjin police clearance to be notarized.

Waiting for our home study to be written up.

For all of these pieces to make their way to USCIS, along with our I-800A form, for immigration approval.

And THEN, after we wait for THAT approval to arrive, we wait for IT to be certified, notarized, and authenticated, and then we send the whole sha-bang to China.

And wait some more. At that point in the process, we’re told, we’ll do anywhere from four to six months of it.

Now we’re in the club. Officially waiting. Checking off each adoption milestone, while we wonder which developmental milestones our little Marilla is checking off from her orphanage-home. Reading the adoption literature, preparing our lives and kids and home for a new toddler-daughter, gathering items to send to our little one in care packages, praying that somehow she is being prepared for her new life.

And praying that somehow in the waiting I can give thanks for her whole life—including its beginning, and abandonment, those infant nights spent in a line of other cribs containing her brother and sister orphans, the days she’s spent happily in the care of her mama-Ayis, as well as the ones that she lived through inconsolable or without legitimate needs being met. Somehow, for some reason, Yi Nan’s short-but-long-life has been protected. She has been kept. And carried. And brought to us in the form of a file, at thirteen months old last September.

When we claimed her as our daughter and, in our hearts, became her parents.

I will never understand why our little Marilla spent her first year without us even knowing of her existence. But I trust that her Father did know her—intimately—during that time. And He provided for her needs—some of them through those mama-Ayis, and brother and sister orphans, and it occurs to me that I also have to believe that this next year of her life, the one that begins at 13 months, our daughter—still unaware of our arms and hearts encompassing her—will live through each and every month and week and day and hour until we come to get her, also known and cared for and loved. Intimately loved. I must believe that this waiting is for good. That our daughter has not only been divinely carried to us via an electronic file last September, but that she will be just as divinely delivered to our arms this year. That these months and months of her early life outside of our home and arms make her who she is. That Yi Nan’s early experiences have formed and shaped her to make her exactly this little girl that we have agreed to adopt. That our daughter is perfect-as-is, with all of her prior experiences in-tact, and that she will enter our home at the perfect time, as well.

I think to entirely embrace that goodness, though—that grace that has brought Marilla and all of who she is to us—we must also grieve those many months, and her beginning, and all that we’ve missed of her life too. Which is why a tear falls for nearly every key stroke now, and why this fountain I’ve become was turned on that September night I first read in Yi Nan’s file:

“At 3 months old, she could raise her head.

At four and a half months old, she could pull away a cloth placed in front of her face.

Her eyes could follow moving objects or objects that make noise.

At 6 months old, she grew her first tooth.”

This development report, so clinically recorded, evoked an emotion in me, her mom, grieving my girl’s babyhood spent apart from me.

So thankful for the many ways that Marilla was preserved, that she was cared for . . . Yet so filled with grief that it couldn’t have been different.

This process, this giving-thanks-in-grief, is our waiting.

And as cliché as it is, I have to believe that our little girl is worth every moment of—and will be better for—the wait.

dress-up

2012-01-13T22:33:00.000+08:00

The videography is terrible, but Keturah fans will want to watch this video anyway because the subject is worth it.

Here's the context:

Patrick, me, and Moyer ALL played dress-up with Keturah after dinner one night this week.

Keturah started out by selecting "boy" items for daddy, letting Moyer wear the "superhero" cape, and dressing both of us girls up as princesses.

After a few laughs, and a little experimentation with dressing daddy in a few slightly feminine accessories, the play quickly moved from being about the clothes to being about the stories and characters. Patrick and I exchanged many smiles and stifled much laughter as we watched Keturah work hard to engage her superhero brother in her imaginative play. "Moyer! Quick, my baby bear is calling for help! Come with me!"

She was so convincing that I almost nudged Patrick to go and rescue baby bear himself.

Moyer's interest in flying around the apartment with his cape on trumped baby bear's trauma, but didn't discourage Keturah's imaginative narrative.

We got the camera.

And what we captured was a little less "interactive" then our little girl calling out to her caped brother while scooping up her invisible baby bear and bringing him to us--relieving all fear for his safety. For the lens, she switched to narrative mode, and did more telling--less showing. Even so, Keturah did not fail to pull off a riveting performance.

(Don't worry, she didn't really cry.)

same frame

2012-01-12T19:26:00.000+08:00

When Yi Nan enters our home this year, one of the "small" delights that I'm sure to embrace, is not only filing away lots of digital memory with our images of her, but being able to capture Marilla's little face in the same frame as her brother and sister. Though that won't be possible yet for some time, I was delighted with this sweet Christmas presentation.*

My artist sister-in-law, Kristen Shelbie Smith, gifted Patrick and me the above portraits. They're intended to be matted together for display, a unified piece of art, capturing all three of our kids at their current age and stage. Marilla, at fourteen months, her age in this picture that the portrait was modeled on, was known of and loved already by Moyer and Keturah, then four and two.

When we go to get Marilla, her big sister will be three, Moyer will have turned five, and she herself will be approaching two years old. I'm thankful for this simple, yet meaningful, little snippet of time that Kristen has captured for us through her artwork.

*When I made the scans, I just tossed a brown piece of construction paper behind each piece. I think when we take it for framing and matting, we'll go with charcoal, and a horizontal arrangement. And I think I'll hang it in the kids' room. :)

character recognition

2012-01-11T15:06:00.000+08:00

Yesterday morning, as Moyer was asking me to help him put on a red "superhero" cape from Keturah's dress-up clothes stash, he wowed me with his character recognition.

Now the "superhero" cape is actually a red velvety cape that is intended to accompany a Snow White dress that Keturah just inherited from some older girl friends. But honestly, it's perfect for a four-year-old superhero whose sister happens to be princess for the morning too.

So anyway, as I wrapped it around his neck, Moyer said, "Mom, I know that this cape is actually from a Disney movie."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Because I saw the 'Disney' character on the tag!" Clearly Moyer was very proud of this observation.

Aware that the tag didn't have a picture of Snow White on it (or any other character from said movie), and also aware that Moyer doesn't really read yet, I had to surmise that he was referring to the 'Disney' logo.

I unattached the velcro pieces so he could show me.

"See, look!" Sure enough, that familiar scripty 'Disney' logo was printed at the top.

Moyer was seeing it as a whole. He didn't read D-i-s-n-e-y as six different characters that make up the 'Disney' brand. Moyer saw this symbol likes he sees Chinese characters around us daily. As a picture, made up of strokes, that has a name and a meaning.

I applauded his success, smiled broadly in amusement, and fetched my camera to take a picture of Moyer and his found "character."

Not to be left out or upstaged, his princess sister held out a detail (of an actual Disney character!) from her princess dress, and made her own declaration of brilliance.

"Mom, I know that this is a ballerina."

I of course photographed Keturah's keen observation too.

So proud of themselves . . .

And their mama couldn't be prouder of these two cuties--not even if they were writing Chinese characters!

a knee up

2012-01-10T20:08:00.000+08:00

Bundled in her cold weather gear, getting into this tree is no small undertaking for our big-three-year-old girl.

For her older, and just slightly-longer-legged friend Noel, though, it's no problem. But a hand up from Noel when the climbing got tough wasn't really working, either.

So Noel's mom taught Noel how to give Keturah a knee up.

And it works beautifully!

Now to teach Moyer this trick for when Noel's not around . . .

back post

2012-01-09T20:14:00.000+08:00

With Christmas vacation, jet-lag, and our home study behind us, we're settling back into a new rhythm of life for this season. Patrick's at the office every weekday again. I'm discovering what it's like to be home with the kids again--with ups and downs intact!

But we haven't put our big States-side stint this fall completely behind us. Moyer and Keturah both still talk about their aunties, and grandparents, new friends, and old friends on a regular basis. They talk about Avery-the-dog, and the back yard, and the condo, and the toys in the chest there. They haven't forgotten that you can buy gluten and corn-free waffles in the freezer section of the grocery store there, either. And they reminisce about their Sunday School classes all the time.

So in honor of an Austin-fall making our lives richer, even into this year, a few images that I never got to posting States-side, but I just can't leave out of our fall . . .

Okay, six pictures just doesn't quite do it. If I'm honest, there are many more . . .

May it never be possible, be it a season, or even a day, to contain all of our blessings in a single post.

talking prayer

2012-01-06T21:13:00.000+08:00

Around the table, we often sing blessings with the kids. If we don't, there's what we call a "talking prayer." Usually Patrick is the one to bless our meals this way, but over the last few months Moyer's been volunteering.

The "talking prayer" he offered this evening:

Dear God, I hope that . . . uh, thank-you-for-this-food-in-Jesus-name-Amen.

This is actually the talking prayer that he blesses our meals with every time. His bedtime prayers always begin with "I hope" these days, so I think that he just starts, realizes that he just offered to give thanks for our food, then switches gears--really fast. Once he realizes the direction these prayers are going, he doesn't waste any time.

Please don't tell me that he's already figured out that if he blesses the food, it will get him to the food faster than when daddy's in charge of the "talking prayer."

care package

2012-01-04T20:54:00.000+08:00

We made it through our home study on Monday and Tuesday.

(Yay!)

Without posting every little paper-chase milestone of the adoption process (and there are a few of them), there's precious little to post as far as updates on our little Marilla. This is the last picture that we've received, and we know we're fortunate to have it! It's up in our apartment now, and we do so much look forward to taking our own pictures of her someday to fit into frames alongside Moyer and Keturah.

In the meantime, we're blessed to be able to send pictures of us to her, while we wait.

On Saturday, Keturah and I went to the local post office to send Marilla her second box. In addition to a few toys for all of the children in her room, and another disposable camera, this box contained her new blankey, embroidered with both her Chinese name, 以南, and the name we're giving her, Marilla.

We attempted to introduce Yi Nan to her blankey through this little photo book.

If you're interested, you're welcome to view the whole story that we sent to her.

Sending this box, in China, by the way, turned out to be a breeze! We took the assembled, but not closed, box to the post office, stood in line, had it weighed, selected three-day "kuai di" shipping, paid 48 rmb, and handed the printed characters of the orphanage address and our return address to the lady behind the counter who properly filled out the address label for me. We watched the postal clerk tape the box shut, got our receipt, and left. It was exciting to know that Marilla should receive it soon--our first box, sent from Austin, probably took weeks. (And it was a lot more than eight U.S. dollars in postage, too!)

Our little girl may have received her new blankey today. And if not, she will soon.

Our hope is that she'll be allowed to have it with her often. When we selected it, we purchased two, washed them, and began sleeping with them. While we continue to cuddle the remaining blanket, we hope that the already-loved-on one that we sent will carry our scent. We hope that she will love on it herself, and perhaps even become attached to it.

We expect that when we go to get our almost-two-year-old girl, despite our boxes, and pictures, and very good intentions, she will not quite know what to think of us. We love her already. But it may take a while to convince her of this. And in exchange for her new "forever family," Yi Nan will be giving up all that she's ever known: her bed in the orphanage, her caregivers, the familiar routines and environment of her home. She'll bring precious little with her. We hope that this blankey will be familiar enough to her by then--have soaked up some of the comforting smells and memories of her first home--to ease that transition.

We wish that we could visit her, and call her, and spend time with her in her current home--allow her to come to know and trust us gradually--before whisking her away. The system that we're adopting her through doesn't work like that, though. And so we're hopeful that she'll be well-prepared . . . that her caregivers will read our little photo books to her, and talk to her about her new home well before we arrive. We hope that somehow, her little toddler mind will grasp in some way the significance of her blankey, and that she'll recognize us through our pictures.

We hope that whoever gets Marilla ready to come and meet her forever family, will not forget to tuck her blankey under her arm, and that it will come with her.

And if it doesn't come, we hope that the spare that we've brought along can in some way be a small comfort to her.

A small comfort in the long process of coming home.

home study

2012-01-02T08:00:00.024+08:00

In honor of our home study today* I'm posting this adorable video of Keturah and this cute little thing she's been doing with her hand--ever since we announced to our kids that they had a little sister.

It started on the second night that they knew, in the dark of their room, after bedtime prayers, when Moyer was doing a little mental math. "Hey mom, there are two boys in our family: me and daddy. And there are three girls. So that means there are more girls than boys."

That's right, Moyer. How do you feel about that?

"I'm okay with it." (I wish you could hear the smile in his voice when he decided this. It sure did make me smile--wide.)

Keturah doing her own math--on her fingers--from the bottom bunk chimed in. "There are five people in our family!"

I asked her who they were.

"You." (She pointed to her index finger.) "Daddy." (The middle, tallest finger.) "Moyer." (Her ring finger.) "Me." (She shows me her pinky.) "And Marilla." (Marilla is the thumb.)

Adorable. (I've been meaning to video this all fall!)

That was back in October. This video was taken on Saturday evening. And in this video, she very sweetly added Auntie Kristen to her index finger. (Apparently she and Moyer are roommates now.)

But Marilla's still the littlest one. I love that.

*Just so y'all know, I'm not actually writing this post today. I'm pretty sure that I'm bustling about our apartment in preparation for our home study this morning . . . so if you're reading this thinking we must be completely ready for said home study, you can go ahead and start praying now that we will be ready by the time our social worker shows up!

polka-dot party

2011-12-30T10:16:00.000+08:00

Keturah's third birthday party theme was born when she picked out her own polka-dotted party hat from the dollar store a few weeks ago.

I told her that there was no way we could get that beautiful hat back in our suitcase un-squashed. She wasn't deterred. My sister, Kendra (an engineer), was with us that day, and took a close look at the hat, showed me how it could easily be dismantled and stored flat in one of suitcases for the overseas journey. Then all I'd need to do once we arrived home was re-roll it, staple the base, and tape up the seam. No problem.

We bought the hat, a few other party supplies, and I prepared to pack them into our bags. Which went just as smoothly as Kendra had claimed that it would, except that Keturah walked into our room during the packing process. She took one look at the flat, dismantled hat at the bottom of the to-be-packed-pile on the floor, and her lip started to quiver.

"Mom," Keturah starts to cry, "you broke my hat!"

A tad bit bewildered, I watched my little girl melt into a puddle of tears.

"Oh, Keturah, honey, come here." I took her onto my lap and carefully explained the whole process, as well as my good intentions to preserve her hat for her birthday. She must have understood, because she sniffled her way to a smile and forgave me.

Phew!

Now on the the big day . . .

Yesterday, Keturah woke up to more than a polka-dotted party hat. Patrick blew up a whole mess of balloons that dotted our living room while I put out streamers, dotted necklaces, a few dot-themed games, a little pom-pom craft, and a few other polka-dot pieces of decor.

Our little birthday girl ate breakfast at her decorated table wearing her jammies and a birthday crown that Aunt Susie made her this year. Then she opened up a birthday present from Aunt Lisa--a polka-dotted outfit to put on for her party. Patrick, Moyer, and I made sure our polka-dot wardrobes were in place, and then Keturah and her big brother played with the balloons until our party guests arrived.

Once the party-goers came, we made our way through a giant dot-to-dot "3" that functioned as a map of our party games and activities. It culminated of course, with Keturah's birthday dot-cookies (gluten and corn free!), and some presents.

Many of Keturah's gifts and cards were polka-dotted, thanks to our fun party guests!

These collages certainly do relay the idea, but if you want to see all of our party pictures, you're welcome to have a look. There are even a few with both Patrick and me in them, thanks to Aunt Angie's shift manning the camera!

shots!

2011-12-29T20:49:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, Moyer and Keturah both had check-ups at the international clinic in town. Moyer's was very routine--he's grown like a weed this fall--and it was nice to have him in the doctor's office without an infection or looming surgery. Keturah's was also routine--she's also had a growth spurt--but her "routine" visit included injections.

We "warned" her about these ahead of time, and not remembering her last ones at all, she was very excited.

In fact, when she heard the doctor tell Moyer that he wouldn't need any shots, she got a little nervous, and said, "Mommy, but I'm getting shots, right?" Yes, sweetie, yes you are.

The anticipation--as joyous as it was--turned suddenly to dread just seconds before the concurrent injections by two nurses, and as soon as the needles hit skin had become a full-fledged terror.

Patrick heard her from the waiting room down the hall!

Her nurses were efficient though, and as quickly as she'd released her screams, she was done and in my arms, looking at her bandaids, and being given a reward sticker. She picked these scissors, and was very proud to wear them on her shirt all day (and her jammies that night).

She's a brave one.

And today she celebrated being a brave, three-year-old-girl.*

*Party pictures to come . . .

christmas in china

2011-12-27T00:09:00.000+08:00

Our Christmas day included a bus ride to the international fellowship's Christmas service.

As well as a simple, and very tasty meal by this handsome chef . . .

Before we even dug in, Moyer told me that his favorite was the pork, and Keturah told me she was looking forward most to the potatoes.

A delicious and relaxing meal--I'm so glad that we got our suitcases unpacked and our tree up before the weekend! (Although, I must admit, that we're still plugging away at our advent stories--twenty four installments in three days was a tad bit ambitious . . . )

the seventh

2011-12-23T11:46:00.001+08:00

We're back. And this is the view from the seventh.

Seventh floor of our Beijing hotel yesterday morning. And the anniversary of our seventh year of marriage.

It's good to be back.

And it's good to celebrate seven years of marriage. (Even if being back prohibited a more traditional anniversary celebration . . . ) We spent our day getting back to our fair city and our apartment here, unpacking our suitcases, getting out all of our Christmas decor, and getting fingerprinted* at USCIS in the American Embassy in Beijing.

Just another step to Marilla.

And not such an inappropriate way to spend an anniversary, either. Seven years in, we're thrilled not only to be on our way to adopting our waiting little girl, but with our two other Beijing-born babies, too. (Did you know that both Moyer and Keturah were born in China?)

*Which is why, we spent the night in Beijing in the first place, by the way.

hakuna matata

2011-12-20T11:51:00.001+08:00

I've been a little out of the blog-loop this week. So I'm just now seeing this post over on my sister's gluten-free blog. Kate recorded a few more tidbits from our time at her place in Maine a couple weeks ago. And though our time there was indeed gluten (and corn!) free, it was also chock-full of whole-grained cuteness and plenty of fortified fun. (So don't be afraid to click on the links, even if you don't ever plan to give up bread.)

and she's out

2011-12-19T11:16:00.000+08:00

We've done a fair amount of driving around this trip. Sometimes Patrick and I use car-time for adult conversations, while the kids have brother-sister time in the back. Keturah, who takes several naps a week, often falls asleep during car-time.

"And's she's out," is what you'll hear Patrick or I say now and again, when we catch a glimpse of her flopped-over-head in the rear-view mirror.

I took this picture on our way home from church today, not thirty seconds after Moyer alerted us both:

"Keturah's out!"

sound-alikes

2011-12-15T08:37:00.000+08:00

A lot of sister pairs look alike. Kendra and I do, certainly, overlap in physical features. If you saw us together in person, you'd know we are sisters because we also share mannerisms. (And so does Kate, for the record.)

But more striking than any aspect of looking or acting alike, Kendra and I sound alike.

More than once during her visit these past few days, I've answered her phone, only to be asked for. (This includes calls from Patrick, by the way.)

But even more awesome than that, at the register of the dollar store today, Patrick, attempting to pay in exact change, was offered extra coins in stereo from both me and Kendra. Yes, we used the same sentence, at the same speed and cadence, with similar inflections.

The cashier looked up, and asked, "Did you just say the same thing?"

I explained that we were sisters.

She still said that it was really creepy.

Hey, at least we didn't say it in Mandarin.

air travel activity

2011-12-10T21:04:00.000+08:00

Our kids are pros at air travel. And a Texas to Maine time zone change is small potatoes compared to the havoc that jet lag wreaks after our across-the-ocean trips.

Check out Moyer and Keturah at the Austin terminal waiting to take off. This part really never gets old for them.

But when they're four and not-quite-three, it's still necessary to be a little creative on-flight to keep everyone at peace with their seat-confinement. (As well as with fellow-passengers!) This is what Keturah and I came up with on our Austin to D.C. leg last time, after the beverage service.

We dried out our cups, pulled out a sharpie that I keep in my camera bag, and constructed a little cat companion. She carried him through the Dulles terminal and onto the next flight.

Any ideas for other air travel activities we can whip out for our next big trip?

lillian

2011-12-10T05:19:00.000+08:00

Keturah is ready to be a big sister. She's done a great job being sweet to her very little cousin Lillian.

Last night while bedtime routines were happening upstairs for Lillian and her big brother Daniel, Keturah made the rounds with all of the available stuffed animals in their living room.

Apparently it was bedtime for them too.

Keturah swaddled, covered up, and made a bed for all of the little stuffed toys in sight. Toward the end she brought a little guy to me and said that she needed another bed. (She'd already filled Lillian's bouncy seat and swing with her furry friends, as well as the surfaces of the coffee table and toy chest.) I suggested that she make use of Lillian's nearby car seat.

"No, mommy. That's Lillian's."

I told her that it would probably be fine, as Lillian wouldn't be using it that evening. (Besides, technically all that other stuff was Lillian's too, right?)

"But Lillian is sleeping in it!"

No she's not, I tell her, she's upstairs with her mommy . . . It's okay, you can use it.

"Mommy," Keturah informs me, "I'm pretending that Lillian is sleeping in it!"

Oh, I see.

k8 knits

2011-12-09T11:24:00.001+08:00

My sister, Kate, has taken up knitting. Last year it was hats.

This year?

More hats.

(She whipped up this one for Patrick while we were there.)

But the big knitting project this year?

Sweaters!

The kids love them.

(And so do I!)

After we said goodbye this morning, we asked Moyer and Keturah what they liked best about visiting Aunt Kate and Uncle Dave.

Keturah: "Sleeping in our bed!" (I wish I had a picture now that I'm thinking about it--Patrick and I stayed on a queen loft bunk bed--pieced together out of trees--while Moyer and Keturah slept below on a twin mattress together. It was a really sweet set-up.)

Moyer: "Learning how to knit."

While we were there, Kate taught me how to knit (I managed to pull off a dish-cloth.) and gave it a shot with her nephew and niece as well. She even sent along the kid-sized knitting needles she had. Moyer's a long way off from producing anything functional, but I'm glad he had fun trying!

Anyhow, his answer in the car sparked a dialogue between both kids concerning their new knitting needles, and just what their future plans were: to knit Aunt Kate a sweater.

How sweet is that?

And just when you think it can't get any sweeter, Keturah informs us that after that, she's going to knit one for Uncle Dave.

(As if she hadn't already knit his heart around her little finger . . . )

As sweet as her intentions are, judging from that pile of yarn down there, I'd say that Uncle Dave's gonna have to wait a few years for that sweater!

the furred variety

2011-12-08T20:49:00.001+08:00

(I told you there'd be more cousins.)

cousins plus

2011-12-08T10:16:00.001+08:00

My last cousins post includes a picture Presley, my little brother's little girl, with Moyer and Keturah.

In Southern Maine, we hung out with Patrick's brother's children, Daniel and Lillian. This is the only picture I have of this set of cousins together (so far). Note that there's a bonus Nana in the photo too!

Also in Northern Maine, we got to spend an evening with one of my cousins. This is me and Robin.

And these are the guys we married.

Durwin and Patrick are not cousins, for the record.

More cousins to come, though, I'm sure.

more cousins

2011-12-06T23:26:00.001+08:00

The Northern Maine branch . . .

cousins

2011-12-02T20:30:00.000+08:00

Can you see all four of the cousins from our Thanksgiving celebration in this picture?

They're not the easiest bunch to contain in one frame!

Could that have anything to do with the fact that they're four, three, two, and one?

Off to spend time with the Maine branch, where I'm sure I will attempt this photographic feat all over again!

trimming the tree

2011-12-01T22:30:00.000+08:00

Last Friday, our adorable little cousins shared their day-after-Thanksgiving-tree-trimming-tradition with us.

I don't know if not getting dressed is a required part of the tradition, but it sure seemed to work for these kids!

You might even call Moyer's lobster jammies "festive." (Or at the very least they coordinated with the peppermint ornaments.)

Keturah worked on bundling bulbs. Not so sure that it added much to the balance or symmetry of the tree, but she sure had a ball doing it! (Ha!)

Eli was the one who started the trimming-from-below-the-tree-trend.

The others sure caught on fast, though!

Merry Christmas.

little helpers

2011-11-30T22:00:00.000+08:00

Over Thanksgiving, Patrick captured pumpkin cookie making with Aunt Kaitlyn.

I love that he recorded those little helper feet standing in their mess too!

through the glass

2011-11-30T07:00:00.000+08:00

For Thanksgiving, we went to Aunt Kaitlyn and Uncle Thomas' house, which of course, included hanging with the cousins.

Here's a few fun pictures of Ezra and Keturah that I got through the glass of the backdoor on the first evening we were there:

zoo

2011-11-29T23:10:00.000+08:00

Last week when we did our around Austin visiting, we stayed with our friends Yobany and Denise. We've stayed with them before, back when Keturah was just six months old, and their little Contessa was in-utero.

This friendly little girl welcomed both of our kids into her domain to share her space and her toys, and even took us on an outing to the zoo!

And did I mention Contessa was friendly? I loved this.

Ever notice how most zoo pictures are of the kids' backs?

Denise and I shared that observation throughout the day.

We also wondered if this warthog appreciated his environment as much as we did. Do warthogs even see in color?

lion kings

2011-11-29T09:00:00.000+08:00

I have to admit, that when Patrick's cousin Alyssa sent a fun little package of goodies for Moyer & Keturah a month back, I hadn't quite grasped the significance of the stuffed Simba and Nala contained therein.

I remember thinking, "Wow, I haven't seen The Lion King in forever!" Moyer and Keturah thought the little lions were fun gifts, but had no context for their characters.

Until Alyssa came to visit last week.

You see, there's a little history between Auntie Kristen and Alyssa that involves this Disney classic. They definitely have all the songs memorized. And there's some kind of bonding that goes on over this movie.

And as you can see, Moyer and Keturah were introduced to Alyssa and Kristen's Lion King tradition.

Patrick and I were just going to let the kids watch a few songs (it was their bedtime), but well, we all got drawn in, and ended up watching it to completion.

I think they liked it.

And now they play with their little stuffed lions, with names, and songs, attached.

Who knew that Alyssa's visit would be such an education in 90's Disney culture?

around austin

2011-11-28T22:00:00.000+08:00

The week before Thanksgiving, we headed out on a quick road trip, and got to spend some time with more Texas friends.

Ricky & Jocelyn and Patrick go way back. Patrick tells me that back when he, Ricky, and a few other guys roomed together, Jocelyn would be the only female that darkened the door to their house for months at a time. Apparently her long term relationship with Ricky transcended the bathroom grime and meat-heavy larder.

We had such a great time catching up in their home over dinner, and getting some play time in with their little ones, Noah and Naomi. We're not sure if Keturah is asserting presumed authority over Naomi here, or just feeling extra cuddly. Either way, though, it was fun to see our kids together! Wonder if Moyer and Noah will ever get to be roommates in a college guy house? (And if any girls will dare to darken their doorstep?)

While Moyer was engrossed in Noah's car collection, Noah showed Keturah his big boy bed and blankets. They had quite a ball playing hide and seek together--until Keturah discovered Noah's "blankey."

I happened to be standing there for the interaction, knew the look on Noah's face, and helped him navigate getting his special treasure back from her without incident. In the pictures, he's telling Keturah and me all about the special features of his blankey, including his favorite, the fuzzy side.

Moyer, by the way, has a similar blankey, and a similar attachment. His blankey is green, though, and Moyer happens to favor the silky side.

Keturah also has a blankey--it's pink--and though she relishes ownership of it, she can actually get to sleep just fine without it. In fact, sometimes, she brings it to me before bedtime and tells me that I can sleep with it.

Noami doesn't have a special blankey, but rumor has it, that there's a certain kitty that holds her allegiance . . . given to her as a replacement of her beloved pacifier. (If you've been keeping up with Keturah for long at all, you must remember that paci-love was Keturah's vice of choice as well.)

Jocelyn and I both enjoyed observing these little bits of character that our kids display. And it didn't escape our notice that Moyer and Noah as the big brothers seem to have similar temperaments and interests . . . as do their little-sister-stronger-willed-counterparts!

thankful

2011-11-24T01:09:00.000+08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

t-shirts

2011-11-22T04:55:00.001+08:00

Last week my friend Denise taught me how to make freezer paper stencils.

It was so easy and fun, that I've added freezer paper, an x-acto knife, and fabric paint to our "take-back-to-China" shopping list.

Moyer's t-shirt design comes from sideoats & scribbles, and Keturah's was my own invention. I knew Moyer would LOVE the paper airplane on a t-shirt, and because I am the way I am, I wanted to design something complementary and girly for Keturah's shirt. Props to Patrick for the kite concept.

I ironed them to "set" the paint last night, and then laid them out as today's wardrobe. Both Moyer and Keturah dressed promptly upon waking, and then spent the time between dressing and breakfast flying up and down the hallway.

Talk about some inspiring t-shirts!

And guess who will be receiving this little one in her next package . . .

Her big brother and sister can't wait to show her how to make it fly!

our dossier

2011-11-18T22:30:00.003+08:00

One part of our paper chase for Marilla is gathering a selection of "family life" photos.

We need several pictures, that include both Patrick and I facing the camera, with others. In this case, we were going for us with our kids. So while we were playing at the park with our friends, I had Cheryl snap a few for us.

It wasn't until I checked the display, and saw Patrick wearing his sunglasses, that I realized these wouldn't work for our dossier. The adoptive parents need to be clearly recognizable in each photo--which means no sunglasses or hats. Since Patrick's regular glasses were in the car, parked down a ways, and because he's not what I'd call "clearly recognizable" without his glasses, we just scrapped the project for the day.

But Moyer, Keturah, and I had fun with the photos anyway.

How's this for a take on "silly faces?"

We each picked our own eye colors, and Moyer selected green for daddy's glasses, which were, unfortunately, covering his eyes.

Yeah, we probably don't want to submit this version for our dossier, eh?

playtime at the park

2011-11-17T22:30:00.000+08:00

One of the fun families that we like to spend time with while we're here, met us at a park to play on the field last Thursday.

Moyer and Keturah had so much fun, that while "helping" me sift through the pictures from that afternoon, that they began planning a sequel. Hopefully that'll work out before our time here draws to a close.

Though I encouraged him, Moyer wanted no part in rolling down the hill--even with the senior Miss M. making it look so fun and effortless! Even the little Miss S. and the very little Mr. T., also clearly seasoned hill roller-downers, but I think Moyer wants to get a few more observations under his belt before joining in.

I'm quite sure Keturah wouldn't have hesitated. But she was too busy with the kite.

After all, her dad had made it look so fun:

(Oh, and a little trick to getting the mommies a little talk-time? Bring one of the daddies along to play* too.)

*I could mention that his plan had been to find a quiet, shady spot to get some work done during our play date at the park, but . . . well, I unthinkingly 'borrowed' his computer's power cable earlier that day without returning it. As a result, Patrick's laptop was out of juice, freeing him up to play some himself. Oops!

backyard play date

2011-11-16T22:00:00.000+08:00

Last Friday, this sweet family, brought us lunch and stayed for a play date!

I hadn't seen Kristen since our last trip through Texas, two years ago. We got to meet their nine-month-old Anna, and catch up--as much as moms over lunch and a play date can. (While we were still inside, Auntie Kristen, as the other Kristen noted, "took one for the team," by playing/supervising a game of Candy Land among the older three. Just for the record, I have never played Candy Land, and also for the record, I'm okay with that. Thanks, Kristen!)

Once we went outside, Moyer showed Katelyn "the tree" that populates the condo's shared backyard. I loved watching them play, and was pleased to have captured this little hero-rescues-damsel-in-distress sequence on my camera.

This interaction was quite a bit different from their first playdate. And perhaps a skill in Moyer that we'll want to encourage--he sure knows how to pick* those damsels!

*He's like his daddy that way.

kids on a couch

2011-11-16T06:50:00.001+08:00

When Patrick and I were in Austin five years ago, we were very social. We spent lots of time with lots of people, and loved every minute of it, but we did it all pre-children.

Now, we've not only got two of them, complete with bedtimes, nap requirements, and melt-down hours, but many of those friends we made back then have their own little families to contend with as well.

So, in order to work family-life into special reunions with special friends, sometimes we've got to be a little creative about how to carve out time and space for our adult conversations.

Last Friday night, Nick, Morgan, Patrick and I all agreed that jammies and a movie on the couch just may be just the thing.

And it worked!

Movies are only so long though, bedtimes can only be extended so much, and, well, that's the season of life we're in. Adult conversations always seem to end prematurely.

But no matter how much more time we'd love to spend just adult-to-adult, we can't say we'd trade these precious bonding moments between our kids for much, either.

american diva

2011-11-15T08:44:00.001+08:00

Our resident diva is taking America by storm.

I know we've only been in two states so far this trip, but I think this little girl's camera presence is big enough to take over the nation.

Between little wardrobe items we've upgraded to the next size (shoes, socks) and, new to Keturah hand-me-downs (skirt) to, some old favorites (top), Keturah's fully outfitted for striking a pose.

After donning this cute ensemble this afternoon, she selected her "Mary Janes" over her pink sneakers, and managed to rope me into a photo-shoot. After multiple trips from her run-way, back to her personal photographer (to check the shots), back to the run-way, and so-on, Keturah somehow was able to keep her style fresh.

Just check out all of the looks this diva managed to pull off! What a kick!

P.S. When I showed these to her daddy before dinner I'm not sure if he was amused or mortified. When he saw the next to last one (side view; one leg bent) Patrick said, and I quote, "What is that?!"

gluten-free post

2011-11-11T10:01:00.001+08:00

I've got a post today on my sister's blog Think Outside the Breadbox, which is, if you're wondering, about her gluten-free adventures.

Kate's been gluten-free for some time, and because her gluten issue is genetic, Keturah and I are giving the g.f. life a try. Back in the fall of 2009, I did a six week gluten-free trial for myself and both the kids. At the time, I was hoping for a solution to some on-going skin issues for Moyer. In the meantime, we've found a solution* to Moyer's skin issues, so this g.f. adventure just includes Keturah and me.

On Monday, our g.f. lunch out with Auntie Kristen included bun-less burgers. For more pictures, and the g.f. take on our Mighty Fine dining experience, head on over to Kate's blog.

*In addition to using less laundry detergent, we've eliminated all soaps and lotions for Moyer, and replaced his bath bubbles with a homemade food-based scrub: olive oil & salt. Whenever he gets itchy in between baths, he rubs straight-up olive oil into his skin before bed. He's had clear skin now for months!

field trip

2011-11-10T05:12:00.001+08:00

On Monday, we met Auntie Kristen at work, grabbed hamburgers with her on her lunch break, then shopped the craft supplies department before heading home. We billed the whole outing as a field trip--which of course, makes it all extra fun.

The best parts were seeing Kristen in her work environment (now I've got a visual on the framing department), getting to ring the service bell, and hearing Moyer's perspective on the whole thing.

At lunch, Moyer said, "Wow! I didn't know Auntie Kristen worked in a store!" Surprised, I asked him what he'd been expecting. "I thought she worked at __________! (insert the actual name of the store at which she works)"

Hmm, I guess we never did define Kristen's place of employment for our kids . . .

Later, as I pushed Moyer's cart down the aisle containing pipe cleaners and pom-poms, restocking our China-supply, getting tired, Moyer remarks, "Boy, this sure is a l-o-n-g field trip, mom. Maybe not as long as the Great Wall field trip--that was a really long one--but almost!"

Wow. Shopping retail rivals our sleepover on the Great Wall?

Who knew we could get so much mileage out of a drop-in on Auntie Kristen!

more adjustment?

2011-11-08T07:21:00.000+08:00

Technically, jet lag should have been over weeks ago.

So tell me, just what does it mean that my entire family (excluding me, of course) is completely sacked out--and has been since 3:30 or so--at 5:08 p.m. on a Monday afternoon?

I took these pictures last week, but I just witnessed exactly the same scene a moment ago when I peeked in on her. She and Moyer have been alternating their quiet afternoon book time in this handy little closet.

Turns out that it's a pretty cozy napping spot too!

So do I wake them all up?

Or just enjoy the peace and commence with my own quiet time activities?

ask the adoption experts

2011-11-04T22:00:00.000+08:00

Although we waited until we had pre-approval to introduce 许以南 to Moyer and Keturah, we've been talking to them about adoption for a long time.

Unfortunately, at four and a half, and nearly three years of age, this does not make them adoption experts yet.

Several weeks ago, still in China, I interviewed our little experts-in-the-making on how they felt towards adoption. We were in a cab on an errand, and Patrick and I knew we had a file "on the way," so as the topic was on my mind, I thought I'd find out just what was on their minds. I'm glad that I started out with the basics:

"Just what does it mean to adopt?"

Moyer: It's when a baby is born at the hospital, but someone forgets to put the tags on it (think: hospital wrist bands) and it gets lost. We can adopt one of those babies that needs a mom and a dad.

Oops!

We spent the first half or so of the conversation clearing up misconceptions.

Then we talked through the really hard stuff. "Our baby may cry a lot. What if she is up all night crying? How will that make you feel?"

Moyer: I think I'd feel a little frustrated.

Realistic. Honest. Okay, time to find out what Keturah's thinking on that topic . . .

Keturah: I will go and check on her.

Sweet. Idealistic. Completely unrealistic. Very, very sweet. But this is simply just not going to happen.

So let's try a different angle. "Keturah, our baby may need mommy A LOT. In fact, she may want to be held ALL DAY. Sweetheart, how would you feel if mommy had to tell you to wait? What if mommy can't hold you for a long time because our baby needs me to hold her instead?" For the record, Keturah still likes to be held a good bit.

Keturah: I will hold her.

Oh, okay. I see. Keturah's looking for a baby fix. In fact, at a later date while talking through adoption in a less formal way, Keturah informed me that, "I'm going to be in charge of holding the baby."

We're continuing to work through this topic. Nope, they're not experts. But they are a pretty cute 哥哥 and 姐姐!

(哥哥/ge ge=big brother, and 姐姐/jie jie=big sister)

Here they are modeling the new matching jammies that we are packaging up to send to Marilla today. As we seek to help our kids continue to get to know their little sister from afar, we're also hoping that our little-waiting-one can get to know us a little bit too, through our care packages.

We're thankful for the small connection point.

And looking forward to the day when getting to know Marilla involves a lot more than care packages--or, theoretical questions about her adoption.

oklahoma flash back

2011-11-04T10:02:00.000+08:00

So I know our Oklahoma trip was weeks ago now.

I've got just one more set of pictures to share--from our last evening there, just before the sun went down . . . we tried to get the children to pose for pictures together. (Face paint from the children's museum that afternoon and all!)

And although it's not exactly what I'd envisioned, it kind of worked:

Well, until we tried to get the littlest one. Even with her mommy in the frame, she really wasn't in a smiling mood . . .

old friend, new stage

2011-11-03T21:13:00.000+08:00

On Monday, the kids and I had a play-date with my old friend Krista and her daughter Lucy.

Krista and I were roommates in China long ago, and have spent many hours hanging out--but it's been a while! And honestly, we're not that accustomed to hanging together via play-dates, either. So although it was a blast to hang with Krista and Lucy, the first thing I said once Patrick arrived (three hours later!) to pick us up, was, "Already?! But we haven't talked yet!"

I guess we were busy with other things. As you can see, Krista obliged the children with stories.

(Hey, at least they all like to read!)

Next time we'll have to go out and let the dads supervise the play-date!

dish soap disaster

2011-11-03T05:53:00.002+08:00

A couple of Saturdays ago, we enjoyed a relaxing day at the lake with some of our good Austin friends. We had a blast just hanging out--an atypical (and did I mention, really relaxing?) day, I didn't grab my camera once. I carried it inside from the car, though--which was fortunate, because Patrick did grab it when this great photo op came up:

You know you've got awesome friends when a dish soap disaster turns into a hands-on learning and play experience on the patio for the littles of the group!

I was spending time sifting through pictures from the last few weeks just now when I "found" them . . .

. . . a fun photographic surprise nestled among my (many) digital images . . .
Just thought I'd share. (Compliments Patrick, of course.)

"little" adah

2011-11-02T21:30:00.000+08:00

Last Thursday, we enjoyed an overnight with the Morris family. Here's Sara reading a story to all four kids at bedtime.

For much of story-time, Adah, clearly the senior of the group, read her own story, off to the side. At one moment, upon observing this, Moyer called out, "Hey, Little Adah! You're missing the story!"

I smiled and was very relieved that I'd already warned Adah that afternoon of Moyer's 'nickname' for her. You see, as we were praying through her treatment last year, to avoid prayer-time confusion, we described her once as "little" Adah. Patrick works with "big" Ada in his office, and Moyer was not altogether clear on just who was who.

The name stuck.

And so Moyer, very clear now on just who "Little Adah" is, didn't have any qualms about calling her just that.

After storytime, Claire (who is little, actually) was a little disappointed to find out that our overnight was not a kids' slumber party on the floor of the guest room. She snuggled down with Moyer and Keturah in their make-shift bed for our bedtime prayers instead.

After a good night's sleep--everyone in their own places--we all enjoyed a local park together. All four kids, no matter their size, and their parents, just had a good time in fall weather together. Moyer, having found a playmate in Adah by this time, did it again: called her "Little Adah."

This time my relief was felt in the laughter of a big-little girl, who didn't mind at all. I chuckled right along with Adah that time.

Thankful for a gracious response . . .

. . . and a sweet visit with a gracious family.

children's museum

2011-11-02T00:36:00.001+08:00

While visiting our friends in Oklahoma a couple weeks back, we spent a fun afternoon at the children's museum. We took lots of pictures, which you're welcome to view, but I've posted a few of the highlights below.

(Accompanying captions authored by the junior writing staff here at asiaramblin.)

Moyer and Keturah are riding the car. (m)

And then I say, "we're going to the gas station!" (m)

Me and Tenielle are giggling because Tenielle just popped it! (k)

That bubble did not pop yet! It's long! (m)

Avelin is not big enough to drive! (k)

My dad's driving to where the fire is, and we're all in the back. (m)

Me and Therron and lots of other kids are climbing on there and we're making shadows all over it! (m)

We're racing duckies. (m) And I'm racing a ducky. (k)

blessed

2011-10-31T20:39:00.006+08:00

October 27, 2011, fourteen months old

We were surprised with an updated picture of our sweet girl last week. What a thrill to see her standing!

Clearly, Marilla is being well-cared for.

Clearly, we are blessed.

meanwhile

2011-10-29T04:30:00.000+08:00

Just a little something we've been enjoying about our adjustment to Texas.

Make fun of us if you wish, but there are no* Taco Bells in China.

*(Or at least it didn't make it very long!)

auntie kristen

2011-10-27T21:30:00.000+08:00

One of the highlights of hunkering down in Austin this fall, is getting to live with Auntie Kristen.

To kick-off our stay with her, we celebrated Kristen's 22nd birthday with a wild rumpus.

(How fitting, considering that one niece and three nephews were able to make it for the festivities. Oh, yes, and we can't forget that the most wild thing of all flew in--her dad was in town as well.)

We enjoyed making Auntie Kristen king of the wild things for a day--if you're up for some party pics, check out our whole on-line album. And if you're a real party junkie, be sure to check out the sources of our inspiration--linked below.

Just for the record, our two little wild things had so much fun, that they've referenced the party several times after the fact. And Keturah just may have decided that 22 is the end-all be-all age: "When I'm twenty-two like Auntie Kristen . . . "

Other than the actual work Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, party details inspired largely by the following resources:

1. Bright and Modern Wild Rumpus Birthday Party
2. A Wild Things Birthday Party
3. Terrible Yellow Eyes
4. Wild Things Extras

first braid

2011-10-26T16:00:00.001+08:00

Last week, just before we left our friends' place in Oklahoma, Keturah asked me to braid her hair. We were kind of having our quiet afternoon book-time together on the floor in our room--this usually includes resting and reading, but I allowed for a braiding session that day too.

Keturah and I enjoyed some good old fashioned girl talk, including the information that apparently, when my daughter's in a wedding someday, she'll wear a braid in her hair, and throw rose petals. I think she observed the flower girls at Sam and Nancy's wedding very carefully last month.

And it turns out that the association with braids and weddings is so fused now, in Keturah's mind, that each time she asks me to braid her hair, she requests a "bride."

许以南

2011-10-24T11:38:00.001+08:00

We expected make this kind of announcement two or more years from now. However, God's timing is seldom our own, and in this case we are thrilled that it isn't.

Meet our new daughter.

July 2011, eleven months old

Her given name is 许以南. (Xu Yi Nan)

She is just over one year old, and waits for us in an orphanage in China.

Patrick and I began the official international adoption process at the beginning of September.

Unexpectedly, late on a Thursday night just a few weeks later, we were first "introduced" to our little one via a Skype call, by our agency. We've since covered a lot of ground--in the paperwork sense--and were informed of our pre-approval from China just this past Friday.

We are so thrilled to receive this official permission to be Yi Nan's parents, and have been joyously sharing her pictures, and our chosen name for her, Marilla Wren.

(Or, as Keturah says, "Ma-wi-wah.")

Marilla will join us in our home after we finish our official adoption journey. We welcome you to join us in praying for our little girl as we work through the lengthy paperwork process.

We, of course, can't wait to hold her, engage those dark little eyes, officially make her a Smith, and tell her just how much she is loved.

In the meantime, we rejoice that we have a new daughter.

Xu Yi Nan, date unknown

friends

2011-10-17T09:00:00.000+08:00

Last Thursday, our destination was Oklahoma. (According to Moyer, and confirmed by any U.S. map, you can drive right off Texas to Oklahoma!) We're staying with some good friends for the week.

When we're in the U.S., it's kind of normal for us to make a number of side-trips, or at least do a lot of visiting. And these visits with friends are always looked forward to, usually by the elder and younger Smiths alike.

What's occurred to me about this particular visit, is that we, as usual, came to visit friends. But this time our "friends" aren't just mommy and daddy's "friends" that Moyer and Keturah are about to meet. This time, our "friends," are already their friends too!

You see, Moyer and Keturah said goodbye to Therron and Tenielle not so long ago.

I have to say, the reunion I've witnessed over the past few days is priceless! Moyer and Keturah have been looking forward to this trip for ages, and they're not wasting a moment of it. All four kids--along with Therron and Tenielle's baby sister--have played together like crazy, from the moment our kids crossed the threshold, actually!

Moyer's usually my introverted, low-energy kid. He's thoughtful. He doesn't jump right in. He stands back and observes a bit, first. But with Therron around, no way. The second that we release him from rest time, or a meal, or a check-in with one of us, he BOLTS down the hall or to the backyard to where-ever Therron is!

We're so glad for meaningful relationships for our kids--even across oceans!

And even more glad, that in this case, we were able to cross an ocean to visit with our friends in person.

more on jet lag

2011-10-15T21:07:00.000+08:00

Did you know that it's said you can plan on one day per time zone crossed for jet lag recovery?

Last week jet lag looked like this:

A lot of early bedtimes.

This week, they seem to be taking forever to fall asleep at night, and are ready-to-melt-down at a moment's notice--any time.

It's been nearly ten days . . . we spanned thirteen time zones . . . so in theory we should be nearing the end of the jet lag period. But who's to say how many of the parenting issues we face are purely jet-lag related?

We've yet to take into account other travel-induced conditions, such as culture shock.

Which now that I'm thinking of it, may help to explain Keturah's declaration (while trying to fall asleep this evening) that she just wanted to go home.

What's it tell you about our family that I had to ask her what that means?!

In this case, Keturah clarified, home referred to China.

What a little TCK we're raising! Jet lag seems a small adjustment in light of a potential lifetime of transitions ahead.

the trees

2011-10-13T22:00:00.000+08:00

During our road trip today we started a list.

Over our last week in Austin I've been noting all kinds of interesting observations the kids have made about the world around them here, as opposed to at home in China. So today in the car, I asked them to tell me all the things that seemed different, as I wrote them down.

First thing out of Moyer's mouth:

The trees.

True enough. So far all of the Texas trees they've encountered are quite different from the ones we're around in China.

For this season, a nice change of scenery.

adjustment & great wall flashback

2011-10-12T04:16:00.001+08:00

We've been busy adjusting to Austin. Adjustment for this trip, this time around, includes connecting with people--both friends and family--trips to the grocery store, celebrations, church, walks around the block, hangin' out in the new 'family condo,' and, of course, recovering from jet lag.

I think it's the jet lag that's making it all seem too overwhelming to blog about just yet. In my struggle this afternoon to sort and post and record bits of our adjustment to Austin, I'm posting old news. But new-to-you pictures . . . from our friend, "Aunt Rachael."

I think I mentioned that when we we had our great wall camping adventure, I did not take along a camera.

But thankfully friends did!

These pictures from Rachael make not being the girl with the camera really fun!

photo: Rachael Peterson

Thanks, Rachael! If you want to see more, check out her post about our experience, or the whole album.

Oh, and P.S., the guy wearing red in that first picture is Patrick. He stayed behind on the hike to guard our gear at the campsite.

jet lag

2011-10-07T10:58:00.000+08:00

We've done it again.

Traveled half the globe that is, as a family of four, without any major incidents.

Well, except for that unexpected overnight in Newark. But the missed connection was an airline error, and the airline took very good care of us, so I guess that it can hardly be called an incident.

But jet-lag. Well, you all know how we feel about that.

Because as peaceful as jet lag looks when Keturah's EARLY bedtime takes less than five minutes to complete, jammies to slumber, I can pretty much guarantee that jet lag's ugly head will rear long before the night is "officially" over . . .

. . . here we go!

wedding loot

2011-09-29T23:09:00.001+08:00

Patrick took these pictures on our way out from Sam & Nancy's wedding last weekend.

These kids are all about wedding candy!

And they look pretty cute all dressed up, too!

verbal processors

2011-09-27T21:29:00.003+08:00

We here in the Smith family are verbal processors. In other words, we all talk a lot. (It's rumored that the two younger Smiths come by this naturally.)

I'm glad that they have so much to say. I frankly get a huge kick out of lots that I happen to overhear, as well as what Moyer and Keturah say directly to me. (Not to mention that a ton of the content for this blog is in no small part thanks to their input!)

One small case in point:

We were killing time (about fifteen minutes of it) just outside the market waiting for our kimbap order to be done yesterday, taking pictures, when I asked my two sweet test subjects to stand together for a photo.

Keturah sidled right up to Moyer, put her arm around him, and said, "Let's look like we're giving birth!"

(Don't they look just like they're giving birth?! Don't worry, I thought just what you're thinking: What?!?)

She really does talk bunches about marriage and babies, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me so much . . .

. . . but the fact that Moyer just laughed with her while he posed alongside his silly little sister is surprising to me.

This is how a conversation like that between Moyer and Keturah usually would go:

Keturah: "Moyer, let's pretend we're giving birth!"

Moyer: "KE-tur-AH! (loudly) We are NOT giving birth!"

Keturah: (not bothered by his protest, she actually never stops talking) "I know! You can be the daddy, and I can be the mommy--because (hand motioning to herself, head cocked, eyes squeezed closed in a little grin) I'm a girl! (I hope you're reading all of this with a very high pitch in mind, because, that would be how Keturah verbally processes.)

Moyer: "Mo-OM!" (he's yelling now) Keturah is saying that she's a mommy! She is NOT a mommy!

You see, Moyer's into truth. And accuracy in relaying information. Even pretend information. Another little case in point:

It is Keturah's custom, for months now, to begin almost all of her stories with "When I was a . . . "

Moyer has a huge problem with this. Because her opening line implies that what she's about to say is something that she's actually experienced. But seldom does Keturah say, "When I was a baby . . ." which is almost the only actual experience she has.

She's much more likely to be thinking about that conversation we had yesterday about "Uncle Rob" and how he was going to meet us at the market for noodles, and in her reiteration of all of these facts and memories that comprise this event, she begins her story with "When I was an Uncle . . . "

Obviously, Keturah was never an Uncle. Perhaps she's just imagining what it would be like to be an Uncle, or maybe she's just describing an Uncle. " . . . I rode a red bike, and I said, HEY this isn't too spicy . . . ! " At any rate, this is how she verbally processes what she's thinking at this stage.

And despite Moyer's loud attempts to inform her as to the untruth of each and every statement she begins like this, Keturah just doesn't listen.

I know she'll get it one day, and I gently remind Moyer of this too.

And remind him that, well, he's got his quirks too . . .

And we don't yell at him every time he's got a wild idea or imaginary friend along.

Slowly, he's getting better at tolerating Keturah's vivid, crazy-sounding, grammatically inaccurate stories about her past-present-and-future life.

Another part of growing up--and of verbal processing.

on (not) hosting

2011-09-23T16:22:00.002+08:00

I hosted a little cooking lesson this afternoon. Actually, “hosting” is kind of a loose term, here. I think that all I did that falls under the hosting category was open the door when people arrived, and make sure the house was presentable before they did.

You see, my former Ayi, was the real host.

Not only did she teach these other house-helpers how to make whole wheat bread from scratch, but she ran the show as well. (I just stayed out of the way—off in the other room, actually!) They learned from one another, visited with each other, and apparently had a wonderful time. Qu Lan had prepared printed copies of the recipe in Mandarin ahead of time for each lady to take notes on, and she also had a plan for how to make sure the bread was baked before they left an hour later!

Her little buns assured that the bake time would be a little shorter.

Every one not only sampled it before leaving, but took home a little baggie-full as well.

Ayi also managed to slip out at the end of class with the others. (I wondered why—I had doubted that she’d gotten her fill of Moyer and Keturah before the lesson—but soon discovered her reason.) Cooling on the stove top, after she left, I discovered a fresh out-of-the-oven loaf, that apparently she made sure was left over for our family.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that didn’t qualify as hosting!

pen pals

2011-09-21T15:21:00.000+08:00

Last winter Moyer and Keturah (and their parents!) said goodbye to some dear friends. (Sigh.)

But the good news is that we're planning a little visit this fall. They'll be within driving distance once we hit our destination in the States in a few weeks.

And in the meantime, our kids have been pen pals. How fun is that?

This morning, as Moyer, Keturah, and I reviewed today's date, and looked ahead to see how much time before our big trip, I reminded them that a few weeks after that they'd get to visit their friends, Therron and Tenielle. I suggested that we let them know how excited we were via letters.

Keturah got right on that. I gave her the right size and weight paper, then got down her art box for her. (She's currently on art box probation. That's another post.)

Moyer, though he had much to tell his friend, was not so into putting pen to paper, so to speak.

He did manage to draw a tornado. And once I took up the pen to take dictation, which is our pen pal letter custom, he had far more to say then Keturah had.

In fact, after we'd closed the letter (written beside his yellow-on-orange tornado), he insisted that I turn it over while he dictated enough text for the entire back as well. I know this is not the best model handwriting to be demonstrating to my preschooler, but I'm telling 'ya, it was all I could do to keep up with him. Moyer's all about long letters.

After we got the letters written, I addressed the envelopes, and Moyer counted out the 6 RMB of postage needed per piece of mail. They each stuck their stamps on themselves.

Not long later, as a part of the list of errands I had for the morning, we dropped them off at the post office. (Where I also paid our phone bill--yes, the post office covers many services in this country--I can even recharge my tao bao* account there.)

Now hopefully the letters will get there before we do!

*the Chinese "e-Bay"

three seniors

2011-09-20T13:54:00.002+08:00

I mentioned last week the photography projects I've taken on this month . . .

One weekend, two shoots, three seniors*:

*If you're (like me) into this kind of thing, and you'd like to see more, here are a few of my faves from that weekend. Once you're there, you can click on just the images you'd like to see bigger one by one, or you can click on the first one, and use your arrow keys to scroll through all twenty. And for those of you who aren't, I promise, I'll start taking and posting pictures of Moyer and Keturah again really soon!

noteworthy

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000+08:00

picture courtesy our friend Angie

As many of you already know via Patrick's Facebook status, we had a remarkable weekend. (Yes, Jenn, it's not only possible--with kids--but with our whole small-group as well!) We, along with two other families (all with two kids a piece), and six single ladies, successfully and safely camped out on the Great Wall. No one froze to death, no one got injured, and no one rolled off in their sleep!

And we all had fun.

On Sunday evening, back here at home, I interviewed Moyer and Keturah about their weekend Great Wall experience. Some of their responses are quite noteworthy:

(Moyer's answers in green.)
(Keturah's in gold.)

What:

"We hiked on the Great Wall, and remember we hiked so far, and ran around in the guard tower for five minutes, and hiked a long way back!"

"Go to the Great Wall and and we sleeped in sleeping bags."

"On top of the guard roof. It was cold there. Colder than it usually is."

Where:

"The Great Wall of China!" (Both kids were very clear on this point, and not even Moyer elaborated.)

Who:

"All of our small group!" (I'll spare you the listing process that happened after that--small group, you know who you are! And rest assured, so do Moyer and Keturah!)

Why:

"Because it would be fun."

"Because it's good to hike on it, because there's steps."

"I'm a really fast hiker. And it's okay if I run on it. Don't worry if there's a crack, I will change my run to a run-and-jump right over the crack. And if there's two cracks, I'll change it to a hop-and-run. And I'll use my hoping-crackin'-jump-run. These are my four runs; the number five run is better. I'll run-and-jump over the really big cracks and run-and-hop-run-and-hop-run-and-jump-run-and-jump!"

Favorites:

"Hiking."

"And using my flashlight while going down stairs."

"Hiking. Hiking, hike, hike, hike, hike."

Not a fan of:

"The tomatoes." (Tomatoes were an optional embellishment on our evening sandwiches. Moyer has never been a fan of tomatoes.)

"The secret stairs." (There was very narrow and very steep staircase that led to the guard tower where we camped out. Interestingly, Keturah seemed to enjoy being allowed to walk down these herself--with a hand. But to be fair, at this point in the interview--and in the evening--Keturah was one tired little girl!)

"The van ride . . ." (But here his 'not a fan of' list turned a drastic corner, and somehow the three hour drive--in close quarters--ended up being one of his favorite parts of the weekend!) ". . . helped me to rest my legs better. I really like long rides."

From Moyer and Keturah's perspectives you may think that we did a lot of hiking. We did indeed do some hiking, and enjoyed the Wall from many vantage points together, however, the "trek" up to the guard tower we camped in was really less than twenty minutes from the parking lot. Once we claimed our tower, and dumped all our gear, we were free for a few pack-less 'hikes.'

And the part that Moyer and Keturah left out of their interview responses that I consider most noteworthy, is that we slept out under a star-filled sky! Keturah mentioned the sleeping bags, but she neglected to specify that we, along with all six of the ladies in our group, declined tents. (Two families, did choose this option--and we set them up right there on the guard tower!)