We are STILL on vacation :)  Actually Matt stepped away to get in a smidge of work today, but for the most part it is slow and lazy days for us - wow how we needed this time!

Last week we had two families visiting and over the weekend we flip-flopped (with a bit of overlap!) and now are spending time with friends who live north of us.  Their first three kids almost perfectly 'match' the ages of our three, and they've got a little 10 month old baby girl along too.  Last night four adults and seven children slept in our three bedroom apartment!

(picture from during the flip-flop of visiting families - my dear friend Ashlei reading to seven of the gathered kiddos!)

These four (who we refer to as "the bigs") plus Isaac share one bedroom.  We marvel at how well our children play together - and the late nights of talk with fellow parents is pure joy. 

It's been a bit of a relational desert for us with the move to a new city and living away from other foreigners, so this past week full of fellowship is even more special :)

In a few short days it's back to work for Matt and then we'll all be heading out of town on a work-related trip for Matt early next week.

panda pics

My friend Danielle took some really great pictures of the pandas last week - I wish I knew some stats like how many pandas are at the research base or the ages of these in the photos or anything like that, but I tend to spend my time watching delighted children and giggling at panda antics. 

I like this panda who looks like he's sneaking a little snack behind a clump of bamboo.

And this big guy mid-bite!  These pandas eat all day long!!!! 

Baby pandas in a tree (do you see all four?).  My favorite was the guy (gal?) top left who napped the entire time we watched them - he adjusted his position once, yawned, and went right back to sleep ... perched in a tree!

I think these two are teenagers. 

We're headed back tomorrow with our newly arrived friends - it really is the type of place you could visit once a week with kids .... so so entertaining.  If only they had a cushy couch for me to rest my feet every now and then :)

guess where we went?

Still having a grand 'ole time here on our mini-vacation.  We even had two sunny-ish days to enjoy. 

Yesterday morning we all squished into our minivan (six adults and six kids) and headed to ______.

The Panda Research Base!  Our kids could spend one morning every week here ... fun trails to tromp, and the pandas never fail to put on a show.  They are such funny animals to watch and their antics make children and adults giggle. 

Come visit us, we'll take you too :)

The new year.....

..... again!  It's like New Year's, part two.  We already welcomed 2012.  Now we welcome the year of the dragon. 

Our friends are here, we had a HUGE New Years Eve dinner with some local friends, and now we're in   very lazy vacation mode!

Plenty of babies around for our kids to love on -

and help take care of -

and entertain!

Good practice for our future big siblings! 

The big fireworks/firecrackers chaos hit the climax last night and it was, as usual, insanity.  Sooooooo loud!  Oh my so loud!  Our kids are usually pretty scared (who can blame them, the firecrackers are launched from every direction and at any moment one could explode behind your left heel... makes anyone a little jumpy!)  But we happily discovered that they loved watching them explode as we drove across town.  The warmth and safety of the car was the perfect viewing platform (people are lighting firecrackers on sidewalks, parking lots, everywhere.... so it's a pretty constant show even from a moving vehicle). 

Now I'm just so ready for a few days of vacation - good fellowship, yummy food, lots of family time.  At 3:15 this afternoon Isaac is still in his pjs :)   Good times!

not for wimps

Oh friends, thanks for thinking of us these last two days. 

Last night late we made the final decision to say NO to this particular file.  TOUGH TOUGH stuff.  This adoption thing is not for wimps.  There are a few too many unknowns for us to feel comfortable moving forward with this particular child. 

Now we're back waiting again.  Of course, earlier this week I didn't even realize we were eligible to look at a referral quite yet, so not sure when we'll see another one?  Hopefully within a few weeks?!?! 

Today we receive two dear families coming to spend the week with us - two families who have walked alongside us through MUCH, including this adoption journey.  So looking forward to them being here, to some solid days off for Matt (Chinese New Year! vacation days!  yay!!!). 

Keep praying.  I told Matt last night - now that we've been this close to accepting a referral it makes me ever more eager to KNOW who it is that God has prepared for our family.  If I thought waiting was hard before this, I have this sneaking suspicion it's about to get a lot harder :) 

adoption news ... this could be BIG

Okay so our adoption journey has been, well......... tough tough tough.  NOT at all what we expected.  But I am learning that if you choose to enter the adoption journey you need to be prepared to fight - hard - for the life of a child. 

The "step" we've been in most recently was waiting for final paper processing in the US before sending off our dossier (big thick stack of paper that is our official request to adopt from China).  This step was estimated to take 3-4 weeks.  We were in that step for TEN looooooong weeks.  We finally got DTC (dossier to China) on Monday and it felt like such a huge relief to be moving on to the next step.

I knew we were moving closer to receiving a referral (ie information about a specific child) but did not think that would be coming too soon..... until TODAY when a very unexpected email arrived with the referral for a specific little boy.  Asking us if we wanted to move forward towards adopting him.  

Luckily Matt has been working from home mostly this week so in a moderately panicked voice I said "ummmm, Matt, I just downloaded email and we have a referral!!!!!!!!!!".

The way China special needs adoption works is that we now have a limited amount of time to read through the information and make a decision to pursue or not pursue adopting this specific little boy.  We have to make a decision by Saturday evening (China time).

Though I would LOVE to tell you more details, at this point the only thing I can really ask you to do is PRAY.  Pray hard that God would clearly lead us and we would be able to move forward confidently, whatever our decision.

Julianna took one look at his picture and said "awww, he is so cute".  [She says that about 90% of all young children, and even today I found her trying to hold Isaac when he didn't want a big sister snuggle.  "But he's just so cute I want to snuggle him" was her defense when I asked her to give him a little space!]

Anyways, we've explained to the kids that we need a lot of wisdom to make this decision and Julianna said "definitely get him".  When I asked why she answered "because we have been waiting soooooooo long".  She's right.  It's almost two years ago that we began this process (first domestic adoption, then switching to China special needs).  Two years is 1/3 of her entire life that she has spent waiting for an adopted sibling.  No wonder she's ready to move forward!!!

Friends, such joy to know you will join us in praying today.  We will definitely keep you posted!

prepping for Valentine's

Yesterday afternoon we made this fun Valentine's banner.... it arrived in a package a year or two ago and for some reason (that I can't remember) we didn't get to use it that year. 

And it was the perfect thing to pull out yesterday - it all came in one little kit: pre cut and punched letters, heart stickers, some printed Valentine's-esque papers and a long red ribbon.  That is my kind of craft :) 

My girls could work on this kind of project for hours at a time.  They were making Valentine's this morning before breakfast with the leftover supplies! 

Isaac knows that boys don't mess with pink hearts :)  He ignored it all ..... decorated his letters with blue marker and followed up with a heavy dose of tractor stickers.

The end result was a good bit longer than I was expecting.  We hung it between the dining and living areas.

If you care enough to zoom in on the picture the "H" shows just how well Isaac sets his workmanship apart from the others!

We're gonna have to move the banner though - veto from Matt who has to duck underneath :)  He located a spot in the girls' room (which actually belongs to all three right now, we combined them for the winter months). 

We are rarely home for Valentine's, or at least the "lead up" to it, and well-removed from marketing craziness, so my kids are asking things like "what is Valentine's Day anyways?"  Matt said it's a day to celebrate how much Daddy loves Mommy. 

Exactly!

when he gets bigger

I love to ask Isaac what he is going to be when he "gets bigger".  One of his most frequent answers is "a 送水叔叔 ”.  The 送水叔叔 is the man who delivers big 17 liter bottles of water for our water machine.  He's captured Isaac's attention because he a) drives a noisy motorcycle and b) is strong enough to sling around huge bottles of water. 

As you might imagine this water delivery man is not a much sought after job - long hard hours, miserable conditions (delivering water in freezing cold drizzle, no thanks!) and minimum pay..... so Isaac might change his mind when he gets a little more world-wise, but in the meantime I think it's such a fun peek inside his world to know how much he admires this 送水叔叔! 

His second-most-common answer to the what do you want to be? question is "the driver of a car trasnporter loaded with 电动车 [electric bikes]".    So tonight before bedtime when the legos came out Isaac asked Matt to make him a car transporter - and this is what he got.

His body was literally quivering with excitement as the pieces came together :)

Julianna worked tirelessly following the printed instructions for a truck cab to tow the transporter and did such a great job!  I missed a picture..... but when praying before bed Isaac thanked God for his car transporter and the truck Julianna made - it was that good (at least in his eyes!)

slowing down

The backseat was wiggling with joy and excitement when we picked Matt up Friday afternoon.  And the wrestling match began about 0.7 seconds after we walked in the living room :)  This Momma does not wrestle (and no, not hiding behind pregnancy as an excuse, I just plain old don't wrestle kids for fun, pregnant or not!)  So after a week of no wrestling, one little guy in particular was raring to go - and things got plenty wild and wooly.

Then on Saturday morning I slept til 9:30!!!!  Wooo-hoooo!  I had no idea I was "that tired" and we had such a smooth week ...... but I think with Matt back in the house my body just shifted into able-to-relax mode and I slept :)

Now we are finally ready for some good solid down time!  Matt's schedule will look pretty different here for the next few weeks, and while the rest of the country plans to shoot off fire crackers and go crazy celebrating the New Year, we are looking to slow down and enjoy some unusual space and freedom.  Next week we're hosting two other families (great friends of ours from different provinces) and while our weather is yucky our fellowship together will certainly be such a sweet blessing - and make up for the gray skies that plagues this city all winter long. 

when daddy calls.....

So Matt got himself a new SIM card and popped it in his phone and voila..... we can communicate!  yay!  We can both text and he can call me, but I can't call him because my cell has some sort of block on international calls but all in all, good stuff for us!!

This morning Isaac came tip-toe-ing into my room and his very first words were "Is Daddy home?"  Little man is good-and-ready to have Matt back in the house!

So when the phone rang a little after lunch, he was first on deck to talk to Daddy :) 

Julianna and Lydia always have plenty to say too.  Matt doesn't do much talking (doesn't really have a chance of getting more but a few words in!), but I know he enjoys listening, and I sit grinning in the background wondering what from our past few days will make the cut as "phone worthy" - they don't always pick the topics I would have picked! 

We're staying busy.  Took all three kids on a bike ride to the local 'grocery store' this morning and wavered back and forth between "this was a bad idea" and "this was a really bad idea" for the first few minutes.  But after we finally got through the traffic-y portion of the walk/ride I ended up enjoying it!  Still cold but (for once) not drizzling, so it was nice to enjoy better weather.

After discussing with Matt we decided to just pull the girls out of school for this week so their long break has started - they won't go back til Feb 13th!!!  My afternoon "rest" is almost over.  The girls do an hour of reading on their beds and their first request when they come out of their room will be for me to read more of the Little House on the Prairie series to them.  Julianna got books #6-9 for her birthday and we're scooting through them!

simple little update

Ok, so I totally agree with all of you - that ultrasound picture looks like Isaac, which makes me think baby is a boy.  But we have very few boy names we like, much less agree on, and two perfectly sweet little girl names so  .....  maybe it's a girl ?!?!?  [We've had a boy name for our adopted son-to-be for a long long long long time, so that one is taken care of!]

I have no "gut feeling" on whether baby is a boy or girl and honestly waver back and forth based on the week, or day, or even hour.  I guess we'll just have to wait it out, huh? 

Tonight finishes up day two of Matt's six day trip - lots of asking about Daddy, especially from Isaac, but other than that we're doing just fine.  Unfortunately, due to the nature and location of his trip, we have very little contact.  I did get a brief email earlier today.  On some of his longer trips we like to skype and it's nice to be able to check in on each other during the day via text message, but it seems like this time around we're just not going to hear much from him.

The girls' school technically does not close for the holiday until January 20th (the holiday is Chinese/Lunar New Year, and it's the biggest deal on the calendar for 20% of the world's people).  Its actually simpler and easier for me to just keep the girls home, but since school is technically still in session I hope to take them at least twice this week.  Today though we enjoyed a school-less Monday and didn't venture further than kids-bike-ride distance from our front door. 

And since it's cold and drizzly (even for our bike ride the sky was kind of drippy, but we persevered!) we did lots of playing inside. 

Sometimes dinner can be my loneliest (yet busiest) time of day when Matt is gone, but tonight's was delightful.  Somehow we got on the topic of "how do they get the shark to the aquarium" and a simple "well, I'm sure it's difficult" answer from Momma was not sufficient. 

Turns out I have a bit to learn about marine animal transport.  I tried to imagine a big truck driving down the highway with a shark swimming in the back, but it just didn't sit right in my mind, especially on China highways and in China trucks.  And that was after we talked through numerous options for actually getting the shark captured and in a tank (probably at least two boats were involved, according to Julianna).  And before we discussed how to get him off the truck and into the tank at the aquarium (definitely using a crane, said Isaac).

It was a long involved discussion.  But I enjoyed it :) 

dancing girls

The girls had their "end of semester" dance performance on Thursday night.

Proud of these little girlies and how well they did -

Julianna is in the older class, Lydia in the younger class.... and you can see they are small classes.  Really, this little foray into an extracurricular activity has been super successful. 

One of Julianna's best buds - maybe her absolute favorite school friend? - they really enjoy being in dance class together :) 

Julianna and her dance teacher

Lyds and her teacher

Both girls are asking to go again in the spring, and we'd love to send them.... problem is it can be pretty inconvenient to get them there and home, especially considering I'll be toting a newborn.  (Class is Thursday evenings from six to seven.)  When Matt is available, it's a great deal for me :) 

When he's not.... well, the evening gets a little tricky.  New rule that went into effect late this fall means the closest I can get to the school (in a car) is still about a ten minute walk, which might not sound like much, but when you're trotting along with three young kids bundled in huge-o amounts of clothing and it's starting to drizzle and the sky is pitch dark..... you start to think "I won't be doing this with a newborn baby"  :) 

So we're waiting to see how the spring shapes up and what Matt's schedule will look like before we commit.  It will get warmer and the days will get longer!  And we would LOVE for them to be able to continue!

unbelievably precious

Guess what I got today?

That would be the baby in the belly, posing for the ultrasound :)  Baby's face is tucked right up against the uterine wall and I think he/she looks perfectly cozy in there! 

I think the nose looks EXACTLY like one of my other three kiddos - any guesses?

post holiday organizing

The kids and I got almost all of our Christmas things put away on Monday  - they unloaded the tree and Isaac even helped me wrap ornaments in tissue paper before boxing them up.  I love the holidays, and I love the decorations, but it also feels good to have it all stored away and a little extra living space. 

When your square footage is limited a Christmas tree (no matter how small) tends to crowd the living area! We've got a bit more squeezing and squishing to do if we're going to add two more kids to this apartment in 2012, so its good to open up some space :)  [Technically our apartment contract is up this July, which means our landlord could ask us to move out, but we're hoping to stay put for another year, though I realize I might come to regret this decision when I see just what life is like with 7 people and one teeny bathroom!]

I saw this idea a few years ago to store the kids' birthday/Christmas/whatever cards on large clips and today when I was adding a few cards to the rings Isaac got entranced by his :) 

It's easy and fun and makes for a fun keepsake for them....

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third trimester for me and the little babe in the belly. Just this week I've started to notice that he/she really is big enough now to disrupt some of my normal activities :)  And the bouncing and jumping belly is slowly, gradually turning to more of a pushing and shoving sensation as the two of us navigate how to share the "same" body!  Today I had a few moments of thinking "okay little one, we're going to have to come up with some amiable solution on how to best share this space for the next few months, because you're going to need to be a smidge more gentle with Mommy!"

I can still carry Isaac but not very far, and Lydia knows that if she wants me to hold her she needs to first stand up on the coffee table or couch because I can't pick her up from floor level :)  I can tell I am starting to slow down too, especially in the evenings.  Matt travels all next week and I'm thinking the last hour of the day might be a stretch for me to handle gracefully.... we'll probably spend lots of time reading books since sitting on the couch is one activity that works great for me! 

Tomorrow is the girls' final dance class and it is a performance, so I'm sure I'll be back with photos and stories :)

2012

Well, there were no tears shed at the end of 2011... let's be honest, it wasn't that great of a year.  Lots of tough stuff, lots of hard days, lots of yuck. 

So I'm loving the "new" of a New Year and looking forward to what God might have in store for our family. 

The kiddos and I had a rip-roaring New Year's celebration that ended a little after 8pm when my party companions went to bed :)  [Matt had other obligations and he was the only one in the family who saw midnight!]  It was a quiet night here.... no complaints either.  We'll be anything but quiet when the Lunar New Year rolls around (late January) so a quiet version of New Year's is something worth celebrating, at least in my book. 

We are definitely in 'winding down' mode after a full fall semester and holiday season - university students are in the middle of finals, Matt travels next week and then we'll all enjoy some quieter weeks before an early February trip (that will be our last travel, as a family or for Matt individually, before baby makes his/her appearance). 

That's our brief update, now that the holiday week is over I plan to get back to more regular updates! 

Happy New Year!