this afternoon at 3

I walked through the apartment and took a few pictures.  A 'moment in time' of a typical Saturday.  Nothing too special, nothing too fancy, just us living life.   Here's the tour :)

The kitchen table - results of some pre-lunch fun ... scrapbook paper, scissors and glue.  

On the kitchen counter - lunch dirty dishes waiting to be washed.  Today's meal was scrambled eggs, pretzels and peaches.  By the end of the week it's nothing special, just something to fill empty bellies. 

The extra bedroom - no one sleeps in here right now, it is technically "the boys' room" though I'm not sure how we plan to fit even two beds in here :)  The carpet littered with remains of morning play.  Apparently the pre-lunch clean up missed this room!

The girls' room (where all three bigs currently sleep) - Lydia "babysitting" Luke.  She was teaching him that he had two ears (see her holding up two fingers?)  Both girls can do this kind of "babysitting" and though I wouldn't leave the house with them in charge of their littlest brother, I will say they can be a HUGE help with these little "babysitting" stints.  And yes, Lydia wore this hand-me-down gymnastics leotard today.  Apparently normal clothes are just too boring. 

The living room - a fort.  Confession: I really don't like fort-building.  I really really don't like the post-fort-building clean up.  But my kids want to do something along these lines every single day.  When I took this picture Julianna and Isaac were tucked in the back corner by the floor lamp.  They called that area "the porch" and spent gobs of time back there.  The lamp teetered and tottered but stayed upright all afternoon :) 

The only two rooms I missed were our bedroom (basically untouched since I made the bed early this morning) and the bathroom (I can practically guarantee the toilet needed flushing and the toothpaste was cap-less). 



I love days like this - long uninterrupted play days.  And I also love the quiet of the evening when all the play is over :)

moving right along the John Paul road

Wait #1 of the four "waits" following our (very big deal) LOA is behind us. 

If I had to guess at this point, I'd say we are most likely to travel the last week of August.  Which as you know, is not what we're hoping for!  We are all praying along with Lydia that we will have John Paul by her birthday (August 15th).  

Actually, Julianna prays like this: "God, please let us get John Paul for Lydia's birthday.  And if we can't get him for Lydia's birthday then can we get him for mine in December?"

Unless something very unexpected and very unusual happens he'll be here well before December!   But Lydia's birthday?  Keep praying!

We have a surprise vacation in July that will help take our mind off the waiting.  "Surprise" since it kind of dropped into our laps.  We knew Matt had quite a bit of vacation days to use (or loose) so one night we sat down and started scrambling  - how? when? where? 

It might be hard to understand this unless you have lived outside your home culture, but for us... it's very difficult to vacation here, in this culture.  Part of vacation is getting away from some of the particular stresses and challenges of living here.  Can we (me, Matt, the children) really enjoy a vacation when we are still stared at? pointed at? stopped by complete strangers and expected to answer their favorite 5 questions that we get asked over and over and over again?  Not really.

On the other hand, leaving the country means air travel, and five seats on an airplane don't come cheaply!  So the night we sat down to crash plan a vacation - God just placed it in our lap!  Matt came up surprised to find great airfare straight into Hong Kong and we discovered a guest house that provides two meals a day and offered us a two bedroom suite.  (Because vacationing with six people in one hotel room is, well.... NOT ideal!)  Then we called some great friends and before long they were buying tickets too :) 

So July 7th we're off.  Staying on a smaller Hong Kong island with no vehicles - walk from the ferry dock to the guest house (which will put my minimalist packing skills to the test!)  It'll be our first and last vacation as a family of six before adding John Paul to the mix. 

My dream is that we'll be solidly into wait #3 ("U.S. consulate Article 5") before we head to Hong Kong.  It's possible.  And that's what we're praying for. 

garden update

Year two, month three of "gardening" and it's still a big success.  At least in the way I define gardening success :)  We have a small yield, lots of opportunities for the children to get involved, and minimal maintenance! 

Our 1x2 (ish) meter plot produced a bumper crop of cilantro and little cabbage which was all eaten or given away.  Our cherry tomatoes are growing strong, producing lots of flowers but no tomato evidence yet, though they should show up soon. 

Matt also talked to our next door neighbors (two single guys who do aircraft maintenance at the nearby airport) and asked them if we could use their courtyard area.  They work long shifts and we rarely see them, and they certainly seem to have zero interest in using their courtyard.   And their courtyard looks like a jungle which makes it doubly appealing to Isaac.

A month or two ago Matt helped hack down part of the "jungle" growth and made three little garden plots for the kids to plant whatever they wanted.  Isaac's gardening is primarily a continuous working over of the soil.  He has a few wispy carrot tops which have managed to survive all his digging, and the dirt is nice and loose :) 

Lydia totally ignores her plot. 

And Julianna's is really doing well.  Mainly because she waters occasionally and doesn't dig out what she previously planted (like her brother does).  She also made a nice little wall with rocks and stones she collected.  All that green is carrot tops and I think it's entirely possible she has some real carrots growing underneath :) 

one hundred days

So there's a tradition here of celebrating the 100th day of a baby's life.  And we picked up on it and try to do a little something special to mark the day.

Luke's 100th day is Tuesday, but we decided to 'piggyback' onto an existing event and celebrate tonight. Little Luke did such a nice job getting passed from one set of hands to another and (mostly) enjoyed himself. 

We brought a big batch of gingersnaps to share (our little friend Kayleigh is spending the night so she came along for the party!)

And then we had a brief time to pray and thank God for the gift of Luke.  This time last year we had NO IDEA Luke was even on the horizon!   We gave Luke the Chinese name 柯庆光。  柯 (ke) is our last name.  庆 (qing) is a 'generational name' that all our kids share - they are all 柯庆___ .  庆 (qing) means celebrate.  光 (guang) means light. (Luke means light, did you know that?)

So now we have a little bunch of celebration.

Julianna - celebrate grace
Lydia - celebrate elegance/beauty
Isaac - celebrate eternity
Luke - celebrate light

Not sure what we'll name John Paul yet ;)  But it'll definitely be 'celebrate something'!

We spent most of the day at a wedding (where Matt translated the ceremony, his first time translating something so formal and he did a great job!) and today is also a national holiday (Dragon Boat Festival), so it's been a busy day!  Now Matt is back out at a meeting and I'm planning an early bedtime for myself ;) 

One last picture, Lydia eating a traditional Dragon Boat Festival treat: steamed rice wrapped in a banana leaf.  My kids love these things.  I think they are, well, so-so.  It doesn't bother me one lick that we only eat them once a year!

summer in the courtyard

After a slow-to-warm-up summer the temperatures are finally nice and high.  And honestly I won't mind one bit if they go higher still :)  A nice hot summer helps push cold-wet-winter memories to the back of my mind for a few months!

And when it warms up we head out to our courtyard.  Life in a small apartment means we value every square meter of floor space.  And I realized today that apparently we've transitioned that same thought-process to the courtyard.  It is packed full of little people and laundry.  

View from the entrance to the courtyard (the 'upper porch' and sliding doors into our apartment are on the left). 

And from the other direction, you can see our laundry rack in the far corner, our neighbors' electric bike outside the gate:

"I L-O-V-E this courtyard" is a sentence I could repeat every single day that we live here.  So nice to have a spot to send the kids out to play.  So convenient to be able to start dinner, fold laundry, answer the phone, feed Luke.... all while mom-supervising through the screen doors! 

My favorite courtyard faces...

ONE

and TWO

and (tooth-less) THREE

and FOUR.

Now if we could just add our John Paul to the mix our summer would be complete!  (Still on waiting step #1 of the four "waits" following our LOA... but surely we will move on to step #2 soon!!!!)

Luke faces

Three months old already!

He is one sweet little boy and brings so much delight to our home.  Luke makes hilarious faces, sticks out his bottom lip when he's upset, wrinkles his forehead when he's confused and takes a deep breath before letting out a huge scream when he gets scared.  [He might be used to a lot of noise and ruckus but he still gets overwhelmed sometimes with all the noise, and out comes the scared face, the deep breath, and the big 'ole scream!  One day soon he'll be part of the antics, and wrestling, and general rowdiness... but for now the whole shebang can be a bit overwhelming!]

I love this little face when he pulls in his bottom lip and puffs out his cheeks.  He's a professional drool-er these days and recently added bubble-blowing to his skill list.  My left shoulder is constantly damp from the drooling/bubble-blowing combo. 

This is his "do you see what I put up with?" face.  He's trying to point out how patient he is with all the big sibling love. 

I tried to get a picture of his "feed me now before I really get frantic" face this afternoon but failed.  I'll definitely try again, since that's a classic Luke face these days.

Julianna has had a sore throat and slight fever for two days now (but much better by this afternoon) and this evening Isaac told me "my froat [throat] keeps making me want to drink more water", so I think he'll be our second victim.  Luckily it seems to be a quickly passing virus that responds to Tylenol and a little extra TLC.  If Luke and I can both steer clear of the bug we'll call it a victory :)

they dance again

Once again this spring the girls participated in Tuesday after-school dance class.  Tonight was the final night.... their performance!

The show is perfectly simple.  Held in a classroom at the school, with an audience of about 40 (which, by the way, is way toooooo many people for the classroom!).  When our family walked in Luke just about stole the show.  Every time I watch children ooh and aah over "our family's baby" I am once again reminded that it is a rare privilege here to be an older sibling. 

After just about everyone had a chance to snap Luke's photo the dancing began. 

Julianna and Lydia were in the same class this semester - in this photo that's Julianna in the back (front?) row and Lydia right in front of her.   

Here they are getting some final instructions from their teacher.

Lydia watching the last dance of the night -

Isaac, who hung on til the very end (40 minutes or so) and was one very patient little brother in a room dominated by girls and dancing and red tutus!

Matt and the troops watching the other dancers.  Luke managed very well in a hot crowded noisy room, with plenty of yawns and a few grumpy faces. 

Me with my little girls at the end of the show.  I'm proud of them for working hard, honoring their teacher, respecting their classmates and encouraging one another (most of the time, that is!) 

D-A-D-D-Y

This is our Father's Day present for Matt.

Can you see it?  Each pic is a letter, shaped by the kids laying on the floor in funky positions :) 

It was fun to make, the girls really got into trying to form a perfect letter (the 'A' is definitely their favorite).  I'm not so sure Isaac knew what we were up to but he was having fun with it anyways.  And sweet little Luke stayed happy while getting settled and arranged and nudged around on the blanket! 

I originally thought I'd edit the five photos into one long photo, but it turns out I need a bit more photo-editing skills to pull off that kind of thing.  So this was my next best option, and I think it turned out pretty good!

My cinnamon roll bread dough is rising, the children are all snoozing and I'm on the couch with my feet up - Matt is out late on Saturdays, and while I'd obviously prefer to have him here, there is something really peaceful about being the only one awake at the end of a full day.

water guns

It's water gun season :)  Do they sell this kind in America?  (think tube-inside-a-tube.... put the end down into water and pull to 'draw up' water into the gun... then push on the handle to shoot your water out!)

If you live in China you're probably less than a half mile from a store that will sell you one of these for almost nothing.  Worth every penny.   

They *might* even be fun for adults :) 

Do you see the hidden smile on Isaac's face as he comes back to the water bucket for a re-load? 

Somebody was having a good time :) 

checking email

Julianna working on an email from her Granddaddy.  I love her look of concentration! 

She still struggles to get through a lot of reading, but this is a pretty fun way to practice.
 

games we play

Thanks to my cousin Julie who gathered about 50 pages of documents from multiple sources over the past few days and endured maybe 30 emails from me (?!?!)  as we got it all figured out for the last time.... our immigration application is mailed and the final round of the waiting game for John Paul is underway.  Of course, there were unexpected snags (misspelling on a document from China that needs to be re-issued, and something that needed translation into English) but the remaining issues are fairly minor and should be cleared up by early next week.

This morning the big kids (I now call them "the bigs" - meaning Julianna, Lydia and Isaac) all whipped up some special pieces of art to send along to John Paul.  I'm pretty sure he's gonna be impressed.... and pretty soon he'll be doing some crafts of his own.  Julianna totally sets the pace for our family on the craft scene, that girl LOVES to create and amazes me with what she comes up with.  She could write an idea book called "perfect crafts for six year olds".  It seems creative ideas involving paper, scissors, glue sticks and yarn are forever popping into her head.

Anyways, in addition to creating drawings for our newest little brother we've been playing lots of games, especially in the late afternoons before I start dinner.  I've been trying to take photos too...

Rat-a-tat-Cat is a great one....  Lydia's all time favorite and there was a season (that lasted several months) when I'm pretty sure we played this game at least five days a week. 

In Candyland Isaac has finally figured out that he not only draws a color card and moves his man but he moves his man in the right direction the correct number of spaces!  Watch out competition, Isaac is now a legitimate potential winner here!

Speaking of Isaac, his latest "most frequently requested" game is Zingo!  I like Zingo! but not nearly as much as Isaac does.  Yesterday I talked him out of it and we played Memory instead.  I love Memory cause I always win - ha ha ha :) 

We also play a lot of Uno, some Old Maid, Chutes & Ladders, Go Fish. 

I've got an almost 5 year old with a birthday on the horizon.  Any good game suggestions? 

we got it! LOA for John Paul!

"Based on your application and in accordance with the Adoption law of the People's Republic of China....." we have official approval from China to adopt John Paul!!!!! 

The next waiting steps are fairly routine:
1. waiting for U.S. immigration approval
2. waiting for National Visa Center approval
3. waiting for U.S. consulate Article 5 approval 
4. waiting for travel approval from China

Good thing I'm so good at waiting, huh? A few weeks at each step add up, and we are praying hard we can go get him in early August (which, honestly, is not super-likely, so pray pray pray)! 

Anyways, on to the good stuff.  Want to see our newest little man? 

That's our John Paul (with his foster sister) in January of this year (right after his first birthday).

Pretty cute, huh?  Isaac loves that he is playing with a truck in this photo! 

And the most recent shot we have of him, with his foster mother, taken in April. 

It's hot and sunny summer where he is now (Henan Province), and we might get one more photo and update before we travel. 

Pray with us that we'll bring him home soon!  Lydia is still wanting a brother for her birthday (August 15th) and we talked today about how much we hope he'll be at her birthday party! 

Honestly, after all the pain and heartache of our adoption journey to date, it's kind of surreal that this day is here.  Now it's all just formalities, government formalities, and we're bringing this little boy home. 

there he grows

Out running errands today and a local shopkeeper commented on how very big Luke is getting.  (Yes, while we live in a city that is home to millions, our nearby community is quite small and as the only foreigners within a good stretch, we're known by just about everyone.  Sure, there are days that I'd like a little more anonymity, but there are plenty of things to love about living in this kind of a neighborhood.)

Anyways, back to my small-but-growing-quickly boy Luke.

We did his two month shots yesterday, just a few weeks late :)  I really have no excuse now that we live in a city where we can get internationally manufactured vaccines (yea for this huge convenience!) but yet I still manage to get my kids off their vaccine schedule every time!  [Sweet Lydia got shots again too, still getting her caught up from the many she managed to miss..... she's in the clear for now!]

Luke is right at 13 pounds, I forget how many inches, smiling, happy, mostly content and our family's newest laugh-er.

He also does a very convincing serious face.

Please note all his hair.  Without doubt he's got more hair than any of his sibs were sporting at this age.  And as to "who does he look like?"  He's definitely sharing plenty of genetic material with Julianna, Lydia and Isaac :)  But he's got his own look too.  

We're having atypically low temperatures for June with plenty of rain to keep things cool.  I'm glad for an excuse for him to wear this little hat knit by his Grandma. 

Luke is officially out of the running for best night baby sleeper of the family (Isaac).  Unfortunately, he's also already lost his shot at the second place position (Lydia).  We're all hoping he secures his third place position soon and doesn't threaten Julianna's solid spot at worst night baby sleeper of the family.

I feel like I'm doing much better than I "should" be doing, considering the interrupted sleep pattern I'm maintaining.  Surely surely he's going to start some nice long nights soon, right?

brothers for birthdays

Our adoption agency rep thinks we are a week or ten days away from receiving our LOA for John Paul (we've been waiting almost four months so its. about. time.!!!!!)

After LOA there are a few more steps, but they should go faster and more predictably, which means we are in a position to start looking at the calendar and dreaming of dates :)

This morning we prayed as a family that we could get John Paul in August.  (I'm dreaming big time of early August, but it's a loooooong shot at this point.)  And this is the conversation that followed:

Lydia: Yeah, I want to get John Paul for my birthday.  [August 15th]

Matt: Would you like that Lydia? That would be kind of fun, wouldn't it?

Lydia: Isaac got a brother for his birthday, I want to get John Paul for mine. 
[She's right, Luke arrived March 18th, two days after Isaac's 3rd birthday.]

Julianna: Hey, I wanna brother for my birthday too.  No, I mean a sister.  Yeah, I want a baby sister for my birthday. 

Ha!  This could easily spiral out of control!  No more siblings as birthday gifts around here! 

In all seriousness though, would you join us in praying that we could pick up John Paul in (early) August?  With Matt's university teaching schedule and other variables on his plate the summer months are super-ideal and the fall months are, well..... less ideal!  Another biggie?  My mom and dad will be here in August! 

Don't get me wrong, we'll travel whenever they tell us too, and sooooo many things that we have planned in our own minds have not come to fruition, so we'll continue to walk by the Lord's perfectly written calendar, not our own. 

But if you would pray with us?  And we'll keep you posted... as soon as our LOA rolls in I'll be here with lots of excitement and pictures and all that good stuff :)