Snow much fun!

A little bit of Christmas...Kitty Paul checking out the remains of the treats that were left for Santa and his reindeer.   

Sisters on Christmas morning.  Finally!!

Everyone opening and playing with gifts!  Paul had some great toys in his stocking.  Peaches got stuff too, so don't worry.

 

Grandma Mona!  Look what I have!

Rose has 27 pages of homework to complete over the winter break, and after working hard at some of it today she got to go outside and play.  She made this snowman all by herself (I helped her lift the head on).  She did a great job!  She said "Mom, I decided to take away the pipe because he shouldn't smoke, it's bad for him".

 Little Miss Lily checking out the white stuff.

 Queen of the mountain!  It's dangerous this year because the snow piles are so high, you can't see driving in and out of driveways.  Today is absolutely beautiful out - 30 something and sunny.

More snow is on it's way for the weekend.  Yippeee!!

Santa Trauma!

Where's Lily?

I hear noises coming from behind the big blue chair and piano!  I better look around the corner to see what's happening!

 HI MOM!  Just me!  Lily was so cute playing with a box of toys she thought she couldn't be in.  So, every time I peeked around the corner, she would hear me and poke her head out with a guilty look, like I'd "caught" her.  Who Me?  I'm not doing anything!

Bathing beauties!  Rose wanted to share a bath with Lily, and everything was going great until Rose got real quiet and said "Mom, what happens when Lily needs to go potty?".  End of shared bath. 

 Lily bug loves to splash splash splash splash splash! Water, everywhere!  I had to zoom in so the camera would stay dry.

Dog sitting Alex the wonder dog again - girl party in the living room!  "So, what did you think of Cats 101 last night? Wasn't that nice of Rose to play it on the TV for me?".

Lunch!  Alex doesn't harm the cats, but I think she is a working dog because she likes to "herd" them.  The cats don't like that so much...

Finally got a tree Sunday and decorated Monday.  We went the "less is more" route decorating it, not a single breakable ornament in consideration of the new kitty and curious Lily.


Doug just informed me that he has all the gift giving covered.  I love that man.  I was really starting to fret about getting out between snow storms, and at the end of the day I'm just too pooped.  This year, his side of the family is cutting back the gift giving, and the timing is pretty good since I was plum out of ideas for the adults.  My side we do a "grinch" game where the adults only need to bring one gift.  We draw numbers and select and steal each others gifts.


I must be finally feeling better, I'm actually blogging again.  I had a difficult transition coming home from China, with some major challenges with the new dynamics of our family.  Also a little bit grieving the loss of my mom earlier this year.  Her newest grandchild not getting to meet her, and now my first Christmas ever without her.  Turning 50 in October also messed up my head.  Being an older parent has me worried about time running out, missed opportunities, blah blah blah.  I'm getting over it, it's just taking me some time.  


So. That's the scoop.  A little bit of fun, a little bit of seriousness.  Just like life!  I'll leave you with a little bit of sweetness below.  A girl and her kitten.  It does a momma's heart good!

Just Today

Yes, I did fall off the face of the planet, thanks for asking!  Seriously?  October since I posted last?


I have way too much to update on, but for right now I just had to post these literal snapshots of our day today.  We are in the middle of a blizzard, its pretty but it's going to be tough getting around the next few days I think.


Out the dining room window.  That is the girl's playhouse in the backyard slowly disappearing into the snow.  It sits on a 4" platform, I've been watching the snow pile up against the door.

Here is Doug shoveling, with Rose making a snow fort off to the side.  This may be the one day the mailman doesn't make it, it is that nasty out!

Lily bug being silly.  She just had her first top tooth break through, so now she has three teeth.  She is an expert crawler now, and man, is she fast!

Sorry that's all for now!  Gotta go catch speedy before she gets into trouble!
Nancy

Misc Photos

This one's for Uncle Don...

I'm dwivin' in my cah

I tuwn on the wadio

I puww you a wittew cwowsuh

You say no
You say you don't wiiiike it
I saw you're a wy-uh
'cause when we kiiiiiiss
It's wike fy-wuh

Cruisin' Cat! 

One morning Rose got up and entertained Lily in her crib.  She actually got into the crib with her.

I love me some Uncle Phil!

Sharing the Big Red Ball.  Who knew it was a 2-seater?

Rose is in denial that summer is over.  She taped leaves back onto the tree...

Grandma Mona!

Geoffrey!  Say What?!

Eating my first birthday cake.

Sisters!

Yummy daddy creation.

Bittersweet Birthday

Today is Lily's 1st birthday, and we are so happy to have her in our lives.  We couldn't be more grateful and humbled to be allowed to be her parents.  


While our hearts sing to have such a sweet blessing, they also ache, especially on days like today, her first birthday.  We can't help but think that there is at least one person, probably more, who is hurting for their loss, magnified even more on days like today.  


Lily is too young to make birthday wishes, so I'll make some:


I wish I could thank them for making the right decision of allowing her to be in this world, and for leaving her in a safe place to be found.  


I wish I could tell them she is loved, healthy, smart, happy and just plain beautiful.  


I wish I could share all the firsts with them, all the ups, all the downs, even the boring details.  


I wish they could teach her first hand about her culture and birth family.  


I wish they could tell her their circumstances which led them to make what has to be the most difficult decision in the world.  


I wish I could tell them it's OK, the world is working this out in greater ways than they could ever imagine for their sweet daughter.


I wish they could see their daughter, hold her, kiss her chubby cheeks and just look look look into those deep brown inquisitive eyes.


I wish they could tell her "I love you".


People say she is so lucky.  They are wrong.  We are the lucky ones.


Happy 1st Birthday Little Miss Lily!  We love you so very much!

We are home!

Got home Friday evening, and we've all had a good night's sleep.  Lily seems pretty content in her new home, slept all night without a peep and is happily playing on the living room floor.  She seems to like, and is interested in, the cat and the cat seems to tolerate her.

Lily doesn't crawl or walk yet, but she can sit up on her own and roll over.  No words yet either, other than a mmmmaaaaahhhhhh when's she hungry.  She seems to love watching Rose, and I can see her learning from Rose already.

We developed the disposable camera we had sent ahead of time to the orphanage, and we got some nice photos of her foster mother.  Her foster mother is older, perhaps a grandma.  We now know where Lily gets her generous and charming smile, and that would be from her foster mother's beautiful smile.  There are also some younger boys in the photos, but we have no idea if they were with the foster mother or from the orphanage.  We cherish the photo's, as there is so little that Lily comes to us with.

Rose seems much happier to be home (despite telling us she wanted to stay and live in China).  We had some rough and sad moments while in China having to do with our family changing, but extra love and attention seems to be helping.  I slept with her in her bed last night, I think we both needed some time with each other.

Can't wait for everyone to meet Lily.  She's fighting a cold right now, so we'll have to see how she's feeling before venturing out.  Rose has a birthday party to attend this afternoon, we are hoping to be not too jet-lagged to take her to it.  I think it would be good for her to spend some time with her friends.

Rose goes back to school on Monday.  She only got to attend one day of 2nd grade before we left for China.  Here's hoping she can make the transition ok, and not feel too far behind or left out.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that when we returned home last night we had to actually turn the furnace on to take the chill off.  We left China in 90+ degrees and vert high humidity, and came home to 60 degrees and dry air.  You'd think we would have relished the cooler temp, but for some reason we all felt COLD!!

Our return home was made so special by family, friends and neighbors.  My brother and his wife picked us up from the airport and provided some baby food, fruit and milk.  They also gave us a beautiful bouquet of lilies and roses :)

There were balloons decorating our front light post, and a hand made Welcome Home poster on our front door.  Our fridge was stocked with fresh food and beverages, and our house was cleaned professionally (Thank you Vicki for the thoughtful shower gift of food and cleaning!).

The cat was well cared for, and even gained a few extra pounds, and there was a gift waiting for Lily on the counter (not from the cat...from a neighbor hee hee).

Now we are just waiting for our held mail to be delivered so we can catch up with the real world.

Home Sweet Home!

Wrapping it up

We are in the final stretch before heading home.  Today (Wednesday) we went to the US Consulate to give an oath and make it legal to recognize Lily as a US citizen when our flight lands in the USA.  I think there were 44 families there today, and everyone was happy to get to this point.  Lot's of congratulations to everyone, and to make it even more special, the Barrett family was in the same group as us to take the oath for Erin.

Thursday our agency representative will pick up Lily's visa, and we are scheduled to leave Guangzhou around 4:30 in the afternoon to head to Hong Kong.  We have rented a van with a driver, and are sharing it with another family in our group.  We will spend Thursday night at the hotel at the Hong Kong airport, and catch a noon flight out of Hong Kong on Friday.  We go to Chicago, then to Minneapolis.  Now I'm the one not feeling so good, so I'm hoping the prescription meds we brought with will do the trick.

Backtracking a bit, on Monday morning, we got off the island, and walked to a huge new pedestrian shopping street. Along the way, we passed by the traditional Chinese medicine wholesale market, where you could buy seahorses and starfish..

Dried herbs (I recognized a bunch of Ginseng, and Star Anise, but beyond that, would be hard pressed to know what all of this was).

And of course, live scorpions with some escaping!

After the medicine shop street, we went down the Pet shopping street. The Chinese are really into their pets now, and since most live in huge cities, they have to be small pets. Small dogs, cats, birds, fish are all popular. Rose loved seeing the puppies for sale! She wanted to adopt every pet she saw up and down the whole shopping street.

And turtles!

Auntie being silly behind the bird cages Rose was checking out.

And more puppies for pets that Rose gravitated to.

Keeping fish are quite popular too, here are a bunch of fish for aquariums.

This is the new pedestrian shopping area. But Nancy loves seeing these huge loads carried around on bicycles (which we don't see so much of any longer in China, regular vans and trucks made by Western countries are much more common now, all the old scary 3-wheeler falling apart vans are gone now).

And the Asian Games are coming to Guangzhou next month. Rose is posing in front of a display of the mascots for the Asian Games.

The "girls" went shopping for pearls at wholesale in this huge shopping mall, but this is a picture of them in the bead store that they went to next after the Pearl store.

Auntie M had her birthday on Monday, and the White Swan delivered this delicious cake to her room to help her celebrate. She made it a party, and called up Papa Johns for a delivery (by bicycle to the White Swan!) and had all of our travel group gather up in her room for the evening.

Molly, our guide thinks that this red couch at the White Swan is much prettier than the traditional one down by the Swan room. Here's our whole family.

And the two sisters.

Isn't Rose so pretty?

Next we did the traditional White Swan Waterfall group pictures, heres some of the girls together..

Even the White Swan has the Asian Games mascots in their lobby for the big event..

Auntie hanging out with Lily wearing her "Auntie is my BFF" shirt.

On Wednesday, we went to the US Consulate offices in Guangzhou (apparently moving yet again for more space sometime next year). Along the way, this huge Western style Apartment building captured our view..

But no pictures allowed at the US Consulate. 

I started this post yesterday (Wednesday) and am now posting it today (Thursday).  We had a nice breakfast with our travel group, and have some packing done, and are going to go as a family to the pool for one last swim.  Lily likes the pool, and of course Rosebud LOVES the pool!

Checking out at 4:00 pm today, don't know if we will be posting again before we get home.  Home sweet home!  Keep us in your prayers for a safe and uneventful flight home, especially for Rose and Lily - it's a long flight (14.5 hours from Hong Kong to Chicago) and then a 4 hour layover until our flight from Chicago to Mpls.  Thankfully we all seem to be feeling well, and are ready to come home!

Some Photos!

I'm not going to try to put these in order, it's too hard to do right now. 

In Nanchang, we visited the Tengwang Pavilion.

Also in Nanchang, there is a park nearby named Bayi Park.  Bayi literally means August 1st.  It's a date in history when power changed hands in Nanchang.  This is the memorial.  Also at this park is a great fountain show at night.  Doug, Marion and Rose went one night and got soaking wet.  We have video, but no pictures.

Little Miss Lily is so content sitting on the bed and playing and watching us.  She loves to eat baby dry cereals, but we think she loves the containers and packaging more.   She is laughing and smiling alot, and Marion and Rose are good at making her laugh hard.  She is feeling so much better now, she no longer has the previously mentioned issues thank goodness.    We can tell that she was very well loved and cared for with her foster family.  She is such a sweet girl.

One morning I went next door to Marion and Rose's room, and I could hear them scheming behind the door.  They both had hotel robes and slippers on and bowed when they opened the door to me, it was pretty cute.

The famous White Swan Barbie doll.  It's tradition for the hotel to leave a Barbie for the newly adopted child.  It's a caucasian Barbie holding an asian baby.  They left one for Rose as well, she is pretty happy to have a 2nd doll.

We got a chuckle out the baby potty chair...

Today (Sunday) in Guangzhou we were taken to the Seven Banyan Buddhist Temple.  It was pouring rain, but it was still very beautiful.  This is a photo of the priest getting ready to bless our babies.  We adults also got blessed and made wishes to the various buddha's throughout the temple.  You take incense in groups of three's, light them, stand before a buddha, make a wish, bow three times, and then place your incense in a holder in front of the buddha.

This is our entire travel group.  Everyone is doing pretty good, we are amazed the babies are so content for the most part.

We also stopped at a super market to replenish baby supplies.  The Mid Autumn Moon Festival is coming up, and moon cakes are everywhere!!  This is a GIANT mooncake.  Our hotel is even known for their mooncakes, and many people are stopping by just to buy their mooncakes.

We also went to a store that sold jade and porcelean.  I actually bought a traditional jade bangle, necklace and earrings.  Rose bought a tea set, a small folding screen and a jar with painting on the inside.  This man has been carving "chops" for 42 years.  Chops are blocks of stone (can't remember which stone) that they carve your name in.  We got one for Lily with her Chinese and American names on it.  They are used as signatures in China, seen as a red "stamp" on paperwork and artwork.  Rose got one from a shop near our hotel.

Two more photos from the Buddhist Temple.  Even though it was pouring rain, it was still so beautiful.  That's Rose in the front with the white umbrella.

We have a photo at home from when we were here in 2004 adopting Rose.  Rose and I were under this same Banyan tree.  Now we have one with me, Rose and Lily.  I really love the feel of this place, and would love to go back when the weather is better.  In 2004, it was about 100 degrees and such high humidity that we had problems with our cameras and glasses fogging up, and there was so much water in the air it was almost misty.

Tomorrow our guide is walking us to a shopping street.  I am so horrible at bargaining, I actually loathe it.  I'm so bad at it, it's actually become funny.

I am so happy to say that I have gotten to see the dear Barrett family two days in a row now here in Guangzhou.  Yesterday we ran into them at the health clinic for our medical exams.  I got to meet Erin!  She is a very polite young lady who smiles and actually recognized me today when we saw them in the lobby of our hotel.  They are staying at a different hotel but were meeting up at our hotel for a tour.  It is fun to see people you know here.  Rose got to say hello to Monika and Jenny, and she got to meet Erin.  Katie and Dave stayed back at the hotel.

We finally got our laundry done.  It's something we normally take for granted, but traveling for so long has given me an appreciation for the ability to wash our clothes whenever we want to at home.  

Thursday we rent a van and driver to take us to Hong Kong, and we spend the night in Hong Kong.  Then Friday we fly home!