Indian Summer Shirt and Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Indian Summer Shirt and Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!! Is this not THE best outfit. And the shoes are too cute! Adah would look adorable-would she not?

Teachers Pet Cardi, Simple Tee and Poppy Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Teachers Pet Cardi, Simple Tee and Poppy Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

One Year

Wow. It's been one year since we were able to pick up Adah in Guanzhou. Wow.

We started speech therapy today-or at least an evaluation was done. As soon as we get the paper work done we should be able to start therapy. Our insurance will pay for 60 hours per year of therapy. Which I think is wonderful. I'm so excited for Adah!

I found this fascinitating project -The Milkweed Project-over at Stitches and Sticks via Soulemama. If you are interested in knitting, crocheting, or spinning or know someone who is, check it out.

Sledding

IMG_0867, originally uploaded by mmamarn.

We went sledding for the first time this year. It was really cold as the winter sun was setting and our hill was in the shade. I think Marley had fun but would have enjoyed a much bigger hill with a rope to pull him up. This was Adah's first venture out into the Iowa winter fun. She was a trooper and had a blast going down the hill with dad. When it was time to go she was definitely the first to the car! We are supposed to get 5 more inches tonight so maybe this weekend we will go to the big hill.

Thanksgiving, first snow and in the news

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. While I did have to work Thanksgiving day at the hospital we managed to have our celebration the following Sunday. Turkey, Christmas tree and all! It really was a good day. Our Christmas trees (all three) got wet this summer when we got water in our basement so it was a "real" Christmas tree this year for us. Not that I mind you see, they smell wonderful but the shedding drives me crazy. With a little one that doesn't quite want to stay away from the beautiful ornaments we chose to go handmade or unbreakable this year. We also bought the big lights. It turned out better than I thought. You see for yourself. In the next post. For some reason I am not able to post any more pictures. Maybe a video then. Richard had lunch at Baby Boomers yesterday and being the lover of attention made his way onto the news. Funny! Famous Cookie Headed To Inauguration

Catching Up.....again

The pumpkin patch- Not so pumpkinny this year. After spending way too much time in the corn pool and exploring the three little pigs. Not to mention the giant bouncy air filled pillow that little miss about got bounced off of too many times. The pumpkin patch was well picked over and with only one wagon ride left back to the farm we picked the first few we saw. Not perfect but when has perfection ever meant much to me anyway? Ha. The picture above is Marley's scary face pumpkin. He has always and still does like scary face pumpkins. I on the other hand like happy face pumpkins. Adah likes to point and say pu-mm, pu-mm. Richard-not so interested in the whole pumpkin thing. Not to say that he won't help if needed and he would probably enjoy it when he does help but it's just not his thing. It seems that pumpkin carving wasn't part of his Halloween ritual growing up and so doesn't have the found memories of grabing yucky, gooey, orange, slimy pumpkin guts from the inside of a freezing cold pumpkin. And no matter how long you keep a pu-mm inside before carving it, it sure stays nice and cold inside. Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween however you chose to celebrate it.

Ok-so what have we missed?

Lets see.... Marley started 1st grade with Mrs. Wade. He absolutely loves it which of course I'm very happy about. I was worried for awhile due to the emphatic "I hate school!" statement that you heard anytime someone asked if he was excited about school starting. Which at 6 is something you don't want to hear.

Adah had her 6 month anniversary. It's really hard to believe that she has been here that long. Some days it feels like she has been with us forever and others its like she just got here. Some days I know exactly what she wants and other days --NO CLUE! What I think is really cool is that when she see our house she yells "HOME" in a kind of sing song way.

Congrats to all my fellow new parents that were with us on that wonderful trip and a special hello to Bennet!!

My parents sold their home of over 30 some years and moved to Arizona.

Beaverdale Fall Festival was this past weekend. Richard and the kids went to the carnival and the fireworks on Friday. Saturday was the parade and more carnival rides. We love this festival. It is only about a block away and we have made a point of going every year since we moved here.

Sorry about the crazy layout. New computer and we don't have all of our pictures loaded onto it. Will post more soon.

Days of Summer

A make shift water-slide and a warm, sunny, HUMID day add up to a lot of fun. We opted out of the public pool excursion today to evade the crowded waters-not to mention the humiliation of the swimsuit body and winter white skin. Still haven't been in the sun much yet and yes it is the middle of July. So anyway we were playing in the sprinkler and the water slide evolved from there.

Just one little video too!

Miss you Macy Girl

1998-2008

Happy Birthday Adah!

!So -Adah's first birthday in the states. I think she had fun. Mac and cheese, french fries, lemonade and cake x 2! Her favorite food-outside of rice and noodles. She totally understood what to do with her presents. If she needed any help her brother was there to give some assistance. Her cousins Natalie and Nathan, Stacey and John, Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike, and Grandma and Grandpa were all there. We went to Joe's Crabshack where the kids could play outside while the grown ups were chatting inside. All in all it was a good day.

SUPER 6

AHHHH! 11-6 year olds, one almost 2 year old, two adults, and a whole lot of play sets! Throw in pizza, cake, and presents and you have a whole lot of chaos! Albeit refreshing chaos but chaos none the less. At this 6 year old boys' party there were 6 girls and 4 boys. Funny- I wonder when that will change to all boys. Anyhoo-Marley had a super time and so did the rest of the partiers. At one point it was over heard that "this place would be the perfect place to live." There were secrets told (and then we were informed that secrets were not allowed so) then there were no more secrets, a foot shut in a door, a tiff over a ball, a fall from the tire swing, and a basketball in the face. At the end of the party everyone the limbs, fingers, and toes that they came with and maybe a few extra bruises! Marley said that it was the best birthday party ever and couldn't pick a favorite thing because everything was his favorite!

Do you see how everyone is in motion? The whole time was like this even during the pizza. I love it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUBBA!

Awhile back now Adah had her first medical check up in the states. According to the doctor who would barely even touch her, she is in great condition and very healthy. This I am happy to hear but it was as if he was scared to touch her and then he called her oriental which we all know are rugs not people! I think we will probably be finding a new pediatrician. In the meantime, Adah saw a craniofacial physician who will be doing the surgery for her palate and revision of her lip. When he came into the office he took time to get to know Adah and tried to get her to warm up to him before he examined her palate. This was wonderful after our last experience. However he is not without faults. We were his first appointment that day and he was 45 minutes late. If you have kids you know what it is like to entertain one in a small enclosed room with many instruments and equipment that shouldn't be used as a toy. And we all know that if we aren't supposed to touch something that becomes the most interesting thing in the room. We made it through the appointment and Adah will be having surgery sometime in June. This is very exciting. I think we will decrease our cost in kleenex by at least half. The amount of stuff that comes out her nose is rather yucky! I've become so tuned into things coming out of her nose that anytime anyone sneezes I make sure to check their nose for food hanging out of it. Back to the medical check up. She still weighs 23 pounds and is 33 inches tall. On the American growth charts she is in the 11th percentile! Can you believe it. She eats like a horse. We still haven't found anything that she won't eat. Anyway, on the Chinese charts it puts her in about the 80th percentile. Soooo I think we will go with the Chinese charts! As for Marley, he is doing wonderful. He will be 6 in a week. First Grade! Oh My-Time flies I tell you! He's playing soccer this spring and loves it. I post some pictures of him soon.

Hmmm.... It's been awhile

So Hello everyone! After finally getting home, Richard had to go back to work right away. We got home on Saturday and Richard went back to work on Monday. Adah apparently did not grasp the effect that not sleeping would have on those of us living in this time zone. Adah took a while to get her time turned around to join us in our sleeping habits. For about the first week she definitely enjoyed the night life and would scream and cry until you either were able to get her to sleep (whcih took hours!) or you just gave up. While in my younger days staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning was probably a normal occurence, I now have a 5yr old that has to be to school by 8:00 and I don't have the luxury of hanging out watching tv all day. However, if you ask Richard he may have a different opinion. Anyway, after a week or so and no daytime naps, unless she happens to fall asleep in the car, she is mostly sleeping through the night. YEAH! How is Marley dealing with all of this you ask. He's fine. He gets about 11 hours of sleep each night. He never hears her cry at night even though his room is directly across from him. He sleeps through just about anything.

Orange juice please...Gas or no gas?

So after a total of 53 hours of flight time, 19 hours of delays, 1 lost hotel reservation, numerous bus rides in absolutely crazy traffic, walking miles to find a pizza or good coffee-all with a 21 month old Chinese baby that doesn't understand or speak English and in a country where most of the people don't speak English-We are finally home!!

This picture of Adah shows how we felt at the beginning of the trip home and the nex picture is how we felt after 27 hours of travel.

We definitley have some interesting moments on our trip and we will surely talk about them soon but for now I'll explain the title of this post. On the flight from Guangzhou to Tokyo I asked for some orange juice. It took me a minute to figure out what the flight attendant meant when she said "gas or no gas". Slightly personal don't ya think. After glancing at her cart I guessed that she meant orange soda or orange juice! Interesting way to ask your drink preference. I'm leaving up the clock with the time in Guangzhou because that is the time Adah is on. Needless to say that means we are on that time too. Except for Marley who can sleep through anything.

These pictures are of the last hotel we stayed at in Guangzhoue and our whole group of new families. We loved the people we traveled with and hope to keep in contact with them.

We are in Guangzhou since Tuesday about 7pm. We had another delayed flight. It was scheduled to leave at 11:00 but didn't leave until 3:30. I hope this isn't the way our flights go on the way home. It is very beautiful here. Also very very humid! Everything is green, flowers are blooming, it's very tropical. We well post pics as soon as we can. Marley, we are still looking for cool toys for you but we may have to wait until we get to Hong Kong to find anything. There aren't any snoopy stores here on the island. We did buy you a Chinese outfit though! Adah's personality is coming out more and more every day. She loves to laugh!! Oh I do have to add the picture of the squatty potty for mom. You'll love this. You aren't supposed to flush your toliet paper either.

These are the gentleman that own the birds. They were thoroughly intrigued by Richard, Adah, and me-as is the rest of China. They chattered and chattered at us but we had no idea what they were saying. We definitley make a big spectacle here when we go out. At any given time we have numerous people staring at us and sometimes following us. It's rather unusual.

A couple of days ago we went to The Nanjing Silk Brocade Factory. Huge looms ran by two people are used to make elaborate silk material. The person on the top of the loom directs the person at the bottom as to what color to use. It's pretty cool. In one of the pictures you can see the pattern reflected by the mirror on the gentlemans lap. They make about 5-6 cenitmetes in 8 hours of work. A garment for the emperor would have taken about 3-5 years.

Tomorrow to Guangzhou

Hello! We have a free day today and will be getting our suitcases re-packed for our flight to Guangzhou tomorrow. This morning we will be going to the park across the street to see the old men and their birds. They bring their birds out in cages and hang the cages in trees so that the birds can get some fresh air. Love it. ,g h n hhhhhhhhhhhhhjjjjjjhx--that's from Adah. Yesterday we went to the Confuscious Free Market which is like a HUGE pedestrian mall which sits where Confuscious temple used to be. On the way back from there we stopped at Walmart. It was three stories high. Believe it or not the quality did not seem as good as what we get in the US. Here are a few pictures from the Ming gardens and the silk brocade factory.

Some things we know about Adah

1. She loves to be outdoors

2. She doesn't like to go to sleep

3. LOVES chocolate-she'll fit right in

4. She's very busy

5. She's a lot like Marley

6. She wears a size 18 month perfectly but can still wear 12 and 24 month clothes

7. She like to have her arms covered-does not like short sleeves yet!

8. She like to be held by mom

9. She's warming up to dad