surgery update

Mom had her surgery yesterday, and all went well. She had two surgeries, and I am still unclear on what that is about, but apparently, that was expected. I have yet to talk to her, but she did talk to Tessa last night briefly as she was ready for more sleep.

looking back at gotcha day 2005

Today marks the fourth anniversary of meeting Julia.

On her birthday post a mere three days ago (yes, we met her three days after her first birthday). I revealed that I would share the story behind this first glimpse of Julia we ever had, and I will try hard to keep it short.
Our agency called me at work a little earlier than anticipated. Andy had worked third shift, and we knew our referral was coming that day (April 19, 2005). We guessed at when the call would come and had a plan to talk with our agency rep on three-way. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. The call came just as I was trying to settle an unruly class to finish a timed test where the time had been messed up. I could not get Andy to wake up, and the agency had several calls to make, so I was cautioned to call back quickly. I did call back without Andy on the line to learn that I had a beautiful daughter who was 10 months old. I was surprised as we were willing to go up to age three and expected a child slightly older. As we talked, the representative e-mailed me the picture below. It is a good thing that I had her e-mail it to Andy as well. Andy called immediately after I got off the phone and raced to the computer so that we could open her picture at the same time. I had forgotten to go to "no mail" on my yahoo groups, so Andy opened our e-mail to find that there were some 200 messages downloading as other families shared their news. He finally weeded through all of them and opened the picture, but the e-mail did not come to my work address. He forwarded it to my mom, and they both e-mailed it to my work address -still didn't arrive. They made a few more attempts while both were telling me she was beautiful and still no e-mail for me. Finally, Andy gave up and printed the picture and drove to my school to show it to me. We then went to pick up Zachary and Savannah from school and shared the exciting news with them.
The next pictures we saw of Julia were these two, and I counted all her fingers and toes.

Shortly before we traveled we received these pictures, and I was surprised to find that she was standing.

On June 4th (her birthday), we boarded a plane, and our journey to China began. This picture was taken right at the end of Zachary's and Savannah's first flight ever (not counting the one Zachary took as a baby that he couldn't possibly remember).

On June 7th, we met Julia in a Civil Affairs office in Guangdong. This was probably taken that day. This picture was on the disposable camera that I sent to the orphanage while we waited to travel.

The goodbye was hard. Julia cried for hours, and her nanny sobbed and sobbed. I felt like the cruelest person, but God kept whispering in my ear that a family would be better for her.

Here we are - a family of five!!

traditional red couch pictures

a very special group - we loved group 777 and would love to have a reunion with them

note that Zachary and Savannah are standing in front of both grandmas who travelled with us to meet our new addition

We have so many precious memories of that trip of a lifetime.

One week after our arrival at home, we had a wedding to attend.

In August, we dedicated Julia at our church and threw a party for extended family and friends to meet her.

one year later, we took her to the beach for the first time

Today we wished Julia a "happy gotcha day." We had an out of town shower to attend for my brother and his bride. That was a lot of fun, but we did leave the kids at home. While we were in China, we collected a gift for gotcha day for every year until Julia turns 18. I have yet to pull out that gift this year, but stay tuned as we celebrate another gotcha day on Wednesday.

Chinese Culture camp

Wyatt, Julia, and I attended a Chinese culture camp today. The organizers did a fantastic job of putting this together. Savannah has attended in the past, and I think, as is true with anything, experience works out kinks and brings new ideas.

This year they started the day by making an edible abacus.

We then visited a drummer who worked on teaching the kids how to tap out a beat and finished with talking about the beat needed to keep the rowers on the dragon boats in sync so they can win the race. I wished Andy had been there for that session for two reasons. The drum was very cool and produced a very nice sound, and Wyatt was very anxious to participate, and he did a very nice job of pounding out a correct rhythm for the song being used. He did tend to go too fast at times, but I think he has an ear for tempo.

We then learned about the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's day which will be celebrated in August this year. Chinese mythology is quite lengthy with complicated stories. In this picture, the kids are making a magpie bridge so that the lovers who are separated in the heavens can meet. The magpies do this once a year in the seventh month on the seventh day, and this is the double 7 festival.

We then went on to learn about the double 5 festival which is the Dragon Boat festival. It is probably being celebrated in China now. On both of our trips to China, this festival was taking place. Again the mythology behind the festival is complicated, but there is a dragon in the water who is frightened by five colors. The children made medallions with five venomous creatures on them to ward off evil spirits. Of course the mythology is interesting and fun to learn, but we are always aware that we do not want to bring false or bad spiritual influence into the lives of our children.

After lots and lots of cool crafts, the kids had lunch and then played games. Wyatt preferred the fishing game while Julia loved a game where rocks were loaded into buckets to make people climb a mountain - set up with pulleys and quite cool. This had something to do with something they learned in a session I did not attend, so I don't really know the story behind it.

The big kids spent the morning decorating dragon boats, so the kids could have dragon boat races during game time.

We had a great, but tiring time. We returned home in time to work in the nursery at church and then headed to a graduation party for our friend Kaleb. It was a nice, mini reunion with members of our old Sunday school class. We sure do miss them all. We are tired and off to bed.

fleeting!

Today is Julia's fifth birthday. She is the baby of the family, and these years with little ones are fleeting. As I did on Savannah's birthday, I offer a look back at our years with Julia.

This was the first picture we ever saw of Julia, and there is quite a story behind my first look at this, but you will have to tune in on June 7th for those details.
We left for China on June 4th, 2005 (Julia's 1st birthday). While there, we celebrated with our group several days later. Andy had quite a time eating dinner with Julia grabbing everything on the table and insisting on being on his lap. She was and is a daddy's girl. He got a big hug from her when he returned from a business trip today.

This is Julia on her second birthday. We brought these silks back from China for a professional portrait and then we couldn't find them. One of our bags was returned to us with a busted zipper, so we thought they were just gone. We found the silk gown long after the picture was taken, and to this day, I am disappointed that she was not wearing these silks in the picture.

Julia's third birthday. This was her "Dora" phase. She loved everything Dora, but she did not watch the show.

We celebrated Julia's fourth birthday several days early with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's. Once again we left for China on her birthday that year.

This is Julia today. What an adventure we have had over the past four years with this sweet, spunky, and fun little girl! None of us would have missed it for the world.

As you can see June 4th is a very special day in this household. The first day this date became important on our family calendar was in 2005 when all of us + two grandma's boarded a plane that was the beginning of our trip to China to meet this precious girl. One year ago Andy and I left on June fourth to go to China and meet Wyatt. Today we have friends who left this morning for China to meet their sweet Caroline. Does God care about dates? I do believe he does.

by the way, Julia told me this morning that we can still cuddle, and I can hold her and stuff----good to know that she doesn't expect "5" to be so different.

Happy birthday Julia!

(note: Andy has been out of town all week. He returned today, and we are wiped out. If this post doesn't make sense, I will tweak it later).

best winker

Wyatt finished kindergarten today. When I picked him up from school yesterday, he had received three certificates. Wyatt had a certificate recognizing his completion of kindergarten and a certificate for making all S's and O's for the second grading period.

However, the most fun certificate he received is for being the "best winker." Several weeks ago, Wyatt's teacher revealed to me that he winks at her at the end of every day. He bobs his head from side to side as he winks with both eyes. I can't really describe it without a video.

I must say that the end of kindergarten does seem rather anti-climatic. I somehow missed the memo about the award ceremony yesterday. I don't think I could have gone even if I knew about it. There was no graduation. He is the first child in our family to end the kindergarten year without any special ceremony. I do think he has definitely earned some celebration though. He hasn't even been speaking English for a year. It took four classrooms and two schools to find the best fit for him, and his progress was simply amazing. He still has lots to learn, but we love this little buger.

P.S. On a completely unrelated note, I want to share something I just read. Do you want to be inspired? reminded that God is oh so cool? Then you just might want to check this out http://www.lifeofgiving.blogspot.com/

a birthday and a boyfriend -missing pictures

Grrrr - the formatting was off on my previous post, and when I went to fix it, I unintentionally deleted these two pictures. There is no undo in this blogging thing - a feature I would like to see added, so I have to add a new post to include the pictures as there is also no re-arranging and these needed to be at the end. Anyway, this is my nephew Logan and Julia on the Slip 'N' Slide. Julia is a pro at this.

a birthday and a boyfriend

We had a packed weekend here starting with an Art Club swim party on Saturday for Savannah. I thought this picture of her with her friends was cute. The girls also painted and had some fun with hot glue and seashells. This was held at the home of Savannah's art teacher, and she had so much fun that we ended up playing hookey from our nursery and preschool duties at church. I really owed Savannah this one, but playing hookey from serving God is not such a good thing. However, we were confident that the church would be okay without us this time.

Wyatt and Julia had a lot of fun as well. As you can see, it wiped them out.

On Sunday we attended our regular church service and were hit with one of those sermons were you just know that you have to figure out how, not if, it will change your life. We then went deeper in our Sunday school class and probably should have pondered and addressed this all afternoon. The burning question: "does Christ know me?" --in the context of the judgement where some will argue that they did mighty things in His name, but He replies that He did not KNOW them. I definitely need to work on that relationship.

Right after church we had a church picnic to attend and then we raced home to greet family to celebrate Julia's birthday. She will be five on Thursday, and we celebrated early so that my mom could be here as she was scheduled for surgery on Monday. That has since been rescheduled. It was a fun, fun day, and Julia loved it. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Our glam girl got some dress up clothes.

Watch out Hannah Montana! Julia even has a twang when she sings. It is hilarious, and we don't know where she gets it - though Andy argues that it comes from my sister Tara.

Check out those nails!

As usual I took pictures of all the family with Julia, but I am only posting the one with my mother-in-law because I shared the rest of the family with you on Savannah's birthday post.

We then had some Slip 'N' Slide fun. Austin is seen in this first picture. I think you will recognize the rest of the kids.

On Monday as I drove home from preschool, Julia and I had this conversation:

Julia: I finally got my boyfriend today.

Me: What??!! When did Daddy and I say you could get a boyfriend?

Julia: I just got him today. Just let me deal with this for a few days!!!

The good news: I know his family, and he may be a keeper....in about 20 years. Julia had a great time at preschool with her boyfriend, Alex and reconnecting with a best friend from a year ago, Jada.

Later in the day, I learned that Alex has at least two other girlfriends and that he tried to kiss another girl on the playground. I told Julia that she needed to DEAL WITH him right away. Wyatt joined the conversation to let me know that he has two ladies, and he helps them fight.

We have our work cut out for us.