The Moose

For Valentines day we got Zach a pillow pet moose. He loves stuffed animals and this one seemed to be a good dual purpose gift. When we go to China, on the plane it's a good pillow and he still gets to take a good size stuffed animal with him for comfort. Zach came upstairs this weekend talking about his "reindeer", I finally put 2 and 2 together and realized he was talking about his moose. I didn't pay too much attention, just to the fact that he had been playing with it in the fort he made in the basement. Yeah, ok, whatever. This morning I was trying to navigate through Zach and Pete's room to get them up for school and started tossing Zach's stuffed animals out of my path and onto his bed as I went. HHMMMM, that pillow pet felt heavy and landed with a thump...... Zach had found a piece of yarn and tied the "reindeer" to the metal santa sleigh he saved from the trash bin after Christmas. Guess he hitched up the reindeer and was delivering gifts around the fort. I think I better pay more attention when he comes up to tell me what he's doing. And to all a good night

My Children

This morining I am feeling very thankful for my children. Since they have the day off from school, I figured I better write this now, before the fighting begins and I wonder who these children are.


Introducing Molly, our baby girl waiting for us to bring her home from China. Molly is now 1 year old (as of March 3) and a very tiny girl. It was determined that she was a premie, although how premie, we have no idea. At 11 months old, she was 11 pounds and 24 inches. By checking size charts, that puts her into 3-6 month size clothes, and only for her length. Molly's had a rough road so far. She has bladder exstrophy like Zach and Steven. Funny for such a rare birth defect, now half of our family has it, and 3/4 of our children. She was hospitalized at about 1 month old with pnemonia, and problems with blood sugars and electolites as complications from the pnemonia. Then, while she was in there, she also developed a blood infection and could have died. She was in the hospital almost 3 months because of all that. She's definately a fighter. Her Chinese name means strength and vitality, and is a boys name because the nannies at the orphanage thought she needed the extra protection this name would give her to fight her health challenges. It must be working. We can't wait to bring her home. Her province -Henan- is by Bejing. When we do go to China, we will go pick her up first and then down by the Vietnam border to Zach's province, then over to the American Embasy to finalize both adoptions.

Notice Zach and Steven holding hands! They are so cute!! Zach, my little love bug is such a joy. He has been blossoming since he has lived with us. His teacher tells me it's a good sign that he sometimes gets in trouble at school (????) because it means he's comfortable in the class and with his life with us. He's a little helper and his favorite job is to run the vaccuum.

Peter is growing up so fast. He will be 13 in May, and wants to be grown up, although he can act like a little boy so often. This transition age is so full of inconsistancy. Like watching little kid cartoons with Zach, but wanting to act like they are beneath him - his not being able to resist watching gives him away though. He is learning to cook simple meals, although he loses intrest fast. He's too smart for his own good and gets lazy in his school work. He's the one most like me, in looks and temperment.

Steven is such a grown up already, but you all already know that. At 14 he is too cool to play with Pete, but likes to do things with Zach like read to him. He's still my people pleaser, although every once in a while we have to knock him down a peg or two. He's quirky, and introspective. A self described band geek, who right now wants to be an English Professor at a college someday. He's very sensitive, both in his own life and the way he empathizes with other's problems. His biggest goal right now? To be a mentor to both Zach and Molly.

I love them all - but don't ask me at the end of the 3 day weekend if I still do......

purple

My darling husband has been working very hard, to get Molly's room ready for me to decorate. He got up an hour early this morning to make sure the drywall mud was completely sanded and ready to paint - eat your heart out, Mom, that job is Mike's. Today I painted Molly's walls a nice shade of lilac purple. Mike likes the color, the big boys tell me "it's too purple, my eyes are burning!" Zach thinks Molly will like it. Mike is finishing up sanding in the hallway outside Molly's room now, so I can paint the hallway side of the new wall tomorrow. After the sanding is done tonight, and the dust is cleaned up, I will begin moving things into Molly's room. Hope I can remember how to put the crib together.....

Contentment

Sorry, everyone, today's blog is not about the funny things my family said or did today. It's not touching on the absurdities of my life. I was just thinking today that last March, I was perfectly happy with my family. I had 2 sons, and a great husband. 2 cats and a dog. I was turning 40, and knew that Mike and I would not have any more children. Life was good. We didn't even know that Zach or Molly existed. Funny how God has other plans for us. Anyone who has seen Zach interact with the family comments on how well he fits in here, he acts just like the rest of us. Everytime I see pictures of Molly, my heart melts. I just can't believe this was anything other than a Divine Plan for us. I must say I was nervous when Zach joined our family, lots of prayer and family meetings convinced us to take a chance and open our home to this little boy. I wasn't sure how our family would react as the news came out, with almost no warning that our family was growing and Zach would be here in a few days. Soon after we decided to look for our girl to complete us. I was beginning to despair, thinking a girl was not in the plan when Molly came into the picture, just at the right time to be included in our dossier. This week, after our big Port-A-Pit, I am feeling a peace that I haven't felt in a while. It can only be described as contentment. I love Steven and Peter with all my heart, but as teenagers, they just don't seem to need me so much anymore. Zach is my love bug, replacing the cuddeling that Peter used to do with me. And now my girl is waiting for us to bring her home. This just feels so right.

And Off He Goes

Last fall, when it was about time to put away the bikes, Zach broke one of his training wheels off his bike. We told him this spring we would take off the other one and he could learn to ride without training wheels. Tonight the boys were begging for bike tires to be aired up and Zach wanted to ride his bike (his favorite outside activity). Mike decided that since he is trying to finish Molly's room, he would just put Zach's training wheel back on. Well, apparently it was broken and the next thing I knew I was called to watch Zach ride his bike - WITHOUT his training wheels. Mike said it just took a couple of trips down the driveway to help him steady himself, and he just took off. He thinks he's pretty hot stuff now!!! My clever little man (Zach, not Mike).

Molly's Room

Well, it's Saturday evening and Molly now has a new wall, dry walled and mudded on both sides. A new light switch, with the one from the hall that used to control her light disconnected so no one accidentially turns on her light as they walk by. A new light has been installed in the hall so we don't lose the light that Molly's room used to cast on the stairs. Mike says I should be able to have the room for painting by Tuesday night!!! I can't wait to start putting together the baby's room!!!

they won't stop

Today was measuring day the the Fair-Lee-Wu's. The big boys haven't been measured since last March. Steven has not grown at all, he's stuck at 5'10 and 3/4" (He can't wait to pass that 6 foot mark and now he's disparing that he wont'). Peter has grown 3 inches and is now at 5'9" (he just wants to be at least as tall as Steven, where ever that takes him). And Mr. Zachary was measured mid August, when he got here and has grown 2 inches and now is ALMOST 4 feet tall (half an inch off).

Today since it was hot, Zach put on some shorts from last summer. The waist fit fine, but the shorts are now mid-thigh (where I think shorts ought to be), so looking a bit short. Looking at the tag they are size 4, but were his favorite from last summer. They'll be fine for around the house. Time to clean out the closets and dressers and make the list of what is needed for the summer!!

The Latest Frenzy

Since our Log In Date (LID) for our dossier in China we have received 2 additional information packets from our adoption agency. These packets are released to us on line when we hit certain milestones in our process. The latest packet gives another time line break down, talking about things like Match Day. I finally just sent an e-mail to our agency to find out where we are, since we are not following the traditional path, waiting for a match with a healthy child. We have identified our special needs children and have our pre-approval. Our agency tells me that we are considered matched, so that means we could get our travel date in the next 5-8 weeks. WWHHAATT???? I'm not ready! Yesterday I moved my huge desk out of the office, since we are making that into Molly's room until she's bigger. When Mike got home from work, we ate early, he had to run up to the apartment house to fix a couple of things in one, and get a renewed lease signed at another. Then, like the great guy he is, he demolished the little half wall that had to come down, and framed up a new full wall. We fell into bed around 11:30, but feel good with our progress now. Tonight he will go to the home improvement store for drywall and by Thursday at bedtime we should have both sides of the new wall drywalled. I can't wait to start to paint and make it ready for Molly!

Our Port-A-Pit

I feel very happy. I am always amazed at how things felt before verses feeling good. I never even know things are as bad as they are, until they aren't bad anymore. That being said (if any of you understood that), we had a very sucessful fundraiser on Saturday, and a big stress is removed from my shoulders. We struggled with how much chicken to order, we didn't want to run out, but really didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of chicken left at the end. We ended up ordering 500 chicken and 150 pit-tatoes, and they put some extra chicken on the truck (no charge if we didn't cook it) in case we were busy. And we were BUSY!! We ended up selling over 800 orders of chicken and sold out of the pit-tatoes before we were done. We only ended up bringing home about 45 orders of chicken, we didn't have time to eat on Saturday, so that was dinner, and we have frozen some for quick dinners when we get home from China and are adjusting back to our time zone (13 hour difference in time from China to here) and having Molly home with us. The very nice article done on us in the newspaper brought in a lot of business and we did a lot of advertising in town. We pre-sold 200 chicken and 90 pit-tatoe tickets. All that work getting the word out worked! Steven dressed up in a chicken costume and danced around like a fool, attracting attention to our location (sorry, I didn't bring my camera, so no pictures of that). Thank you to our friends and family who helped either by working our sale, buying chicken, donating, or sending us their prayers. It's all helping and we think we are now about half way to raising the money we need to finish the adoption. Thank you all!

They don't make them like they used to

For the last 2 weeks I have been doing a ton of sewing (or zo-ing as Steven used to call it. He loved to help Grandma zo). I've been making and selling these headbands for babies and kids and barettes too, as a way to raise more money for Zach's adoption. It's been a while since I have been so crafty and I have noticed that now they sure make the eye of the needles much smaller and harder to hit than they used to. And while I am on the subject, light bulbs just don't give off good enough light either for the detail work to be seen. I know for a fact it is a problem with these two tools, because I am not old enough for it to be MY problem.

Spring is here?!?!?!?!

Beautiful spring weather has arrived this week. Of course, it arrived last week too, only to be ended by snow. It was sunny, windy, and warm today. Loved it. Makes me want to get outside and get stuff done. Too bad I know that the snow could be back anytime, without warning for a while yet.