Who?

So I did the celebrity look-alike thing for us...

Joe was matched with Sean Hayes of Will and Grace (not that there's anything wrong with that) and was very appreciative that George Clooney was in his bunch.

And my top two matches from two different photos were...Shirley Temple (at a young and tender age) and Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame). Yes, I apparently most resemble two children.

And the most famous face that Jia was matched with? Bette Midler.

Hmmm.

A merry time was had by all

We had a great Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve visiting with family and friends.

Ready to go on Christmas Eve.


Presents from the day before made a vision in pink on Christmas morning! New pink pajamas from the grandparents, new pink boots and new pink stationery from Santa, and a pink butterfly costume from our friends (which they bought in New Zealand and brought all the way home for Jia!).

We spent Christmas morning just the three of us, hanging out. It was perfect. We made an indoor snowman. (The snow is yellow from sprinkles and not, ahem, anything else.)

We read a new book.

We painted with new paints.

Excited to go to the grandparents' house to continue the celebration.


Jia received a new baby to love from the grandparents.


And all things girly from Auntie Susie...


...including a tutu for dress-up! Is "sumo wrestler" a proper ballet pose?


We had a great time and hope you did too.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Whenever Jia sees Santa Claus, she says, "I don't like that guy!" It's probably the beard. We'll report back on how she views him after she opens her stocking!

I have been learning digital scrapping and I just completed this. It is one of my first designs.

Jia often says, "Hello Everybody!" when seeing large groups of people. In honor of that: Merry Christmas Everybody!

Snow Day

We woke up to the most beautiful snow fall today. Every branch of every tree was covered with snow. So we went sledding!

Here is Jia about as wide as she is tall!


Cousin Han joined us. On his first ride down, he tumbled face first into the snow and flipped about four times. After much coaxing, he bravely went again and enjoyed it!

They liked to pull their own sleds for a while...

...but, of course, we spent even more of the time pulling the kids up the hill!


The kids had a blast. We also enjoyed watching a family from Panama experience snow for the first time. Both the mother and daughter were laughing with glee each time they descended the hill. It was a great experience.

How may I help you?

Someone wants to take your order...

...and she thinks it's pretty funny.

Five Special Gifts

We have been talking about the holidays and what is important to us. Gift-giving plays a small role in it. We needed to decide just how the gifts would be part of our tradition.

Last year we spent hardly anything on Jia's gifts for Christmas. Most of her presents were given to us as hand-me-downs from friends. Joe literally found her largest present on the sidewalk. He happened upon a play kitchen that a daycare was tossing out. We took it apart, cleaned each piece and refinished it (to match our decor no less).

After much debate, I think we've figured it out. When we're faced with older kids wanting one large item, who knows how we'll view this, but for now, we have a plan. A teacher gave me an article entitled "Five Special Gifts to Give Your Children." It focuses on giving items that nurture hearts and brains and bodies, and not going overboard. It is as follows:

A Gift to Hug and Love: A doll or stuffed animal; something a child can care for and treasure. Jia talks about polar bears non-stop. She is getting a stuffed one and sponsoring a real one through the National Wildlife Federation. It's worth checking out.

A Gift to Read: A book; a way to connect with your kid by reading together, encourage curiosity and bring discoveries. Jia is getting a book about helping others.

A Gift of Toys and Games: A fun toy or game that is designed to further learning and development. Jia is getting a matching and sorting game.

A Gift of Activity: Maybe a ball or jump rope or basketball hoop or trike. Something that encourages a kid to move with purpose. We're thinking of giving her a trike in the spring.

A Gift of Artistic Expression. Perhaps crayons, paints, clay, rubber stamps, glue, feathers, beads and cords. Something that provides kids with exposure to new sensations, and pushes them to use their imaginations. Jia tries to turn everything into finger paints, so we're finally giving her some.

We're also thinking about having her choose some of her toys that she doesn't use any longer to donate to other kids. I've heard from other parents that this is generally really tough for kids her age to do. She has chosen many books for her baby sister to have - so hopefully she'll understand this concept too! We'll see!

Hsin-Yen's first update!

We received Hsin-Yen's first update! Three adorable photos and a video! She smiles in the video and we can't stand how cute she is! We just want to cuddle her immediately!

Time flies

Hsin-Yen is one month old today!

Holiday photo

Here's our holiday photo! What do you think?

It only took 78 tries! Yes, that's right. 78. My condolences go to my dear neighbor Allison who was the photographer. It wasn't even really the fault of those of the younger generation, who shall remain nameless, as it did take a freaking long time. Our camera was malfunctioning so about 90% of the photos, some quite good, were blurry.

Thankfully Allison has three kids, so she understands and stuck it out for the long haul. This was the best - still a little blurry - but after some program correction, not too bad!

Pinyin

Although our agency provided a translation of Hsin-Yen's name as hearty, pretty girl, I tried to translate it myself via the pinyin dictionary to gain all the various meanings. (For those of you who don't know, pinyin uses the Latin alphabet to represent sounds in the Chinese language.) I couldn't find any part of her name.

Then, my friend Echo, who emigrated from mainland China, told me that Taiwanese pinyin is different than Mandarin pinyin. So, I scanned the characters of her name and showed them to Echo. She translated their meaning for us, and translated them into Mandarin pinyin. In Mandarin, her name is Xin-Yan, which she said means "beautiful heart." How sweet is that!

It is a treasure of a name under either translation.

Our snowflakes

When Sarah from Journey to Hannah Claire heard about our referral, she sent us this beautiful piece of art. I love that it looks like Jia is cheering with excitement for her new sister!

People have said to us: "Jia will be a tough act to follow." We haven't quite known how to respond to this, and the quote below is a perfect expression of our thoughts: "Those we love are the snowflakes of life. None are the same, each is beautiful, and all bring something special to our world." We have been feeling these sentiments exactly.

The proclamation of Peace, Joy and Love is so fitting too. Our hearts are at peace, we feel great joy, and we are filled with love. Thanks again, Sarah!

The Referral Details

Here's a play-by-play of our referral moment.

Jia and I were eating lunch when my cell phone rang. I saw that the number was our adoption agency. I didn't think it was our referral because I'd been corresponding via e-mail with our case manager that morning, and I thought she was just calling to answer my question.

She said, "I have your referral! It just arrived this moment and I had to call you right away!"

I think she was as stunned as I was. She told me the basics about our little Hsin-Yen. I cried with joy. I then asked if I could call her back because I wanted to call Joe. She said that she e-mailed me the photos and all the information, and that she would be around only little bit longer before the holiday weekend.

I called Joe at work and he was equally surprised and overjoyed! We then stayed on the phone while I clicked on my Inbox for what seemed like twenty minutes. (In reality, it was probably five.) Nothing appeared. I was getting more and more impatient. We then decided to call our caseworker back but neither of us was sure how to do three-way calling. Joe wanted to research his phone system on the internet but I worried that we might not have time! I eventually figured it out and we called our caseworker together. After a while, she then resent the e-mail and sent it to Joe as well. This one reached us! (And the first one came in a lot later!)

We finally saw her photo. We oohed and aahed and cried enough that our caseworker politely excused herself! We delighted over her cheeks and hair, and laughed with amusement at her name.

Then we attempted to get the video to run. It ran right away on Joe's computer and I could hear him choking up while watching it. I couldn't get it to run on mine! (Keep in mind that Jia was constantly yelling "I need to go to the bathroom! Read me a book!" the entire time).

I took a break to help Jia. I then tried again to watch the video on our laptop. Couldn’t get it to run. I tried our desktop computer. Wouldn't run. I eventually started up my work computer and the video finally ran! It was really tiny, and sideways, and didn't have any sound, but such a treasure to see. I wanted to hear the sound because Joe said that she made a little squeak in the video, so I had to hear that! I called Joe and we started the videos at the same time so I could hear her little squeak over the phone. Adorable! The woman speaking to her was calling her name in the most sweet, gentle way and it touched my heart.

Then once we were all together - we celebrated!

Our new daughter!!!

We received our referral!!!! On the day before Thanksgiving! What timing! We are utterly overjoyed! We made ourselves wait to tell the entire world until we had formally accepted, we have and are beside ourselves with delight!

She was born on Nov. 11th! Her name is Hsin-Yen which means hearty, pretty girl. That she is! She's was over 8 pounds at birth! Just look at those cheeks!!

Jia is exactly two years and three months older than her sister. Perfect. I showed her photo to Jia. Jia looked at it intently. I waited anxiously for a response. Jia then thoughtfully said, “She has poopies!” She said that she would hold the wipes while I changed her diaper. Jia later spontaneously said “I love you” to her photo and then pretended to feed her with a spoon.

We celebrated by getting Chinese take out and they happened to give us four fortune cookies. We each took one and I told Jia that one was for her baby sister. We three ate our cookies and then I opened the last one. I read her fortune and then said to Jia that she could eat her sister's cookie if she wanted because she wasn't here yet. Now Jia isn’t one to turn down a cookie, but she burst into tears and said that “the cookie belongs to my baby sister!” She refused to eat it! She is protecting her already!!!!

To reiterate the process, her adoption is not final yet. We have to first complete the court process. This will take approximately 5-8 months. We will hopefully travel next spring!!!

Enjoy!!!!

We give thanks

We have so very many things for which to be thankful: family, friends, food, shelter and SO much else. It was a treasure of a day.

We spent the morning doing hair.

When my friend Khatra visited her family in Kenya, she returned home with gifts for us, including this outfit for Jia. It was hand-woven by the Masai people and has little shells adorning it.

Khatra joined us for Thanksgiving so we made sure Jia wore her special outfit. Jia loved to twirl around to hear the shells!


It was Khatra's first experience with Jello! She liked it enough to take some home for later!

Wishing you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!

Nicknames

Jia has given herself a nickname: JiaBaby. We have discovered that we call her this now and then. She has embraced it wholeheartedly. She called her friend "LilyBaby" today. It isn't just reserved for youngsters though, as she has now called me "MamaBaby" and Joe "BabaBaby" (when she isn't calling him "Bobby"). It makes her sound like she's doing a lot of wheelin' n' dealin'.

The nickname that we use more frequently for her is "peanut." This has presented some issues as of late. Joe came out of the shower the other day and I heard Jia say "peanut!" Having witnessed various diaper changes of her younger cousin, she has heard the names for various body parts. We've explained that the body part in question is not pronounced that way, but she persists. Herein lies the problem: she doesn't know what an actual peanut is. She's never seen one or eaten one. She doesn't even eat peanut butter, she eats soynut butter. She must therefore think that we are calling her a male organ. Maybe we'll stick with JiaBaby for now.

Nutcracker

Each year, Dayton's (now Macy's) has a downtown holiday exhibit on its 8th floor. This year it's the Nutcracker.

I wanted to know if Jia was interested in going. Here was my attempt to explain the Nutcracker exhibit (at which Joe laughed heartily):

So Jia, there's this exhibit or, umm, display thingy, or umm, something you look at, and it's downtown, you know where the big buildings are? It's the Dayton's 8th floor exhibit, well, it's not Dayton's anymore, now it's Macy's, and it is on the 8th floor. Well, I suppose that part doesn't matter. We would stand in some long lines and eventually get in and see stuff moving around. It's a Christmas story this year. But it's not THE Christmas story, just a popular one that people like around Christmas time. I think we would see a rat. And some fake snow. And glitter. And a guy who smooshes nuts with his mouth - but, of course, we wouldn't ever do that. So, there will be lots of stuff moving around and we'll have to wait in long lines and be patient. Do you want to go?

Ever enthusiastic, Jia agreed. Here are a slew of pics. (A mom once told me that whenever you'll be waiting in lines or at the airport, you should dress your kid as cute as possible so people are more forgiving if she throws a fit.) This was the result.


Ever the ham!

Jia was mesmerized by the exhibits...but often questioned why she couldn't just get up there and play with all the toys too? It WAS a good question.


Sometimes a girl's gotta have glitter.

This is fun, Mom, but please stop squishing me!

I like this fake snow!


What could be better than a cookie the size of your head? (Note: Shared with others.)

More fall fun

We had a great weekend for cleaning up the yard. I love raking and always have. I have fond childhood memories of being at our cabin, cranking Def Leppard and raking to my heart's content. (Yes, perhaps not tranquil cabin-music but so be it.) I actually sometimes enjoy shoveling too - a good thing as we live in Minnesota.

Jia likes fall too, and likes to be helpful, so yardwork works well for all of us. Leaf-sitting works even better for some of us.

Everything is climbable

Is climbable a word? I'm not sure, but it is a good descriptor for our kiddo's favorite thing to do. We're discovering all sorts of things about our house thanks to her.

• Our built-in bookcase really does look like a ladder.
• If you pull out the few kitchen drawers which aren't babyproofed (because they're filled with tupperware and other kid-friendly stuff), and you adjust them just-so, they do make nice steps so you can climb up to stand on the kitchen counter.
• Those upper bathroom cabinets? Easy access if you climb up to stand on the toilet (then you can open them while saying, "I need medicine!").

Thankfully she did all of these things right in front of me (but with great speed). And now fear has struck in my heart.

Some things just take time

They say that with adoption there are certain time milestones that mark periods of adjustment in a kid's life. Named as a few are: six months home; one year home; and spending the same amount of time with you as the kid did elsewhere. We indeed did see changes in Jia at six months home. At that milestone, she stopped waking up multiple times each night.

More recently, at the year mark, we also saw a change. I waited a long time to post this because I wasn't sure whether it was going to stick. But it has. Jia no longer wakes up shrieking. For an entire year, whenever she stirred in the morning, she would start screaming before even opening her eyes. I think I have permanent bruises on my legs from the countless times I jumped up and ran into the end of the bed or a nearby chair as I was trying to get to her in a hurry. We now wake up to a kid reading to herself, playing, or softly calling, "Maa-maa." The difference in our level of stress, and hers I imagine, is immeasurable. And the bruises can just be a reminder of how far we've come.

Our little pumpkin

Jia has Halloween down pat! At each house, she shouted "Trick or Treat!" while excitedly jumping up and down and waving her arms! She was very good about giving thanks before she hurried us to the next house.



We had the honor of trick-or-treating with our neighbor Elvis! Fancy that!

After Jia questioned his existence, she admired his chest hair.


All this loot and what does she go for? The raisins! That's our good girl!

Soundbites

We've heard some funny things from Jia lately. To share a few:

I was helping Jia fix a toy; it was difficult and I was exasperated with it. I then saw that the meal I was cooking had boiled over resulting in a big, sticky mess. I quickly told Jia to try to fix it herself while I cleaned up. Then our cat jumped up onto the counter and headed straight for the mess. After I yelled at him to get down, I heard Jia exclaim, "Mama's having a fit!"

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We were sitting outside eating chips and Jia had three left. She lined them up and said, "This is Papa Bear! And this is Mama Bear!"

Joe said, "What about that little one?"

Jia replied, "That's Baby Bear."

Then she said, "Eat Baby Bear!" and ate it.

Papa and Mama Bear didn't survive either.

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It was sunny out. While in the car, Jia put on her sunglasses. Then she said, "Goodbye bright things!"

It's almost poetic, isn't it?

A Big Shout Out!

A hearty thank you goes to my buddy Sarah for designing this awesome blog header! Sarah and her husband Kevin are on their Journey to Hannah Claire. Their daughter is coming from an orphanage in Taiwan and Sarah is designing blog headers in return for donations to the orphanage! Everyone wins! (And Hannah Claire will be getting some fun items in the mail from us too!)


I think that Sarah is clairvoyant because even though I was not able to really articulate what I wanted, she knew exactly! What talent! Isn't it beautiful?

An Enchanting Day

Thanks for the kind comments about Jia's costume on the prior post.

She got to wear it when we attended a Halloween event at our local nature center. We walked along a trail and did various tasks along the way to acquire treats. Among other things, we shook hands with a lively tree, searched for treasure, mixed a magic potion, fed a unicorn and charmed a lizard. She received some gold coins and when we were given cookies and cocoa at the end, she tried to pay with a coin! She's such a tuned-in and thoughtful little kid.

Each time she was given a treat she put it in her little poodle bag. We had a slow journey because she had to check on her treats every few steps! I don't think she's ever carried around such a bounty of yumminess and it pleased her greatly.

Over fifty animals were available for petting, and Jia was truly a pro at it. Brave and gentle and calm. She found it highly amusing that a baby goat gave her a kiss and that the sheep started to eat her skirt! She was one of the youngest kids there and we were proud of her.