Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Annie the Author!



LAst week we received an invitation from Annie's school to attend an Author's Tea. Annie was chosen to present her "outstanding" piece of writing. Today we all went to see her and about 10 other kids read their stories.

Here is "Dream" by Annie:

"If it snowed today I would go outside to make a snowedman and snowedangel and I like to play with my sister Bethany and my family. My family is Mommy and Bethany and Annie and Daddy. My family likes to play. I love my family."

We had a chance to talk with her teacher (see the picture above) who said that Annie is doing really, really well in class and especially loves writing about her family. She has lots of friends, is always smiling and everyone likes her!"

Bethany had her 5 year check up today and did very well (except for those darned shots). She now weighs 39 pounds and is 39 inches tall. This means she has gained 5 pounds and grown 1 1/2 inches in 8 months.

We celebrated all this good news with dinner at our favorate Chinese restaurant. We are so proud of our girls!!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Cold and Rainy Saturday Photo Op





Saturday afternoon and freezing rain outside has nixed plans for the girls and I to go out. Poor Charlie is at work for another couple of hours and I am hoping it will warm up a little before he comes home. Tomorrow we are supposd to go to dinner to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary - quite a remarkable achievement! Right now the forecast is for snow, so guess we will see if we have to postpone it.

So the girls went digging in their closet, found these cute sundresses we got in China, and then wanted to pose for pictures. So here they are.....

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Birthday Bowl-A-Thon




We went to a birthday bowling party today for Teara. She just turned 6 and the girls adore her. Annie's been bowling before but this was Bethany's first time. I have never seen bowling balls move so slowly. There were 4 other little girls and the original plan was for everyone to bowl two games in 2 hours. More than an hour in, we were on the 5th frame of the first game so the group moved to the snack bar for cake and ice cream. A good time was had by all!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

And here's Bethany taking a nap.....


with her friend Maggie

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping...


Okay, so sleeping is something we've never really gotten down since Annie came home. She slept with us for most of the first year, then when we knew we were going to back China to adopt again, we got her a bunk bed. For a while, I slept in there with her and sometimes she would sleep on the top bunk.

She was just starting to sleep by herself when we left for China. So of course by the time we got back home, all that progress was lost. Most of the time since then I've been sleeping on the bottom bunk with both girls, which pretty much eliminated the possibility of any kind of comfortable/restful sleep.

Last week we bought Jack a toddler-sized bed from Craigslist. The girls loved it and it's just the perfect size for them. So next thing we know the bunkbeds are dismantled and in the attic (thanks to Charlie), a friend gave us another toddler bed and the room is set up for both girls. We will get another toddler bed for Jack closer to the time he comes home.

It's probably not usual to go from twin beds to toddler-sized, but so far.... a partial success. Annie LOVES her bed. She has happily gone to bed in her room for the last 4 nights. She is reading a story by herself before she falls asleep and sleeping through the night. Bethany made it to 4:00 am the first night but hasn't been able to handle it since. For some reason, she has developed a fear that Santa is going to come back through the fireplace and get her, so she is too scared to sleep alone in a bed. But we're working on it and have a reward/sticker system in place (she really wants to get a star on the calendar for spending the night in her bed). She's only been home for 7 months, so if she needs the reassurance of sleeping with us for a while longer, so be it.

Not too much else is new. We should have our homestudy for Jack (combined with our 6 months post placement for Bethany) in a couple of weeks, so we have a lot of housework to get through quickly (as always). We have the majority of our forms. certificates, etc to turn into the adoption agency so things are moving along. Charlie and I were on panel last Sunday for a group for parents waiting to adopt from China. We were there to share our experiences after being home a while. It was interesting - and 3 of the families were with our agency and 3 had SN kids, so it helped us to hear from them also.

Finally, I ran across a link to growth charts for weight for Chinese girls. Our girls are currently somewhere around the 20th percentile on the American charts. Both girls are in the 90th percentile for Chinese girls!! I am going to try to find the one for height also. Annie has grown about 8 inches and gained 14 pounds since being home. Bethany has gained a couple of inches and pounds and her feet are growing like weeds. She was wearing about a sie 7 shoe in China and is now in size 9 and heading quickly towards a 10!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

We got a Christmas present today!


A new picture of Jack! What a nice surprise. Peggy, Kathy, Steve and the other amazing people at Heritage come through again!!! We also found out that he is currently 101 cm tall and his feet are 17 cm long. He is almost exactly between Annie and Bethany in height. I can't wait to see them all together.

That's it for the updates! Isn't our son handsome!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

A New Year


We had a nice quiet New Year's Eve. The girls both conked out early and Charlie and I stayed up a little past midnight to watch the ball drop in Times Square. The next day we went to Salem to see both Charlie's brother's family and my family - everyone except my nephew Ryan, who is in the Navy, showed up for a nice dinner. The girls were in heaven with all these people to play with them.





The most exciting thing that's happened in the last couple of days is that Annie lost one of her top front teeth. It's been loose for almost two months and it was way past time for it to come out. She's not so sure she likes the way it looks and doesn't quite seem to believe a new one is really going to come in. We think she looks cute!




Here's to a wonderful 2008 for everyone! We have so much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to! Next year, Jack will be seeing his first American New Year!