Week 4, Jake's 10th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Jake!

Here's the musical candle from China that we didn't get quite right.  Oops!    Jake was singing to himself the birthday song, as we also sang to him.  SWEET!  Our oldest, Grace, made the cake almost as soon as she got out of bed.  We had a small family party. 

The flower candle did open up after we figured it out! 

Dad, with Jake, and Joy in the background.

This was the football being opened!

He looks like he's deep in thought about what's inside that box!  I decided to get a Lego set (3 in 1) for his age group.  We already have thousands of sets, but not this one....a house with a dude skateboarder!  It was the perfect gift. 

    

Once the party was over, Tom returned to working on the front bathroom.

So, during the 4th week home we were down to only 1 bathroom for 7 people!   It's finished and we are all much happier now!  Thank you, Honey!

This was my God moment this week...God said, "Get The Action Bible and put it with the Chinese/English Bible.  This will help them become more interested in me."

The Action Bible hasn't been in our house very long.  We decided to give it to Shane as a Christmas gift last year to help out his reading skills.  So, after God spoke, I got it immediately, and BINGO...Joy was hooked!  The Action Bible became my missing link...for this week.

And then, there was Valentine's Day!

Tom made red velvet cupcakes from scratch for us for Valentine's Day!  THANK YOU, HONEY!! 

But, what are cupcakes, Dad?

Don't you love that look?  Joy and Jake did their best to explain that they had seen these at school, but they didn't try them there.  They did try them with us, but decided cupcakes were not for them.  But they ate the birthday cake without any problems!  :)

  

President's Day was on Mon of this week, which meant a holiday from school.  The 3 day weekend was hard, but once we got school going again, things seemed to fall into place, for the most part.

The 3 younger ones all get up at the same time.  Jake and Joy have got the routine down of fixing their lunches before eating breakfast.  This has helped Marta see what she needs to be doing without me standing over her and directing every movement!!!  YEAH!  This has been a huge blessing!  THANK YOU LORD!

Tom is now back at work at MUSC.  Yesterday was his first 4 hour shift back. He was very happy to be back with his coworkers and his work life!  Work at home is harder than work at work...
sometimes.


  Thanks again to those of you who are following our blog!  And thank you for your comments!   Blessings to you all.  I look forward to the week 5 update!

Home 3 Weeks!

Dear Family and Friends,

  Week 3 has been tough!  The biggest challenge this week has been the transition of moving Joy from Grace's room to Marta's.  Now Marta and Joy are sharing a room.  Joy wasn't happy with the move for many reasons that I will not go into now, but Tom and I decided that having the younger girls share a room was better. 

  We repainted the room and got new bedding.  The girls picked pink for the color. Then, we went to Target and got new bedding.  Moving out all the junk from Marta's room and redoing the closet to accommodate 2 girls, rather than just one, was stressful.

  The 2nd big challenge of the week was starting school for Jake and Joy.  The week prior to starting, we visited the school during and met their teachers.  Jake is in 3rd grade with Mrs Rodewoldt.  Joy is in 4th grade with Mrs Norris.  They've made it through the week, which included Valentine's Day (they didn't really understand what was happening, but I made sure they had valentines to exchange with their classmates).

  During the whole room change excitement, we also had a visit from Tom's oldest sister, Missy.  She drove from VA to meet the kids.  Joy loved playing with Missy's camera.  The visit went well and we were happy that Missy was able to come for a short time to meet her new niece and nephew.

Thank you to my sister-in-law, Linnea, who traded beds with us!  It was almost a year ago when Linnea moved to Mt Pleasant.  When she was unloading her furniture she said, "You can use these if you think you'll need them."  What a blessing to have these beds for free!

Missy, Tom's sister, is in the green shirt.  Mama Sal, Tom's mother, is in the background and another family member, Megan, came to visit.  Joy loved taking pictures with Aunt Missy's camera!

Here's the whole gang: Shane, Marta, Joy, Aunt Missy, Grace, and Jake

Yes, I've been taking the stars for granted for way to long!  Jake and Joy thought the stars in the night sky were and are absolutely amazing!  They grabbed my camera and started taking pictures like crazy.  We sat on the front porch for at least an hour looking at the stars.  I wish you could have seen their excitement!  

Jake's 1st day of school at Whitesides.  

Mrs. Rodewoldt is his teacher!

Joy's 1st day of school at Whitesides Elem.  Joy's teacher is Mrs. Norris.

Mom and Marta getting the new room ready.
 And yes, I'm looking a bit tired.  We had a house full and this day was crazy to say the least.

This is my dollhouse that my dad made for me when I was a little girl.  Grace, Shane and Marta have all played with it.  It was recently in Marta's room, but because of cleaning out her room and redoing, everything got moved out.  Jake and Joy loved looking at the furniture and cleaning it up.  Jake even decided that the family of this dollhouse needed their family photo taken!

This is the Family of the Dollhouse!  Jake set up each family member in their exact spot.  Isn't this great!?

                                                                             

Tom and Joy are getting dinner ready together.  Both of them like to fix dinner and cutting something up is usually part of the prep work.  Tom is teaching her the fine art of slicing tomatoes.

Today we celebrate Jake's 10th birthday!  We'll have pictures and more updates.

Two Weeks at Home

Hi Everyone,

  I'm so thankful we have 2 weeks under our belts now.  It sure feels like we've been with Jake and Joy much longer than 2 weeks.  Well, we actually have.  We met Jake on Jan 7th and Joy on Jan 14th.  Jake traveled with us for 3 weeks in China and Joy with us for 2 weeks.  Since today is Feb 8th, Jake has been with us for a month. 

 He's picked up English at a pace that I'm pleased with when you consider all the many different aspects of his life that have suddenly changed.  We have introduced Rosetta Stone to both kids already.  It's a learning curve with operating RS, but they are getting it.

 

These next pictures are the first ones that we sent to Heartsent, our adoption agency, for the 1st post adoption report.  I'll try to give some info on each one.

Our backyard....getting to know Dad!

Here we are being silly with the basketball on the head game in our living room!

 

Jake and Joy discovered our ABC magnets and they went right to putting them on the fridge!  And yes, they were singing the ABS song (to the best of their ability in English).

Jake washing dishes!  (He's looking over my shoulder now as I'm posting this with a huge smile on his face).

Jake and Joy visiting with a new friend, Colin Ryland, and speaking Chinese.  They are asking questions about their new family and home.

 

Jake and Joy also discovered the small cabinet of doll clothes.  They were so excited and went straight to dressing up some babies.

     Having two at once has been exhausting, but I know that God intended on us bringing our beautiful children home together.  They relate very well to each other.  Their age and backgrounds have made them so compatible.  Their "Chinese Chatter" has enabled them to transition easier than if there were only one of them here.  

     Our next transition for Jake and Joy will be public school.  They will start on Mon, Feb 11th.  We decided to put them in different classes.  Joy has one year on Jake (she's almost 11 years old) and so she will be in the 4th grade.  Jake will go into 3rd grade.  At this point in time, the biggest reason to have them go to public school is for the ESOL services that they will receive daily.

    They will have Spring Break in April!  And then, summer will come quickly which means more family time.   When Aug. rolls around, we will determine then, whether public school or homeschooling will again be in our future for these two.  We will rely on God's wisdom to direct our path.

Thank you again for all those who are following our journey!  Many blessings,

Xi'an Pictures

Posting by Tom (before Amy came home) and Amy (now editing because it didn't get posted while we were in China):

Some pictures from China.  All of these photos were sent by Amy's cousin, Charles, who accompanied her on this adventure.  They celebrated his birthday on Jan. 19th!

This is the first picture that we received from China: Shane, Grace, and Jake in Xi'an.  The picture is from an iPad so they are looking at the screen and not the camera.

Shane and Jake with Terra Cotta Warriors.  The warriors are from B.C. 209 and buried with the emperor Qin Shi Huang.  There are 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry.

 This is the wall that surrounded the ancient city.  It is 40 feet tall, 50 - 60 feet wide and 8 miles in circumference.

Entrance to the Xi'an wall.  The Chinese woman is Jo, the adoption coordinator for this part of the trip.  She made sure Amy got to appointments on time and all paperwork was complete.  She also took them sight-seeing.  Jo's English was great.  She went to college for English!  It was a blessing to have her!

These next pictures give you perspective of the enormity of the wall.  The pictures are atop the wall.

Our crew in front of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

We were also able to go shopping.  Below is a view of a market area.

You could even get lamb's feet at the market. We didn't try these, however!

Hope you enjoyed these pictures.  More later!