A Fall/Winter/Spring Photo Recap...Because I Haven't Blogged in a Million Years

This has been the longest winter in the history of winters.  Ever.  It snowed every month from November to April, and that is a lot of snow for this Southern girl!  I kept hoping the thermostat would get above 12 degrees and spring would arrive.  It took it's sweet little time, but it finally did. 

And you would think that all that indoor time would allow me to clean my house or blog or write a novel or something awesome, but all I wanted to do was curl up under three blankets and binge-watch television shows on the computer.  So that's mostly what I did.  Except when I was working on my graduate classes.  Or when the kids were home for snow days.  Which was a lot.  Really. On those days we spent a lot of time at the library.  I think the kids have read through every Peanuts and Garfield comic ever written.  And thank you local public library for having the sense to carry such wonder things in very large books.

So, what have I missed blogging about on the 182 days of snow? Everything.

1. Kate became an expert bike rider last fall, but I didn't manage to get a decent picture of it until November.  Because I am that awesome.

2. Kate's first grade class studied Chinese New Year and performed a ribbon dance for the whole school.  She was amazing, of course.

 3. My kids love each other, even when they are fighting like cats and dogs.  Unfortunately the cats and dogs thing is more common than not.  Thankfully I caught them on a day when they were all getting along.  (I am sure someone got whacked on the head minutes after I put the camera away.)

4. Did I mention it snowed a lot?  This was one of the early days before we actually got bored with snow.

5.  The three bigs were in the church Christmas play.  They sang together as a trio and were 1940's kids who also dressed up like wise men with lampshades and hub caps.  I can't remember why.

 6. We celebrated Christmas, of course!  (I think they have already grown about 2 inches each since I took this picture.)  The favorite gifts this year were video games, puzzles, and books. 

7. In January Will told us that he had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior and wanted to be baptized.  We were thrilled and celebrated with him.  And Tim got to do the honors.  After which, we attempted to get a family photo, which only proved that we are not good at group shots.

8. It snowed some more. The kids built a snowman.

9. I celebrated my 20 year high school reunion.  It was awesome and weird at the same time.  That's what growing old is like.  And now you all know how old I am.  (I would post the group shot, but the photographer didn't push the button down hard enough.  I'm looking at you, Cooper.)

10.  Kate played basketball and had a blast doing it.

There is more, but for some reason the kids think I should fix dinner.  I guess they are hungry or something.  See, this is why I don't blog.  Next thing they will want clean clothes or something crazy like that.  Maybe I will write up the rest before the leaves fall off the trees.  Everyone hold your breath.

Happy Easter!

Christ is risen!

 He is risen indeed!

Jack was totally into the egg hunt this year and all about the candy!  Will and Kate of course wanted to beat each other at collecting the most eggs.  And Ben surprised me by still being really excited about finding eggs.  I don't know how much longer my pre-teen will want to do "kid" stuff, but I am thankful for days like today when we can worship and play as a family. 

Happy Christmas... Or ummm, Halloween?

Even though we have switched holidays several times, I can't continue to let the days pass without posting my kids' awesome Halloween costumes this year. 

Ben had his heart set on being Harry Potter.  He had wanted this costume for a long time.  This was the year he finally talked his dad into buying it.  He was the perfect Harry, messy hair and all.

Will really wanted to be Harry Potter too, but you can't have two Harry Potters in one family, so he decided to be a Death Eater instead.  The only problem was that they only make adult-sized Death Eater costumes.  So Will, being the creative genius that he is, found his Dad's hooded wool coat, made his own Death Eater mask with poster board, pencil (yes, he drew that himself), and glitter, and voila, Death Eater.  He and Harry battled all night.

   
Kate wasn't sure what she wanted to be.  She ended wearing a Pete the Cat costume to school for "Literature Day," but wanted a different costume for Trick-or-Treating.  When digging out the coat for Will, I came across my old black leather jacket and suggested she be one of the girl bikers from her current fave movie, Teen Beach Movie.  She said no, she wanted to be the biker gang leader, Butchy.  She came up with this costume all on her own.  Old black vest, my old sunglasses, black gloves with the fingers cut off: check, check, and check. 

Jack changed his mind 47 times before he put his costume on.  Thankfully I have a large stash of preschool dress-up clothes.  Dragon? Bob the Builder? Buzz Lightyear? Woody? He seriously considered them all before deciding on Puppy Dog. Good choice, son, even if you won't wear the hood.

And then there was Tim.  A ceiling fan.  Geddit? And notice Jack decided to be a dragon this time around, still sans hood.  Throw in a cute kitty cat and a super hero to make it a wonderful Halloween.

And for the record, when did Halloween start lasting a whole week?  Sunday they had a choir party, Wednesday was Trunk-or-Treat at church, Thursday was "Literature Day," and the actual Trick-or-Treating was postponed until Friday because of dangerously high winds.  It seriously makes for some crazy children when Halloween gets celebrated four times over the course of six days. I think it is time to scale it back, Muhrica.

Confessions of a Bad Blogger

Since I have been overwhelmed with life in the past year lately, I may have passed up a few bloggable moments.  But there are a few things I would never forget to tell you from 2012.

1. I would never forget to mention that Will learned to ride his bike this past spring.

2.  And I am sure that I remembered to post photographical evidence that we actually did spend a week at the beach with Tim's family. No?

 3. Likewise, I would never fail to blog if Kate learned to read.

4. If Ben had continued to write funny comic strips to amuse his teacher and me, I would post every single one.

5.  I am sure that if Will had visited the local newspaper office and become inspired to write his own newspaper, complete with cover story, sports section, interviews, comics, and puzzles, of course I would have told you about it!

6. I got a new camera just before Thanksgiving, but if a tall, skinny stranger tried to eat my youngest while I was messing with the settings, I am sure I would have remembered and posted a photo.

7.  I always remember to post the Annual Cousins-on-the-Stairs pic, especially if it is Jack's first one.

8. And if Kate ever won an award at school for never giving up or quitting, I would have taken the time to blog about it.

9. We didn't do anything fun like decorate gingerbread houses. And Jack-Man did not eat his house before it ever got decorated.  (Thanks again, Lilly!)

10. And of course, Jack did not fall on his face shortly before said gingerbread adventure, getting a large contusion on his forehead which is still visible more than two weeks later. 


I am also sure that the astute readers among you noticed that I still failed to mention our Christmas celebrations, but maybe I will get to that before the spring thaw. Or maybe I won't. Who knows what you will get from this bad blogger. 

And Now for Will and Kate's Christmas Song

Will and Kate's choir opened the Christmas program last week.  They sang four songs, and Will and Kate both had solos in the last song.

However, Will ended up stealing the show.

He started out with the wrong words, and, well, he messed up, said, "Oh, Poop," and the whole congregation roared with laughter.  Maybe someday you will see it on tv:)


Thankfully he recovered magnificently, and he and his sister sang their hearts out.  

We are very proud of both of them and how hard they worked to learn their song.  And we can't wait until next year's performance!

Ben's Christmas Play

Ben was thrilled, and maybe a little bit fearful, when he was cast in one of the lead roles of this year's church Christmas play.  He did a fantastic job, and we are super proud of him.  Grandparents, here you go:

Happy Mother's Day

Yes, I know this is a day late.  I had a beautiful post in my head on Saturday night - a tribute to all of the mothers in my life and all that they have done for me.  I have especially been missing my Ma-Ma and my Bunk, and wanted to write about them. 

But that didn't happen.

(And you know that when I write a single sentence fragment as a whole paragraph, that I am getting ready to launch into a rant, right?)

Where did we get the idea that Mother's Day is this glorious time where everyone celebrates mom and caters to her every desire?  Because that has never happened at my house.  Not even a little bit.  Never.  At my house, my husband (whom I love, but for the purpose of this story is not the hero) gets up and leaves for work on Mother's Day before I have even considered getting out of bed.  Because it is Sunday and that is what pastors do on a Sunday.  Except, oh yeah, I did get out of bed several times in the wee hours of the morning to help one kid vomit into the toilet after eating too much junk food at a baseball game last night.  Oh yeah, and to get another crying child out of his bed and into mine before he woke up three other children.  (Although in the husband's defense, he did take the crying child from me so that I could go back to sleep for a little while before I had to get up.  Maybe he is the hero of the story.  Or at least one of them. Huh.)

Then Mom has to get the children who are neither crying nor vomiting ready for church and there on time (or at least within 30 minutes of said time for church).  When the children and husband arrive back home from church, the four smallest of the crew want to sit on Mom's lap at the same time.  Which is lovely in sentiment and theory, but is distressing to a mother who wants to avoid two of said children from cold cocking each other.

At which point Mom goes into the kitchen to get some water.  And realizes that no one has bothered to clean up one single dish from the lunch that she cooked.  On Mother's Day.  And so she clears the table, loads the dishwasher, washes the dishes that don't go into the dishwasher, wipes down counters and table, sweeps the floor, and at some point realizes that she needs an escape hatch.

At which point Mom grabs the Kindle, the car keys, and her wallet and leaves.

After cooling off for an hour or so, Mom decides she misses the little boogers and goes back to get the two bigs for a movie date.  Mom and her big boys really do enjoy themselves, and this is the one point in the story where true appreciation is shown to Mom.  Because she did something she never ever ever does.  She let them watch a PG-13 movie.  And so naturally the bigs are very appreciative and kind.  And Mom can't believe she stooped so low just to get a thank you out of her children.


Upon returning to the nest, the smallest bird has decided that he Does. Not. Like. It. when Mom thinks that she can just up and leave and then she returns and expects everything to be normal.  Oh, no.  No, he decides he is not happy with Mama for that one.  And he spends the next few hours refusing to let her give him a bottle, look her in the eye, or let her put him to bed. 


I wish I could say that Mother's Day is typically a really great day for us, but honestly, this story is typical of my Mother's Days.  Except we don't usually throw attachment issues in there.  That one was a new bonus for Mother's Day. 


And now you know why, when Tim asks me what I want for Mother's Day, I tell him I want to crawl in bed. 

Where was I?

I seem to be in a weird place right now. A place where I can't seem to put more than a handful of words together before I am distracted and can't remember what I was talking about in the first place. I am pretty sure that in the last couple months I have started no fewer than a dozen or so blog posts in my head, but they never seem to make it beyond that initial, "Hey, I need to write this down when I get home." By the time I get home I can't even remember what I planned to make for dinner, much less what cute and witty thing my child said.

Maybe I should start bullet blogging like Megan at Millions of Miles does occasionally. I currently find that method really helpful, because in addition to not being able to complete a coherent sentence, I also seem to be unable to read more than three sentences on any website/blog before I start wondering if TAs have started coming in yet, or how much hotels in China are. And then I hit the search button and forget where I was.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, my head is all a-whirl. Blahblahblah.

I know someday I will look back on this blog and think it weird that this year I didn't post about Christmas or Chinese New Year or any of that stuff, but then I will probably remember that I can't concentrate on anything for more than 30 seconds, and hopefully I will have enough grace to forgive myself.

I wonder if it will get better once we have Jack. Will I suddenly be able to think clearly? I somehow find that unlikely, but I did write coherently when we brought Kate home. (Or maybe I didn't. Maybe no one understood me at all, and you all just came 'round for the cute kid pictures. Well, there's a hit to my ego.)

I hope that I will actually be able to reach inside myself and make sense of all of the thoughts and emotions that are whirling around in there. I hope that I will be able to sort out and put words to my joy, my fears, my heart, my blessings.

But if I don't, you all will still come and look at cute kids pics, right?

An Update from China!

Chinese New Year starts on Monday, and one of the best traditions associated with that holiday is to finish up all your work before the holiday starts. They clean their homes top to bottom, finish any projects that need to be done, and clean their desks of paperwork. Kind of like an annual re-boot. (I have tried to adopt this CNY tradition in my own home with minimal success, but I'm going to keep trying.)

Anyway, our agency requested an update on Jack Yintao the first week of January. I had high hopes for an update this week because of CNY and everyone finishing their to-do lists, but yesterday morning there wasn't one in my inbox, and it was already the weekend in China. Boo.

I headed to Tara's house with the kids to start dinner for our own CNY celebration, and when I got there she said Tim wanted me to call him right away. I called, and he excitedly told me that we had an update. With a smile!

Of course, no smile for the first one. This boy does not warm up quickly to a camera. Plus, if you look closely, he has a big ole bruise on the left side of his forehead (your left, not his).

But then he got moving around, and a little grin peeked out.

And then a big smile for the last one. It's a little blurry, but I'm so glad to see it.

My first thought was that he has grown sooo much in five months! I checked the new measurements they sent, and sure enough, he is up from 18 lbs. in August to 22 lbs. He is almost to the 25th percentile, which is where my other two boys have been since they started walking - Woohoo! He has also gotten taller, going from 28.7 in. to 29.8. I really look forward to feeding this boy up.

We still can't tell much about his left ear, but the outer ear looks like it's in good shape.

All in all, it's a good update. He is growing, he looks happy, and he has a warm coat with a hood for winter. Good stuff.

Now can I get on the plane?

Better

I called USCIS this morning to ask if my file had been approved or not. The nice lady who answered the phone tried to transfer me to my officer, but I told her no, I would rather she check my status. She did, and then congratulated me, saying that our file was provisionally approved yesterday. Relief:)

Later, I turned on my computer and found an email from Ann at Red Thread. I had ordered a Chinese New Year's care package for Yin Tao, and she sent me pictures of the package. You can see candies for the nannies, a letter from us, a thumb drive for them to load any pictures of Yin Tao, a photograph of our family, a Spring Festival card, and a toy phone for him to play with.

We know from last time that Suzhou SWI doesn't actually allow the children to have any of the toys or other items until the day they go to Nanjing to meet us, so there wasn't much point in putting in a lot of toys and clothes. Much of the package is just to send good will to the staff, hoping to remind them who we are and who Kate NaNa is.

She said it should be delivered in the next couple of days. She is also going to try to get an update for us with photos. We have requested updates through three different sources - Ann at Red Thread, an American volunteer at the orphanage, and our agency. Anybody wanna take bets on who gets one first?

Anyway, these two things, along with some other good news, warmed my heart today.

Can I get on the plane yet?

Merry Christmas!

I usually send out Christmas cards to out-of-town friends and family, but it didn't happen this year. Somehow I couldn't seem to wrap my brain around a photo shoot. So consider this your Christmas greeting. At least this way you get outtakes and maybe a laugh or two.

Merry Christmas!


Love, Tim, Amy, Ben, Will, Kate, and Yin Tao