Donuts and Cafe

There is this little donut shoppe near our house. The kids are always wanting to go there, so I promised them that on the first day of winter break - we would sleep in, and then head over to Donuts and Cafe. It was gooooooood. Matthew orderes a dozen glazed rainbow sprinkled donut holes, Aaron ordered one maple glazed donut, and Nathan ordered an egg and cheese croissant sandwich (but I have captured photographic evidence that he was helping with the donut holes as well!).

Yumminess

Good food - good company :-). We were invited for a homemade pizza dinner at the Ho family's home. Sooo good.
There were 4 kinds of pizza - Hawaiian, garlic chicken alfredo, veggie, and Brazilian (hard boiled eggs, pepperoni and onions!). Venkat brough samosas. Mmmmmmm.


Oh yes, and homemade cookies made by the beauteous Lydia. She is decorating Finnish spice cookies here. . .


And here are some black and white hearts. . .


Oh - and here is a different kind of yumminess :-).


And finally - some good male bonding! Dave brought the laptops, hub, and AOE so that the boys (of all ages) could try regicide.

Holiday Program

Hopefully I can upload a short video here of the boys' Christmas program at PILA. This song is called "Xiao Jin Yu" which means "Little Goldfish." You can see Nathan workin' it :-). Unfortunately, things shrink when I upload onto blogger, so it really is not a clear video at all :-(. Nathan is almost right in the middle int he back row, and Matthew is over on the right side wearing a brown striped poncho.

Wordless Wednesday

DTC

As of yesterday, our dossier was sent to China!!!
There is just an alphabet soup of acronyms for adoption terminology. One of the most anticipated acronyms is DTC - documents to China. And now we are DTC :-).

According to Xiaoqing - to get an LID (log-in date), we need to wait about 10-14 days after DTC. After we have an LID, we will be eligible to receive a referral for a child off the shared list that comes out once a month from China.

Very very exciting!

Thankfully, the Lord resolved our cashier's check complication through a lot of hard work from Xiaoqing. She is terrific!

Love and Edmund's Downfall

I have been under the weather for nearly a week now. It started out as an almost total loss of my voice. For those of you who know me, you know how difficult this could be for me because it is so hard for me to not talk. It progressed to a sinus headache and cough. I even rested on Monday night instead of going to CAMA.

Yesterday, I got a call from Maria, a sister at church, who had made our family a homemade pumpkin pie and some chicken for dinner. I was so touched by her labor of love and thoughtfulness! It certainly made this sick mama's day.



And wow - the Lord loves us so much - look what else He prepared for us. . .

Sam and Dan came back from their European tour, and Sam brought back lots of goodies for the boys. Fruity pastilles, Harrod's strawberry jam, and Turkish Delight! The boys are delighted and enjoying the sweets so much - a little too much.

As you know, Dave cannot and should not have sugar, but HE was the one who opened the Turkish Delight and took a piece under my disapproving eyes.
"Just one, just one!" he said as he downed that thing.
"Edmund's downfall," I warned him.
Dave put the lid back on and put the box down.
"I am walking away. I am not going to let the same thing happen to me," he said.
For those who don't know what I am going on about, you MUST read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

When the Cat's Away. . .

This is what goes on when I am not around. . .






Here is what they are doing. . .


Yes, my 3 year old is already being schooled on trebuchets and Cho-Ku-Nus :-(. He calls this "The Moo Moo Game" due to the fact there is periodic mooing as you farm and build up your stash of supplies. My 6 year old goes on campaigns with his dad to go destroy other civilizations. My 9 year old can tell you about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Aztecs and the Chinese. When I asked Matthew whether there was a lot of violence, he replied, "Well. . . there is blood when the people are killed, but Daddy says just to ignore that part." :-o

Well, it isn't all bad. . . Here's what's going on UNDER the table.


This is how Dave survives his bike workouts. . . playing Age Of Empires. In our garage. He set up the 3 computers now so that all my men can play together. They have TONS of fun together. They get to have quality Daddy time. They don't miss me at all.

One Word Wednesday {Fire}

Complications...ugh!

Well, I received an e-mail a couple of days ago from Xiaoqing. When I got one of the cashier's checks that goes to China, I made it out to CCAA like she told me to. Then I had them put in the memo line, "Service fee." I shouldn't have done that. Xiaoqing worries that it is a little too close on the check to the pay to portion :-(. So, she is sending the check back to me, then I have to get it reprinted without the memo line.

This is very typical for adoption paperwork. You really have to dot all of your i's and cross all of your t's lest it gets sent back from you and you have to start over again. In the big picture, this isn't a big deal, but it is a little discouraging simply because we were hoping to have our dossier sent to China this Friday. Today is Tuesday, and no returned check yet, so you can do the math to realize that I probably won't be able to get the new check to her before Friday. Since dossiers only go out on Fridays, that will be a delay of one week.

Breathe. All in the Lord's time :-).

The Amazing Nathan

He flips! He falls (this is called a sacrificial fall in hkd)! He's amazing!!!
I love him!!!


Those dimples! That smile! That hamminess!
Looooooooooove that boy.

No Dilly Dallying

Yesterday, I met Dave at his office to have our copy of our I-797H notarized.
Today, I went got everything organized to send to Xiaoqing. Aarbear and I first hit the bank to get our cashier's checks, and then hit Kinko's to make two duplicate copies (and an extra one for our records) of our dossier. Then I FedEx-ed it to Xiaoqing. She will be our courier to authenticate and certificate our documents. I am hoping that we will have our documents to China by Christmas, and a log in date by the new year. Above are pics of my stacks of copies, and also our dossier with our family photos on top. Phew. I wanted to take better pictures, but I had to wrestle my phone away from Aaron just to do those (he was playing Angry Birds while I was doing the rather long and tedious job of making copies and stapling).

I am also dreaming of holding a new bundle by this time next year. That there will be six chairs around our kitchen table, and another stocking hung up for someone special. I have been praying for our coming daughter. . . that she is loved, safe, and that even now wherever she is, however old she is, she can experience the love of her Heavenly Father. We would appreciate prayers as we enter into the "waiting" phase of this adoption.

I-800a approval BABY

It came! It came! Today - in the mail, our I-800a approval came! It has been almost exactly 2 months since I mailed off the application for that thing. I am so excited! Tomorrow, a flurry of activity as I contact Xiaoqing and get her to courier these docs to Sacramento and to San Fransisco! Hooray! Hooray!

More Videos

More home videos!
This one is of this week's kids class at CAMA. You have to look one row back to see the boys. I was already feeling too much like a crazy proud camera mother to go any closer. Anyway, you can see that both of the boys are doing GREAT with their front kicks and kiops (martial yells). Fun stuff!



This next one is of Matthew at Premier International Language Academy reading his Huo Ji (Turkey) story. Matthew and Nathan go to PILA every morning for a couple hours for the Mandarin portion, and then I homeschool them in the afternoons in the rest of the subjects. It has been a nice balance for us, and a great opportunity for the boys. I am in awe of how much they have learned thus far. Ok, ok - sounding again like a crazy proud mama. I will be quiet and let you watch the vid.

Peace. Love. DADDY.

This video has terrible sound quality. We were at Rubio's, and there is a lot of background noise. Actually, most of the background noise is Matthew and Nathan having a loud conversation right next to me. Sigh. Anyway, if you can't hear what Dave is saying, he is telling Aaron a Spiderman story. This is something that Aaron clamors for all the time - Spiderman stories. Dave will make them up - ones about Spiderman going fishing, ones about Spiderman moving house, ones about Spiderman playing football. Usually the plot line includes meeting up with another superhero, and then Spiderman messing everything up because of his webs. Aaron LOVES these stories! The story on this clip is a bit different, and it is a shame that you can't hear it. Maybe you can lip read. This one is just about how Daddy loves Aarbear - and Spiderman is the one who walks up to Aarbear in the story and tells him that Daddy loves him. And at the end of the story, Aarbear's daddy walks up to him and hugs him. Simple as that. You can tell how much Aaron enjoys this story by the number of times he sticks out his tongue, and by the fact that at the end he cries, "Again!!!"

Wordless Wednesday

Cuteness

Two nights ago, Aaron wanted to have a bedtime snack. He wanted baby carrots. I brought out our bag of organic baby carrots. He was munching away. All of a sudden, he pulls this out. . .

and he says, "Is this one not ready yet?"

Yes, a strange yellow/white carrot. Here's a close up and comparison with the another carrot from the bag:


Weird, huh?

We didn't end up eating that one.

Fingerprinted!

Picture above has nothing to do with this post.

Dave and I (with Aar Bear in tow) went to get livescanned today for our I-800 application. It's done now, and now we just have to wait to be adjudicated. It could take a week to over a month from now. In the meantime, I have sent what we have of our dossier to Xiaoqing at BAAS so that she can see if everything is ok. I am hoping this will save time, and will prevent us from being surprised with something to do-over at the end.

In other news, I had SO. MUCH. FUN. last night! A sew-athon? No.

A bake-off? No.

Iron Chef Party? No.

Mom's night out? Kind of.

I went to my very first martial arts adult class at CAMA. I honestly have not had so much fun in that way in soooo long. It's the same place that Matt and Nene practice what I now know to be mostly hapkido. We've been calling it taekwondo - whoops. Anyway, something about kicking, punching, and yelling was just so stress relieving and FUN.

Wordless Wednesday

Treats

Oh, it has been too quiet around here. I have been busy. And tired. And I am too tired now to write much either so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Almost nothing to report adoption wise. We are waiting for 1 PIECE OF PAPER in order to send our dossier off to China. Dave and I have fingerprinting appointments (yes, another set need to be taken) this Friday, then hopefully our I-797 will be here sooooonnnn.

It works! It works!

I know how to underline, now :-).

One of Aaron's favorite books is Goodnight, Gorilla.

Matthew is currently reading Superfudge. He just finished reading Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing last week.

Nathan is having fun reading through The Magic Schoolbus series.

Woot!

Geology ROCKS! More Homeschooling Fun. . .

We have been doing activities out of Geology Rocks! 50 Hands-On Activities to Explore the Earth by Cindy Blobaum. That title should be underlined and I don't know how to underline when posting in blogland. It's the English major in me that feels so BOTHERED to not be able to underline titles on my posts. It makes me feel like I am doing something wrong. If anyone out there knows how to do that - please enlighten me!

Anyway, we LOVE this book. It has really simple experiments that you can do with sutdd that you have lying around the house for the most part.

What do you think about Pangea? Here is Matthew trying to piece together the continents into one land mass.


And here's an activity using graham crackers and peanut butter to illustrate plate techtonics. The graham crackers are the plates, and you can shift them to make earthquakes, ridges, the beginnings of volacnoes, and mountains.

Some cuteness before we begin. . .


Matthew made a rift (a big crack in the ocean floor here):


And here are mountain ranges formed by two plates slowly being crumpled together (we wet the side of one graham cracker first):


Excuse the absence if shirts! We have had a bit of a heatwave over here the past few days. The big boys sleep in loft beds, so they have been going to bed only in their undies the past few days!

I800-A

I sent this off on Tuesday, September 28th. Our I800 application to USCIS. This is the last big hoop before we can get our dossier to China. Of course, we have to wait until they approve this and give us a fingerprinting appointment. In the meantime, I am so thankful to have 3 chicks to cuddle at home while I am waiting for Sweet Pea.

Homestudy Finalized!

Just wanted to drop in and say that yes - it is finalized!
I got an e-mail this morning from Darian at BAAS. I went to pick up our homestudy in the afternoon and am now working on our I800A application.

I800A is Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country (I didn't know what it was until today).

Happy Birthday, Nene!

My middle baby turned 6 on the 5th of September! This is a very belated blog post - but we have been quite busy! But I must make a post just for his birthday!

In the spirit of fall, here is a pumpkin patch picture from 2004. There's 3.5 year old Mattie, and I am holding another little punkin - and that is baby Ne. He was about a month old here.


Same day, but now being held by Mattie.


Isn't he cute? He is labout 2 months old here, and decorated already with a Trader Joe's sticker (from brother).


Alas - I seem to be missing a great number of digital photos! If I find more, I will try to post more. But here's a picture taken just last week. When we went to visit Los Angeles, Auntie Beryl made an imprompty belated birthday celebration for Nathan complete with a rice krispy cake!


And just for fun - a little video I found - again from the pumpkin patch - but 3 years later. Different pumpkin patch, too. Those of you who know Nathan know that he loves loves loves babies - and he also loves loves loves feet! You can see his two loves evidenced in this little video. Look how he loves on little AarBear (about 4 months old here). You get to see 6 year old Matthew, too. Ah - time flies!

California History

We did a fun project for California history. Matthew is in 4th grade now, and so for social studies we are studying our state. The first thing was studying the geography of California - where it is located, and the different terrains and geographical forms, where the capitol is, and so forth. We made a relief map out of. . . cake, and chocolate chips, and blue and green frosting! It is complete with a compass rose and a key as well. We ate it - yes, almost the whole entire thing - the next day.

This will be an interesting year. I actually did this very same project with my 4th grade class I taught my first year of teaching way back when. It was MUCH more manageable with only 2 students :-). When I did it at school, I had it as a center, and groups of 6 students or so would rotate through. Aarbear was snoozing, so we got to do this without him trying to eat all of the chocolate chips or squirting frosting everywhere :-). I never did learn my CA history properly, though. Even when I had to teach it, I only did it that one year (and it was pretty here and there). The three other years that I taught 4th grade, I team-taught with my neighboring teacher so that he did all of the social studies and I did all of the science and health. It will be extremely educational for me to be teaching CA history again. Maybe I'll learn it for real this time :-).

The boys' new pad

The Lord is so nice to us.
A few weeks/months ago, we started thinking about getting bunkbeds for Matthew and Nathan (and Aaron). We thought about many combos - a bunkbed and then a twin bed, a loft bed with a mattress underneath and then a twin for Aaron, etc. We scoured Ikea catalogs and craigslist and ebay. Researching, comparison shopping, etc. Well, the coolest thing happened.
One day, a brother from our church asked Dave, "I have two loftbeds that my kids aren't using anymore. Do you want them for Matthew and Nene?"

We were so amazed and thankful to the Lord. We didn't even pray about this need, or tell anyone about it - were just quietly looking into it. And the Lord arranged for this gift to be given to us :-). Not only were they gifts, but extremely well made, and the best part - hand-me-downs from these kids who are now grown-up college grads - and two of the coolest people we know (Sam and Lydia, for those of you who have the privilege of knowing them). So - Matthew and Nathan are so happy with their new beds, and also delighted that they used to belong to Uncle Sam and Auntie Lydia. Whenever I see those lofts, I remember the Lord's provision for us, and how He is mindful of all of our needs - no matter how trivial they may be.

In the bottom picture, the lump on the full bed beneath Nene's loft is sleeping Aaron.

Unrelated -but also cool - the book that Nathan is holding, The Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary, is so cool! It was an early gift from Auntie Jeanette (a dear dear friend of mine) and we are just loving looking at all of the minifigures and sets, and reading about the history of bricks and the storylines from everything Star Wars. If you have little boys who are into Star Wars and/or Lego, I highly recommend it. It's awesome.