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.