handsful

The picture I’ve been “meaning” to get for months now.  We bought the kids their “big sister, big brother, little sister” shirts in China.  Better late than never. 

Busy days, lately.  What happened to the laid-back summer I promised myself?  Abbey is in her 2nd week of science camp…which I have to wake up at the horrid hour of 6am to get her to the bus stop.  I realize that’s not early for some, but it is for me!  The trips go to a Power Up Club each morning this week, which is our church’s version of vacation bible school.  The kids are loving it all, despite the HOT weather we’re having this week.  We’re thankful for our pool! 

One of Abbey’s many faces…she’s a very sweet and funny 12 year old.  Usually! 

Ring around the rosie…

Marley before…

…and after!  She loves it! 

Randy has great memories of playing in forts as a kid.  His mom would help him and his big brother, Tony make elaborate forts complete with tunnels and rooms.  So, Randy and the big kids had their own fort building time and the kids slept in it last night.  Well, Abbey lasted almost all night, she got hot and went to her own bed. 

Here’s a good shot of it, with Payton cleverly showing us the front door.  There was a back exit too, and even a room that included the TV so they could watch a movie.  Major dad points! 

Lainey missed out on fort-building night, she had already hit the sack :)  Here she is showing the face she makes when we tell her to smile.  We might need to work on that a little. 

She’s still healing very well, no problems.  It’s been 4 weeks now and her next (and, hopefully last) post-op appt. is Thursday morning.  We found out this weekend that she does indeed know who we all are.  We spread out in the family room and Randy asked her “where’s Payton?”, “where’s Marley?”, etc. and she got it all right!  She also has another purposeful word now, other than pointing to her eye and saying it.  She’ll now approximate the word “more” rather than just signing it.  It comes out more like a “mo”, but we’ll take it. 

Now, that’s a better smile!  Wonder what we said to her that time?  As you can tell, it’s crunch time on the bangs or no bangs decision!  We’re pretty sure we’re going with no bangs, so I need to get a LOT of cheap hair clips/elastics since I anticipate losing them as quickly as I put them in. 

Can you say busy??  We’ve had our plates full lately!  I guess it’s been obvious, with the serious lack of blogging.  We’ve had many appointments lately, and renovations to the house and/or repairs (painting is being done from the roof leaks a while back) mean there is always someone here doing something. 

Last weekend, Randy’s dad and Kathy visited us for the weekend.  We had dinner out, dinner in, girls day-out shopping, boys day-in Wii playing, swimming, and presents!  They covered all the kid’s birthdays in one swoop (Abbey’s is in February, and when our kids were in NC while we were in China, they were both terribly sick and couldn’t see her).  There were also presents for R’s dad for Father’s day and for Kathy’s birthday. 

Nana and Lainey snuggle up for some light reading

I think I’m gonna really like this Paw Paw guy…

5 of their 17 grandchildren…Lainey is lucky #17 :)

Here are a few Before/After pics of our new counters and backsplash.  We’re so happy with how they look!

I’ll end with a few random pics from the week…

Payton has a little friend…see him?

Lainey admires Nana’s jewelry on her.  She’s a girly-girl for sure. 

Sisterly love! 

Who needs a mannequin when you have a baby sister?

In case you were wondering, no . . . my wife has not left the country, taken a vow of computer silence, or forgotten how to type.  handsful.com is going through a pretty major renovation (new hosting site, new look, new features / functions), so she has “been on the shelf” for the past few days.  Figured I had better post this before someone alerted the authorities.

The Good News:  We are almost finished with the new site !  Woo Hoo !  Within the next day (or two at the most), handsful will have a fresh new look.

The Bad News:  In the middle of this, our internet router croaked, so D can’t get to, well, anything.  No internet, no email, no chatting.  I gave her the number for a local support group.

Getting her whale and dinosaur gown…

Lainey is currently sleeping on her daddy’s chest in the rocking chair, so I thought I’d write a quick post about her surgery. Yes, we brought Randy’s laptop to the hospital :)

We arrived around 7am, and were sent to a succession of 2 waiting rooms/play areas, the 2nd in which she received some “make Lainey loopy” medicine. The nurse said it was awful tasting, but in true Lainey fashion, she downed it and signed “more”. After meeting with her surgeons, her OR nurse walked us to the big double doors and told us to give her big hugs and kisses, she was taking her from here. So, choking back tears, we said goodbye and she was gone, no fuss and no crying (thank you, loopy medicine).

The tubes took literally 10 minutes and the ENT said it went fine, no problems. It was then about 9:30, so we went to eat breakfast. Returning to the waiting room, we were greeted by a good friend of ours from church, Julie and her adopted daughter from China, Cherish. So, what could have been an excrutiating wait time turned into great conversation that kept our minds (mostly) off what was going on behind the big double doors. Thank you, Julie! At around 11:30, the surgeon came in and told us all went well, no complications other than it being “a little tight”…which, our cleft clinic coordinator (who left a minute ago) told us meant that he didn’t have a lot of excess muscle/tissue and so had to pull to get it to close the cleft. She was in recovery about an hour and arrived in her room just a little after we did.

It was emotional seeing her like that, obviously in pain and probably extremely confused (and angry) about what just happened to her. She’s been in and out of sleeping, crying out fairly often but not as much as we expected. She’s on morphine and motrin and they’ll be weaning her off the morphine tonight. There is a lot of drainage and we’re told to expect that for a few days.

Reaching out for her puppy…

It’s my turn to hold Lainey, so we’ll update again when we can. Thanks for the prayers!!

Donna and I thought it would be fun to take a “walk back through China” with some pictures of signs, etc, that we saw while traveling to get Lainey.

This was in a fortune cookie D opened right before out trip. The numbers were no help at all.

See our plane flying into Beijing? We both got addicted to that “flight info” screen . . . amazing what passes for entertainment after sitting in the same chair for ~ 14 hours.

The official Olympic countdown clock near the Forbidden City.

Who knew you could actually “rest” in a restroom? As indicated below, this was one ritzy place . . . 4 stars.

One of our favorite tours in Beijing was when we visited the couple living in the Nanguanfang Hutong.

I left my speaking cellphone on the bus . . . climbing up the Great Wall left me too out of breath to talk on it, anyway. And I wasn’t sure if the following was a warning or a guy I was supposed to be looking out for.

The path going up the Great Wall went directly past this sign. It seemed a bit dicey to ignore such a straightforward statement in China . . . but I saw other people doing it, and I had climbed too many stairs to quit there.

Things at the tombs were nice and tidy.

My interpretation of this sign in the airport on the way to Hefei? “I will not ride in the crowded elevator, I’ll take the stairs instead.” Personal space is tough to come by in a city of 15 million.

This was the sign outside the room(s) where we officially received Lainey and swore to the Chinese government that we would take care of her, never abandon her, and treat her like she was our own.

We saw this on the back of several buses in Hefei – “Redhouse Hospital for Feminety” . . . this really tickled my wife.

Very important sign in our hotel bathroom (“TAP WATER NOT POTABLE”), and one that we both got very tired of seeing. You can’t imagine how much you miss little things like being able to thoroughly rinse off your toothbrush or open your mouth in the shower.

After my basketball exploits outside of the market, Donna thought this sign inside was quite appropriate for me. The following was also inside the market, and, well . . . no comment. (he does look happy, tho, doesn’t he?)

Haven’t we all known a few of these?

I have NO IDEA what this billboard on the way to Bengbu was advertising. I’m o.k. with that. After a long ride in a rikity van with a little girl who was tired of riding, the following sign was a welcome sight.

At the clinic in Guangzhou, Lainey gets a clean bill of health. Later, at the zoo, we saw a sign for what must have been some pretty impressive goldfish. It’s odd that they put goldfish and pekinese dogs in the zoo, then serve poisonous snakes and scorpions in the markets.

Ah….Lucy’s. Where all the American’s gave our new Chinese children a taste of hamburgers and french fries. This place got more crowded each night, and by the last night in China our entire group wound up there.

And just like that (and by that I mean 3 planes and 36 hours later), we were home with our new daughter. While we were there, Donna and I talked about how long the trip seemed and about how anxious we were to get back. Now, not even a month later, the whole trip seems so much shorter and longer ago. Well, everything except for the actual trip back. We truly loved our time in China, from seeing the sights to enjoying the wonderful people there, and are looking forward to returning with the entire family.

Thanks again for sharing the journey with us and please keep checking out the website . . . Donna is always posting something.

This was a sign in front of the neighborhood that the kids and D’s folks arranged for us. We were also greeted by all sorts of decorations, signs, etc, at the house that the kids and some great friends at our church set up. Even at 1:30 AM it was great to see . . . almost as good as seeing the kids come running out of the house. They were tired (especially the boys), but happy just the same.

Let’s backtrack a bit . . . This was Lainey’s first “step” ever in the U.S, in the airport in New Jersey. Donna was born in Jersey and was there for a year before going south. For Lainey, it just felt that long.

Donna and I in the airport in Jax. Can you tell how both exhausted and relieved we both were?

The picture above is the whole crew at ~ 2:00 AM. What a crowd . . . it’s still hard to believe they are ALL ours.

Ahhhh…..finally. Can you believe that there is apparently not ONE of these in all of China?

The following pictures were taken the next day, with each of the kids taking turns holding Lainey. She was reluctant and a bit withdrawn around them at first, but warmed up much more quickly than we had hoped. It was all Donna and I could do to hold it together.

Donna’s folks got a chance, too, before heading back up North. Lainey was getting a good taste of life in a big family. I know that Lainey can’t wait to meet the rest our “people” up in North Carolina . . . we’re pretty excited about that, too.

Thanks again for EVERYONE who helped us with this trip . . . for watching over our kids here in the U.S., for your comments on our website, for your thoughts & prayers, and for your advice. It all made this trip easier than it could have been.

By the way, this is what a 19 month old looks like at 3:00 AM who is still living on China time. She was perfectly content to run around the kitchen, stack DVD movies, play peekaboo, etc, until ~ 4:30 AM. Did I mention that we are tired?