To hear this you have to scroll down and pause the playlist!!! Merry Christmas--a song from Third Day--revisited

I know, quite sappy--try not to cry. Good Luck!



The band Third Day recorded a song entitled "Merry Christmas". The guitarist from the band adopted a daughter from China; the song is about his wait to bring her home.
This video puts a family's pictures to the song.

MERRY CHRISTMAS -- THIRD DAY

There's a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma's arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are
But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine
It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas
As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I'm warmed by the fire's glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow
But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven's angels come to carry you here
It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas
Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child and we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life and prepare a place for us so we could have a home with him above
It's Christmas time again and now you're home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I'll hold you in my arms
And I'll tell you from my heart, and I'll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas

God has blessed us with our little family and yet we are not complete. Pray for the little one that will join our family soon. We don't know who it is yet, and does that make the waiting easier or harder? Not sure.

Happy Thanksgiving

It really was. It was a simple day that started out like a Sunday. We had dinner and then hung out with the in-laws and my mom until about 8, then home. We just enjoyed each other's company, looked at pictures, helped with some attic stuff and played cards and can't forget the NAP!

We have so much to be thankful for. Kids, dogs, spouses, home, Grace, Love, car, work, food, friends, family, Bible, Jesus, ice cream, toys, cash, pond, school, church, Christmas, computers, movies, telephones, books---in no particular order, and just to name a few.

When the kids complain about things and people, we usually try to remind them of something they are grateful for. For example: if they are dying for a new set of Lego's and are fussing about the big fat NO they just got, then we try to recall how many Lego's we actually have and how fun it was to have friends over and play with them, and that it would be even more work to pick them all up if we had more. So it switches the attention from negative to positive. We actually try to use that approach in a lot of our discipline, sometimes it backfires and the kiddos just need a consequence for their actions, we have plenty of those too.

I used to be a Black Friday shopper before I knew what it was. I thought Black Friday was something WWII related--like Pearl Harbor Day or something. Now I get it. I love a bargain as much as anyone, but I think maybe I just can't deal with crowds and the frenzy. We all change I suppose. Marilyn and I used to meet early at like 5ish, then hit Toysrus and Walmart, breakfast and review, then back out there if and where necessary. I just can't do it anymore. Not even for that coveted gift item at 1/3 of the retail price.

We had a conference call with Bethany (agency) last week. It was quite disheartning to learn that we will be waiting a while yet because, unbeknownst to me, they don't just consider where families are in line, but how long they have been logged in. If a family has logged in to the regular China program longer, even though they switch recently to the Special Needs China program, they will probably be considered before us. My feelings are all over the place about that, but Bethany assured us that they are most concerned with whom the child would be best suited and how quickly they could come home. It takes those of us who are not reviewed yet about 1 or 2 months longer to travel. I'm sure they know what they're doing, and I don't have to agree with everything, do I? It's not unreasonable for me to believe they should go by when you joined the program. We made this decision to adopt this way based on a ballpark estimate of a wait in a program that I thought was run quite differently than it is. I still think this is where we are supposed to be, so maybe back of the line is where we are supposed to be too. Depressing, I tell you!

So what's the upside? God has a certain little one in mind for us and in His time, we will be together. Maybe we should think about being open to a boy as well as a girl? What do you think? My approach is let's be open to as much as possible to be open to as much blessing as possible.

Thanks for listening!

Yep, still here.

Yes, we are still waiting, no we are not matched yet. Thanks for checking in. It looks like we will have to renew paperwork in the near future, because things start to expire at about a year or so...like fingerprints, tax returns, etc. Just another thing I get ticked off about. I have been missing the joy lately with this waiting and have said out loud more often than I admit to "but any idiot can conceive and give birth with not a question or second look" it just makes me nauseous that we have to keep proving ourselves to the governments and if one thing is out of place, one of our circumstances fall below the bar...it's over.

So how about a happy thought? Shannon had a slumber party to celebrate her 11th birthday. Baca santa! (as she would say) It was a fun night, the boys were out of town and she had 8 of her closest friends overnight. She is such a delight and my most favorite girl ever, we love her to pieces. It does make me feel old though that Austin is 7.5 and she is about to turn 11.

I have been cold since the beginning of September. I think some retail therapy is in order (clearance racks of course). I am thinking polar fleece and underarmour. If I can get rid of my Winter Blahs before Winter, everyone will be better off.

The flu has not officially hit our house yet, I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop. Austin has been complaining of a sore throat and coughs a little. I really find it hard to keep him home from school without any sign of a fever, but I don't want him to spread the love or pick up anything if he is a little immune weak. I guess things will be clearer in the morning. I hope it stays away from your house too!

Maybe I will start running. I know I probably said that before, but I need to do something exercise wise and that is basically no cost (unless I injure myself). I can do it alone when the kids are in school and it's quite effective. Hmmmm, maybe not......we shall see.

Time for me to find a warm blanket and settle in for the night. Thanks for listening!

Autumn Moon Festival

The Autumn Moon Festival is the second largest holiday in China, after the Lunar New Year. Under the bright, round moon–a symbol of family unity–families come together for a bountiful meal followed by a trek outdoors–lanterns in hand–to gaze at the full moon and eat moon cakes: sweet, round pastries imprinted with the Chinese symbol for longevity or harmony.



The legend of the mystical lady on the moon, Chang-Er, surrounds the festival. She grew up in the luxury of the heavens, where all the gods, goddesses and fairies lived, and as a young girl, served as a lady-in-waiting at the Jade Emperor’s palace. One day she accidentally broke one of the Emperor’s precious porcelain jars: as punishment, Chang-Er was banished to the craziness of Earth, where she was sent to live with a poor farming family. There she fell in love with a handsome young archer from a neighboring village, Hou Yi.

One day, the poor villagers woke up to a dawn of ten suns, which quickly began to blaze the Earth. Hou Yi, by now a master archer, shot down nine of the ten suns, saving humanity. The Queen Mother of the West awarded him the elixir of life, a magical potion that granted immortality.

Chang-Er was too curious to resist: when Hou Yi wasn’t looking, she sneaked a sip of the potent elixir. Suddenly, she found herself floating slowly up to the moon, forced to leave behind forever her earthly life. She has remained there ever since; her only company a lone bunny rabbit.

According to folklore, moon cakes played an important role during the Yuan dynasty (A.D.1280-1368), when China was ruled by the Mongolian emperor. Unhappy with the living situation under the Mongolian colonizers, a Han Chinese rebel leader, Liu Fu Tong, decided that the time had come to execute a rebellion. He ordered the making of special cakes during the annual Autumn Moon Festival: each moon-shaped cake hid a secret message detailing a plan of attack at its center. On the night of the festival, the rebel leader and his supporters successfully attacked and overthrew the Mongolian-ruled government, ushering in the Ming dynasty.

Of course, when dealing with folklore, from another country especially, there are many different versions and translations. Just some fun info! I think I will check out the local Asian Market to see if they have any.

The First Day of School

School started on August 24.  I was sad for the day to come, but the kids are loving school and I am adjusting to the end of Summer.  It's September 14 and I'm just starting to find my ambition to get a few things done around here.  Time to get filing papers and painting walls.  If I had my choice, I would be snuggling on the sofa or sitting in the back yard "supervising" pool time, however, time to move on.  Here's to hoping that next year's end of summer I have a little one to "supervise" outdoors!

Time to change the Orange walls.

I am under the impression that it's time to change the orange walls to brown. Maybe if I completely immerse myself in a project and tear up the house, the phone will ring. I found out another friend of mine is expecting, maybe we will have babies together. (scratch head) I like brown with blue, I am keeping the blue.

The weather has been so beautiful, I feel like we are making up for summer now. Too bad the kids are in school, I have to enjoy it all by myself.

This end of summer is a great time. The tomatoes are OVER abundant, the pumkins are already ripe (and will probably be rotten by Shannon's birthday), green chili peppers-mmmmmmmm, homemade salsa, leaves are starting to fall, I turn 41 soon, and I have decided to spend some spare time couponing.

Two weeks ago I saved about 40% and last week I saved over 50%. I got good stuff, too. Mostly things I always want to buy, but don't because it's too expensive. Super Kmart has weekly free items, if you spend like $15 or $25. I got a 4 pack of die-hard AA's, 6 pack of Zest soap, paper towels, V0-5 shampoo and a few other things I forgot, all for free. Tomorrow is Sunday, I subscribed to the newspaper to help in the couponing endeavor. Also, the Suntimes has a free scratch and win thing going on, so I have the change to win up to $50K(Yeah, right).

I am blogging to the sounds of Elmo in Grouchland. Austin has his buddy Miles over and it's the night-night movie. It's just one of the best things of Austin's 7 year-old life to have a friend living next door. They don't see each other that much, only a few times a week, but they pick up where they left off each time. Usually crafting weapons out of thin air. They got to run errands all day with Dwayne today. Boy stuff. Shannon had a play date at a friends house. I was soooo close to getting the nose stud today, maybe Monday. It's a wait and see. By the way, I have a coupon for $5 off! That kind of nails it for me, no pun intended.

Alright, Elmo is over, the boys are trying to sleep in the same chair--have you seen the size of Austin and Miles lately? Have you see the size of my chair? This will be interesting. Time for lights out, or lights mostly out.

Happy September!

Ice Cream for Lunch

So me and the kids are driving around running errands as usual. Except today I couldn't get my rear out of the house until 11:45, the exact time when everyone is hungry, or in Austin's case.....starving to death. In my budget conscious effort to save a buck, I offer the kids a dollar menu item from MCD. As we are sitting in the drive-thru arguing about what the meaning of ONE ITEM FROM THE DOLLAR MENU is, I announce that my choice is an ice cream cone. That sparked the "can I have ice cream for lunch too?" challenge from the back seat.



Just when I was about to start in on the "no sweets until your protien source is consumed" and "do as I say, not as I do" lecture....I caved, and brought unexpected joy to my two favorite little people. Why don't we do this more often? I know for me, I fall into this trap of following rules, that are set by who? Don't the strawberries in the dollar sundae count as maybe a 1/2 of a serving of fruit? The nutritional value of the ice cream is probably better than that of a McDouble anyway. So I was FUNMOM for a few minutes today, and I also let them stay up until 10:30, but that was because we had friends over and the kids were doing handstands--you just can't send them to bed when they are doing handstands. Not in my house.

Summer is nearly over, I am going to miss it! I will have entirely too much time on my hands to devote to office and housework. Maybe I will re-arrange(clean) the girl's room in anticipation for baby sister. That could take a day. Maybe paint over the orange family room walls or file all of 2008 papers and maybe start on 2009. That would really shake things up around here.

No news to report on the adoption front. Bethany reports they make matches quite often, so I guess it's just wait and see. I don't like waiting. I'm just not a good waiter. Never have been. Too old to change now. Stay tuned.

Watch This--but scroll to the playlist and click on pause, first.

This Is Only A Test

 

I am trying out the Blogger feature where you can email your posts to your blog and they automatically post there.  Did it work?  Could come in handy.

Here's A Thought.........

"Sometimes I'd like to ask God why He allows
poverty,
famine and injustice
when He could do something about it.
But I'm afraid God might ask me the same question."

-Unknown

I ran across this on a "blog walk" one day. Scary. True. Think.

Summer Break

School's out! The Summer schedule begins. We sleep in, wear jammies until.....well all day unless we have to go out. The kids play together. It's all so much easier. Avon Walk training is over. All we need is for the weather to cooperate and we will be outside as much as possible. The pond is a lighter shade of green, the grass--darker. Cucumbers, pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes, asparagus, strawberries and sunflowers are growing right before our eyes. Hot lunches and quick suppers are the norm. Ahhhhhhhh SUMMER!

.

We had a busy start, though. My Avon Walk last Saturday and Sunday went great. We had a few surprises and a few aches and pains, but were all extremely blessed by the whole event. The thing that struck me most, was their presentation of "Every 3 Minutes". This explained that in the US, someone is diagnosed with Breast Cancer, every 3 minutes. It happens randomly as well as inherited. So throughout the weekend, Avon Staff handed out a Pink ribbon every 3 minutes to a walker on the event. That visual impact was hard. It could be me or you, it needs to stop.



Ok, deep breath....moving on. Austin had a hernia repair surgery on Monday. That went well. He is such a trooper. He is not in need of pain meds and I have to keep reminding him to take it easy. Shannon headed out from Sunday-Wednesday with Grandparents to McBain to hang out with cousins. She was thrilled to go and thrilled to be back. I missed her like crazy which is not strange for me, I missed my kids every day between 8 and 3 throughout the school year. Dwayne's the school board president for a year. Apparently he disagreed with me that he was overextended already. He is Superman and makes my head spin with everything he does. He will do very well, but it sort of makes me want to do even less to even things out more.




The kids have already met their summer reading goals. I am so proud. They still want to read and Austin was even happy to do some math worksheets today. It's actually fun when it's not required!

Can you tell that I LOVE SUMMER? I am terrible at schedule keeping, in fact I already forgot about the first summer T.R.I.P. order pickup.

The downside of the Summer Slowdown is that I have more time to realize that we are still waiting to be matched with our daughter. Just venting here......but this shouldn't be so hard. Let's see: There are tons of kids who need a home, there are tons of homes who need a kid. Sounds like basic math to me. Unless you add in 2 governments who require ridiculous reams of redundancy in order to make this happen. Of course, about 1/16th of it is necessary, but seriously do they need to know my underwear size? I know it will be worth it in the end, but it's difficult when you cannot possibly predict the end. All I can do is leave it in God's hands. His timing. That really does help, but so does blowing off a little steam about it all. This goes for all the adoption processes I have experienced up to now, you go in with eyes wide open, standing upright and hopeful, then BAM! you get smacked back with a "not so fast". So it's been a year since we were convicted to add to our family. Only 10 months of actually waiting. It feels like too long.

Here's my joy today. 1--All the Avon walkers got FREE Kenny Chesney tickets for Saturday! WooHoo! and 2--I am off to snuggle with my kids to watch the Tale of Desperaux. Perfect activity for this rainy cold June day.

Wordless Wednesday

I know......what happened to Wordless? Just a note to say that these are random orphange photos I found online. We really don't need to say a lot.

LID

We heard today that we have officially been LOGGED IN. LID=Log in Date. Which means our Dossier has been received and entered into the system. This is a huge step. When we are matched with Baby Sister, the CCAA will find our papers, review them, and accept us! That's the short of it. I'll save the l--o--n--g of it for another time.

This is NOT an April Fools post, but I got my daughter pretty good this morning. I felt her forehead and told her she had a pretty high fever. She was quite worried for a second before I came out with the "APRIL FOOLS!" She proceded to get her brother with--"The blonde dog took a huge POO on the floor in your room!". He did not find that very funny. I did!

So we are taking suggestions for names for baby sister. We would like to stick with a 2-syllable ending in an N name. Middle names too, we have some preliminary ones picked out and we will possibly incorporate her Chinese name somewhere. Click on comments below and enter your suggestions. I will publish them all in one post soon, or send them to my -email address: debk0925 @ sbcglobal.net.

Happy April!

Deb

We are DTC!

We were notified, that as of March 5, we are DTC (dossier to China). In a few weeks we will be notified of our LID (log in date). These are huge things for us. It means we are officially done proving who we are.

I am totally curious about how much of what we have to do for our Dossier--meaning all the clearances, etc--did our new president have to go through? Fingerprinting twice? Local police cleareances as well as state and federal? Numerous county documents that were certified and verified and state sealed? Analyzing of our family, both past and present? How about tetanus, tb, hiv, drug screen? Subject to BMI discrimination? Three written references, tax returns, pastoral reference, employment reference and verification? Just to name a few.

Anyway, it's done. Of course, we will have to renew our fingerprints and immigration status and probably a few other things. Our LID will be the date that we are officially "Logged In" with the CCAA. Now we can go ahead and officially start waiting. I know--what have we been doing since June? waiting? yes, we have, but we trust in God's timing.

We are praying for our baby girl, as the kids say "whether she's born or not", that she is being taken care of and being fed properly, and as a bonus: interacted with and held. We are looking for a match SOON, but we know there may be a wait ahead of us.

Meanwhile, Deb is distracted with fundraising and training for the Avon 2-day walk. Have you had a chance to sponsor me yet? www.avonwalk.org/goto/debkuiper will take you right there. Dwayne is getting busy finishing up repairing a house and beginning to get ready for the season.

Deb & Dwayne

Perusing and Presenting Piles of Personal Papers

I brought all of the documents, I have been protecting with my life, to our local Bethany office on Friday. All those papers represent our new daughter. Those papers have been obsessed over, panicked about, copied numberous times, prayed over, longed for and proofread again and again. It was hard to give them up, it made me pause. But alas, we will see them again. They will soon be state sealed, and then off to be authenticated. I hope when it's time to get them authenticated, the Consulate does not laugh and refuse them because they are from IL. Just kidding--a little sarcasm about IL corrupt politics.

Austin wrote a little journal in first grade on the "I have a dream" MLK theme. He was asked what his dreams were for himself and his family and they were both about bringing home baby sister. What a sweet kid! He has a great heart. (By the way, he just had another great Ped. Cardiologist checkup, woohoo.)

Happy Sunday!!

Deb

We Got Mail

Today, we got our USCIS Approval in the mail. FINALLY! We submitted it back in October. Referring to the earlier post about what things mean...this approval states that the US has pre-approved us to adopt from China. Don't worry-we still need to be matched with a child and be approved about 78 more times, but this is just one more step in the right direction. We are totally thrilled!

Tonight, Dwayne is taking Shannon out and I am taking Austin out. Sort of parent/child date night and "you got an excellent report card" reward. They will probably see a movie and believe it or not, my son wants to go shopping--he does need new shoes and I like to peruse the clearance racks for cute and fun baby stuff. And, you know, if I have to look at shoes too, so be it. I will suffer through it!

Gotta go get ready for my date!

Deb

The Year of the Ox

2009 is the Year of the Ox, which is also known by its formal name of Ji Chou. January 26, 2009 is the first day of the Chinese new year, which marks the beginning of the Spring Festival.

The origins of the Chinese New Year celebrations were born out of fear and myth. Legend spoke of the wild beast Nien (which also is the word for "year") who appeared at the end of each year, attacking and killing villagers. To scare the beast away, loud noises and bright lights were used and thus the Chinese New Year celebrations were born.

Chinese New Year is a 15-day celebration and each day, many families rotate celebrations between homes of their relatives. The Chinese New Year's Eve meal is the most important dinner of the year. Typically, families gather at a designated relative's house for dinner, but these days, many families often celebrate New Year's Eve dinner at a restaurant. Many restaurants require reservations months in advance. The festivies are day-long and sometimes, a family ends up cooking two meals for their relatives, once at lunch and once at dinner. These dishes used to be all made from scratch, but now people can easily buy them prepackaged at the supermarkets.

Today, the 15-day New Year festivities, or Spring Festival, are celebrated with a week of vacation in metropolitan areas of China. Much like the Western New Year (January 1st), the biggest celebration is on the eve of the holiday. At the turn of the new year, fireworks cover the city.

I found most of this info at www.thehistorychannel.com/content.chinesenewyear there are some videos there which are pretty interesting. Find below a few more fun facts I gleaned from the web.

SYMBOLS

Red envelopes
Called "hong bao" in Mandarin, the red envelopes filled with money are typically only given to children or unmarried adults with no job. If you're single and working and making money, you still have to give the younger ones the hong bao money. The color red denotes good luck/fortune and happiness/abundance in the Chinese Culture and is often worn or used for decoration in other celebrations.

Dragon
The Dragon is present in many Chinese cultural celebrations as the Chinese people often think of themselves as descendants of the mythical creature. On the fifth day of the New Year when many people have to start going back to work, they will also have the Dancing Dragons perform in the front of the office building. On the 15th day of the New Year (Yuan Xiao Jie) or the Festival of Lanterns, they will also have a lot of dancing dragon performances. The dragon represents prosperity, good luck and good fortune.

I am not sure if and how we will celebrate Chinese New Year's Eve or the rest of Spring Festival this year, but this will be a part of us in the same way we buy 'banket' at the Elim Dutch Festival and have roast beef and potatoes and gravy for Sunday dinners. Dumplings anyone? By the way, we all love Chinese food, anywhere from Panda Express to our local open kitchen Chop Suey House, so devoting a whole day to cooking and eating it does not present a problem to this family. However, the traditional cleaning the house (sweeping out the bad) from top to bottom has me thinking that we could Kuiperize our celebrations. Also, you can't sweep (clean) too soon after either because you don't want to sweep out the Good Luck. That part I do not have a problem with!

Deb