Ahhhhh, Summer.

Coolest chick at the campground. She loved camping and romping around in the great outdoors. 

Millenium Park's Crown Fountain.  Total fun!  We spent the day downtown and started at Millenium Park, walked up to the Hancock Center, back South to Water Tower Place, then Navy Pier and found our van after walking through the parking garage for 30 minutes.  Yep, felt like a Seinfeld episode.



Getting ready for a swim.



We met up with some old friends.  Micah and Jadyn met last Winter in China, and we had a little reunion last week.  So great to see those guys again!



Guess who learned to smile for the camera?



Made some new friends.  We travelled to South Dakota to visit family.  This is Jadyn on Al (the Alpaca).  We all enjoyed our trip, it was a great time hanging out with cousins! (and their furry critters).

Jadyn is loving summer as much as the rest of us.  The bigger kids are having a hard time getting outside--they much prefer electronics and air conditioning.  I was thinking about another "fast" or tech-free day.  Maybe a week.  I think it's time to shake things up a bit.

Where is Spring?

We take joy in each day at our precious family.  However, I am really tired of this weather.  I know, unrelated, but that's what's going on here. 

Jadyn was baptized in March.  It was a beautiful service--followed by a potluck with over 100 of our friends and family.

Isn't she just completely adorable?  I got her outfit in China intending her to wear it for baptism.  It fit her perfectly. 

Speaking of perfect.  Austin and Jadyn's birthdays are a day apart.  We had a lovely party for them both.  With all the celebrations around here since she's been home, I wonder if she thinks life is always a party?  It pretty much is around here.  We are so blessed!

I am so happy at Jadyn's progress.  Her language is coming around quickly.  She knows a handful of colors.  The drooling has greatly lessened, sleeping is fantastic, eating is evening out and she loves the Backyardigans.  There's so much more to her growing (like a weed) and learning, she is climbing, sharing, playing independently, and much much more.  It really astounds me.  Some days I think she is quite delayed,compared to average, and then again she blows me away with her comprehension. 

Tantrums have lessened also.  I don't begrudge her a meltdown here and there, but she has had a few doozies.  There are just some times when we can't understand each other, and she can't verbalize her wants/needs in that instance and it's usually spurred on by overtired or hungry.  I know I already mentioned it, but these have greatly lessened.  What used to be several a day, is now down to only a few per week.  She is much easier to console and distract, but sometimes we just have to hold her (if she'll have it) or sit close and make sure she's ok.  She's always ready for snuggling afterward.

Speaking of snuggling.  She is now hugging. She will give a hug if asked, but she surprised me one night and just wrapped her little arms around me and hugged and hugged.  I about fell over.  This is one giant step forward. 

We are loving every second with little Miss and can't imagine life without her.  She is an amazing joy!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Deb

3 months

It's been nearly 3 months since we met Jadyn and our lives changed forever.  We are so in love with this beautiful little soul!  She astounds us daily.  Of course, when Shannon and Austin were this age, they astounded us as well, but this is so different because we have only known each other for 3 months.  Jadyn is very quick to catch on to what we are trying to communicate--with the exception of the word "no", for some reason that one doesn't stick too well!  Ha--how age appropriate.

We are knee deep in bonding, working on some speech strategies and finding a new normal.  The whole normal thing is a real stretch for our family in any circumstance! 

I won't say that 42 is too old to become a parent, because age truly is relative, but it certianly is a different ball game.  Just  thought I'd share.

We had an evaluation at Shriner's last week.  Jadyn was examined by:  speech therapist, audiology, psych, plastics, orthodontic, ENT and LPN.  They all met to discuss Jadyn and what needs to be done.  The result was ear tubes.  The claim is that her hearing is muffled and is considered a mild to moderate hearing loss.  In my experience, at home, she hears quite well, but it was explained to us that she is probably hearing as if she is under water.  This explains some of the speaking difficulties she is having.  Her cleft palate (repaired) will also affect speech, but we have to start with the ears and see how that helps.  We are hoping that the palate repair she had will be sufficient for her to form certain sounds.  Her early language development was happening when her palate was unrepaired so she learned them wrong, basically.  Now that she is repaired, we need to encourage and teach her how to make these sounds.  Everything is so new to her at this point, we hate to put her through a medical procedure, but this could be vital to her language and speech, so it's really unavoidable.  Plus, she has had several ear infections just since we have known her.

In order to work with Shriner's, Jadyn had to be brought up to date with her immunizations.  Last Friday, we went to get that done.  We are going to believe the shot record we got from China.  This meant 3 shots--ouch!  She was such a trooper.  Only screaming when each shot was administered.  I have to give kudos to the Markham County Clinic for being soooo much better than I thought it would be.  They were clean, professional, prompt and totally free.  (We were caught between insurance coverage and I decided to attempt county services.)

So here's a few of the latest picts of Little Miss Jadyn:

Napping in my chair.

Downtown at the Sherrif's Office for the re-adoption.

Cheering on JieJie, Shannon at her basketball game.

Love the big giant hand?  She loves to eat and was having the time of her life with this egg.

Jadyn gets cuter every day.  Shannon says at least 10 times a day, "She's just soooo cute!"  We agree, but she is growing developmentally by leaps and bounds, too and that just blows us away.  

I don't want you to think that EVERYTHING is roses, though.  We struggle with, attachment issues, tantrums, overstimulation, strong willed child, language barrier---all these things are interrelated and cause much frustration on her part, and ours.  It really does help to see Jadyn as a 3 month-old, at times--her family age--to understand some of what she is doing.  Sometimes describing her as a 3 month-old trapped in a 23 month-old's body.  Of course, that is not an accurate description of her, but it does explain a lot.  I think I posted once on what Jadyn may be feeling.  It had to do with being taken from your family, etc.......look it up if you want, but the jist is, how would you or one of your kids feel, if they were taken from their family?  How would they feel 3 months later?  Everything is still so fresh.  So if you see what we are doing and don't understand some of our parenting strategies, feel free to ask.  We have done much research in this area.

Blogging is more and more difficult...trying to find time.  Honestly, I don't have as much interest either.  There's not the same need for venting (during our wait).  I spend most of my time playing with Jadyn and basic daily stuff.  One of these days will be my final post.  Not sure I'm cut out for the daily/weekly mommy-blog.

Leaps and Bounds!

Things are going so well for us.  Jadyn is an amazing little girl!  It's hard to believe the way she is changing and leaning so quickly.

Some basic things she has learned to do:
Suck on a bottle
Smile when smiled at
Give Kisses and hugs
dance
empty 2 tupperware drawers
climb
Crawl

She sleeps at night about 9ish hours and for an hour during the day.  Of course, there are the occasional catnaps in the car!

Speaking is slow, but she can sign: more, all done, come here, no-no--not exactly ASL but sort of a modified version of such.  Words she tries hard at:  Baba, Lily, more, Maggie, up.  Her receptive language is amazing.  She understands much more.  This is normal for little ones acquiring a new language, and she will have problems, most likely due to her cleft, but she is making some pretty good consonant sounds, like guh and ck.  We are working on puh.

It's really nice to be home and back to business as usual (only new and improved).  The holidays were fun,but.........a little crazed.  I have had a cold forever and Jadyn just got over her second ear infection, so we have missed church and a couple of other outings, but it's so nice to be able to sit back and enjoy Jadyn.  She keeps us all on our toes and she just adores Shannon and Austin.

Wonder!

Our niece, Paige, took this picture and customized it.  So sweet!  Thanks Paige!


Winter Fun!

Hanging with Mama.

Big Girl.

She's actually pulling Shannon's hair here.  Sisterly love!

Soooooo Big!



 

I agree, we are blessed beyond belief.

While You Were Sleeping........

Guess what we did?  Hmmmmmm, had a baby.  I will post more later, but had to share the love.

Meet our new daughter, Jadyn Ying or commonly known to her caretakers as YingYing, sounds like EyngEyng.  She is amazing, God is good!  The thing on the head of the Hubs was a Panda Hat.  More on that and our new beautiful daughter later............stay tuned.

The Sqeaky Wheel

After submitting the new documents to immigration and hearing nothing since Thursday, after calling and calling and emailing repeatedly and finally insisting on speaking to someone higher up--I am THRILLED to report that we got a call from a supervisor telling me that our officer approved our immigration application to bring Jadyn home!! 

In my excitement, I did not remember to ask her what date we were approved, so I would know when to expect the approval in the mail.  I have forgotton worse before.

I was tempted to continue my conversation with her and try to analyze why no one would call me back, and why my officer had to have such a lousy attitude with me, and why she was so friendly--she was genuinely nice, she was not just courteous, but humorous and pleasant and nice.  Anyway, I decided not to "beat a dead horse" and figured she realized he had issues because she was calling me on his behalf.  Done.

This approval will be sent to us and our case will be forwarded to the NVC--National Visa Center.  Once we get confirmation from NVC, we (our agency) will forward Jadyn's visa application packet to the US Consulate in China, who will process her application and then it will get sent to Beijing to be verified that we have done all the aforementioned steps and they will issue travel approval.  Is your head spinning yet?  Keep in mind these are just the last few steps and this whole process has been like this.

While, word of our I800 approval is fantastic news, we have a little ways to go.  I had my heart set on September travel, but it's not looking good at this point.  October is a tough month to travel because of the Holiday and Trade Fair. 

Please pray for smooth paperwork processing for these next few steps!  We know God answers prayers and we are so thankful!

I had a lesson in anxiety a few days back and it went like this:

We can make our plans,
but the Lord determines our steps.

Proverbs 16:9 (New Living Translation)

I'll leave you with that thought for today.

Deb

Awwww, How Cute!

Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a distant land.

Proverbs 25:25

Jadyn 15 months

It's not what we were expecting, but sometimes the Lord has ways of answering prayers, that we just don't understand.  I'm choosing JOY, or at least trying to during the wait for documents and senseless beaurocratic stubbornness. 

I woke up to 7 new pictures of Jadyn in my inbox.  I love waking up to good email!  I cannot even describe how thankful I am to have these new pictures--the only other ones we have are from last December.

Help me figure out what size she is.....I'm guessing 18 months.  Keep in mind she is not a huge Dutch baby and throw what averages you may know out the window and just give me an estimate from the pictures.  Does the camera add 10 lbs for babies too? 

Did I say I love these pictures?  I cannot wait to hold this girl!  I have been given a peace that she is OK while we work through the mountains of.....let's call it--the wait for documents and senseless beaurocratic stubbornness.  One of the things that gives me hope is when I finally get to hold her, I won't remember a single thing about the difficulty getting there. 

Have a good weekend!  I know I will!

IT'S A GIRL!!

our new daughter to be

JADYN

What we know about Jadyn:

She was born in Hubei, China and is there waiting for us.

Her birthday is April 4, 2009.

We can't wait to meet her!

We were matched a few weeks ago and decided to wait to break the news until we received our LOA from China.  We were fully expecting to have to wait 4-6 weeks for this approval, but Praise God, it came early!  We are still letting it sink in, we waited for so long and now it's finally happening....and it's actually happening!  China said YES!

Of course, there is more paperwork to do and it is the process that brings about our travel invitation.  Once we get this approval, we will make plans to travel shortly thereafter.  We are hoping for August, but it could certainly be Septemer.

Her papers say 26lbs, but I am thinking that is with clothes on, soaking wet.  Guess I need to figure out what size diapers to get, 3 or 4?  Any advice for this new/old mom is welcome---well within reason, anyway. 

Thanks for sharing in our Big News!

Be blessed!

Deb & Dwayne