Settling into a Routine?

Even waiting for a table can be fun with a sister.

She still loves the slide!

Girls at the Monastary

Can it get any cheesier?

Hannah is growing up so fast!

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.
Willa Carter

Well what a wild ride we have had over the last few weeks! The girls are behaving as all normal siblings do. They argue over who has the bigger half or who goes first. It seems as though Elainea has been with our family for years, and not just months. She is starting to potty train herself. The only consolation Pam had when we found out that she was already two was that she was still in diapers. In her mind that made it acceptable because she would have a baby for a little while longer. Elainea will say bathroom after she has already soiled her diaper and then take off her diaper and run into the bathroom and climb onto the toilet! Pam will just have to relent and let her grow up.
We are still trying to put together the paperwork for the lawsuit. The latest development is that we are no longer going to small claims court because the whole house needs to be redone! Well over the $7500 small claims limit. The good news is that the builder advised us that they will file a claim with their insurance company. We have contacted a lawyer and he advised us that we are getting close to a time limit where the builder would no longer be liable. We are so fortunate that we discovered the problem when we did. In the meantime, we are living in a fishbowl as every window has scaffolding outside it and people are all over working on the house. It scares Elainea a little when the workers are by the windows.
This week was full of fun activities. We went on trips to the park, monastery and a family get together.
A picture is worth a thousand words so here is some more from the girls.

A New Creation

Proud parents with Elainea and Deacon Jack Clark.

Proxy Godparents, Deacon Jack Clark, Mama, Baba and Elainea.

I love the expression of love and happiness on Hannah's face!

Two peas in a pod.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

"Our love to God is measured by our everyday fellowship with others and the love it displays."
Andrew Murray

The purpose of Christianity is not to avoid difficulty, but to produce a character adequate to meet it when it comes. It does not make life easy; rather it tries to make us great enough for life.
James L. Christensen

We were so blessed to experience the sacrament of baptism with Elainea this weekend. The day was wonderful and we were able to celebrate with family and friends. She wore a beautiful white dress that was able to stay white despite her activity level. We are finding out that she really has difficulty sitting through mass, let alone mass and then a baptism ceremony. Joe had to take her outside to get the wiggles out several times. When the ceremony began she ran out of Pam’s arms and behind the altar. When she peeked out from behind the altar and saw people looking at her she would smile and run in the other direction. She finally settled down long enough to complete the baptism. Our gratitude goes out to Uncle Lowell and Aunt Mary Jane for standing in as god parents for Uncle Gary and Aunt Elizabeth and to Deacon Jack Clark for performing the sacrament with such warm affection.Afterwards we were fortunate enough to have family and friends join us in a small reception. She loved being the center of attention. She has a magical way of melting people’s hearts.Our wish is that some day she will understand and appreciate the wonderful gift of being part of a Christian community. This community is another extended family that she will find in all corners of the world. Keeping this in mind she will will never be alone no matter where she goes. We will do our best to show her God’s love for her through our special vocation of family. Our promise to her is that we will help her understand that she is a special creation and a unique expression of God’s word and that the world would not be the same without her.We hope these photos will let you experience the sacrament, or help you remember how special it was.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

What, is the necklace too much?

Having Fun in the Wagon

Sisters stick together!

A tisket, a tasket, a cute girl with her Easter basket!

Hannah scored an egg.

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

It is time to document some reality about parenting in general. It is a romantic vocation, by that we mean that when you sit down to discuss it with other people, you tend to romanticize it and you forget about the stuff that makes it real. Well here is our reality check.
Elainea is still having night terrors, which means Pam has gone about three months with inconsistent sleep. We were hoping that maybe once the language barrier had been breached then they would subside. We guess only time will tell. She has been through so many things that she does not understand.At first we would tell everyone how well she listened and obeyed. Well that stage has officially passed. Case in point, she used to pull out her changing pad, diaper and wipes when she needed her diaper changed. Well she no longer sees the need to change her diaper because she is too busy. One must first detect the potty infraction and wrestle her down to the diaper pad. Then it is like a pit stop in stock car racing because she does not have time for more than a 40 second pit stop. What happens when you have crossed the timeline? Well she gets up and off she runs laughing at our incompetence.We took her to the dentist and she is missing two teeth on the bottom. In addition the dentist is strongly suggesting we do a root canal and cap the front tooth that is grey. A cap on a baby tooth, does that sound absurd to anyone else? Moreover he wants to put her out to do that, take x-rays (to see if she will have permanent teeth where she is missing her two baby teeth), perform a cleaning, and seal her back molars. Once again Joe and Pam come from two different perspectives. Joe thinks the doctor is just out for our money, whereas Pam is more apt to trust the dentist’s opinion. Some people advise us to get a second opinion from another dentist. This is going to sound like a lame excuse, but we just do not have the energy or ambition to do it. It is like the saying from Larry the Cable Guy keeps going off in the back of our heads “Get her done!”Leaving the dentist was another adventure. While trying to work out the insurance and billing, Elainea decided that it was time she go see what the dentist is doing to all of the other kids. Pam asked her to come back to Mommy. She turned and smiled at her and started running! Pam chased her through three exams rooms. Then the minute we get out the front door Miss Elainea thinks that it is time to run around in the parking lot. Being the self-sufficient two-year-old that she is, she does not need to hold any person’s hand because she can run out in front of a car as well as they can! That puts a few grey hairs on your head! Meanwhile we are trying to put together a case to present in small claims court. The stucco was installed incorrectly on our house and it is going to cost a small fortune to get it fixed. Unfortunately we can not find all of the documentation that we need. We know we have it because we have enough “documentation” of various kinds to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. So we continue to wade through the waves of paper until we find what we need.On a positive note we did get her social security number last month and her citizenship papers a couple of weeks ago. We have also retained an attorney that is preparing our petition of readoption. This process will put her into the vital statistics system and she will receive a birth certificate from the State of Utah. We can file the petition now, but we can not go to family court until she has been in our home for six months. This means that we should be through the adoption paperwork in August!Elainea has a blanket phobia. She refuses to sleep with covers. This means that she is even more prone to rolling off the bed. We had to fortify the bed so she will not roll off. She still reluctantly takes a nap. She has come to the conclusion that the most exciting things in life happen while she is asleep. When we lay her down because she is so tired that she is bumping into walls, she lays there moving her legs up and down so she doesn’t drift off. I feel so cruel in making her lay there, sometimes it takes her about three hours to get in a forty-five minute nap. So much for the idea of post-institutionalized kids craving structure and routine, or at least when nap is part of it!Pam has returned to work and so Elainea has started to go to daycare three days a week. It is obvious that Pam is having a harder time of it than Elainea. Elainea loves the idea of having tables and chairs in her size that she can push around all day. Her teachers love her as well as all of the kids in Hannah’s class.We suspect that Elainea is lactose intolerant. She has had diarrhea since the first day she became part of our family. Little did we know that over 90% of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant. We are going to put her on rice milk to see if that helps.With all that has been said, please do not think that we are complaining. We are not. We have been given so much and are so grateful. We are so grateful for our wonderful family and friends! We have seen a medical miracle with the ongoing recovery of Pam’s aunt. She considers her to be her second mother. We look forward to they day she can meet Elainea.

Easter 2007

Hunting for Eggs.

More Eggs than you can shake a stick at! But look out for snakes!

Elainea and her cousin Andriana

Did anyone see the size of that snake?

Elainea and Megan

Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.

Jackie Windspear

This was a magical Easter in so many ways. Our family has returned from China complete, we are looking forward to Elainea's baptism next week, Pam’s aunt will make a recovery from her recent critical illness, and we celebrate Fr. Pat's 80th birthday. I do not know how much I tell people about Fr. Pat, so I will explain a little to you. Fr. Pat is a monk up at the Monastery in Huntsville, Utah. If you are interested they have a website www.holytrinityabbey.org. He is even pictured on the page about the gift shop. He is our spiritual advisor and helps to keep us on the path of straight and narrow. We see him once a month for confession and was one of the inspirations for my conversion to the Catholic faith. I was spiritual dead before I met Joe, his family and this great man. Since I have re-established a relationship with God my life has meaning again. It helps to know that even our trial we had in China has a purpose behind it. We may not always understand it, but God has complete control and his grace is immense.I remember my first confession with Fr. Pat. It was absolutely incredible! I told him my deepest, darkest secrets and he just listened so intently. I could actually feel him listening to me! I thought after all I had told him he would condemn me, or at the very least be disappointed with me. Instead he knelt down and kissed my feet! What a humble and kind spirit. He made no judgement and instead showed me God's grace. We are so blessed to have Fr. Pat in our lives. He is a major source of support during our adoption journey. He was born on Easter and celebrates his first birthday that falls on Easter since his birth this year. We love him and wish him well on his special day.This Easter was spiritual and fun. It is hard to contemplate the suffering and resurrection of our Lord when you have two small children. It seems you are always attending to some one's need and time for reflection is sandwiched into the five minutes between when you lay your head down and you fall asleep exhausted.On Easter we dressed the kids in their beautiful new dresses and went to Mass. Then we came home to prepare for members of both sides of the family to come over for Easter dinner. It was great fun and we had the annual Easter egg hunt. Pam’s mom saves her change throughout the year and puts it into Easter eggs for the hunt. We hide either small toys or candy in the eggs and this year Joe’s sister Jane sponsored some eggs as well. The hunt was so much fun and Elainea caught on quick to the idea of gathering eggs into her basket.Of course the party did not conclude without a hitch. We have what is called a hibernaculum under our front walk. For those that do not know what this is (I only recently found out) it is a snake den where snakes come to hibernate from miles around in the winter. This means that we have a high density of snakes in our yard. Well Pam’s mom came over for Easter and about stepped on one in the garage. Well she has a snake phobia and came inside and collapsed in a chair. And being the loving daughters that they are, Pam’s sister snapped a picture to commemorate the moment. Needless to say the snake drama continued to unfold during the egg hunt! It added an element of thrill and surprise for the kids looking for eggs.We posted some pictures of the egg hunt for all to enjoy!

Life as Normal?

Love the matching dresses!

Our China Doll

Glamour Girl

I will not get down until we make cookies.

I LOVE frosting!!

If you must do something ridiculous, outrageous or stupid, at least do it enthusiastically!

Author Unknown

Just when you think you have the mom thing down to a science, something happens to give you a dose of humility. When Hannah was little she had so many health issues that once a doctor told me to quit being an overprotective mother. That really stuck with me until this weekend. Elainea was acting like she was not feeling well. I tried to rationalize the symptoms as something to not worry about. The diarrehea was because of her diet and the rash was because of dry skin etc. She was still active and playing so how serious could it be? When she started to develop a fever and felt like a boiler I decided to take her temperature. The thermometer read 99.9 degrees. Well I knew our thermometer always registered a couple of degrees low, so I decided to take her into the doctors office. I sat there thinking that I would get the "lecture" again until they took her temperature. They immediately told me to take her clothes off. She had a fever of 105! Before our trip to China the Health Department told me that if any of us manifested flu-like symptoms to tell the doctor where we have been. The next thing you know they are drawing blood to test for malaria. Poor Elainea, every time we go to the doctor she is getting shots or blood drawn. Then came the six day wait for the results. One day I got so anxious that I called Kathy at WIAA to ask how many children has come over with Malaria, she calmed my fears when she told me "none". Well we got the results yesterday and she does not have Malaria. Thank goodness!This week I had to take her to daycare for one day. How traumatic that was for me as a mom. This was mom guilt on steriods! I kept thinking all day about whether she realized that I was coming to pick her up or if she thought of the daycare as her new orphanage. The joy I felt as I was able to pick up both of my girls after work was so overwhelming. They both ran into my arms and I just had to hold them for a little while. They will be this age for only a short time and soon they will be too busy for their mom.I took some cute photos of Hannah and Elainea the other day wearing some matching dresses. This morning we made some sugar cookies for Easter this weekend. We look forward to spending the day with family and celebrating in God's glory.