Happy 1st Halloween

EDITED TO ADD A FUNNY STORY: My step-mom, who we see often, checks the blog regularly too. She asked me last night "Where did you get that black cat? Is it yours?" At first, I thought, "well geez, we have had it for like four years... HELLO" but quickly remember that Kirbi hides whenever someone comes to our house. Seriously, in four years, she had never seen her because she hides so well! She thought we borrowed a black cat for the pictures!!!

My Halloween Jammies and my pumpkins!














Watch out Kirbi, I am going to get your tail!
















My first Halloween

"trick or treat"!

Almost 1 - Qingliu SWI

Olivia’s birthday is on Friday. While Olivia thus far is not so much into it, I am looking forward to our little celebration. Mostly, though, I am looking forward to using it as a chance to help the babies that are still at Qingliu SWI.

When we traveled to China, we took along money from another family who also adopted from Qingliu SWI. They collected the money on their daughter’s first birthday, giving me the idea to do the same. We gave the money to our guide to give to the orphanage director. If we find another family adopting from Qingliu, we hope to do the same. If not, I will send it through a contact in Guangzhou who I have used to send packages of books, clothing and treats to the orphanage already.

If you would like to help, please use the link at the right. The money goes into our Paypal account under our business name, but I will then direct it into another account.

Birds of a Feather

Just couldn't resist putting one picture up here from our work Halloween Party. How cute is this????

Walking???

Guess who is thinking a lot about walking? Yes, it true. We have been pulling (or pushing) up and standing without holding on for a few seconds or more for a while now, but Friday, Olivia actually took a couple steps! Over the weekend, we showed her how to walk behind her little car/push toy (thanks, Jessica!!!) and she also started doing that quite a bit – hopefully getting used to the “one foot in front of the other” thing.

Last night, even though short on napping, she stayed up later than normal and for about 15 minutes practiced walking. She would stand up, take a step or two, fall down and do it all over again. Once she got at least 5 steps in. We were so excited we were afraid to make a sound!

Mama and Daddy Time

First, a confession – prior to the baptism day, I had been feeling pretty self-righteous and successful about our attachment efforts. Things had been going very well and I was pretty proud of the fact that we were doing such a good job even with transitioning to child care in the short two months that we have been home.

Unfortunately, that confidence led to Michael and I allowing her to be passed around among the 46 people that were at our house on baptism day. And led to a week of problems for us and Olivia. The first thing we noticed was that she would not make eye contact with Michael. Then she started SCREAMING again when we would change her diaper. Then she started fighting the car seat again. More clingy, less affectionate. More distant. Crying when we dropped her off at child care.

So, back to square one for us – lots of Mama and Daddy time. Saturday, we did not leave the house, all three of us in our pajamas all day. Lots of activities to encourage eye contact. Lots of on the floor time.

Fortunately, it has paid off and we have made gains again. We are not back to where we were before the baptism, but we have made a lot of progress. And last night, she played a new game with me that just melted my heart. She would crawl across the floor as fast as she could wanting me to “chase” her. She would stop and with me right next to her would laugh so hard she would fall over. We crawled around the house like this until I would have to have her stop for fear of her wearing herself out. Once she caught her breath, she started right back up again! It was so wonderful.

The latest pictures from Pam

Photobucket Album

Click on the picture to see lots more photos. I think you can order them too, if you would like a copy. This is my first try with Photobucket, so I hope it works!

How Cool is This Shirt???

Since I forgot the card with the baptism pictures at work, I figured I would at least provide something interesting to look at. So, first, check out this shirt!!! Here is the story: On Monday, my mother-in-law and I went shopping to the outlet mall in Warrenton. Our mission was to exchange some stuff for different sizes at the Carter's store. When we were finished, we decided to go to Dress Barn. Just inside the door, I see a shirt similar to this one, but I think it described a green tea. It was very cool, but certainly more than I would pay for basically a t-shirt. I looked around a bit then nearly gasped when I saw this shirt. Why, you ask? Look at the first line: Fujian Province! The last lines are pretty cool too. So, needless to say, it is now mine. Wore it to work today.



The other two are just cute pictures I found on the camera when I was getting the t-shirt pictures off.
















Check out the shoes Aunt Bobbie!

Olivia's Baptism aka Only the Strong Survive

Baptism

Whew! We made it through mostly unscathed. Daddy seems to be doing pretty good after surviving near strangulation, my back is killing me and Olivia is still a little off - way too much activity/stimulation for her.

Pics to come, details here. It all started with a crazy week. The first part was spent celebrating my mom's birthday, which was fun but busy. I worked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and Michael was either out of town or frantically trying to get the gate at the storage units working on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday night, we started working on stuff for the shower. Friday was super busy. I picked up Olivia from day care and we went on a marathon shopping trip to get all the stuff to finish the new bathroom. Mom went along (big thanks) and we got it done then went out to dinner.

Saturday was crazy. Mom came up and helped as we cleaned, organized and prepared for the party. After things were done enough that I could get the shopping done, I took off for that endeavor. Three or four stores later, I had everything on the list. Back home for more work - this time with help from Michele (yea!!!) . After we were too exhausted to do any more, we left to have dinner and hang out for a little bit at a friend's party.

Sunday - get up, feed baby, work, work, work getting ready. Shower, dress and leave for church. Aunt Bobbie took the first round of church wrestling, then passed off to me as we waiting for the big event. The baptism went fine - I wrestled Olivia while she grabbed Daddy's tie and tried to strangle him. It was quite amusing for everyone. She SERIOUSLY wanted to splash in that little pool of water, but I held tight and tried to distract her with the flowers on the alter. Thanks to Tim for taking pictures - I hope he has one of Olivia strangling Daddy!!! After the actual Baptism we went back to the pew for the third round, which lasted about 5 minutes before she started getting loud. I then took her out and played with her in the cry room. She would not let me put her down at first, as she was getting really tired, but after a while she played on the floor with no problem. Of course, it helped a bunch that Jordon came in and played with her!!!

She fell asleep within 3 minutes on the way home. I put her in her bed and she never made a sound. Somehow she managed to sleep for about 1.5 hours in the middle of all of the noise and chaos. We had 47 people here. We tried to keep it small by only inviting family. It was all family and Godparents. Michael and I ran around like crazy most of the time trying to keep things going smoothly.

Olivia woke up and ate, but was clearly overwhelmed by it all. There was too much going on and way too many people. She pretty much maintained her stoic little stare most of the day. After everyone left and Michael and I were cleaning up, she tried to climb in one of the roasters that was on the floor. I set her in the roaster and she played there for at least 10 minutes. It was too cute. After that, she played with the roaster racks for another 10 minutes. Today, she is certainly more clingy than normal, but enjoying her mama and daddy time.

Pictures from Pam

Pam has been in town to celebrate Mom's birthday and took a bunch of pictures (373 to be exact).


Soon to be Godparents and our very dear friends, Cindy and Shane.










Olivia is standing unsupported and very proud of herself. She has been practicing standing a lot for about a week now.












Mama and baby