Happy Birthday, young one!

Happy 12th Birthday, Bear!

Happy Birthday, old one!

It is time once again to wish that old one of mine Happy Birthday. She is 14. The day before her birthday I registered her at the local high school. I am proud to say that she was admitted into a special program that is medicine based, heavy in math and science! She is a typical teenager, oy vey! I love her to pieces and without her being so wonderful I would have never wanted more children. So, E, it is all your fault!! =)

No need to call the authorities.....

we are all okay. Things have been a bit busy around these parts. Nothing like a little family drama. The old one graduated. I am so proud of her. She applied to and was accepted to the medical program that is offered in our high schools. Unbelievable! She is going to take Algebra 2, Chemistry, Honors English, World History, Spanish 3, and some elective to balance the schedule! What a ridiculously hard schedule! Kudos to here for being prepared to take such courses!
Did I mention that school's out for summer????
Flora is doing amazing well. We had a little jaunt up north to visit some family. We were able to hook up with some travel friends that we made in China. Their daughter, Emily, is doing very well. Traveling to China was an amazing experience, through and through. We meet some equally amazing people. But your experience in China is like no other. It is a flash of time when things are all so new, unusual, different, and fantastic. Never again will you see these people walking the halls trying to get their new daughters to sleep. We saw folks with bed head in their pj's. We scrambled to help anyone with anything. You need diapers? I have extras. You need prunes? Well, I have 2. But it is equally wonderful to see these babies (who were in shock, initially) comfortable in their own homes. I loved visiting our friends.
And now it is time for a few photos. We have a family photo that was taken for the benefit of our home study and then who doesn't love a smiling baby?

Time for a visit!

I can not believe that it has been 6 months. Okay it really hasn't been that long. But it is time for our home study person to visit today. House is clean, correction picked-up. No, we don't live in a hovel, however, sometimes it is messy.....
In the meantime, here are some photos of FJ.

Updates!

We have been very busy chasing after our WALKER!
~Flora started walking on Sunday April 26, 2009. She took her first steps and has since graduated to walking 80% of the time and crawling a mere 20%. She is proud of herself.
~She has been using a spoon lately to feed herself. Luckily we have dogs!
~She is going to eat us out of house and home. My girl can chow down. She is tipping the scales at 20.75 pounds. I turned her car seat around. She seems to be far happier with the view.
~She has continued to flourish. Joe has left town for 10 days. I was a bit concerned how things would pan out. It has been easy. Em and Cl have stepped up to the plate. Truly, I couldn't prouder of them.
~Flora was having some difficulty sleeping, getting to sleep and sleeping through the night. Joe and I read The Sleep Lady and we have had some success. As for sleeping through the night, all it takes is a light sleeper (Joe) to leave and a sound sleeper (Me) left in charge. Problem solved!!!!

The ape walk! She is not doing this hands over her head walk as much anymore.

I love this crinkled face. She makes snorting sounds while making that face!

Flora was given this chalkboard by one of my students. He carefully washed for her, because it was his. She loves drawing on the chalkboard.

Phavorite Photo

I love, love, love this pic of my girl. I took it myself a week ago. My husband, who is the avid photographer says it is great. I concur!

The post birthday haze

Flora is affected by sugar! Too much sugar wires my little darling to no end. It was a fun day (her birthday), but we spent all of yesterday dealing with withdrawals. Seriously, she was so wound up on her birthday that she did not take an afternoon nap. She stayed up way past her bedtime. She fell asleep in the car on the way home (the last 5 minutes that is). When it came time for the transfer from the car seat to her bed she woke up. Needless to say she did not fall asleep until 10:00 and she woke several times during the night. I am so happy birthdays only come once a year, only 363 days to go!
I forgot to post these photos on her birthday. She brought in a special snack and sat at group to eat it with her friends.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Today is Flora's first birthday! She started the day like this at 8:30.

Everyone was anxious to see her, because she brought this to "school" aka my work.

More later on Flora's first birthday adventures!!



We had a great dinner at a Chinese Restaurant. Miss Flora had congee!!! Something that she has not had since she left China. It was a special night!
The cake, FYI, was banana rama with chocolate buttercream icing. YUM, YUM, YUM!

The Beach

We have a bit of a tradition in our family of photographing the first moment our daughter feels sand. Flora was honored with the same tradition. These photographs document that moment. Albeit these were taken in March, but I still love them. Flora went from not being too thrilled with sand to eating it! ARGH!

Em and Flo

Okay I have NO intentions of calling Flora...Flo. How ever there was a ring to Em and Flo (a la ebb and flow). These photos were taken yesterday on photo booth. Seriously cute sisters! I am so proud of my family!!!

Who's this girl?

While in China, the orphanage director gave us a disc of 50 something photos of Flora. All of the photos were of her with her foster mom and dad, or the orphanage nannies, or by herself......except for this one photo. I would love to find Flora's friend from YuLin. There are not many ties to China, but this is a big one (for me). Please if you know who this beautiful girl is let me know.

Two Months

We have been a family for 2 months now I can't remember what life was like without her. Flora's health is good. She visited the doctor for a "well baby" check up. It seems so wasn't so well. Flora had a double ear infection. She was pulling at her ears, really I thought it was teething. She was acting normally. After a week of one ant biotic that wasn't working we moved on to another. Things are right in our household once again.

Receiving Hate Emails...

I opened my email the other day and there was this horrid email. It said that I am the worst blogger EVER! Now, generally I am the type of person who rarely admits fault. However, in this case she was correct. I have been awful. I used to get annoyed with those people whose blog I would follow during their China trip. Once they were home, entries would drop-off. Now (my head hanging low), I am one of those people.

Thanks, Fins Up

A Shout Out!

Let me give (another) shout out to Miss Tiffany, June's mom, who updated the blog for me! Thanks Tiff! I am digging the new look. Secondly, I need to give a shout out to my bloggy buds, who I have neglected terribly lately. I will find time to visit and check-in this weekend. (Perhaps during the Super Bowl...not a football fan.)
Flora is doing quite well. She is teething a bit. We all experienced interupted sllep last night. WE have decided that she really does sleep better in her own space (i.e. crib or pack-n-play). She is a thrasher!
We has our first Ped appt last week. She is 16 lbs and 11 oz, naked! When we were in Guangzhou, they weighed her at 17.6 lbs. That included her coat and shoes!
Our Ped so proudly pulled out a height and weight chart for Asian girls. He then looked at Flora. She was on the Asian chart at the 75th to 80th percentile for weight. He then threw away the unnecessary smaller growth chart. She is on the Big American Girl chart! At the 50th percentile for weight I might add! She is at the 40th percentile for height!
I truly believe that my Budda bellied Princess has gained 1.5 pounds since gotcha day! She eats everything and a lot of everything.
With the goings on around my house, I feel that my plate is full. It is by no means overwhleming, but it is full. So I promise that as our routine continues to settle I will be better about communication, on all fronts!
One more thing, FJ started crawling, finally, on Wednesday!!!

More, more, more

Here are a few more pics!

My three daughters! I love the three of them together. FYI, this was taken at the White Swan. I was shocked to see that the WS is much smaller than I expected. This is a "platform" of sorts that over looks the waterfall.

Flora LOVES to ride on her dad's shoulders. Every time we put her up there she laughs and laughs!

The hat...well she was sportin' that look when she was hanging with her foster mom (who, for the record, is amazing in my book!) It looks like the Fresh Prince was about to drop by for a visit!


Well, Flora has adjusted amazingly well. We have all been on east coast time since Saturday. She is sleeping through the night with two naps (morning and afternoon). She is eating very well. She has yet to refuse a meal! I can't wait to see what our Ped says tomorrow when we go.
We are glad to be home, but I do sincerely miss China. There is so much more I wanted to do. I guess we should start saving for a return trip.

more pics!

pics!

The trip home

Our trip home had an issue at every airport! First of all, I booked the tickets through travelocity. I did a multi-city ticket. I was not able to put Flora in a as lap baby. So I called Air China to let them know about Flora (lap baby), order a basinet, and order infant meals. No problem Until....Michael, the guide for the other group traveling with us, took us to the airport. First, we were in the wrong line. We were with our travelmates in the domestic line. We should have been in the international line (b/c I booked the tickets through to ORF). We switched lines. We waited there for a very long time, then the agent informed us that we did not have a ticket for Flora. Michael worked magic, and we threw down some cash to purchase a ticket for Flora to Beijing. And we were off...almost. Apparently, when they pulled our tickets to add Flora as a lap baby They gave away (resold) my ticket, Emily's ticket, and Claire's ticket. Uh oh! We really didn't "get it." We ran through the short security line. Michael guided us that way. We were seated in different rows. Side note here...we passed some of our travelmates in the security line (sorry guys). We get on the plane, barely. I look for row 13 and low and behold...I am in FIRST CLASS!! More accurately, Emily, Claire, Flora, and I are in first class. Joe, on the other hand, was at the back of the bus! He didn't realize it because we were in such a rush. But once he did, he was not impressed.
The ticket counter in Guangzhou did not book Flora's ticket all the way through, because they said that they were unable to do it. We found out in Beijing that information was incorrect. When we landed in Beijing we had to rush because our flight to NYC was due to leave in 1 1/2 hours (boarding in an hour). We went to the Air China counter. He told us that we needed to buy a lap seat ,and we had to hurry. My brilliant plan was to let Joe go to the ticket counter with nothing but Flora's passport, his passport, his boarding pass, and a credit card. I would keep all the girls with me and we would meet at the gate. Because we were in the secure section, not having Flora's boarding pass did not appear to be an issue. Surprise! It was! Two lovely, young Chinese women stopped me within minutes to see our boarding passes. I proudly provided them with everything I had. It wasn't enough. I broke out into tears, semi acting, playing the damsel in distress role and semi emotionally exhausted. Don't bother trying it.....it doesn't work in China. So I get on the elevator to find Joe, having no other option. The elevator was broken. So I have to walk back by Mr. Helpful at the Air China counter (we begged for assistance to move along in order to make the flight and he shrugged his shoulders absolving himself of any responsibility to us). Where upon he told me that we should have never separated. Thanks! Damn, I should have thought of that, especially since now we are in a serious pickle.
Basically, Joe and I connected after 35 minutes of us wandering the airport, where suddenly no one spoke English. Wait there was the nicest Chinese women (janitor). She started speaking Chinese. Although my Chinese was still limited to hello and thank you. With only 15 minutes until take off, one of the men at the Air China counter escorted us through the airport. When I say escorted, I mean he ran and we followed at the fastest speed possible. We left a bottle at the security check line. You know the whole liquid thing! He flagged down a cart to get us there even faster. Side note, we passed our travelmates up once again as they were leisurely walking through the airport as we were looking like crazy loons once again! We made the flight. Emily, Claire, Flora, and I were once again seated together (however, not in first class this time) and Joe was several rows back. The flight itself was uneventful. Flora did amazingly well. She had a short period of crying out of frustration of being restrained. She, quite frankly, was over it! Honestly, we all were. We landed in NYC at 1:30. Plane congestion prevented us from disembarking until nearly 2:00. The lines through the non-resident customs lines were horrendous. There were two agents checking people in. We waited for nearly an hour. With a 4:30 flight we started to get very nervous. Someone spotted our US passports in the line and moved us to the front. We met a very nice but ill informed agent. He went on and on about Flora's green card. How it should arrive within the year. How we could travel for the next year on her Chinese passport. Blah, Blah, Blah. He was very pleasant, but honestly I simply wanted him to stamp our paperwork and move us on through. He did. We checked our flight info and our plane home was delayed 2 hours (take off at 6:40). Argh! We stopped to have a little something to eat at the airport restaurant, just to kill time. During our dinner, we heard about the "Miracle on the Hudson." At the end of our meal (4:45ish) Flora went wu-wu (what her foster mother referred to as pooping). I happily picked her up and headed to the bathroom. While waiting for the woman ahead of me to finish up, I hear an announcement. "Last boarding call for flight #6227 to Norfolk. At this time everyone should be on the flight." I went tearing out of the bathroom. (Too bad, Flora, no clean nappy for you!) I went RUNNING into the restaurant screaming, "Joe, Joe, JOE! They just called our flight. Last call for our flight. We need to go NOW!" We through $$ at Rodney, the waiter. We abandoned the desserts that were just ordered. Someone sitting next to us asked what flight I was talking about. Apparently, it was their flight as well. Money flew from their wallets as well. Belongings were packed up at warp speed. We headed to gate #23. We were then redirected to gate #25. We run down the ramp. As we board the plane, I turn to Joe and say, "you realize we are going to be sitting on the plane for a while." This comment thereby sealed our fate. We sat on the tarmac for 1.5 hours. Finally, we were airborne and headed for home.
We arrived at 8:45ish. We were exhausted. But we were happily met by Fin and Finsup and Grandma and Duane. We were so glad to be done with the flying.
Our return trip was met with lots of airport drama, but we made every flight. Yippee!!

I can't believe she lives here!

First of all, a shout out to all of my travel friends....we miss you already. Thanks for making a special time even better! Now, flights were long, and we had trouble at every airport. We almost missed all three planes, but we didn't thanks to extremely helpful people and Flora's fake wu-wu!!! More later. We are settling in to our home. Things are great, but I still can't believe that she now lives in this house!!!!!! All the thoughts and images I had of her toddling around pre travel, and they are now a reality! Life is good!