Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

We had a great time yesterday traveling to Riley’s Farm in Yucaipa. It was such a beautiful place and Hope had her first experience picking apples, eating freshly made applesauce, and enjoying farm life. If you haven’t been to Riley’s farm and live in SoCal then we highly recommend it! Everyone who works there dresses in colonial type clothes, and they have a great medley of activities for the little ones. From an apple cider press, to making candles, there is plenty to do! www.rileysfarm.com

Hope had fun, but sure didn’t like the flies buzzing around her head non-stop! But she did love running around in the barn with her brother and sisters! We are having so much fun with her and the kids are teaching her the cutest little things every day. Enjoy the pictures!

Hope has been having such a good time at preschool. She has the sweetest teachers, Ms. Jenny and Ms. Kim, who go out of their way to make her feel very special and comfortable. The past few times, when I pick her up, she gets mad at me because she is having so much fun! Tonight was back to school night, and Todd got to meet her teachers and see the school. They had a magician for the kids, and Jonathan, Abby, and Hannah really had a great time too.

Hope has been very fussy today, crying a lot, whining, and has just been plain ol’ sad. I was holding her a few minutes ago and asked her, “Hope, Mommy wants to know what’s bothering you. Does something hurt you? If there is something that hurts you, please point to it for Mommy.” I asked all of this not thinking that she would understand me, but I guess I underestimated her English! She gently took my finger, and put it on her throat. Then she pointed with her own finger into her mouth. It was so precious! I couldn’t believe that she understood those full sentences! I have been wondering these days just how much English she understands, so this is a clue. The girl is getting it.

Jonathan has had a sore throat in the past few days, so she must have gotten it from him. Poor girl. Everyone is showering her with attention right now, and giving her lots of hugs and kisses. She definitely isn’t lacking attention in this house!

Today was Hope’s first day of preschool! I was nervous about leaving her but she did really well, and seemed to like it. She has two awesome teachers who were loving and nurturing to her, and really made her feel at home. After dropping her off, Hannah and I went to Starbucks, then went back for a quick spy on her to make sure she was ok. She was starting to cry as we rounded the corner but after watching the teacher comfort her, I realized she was in great hands.

Hannah and I decided that today would be the day for just her and I to go to Disneyland together, and put our annual passes to good use! What a special time! Since we got home from China, Hannah and I haven’t had much time together alone, so it’s a really special thing that she is my only one who is not in school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We are planning to do  a lot of fun things this fall like visit pumpkin patches, farms, parks, and more! So off we went to Disneyland for a few hours. It was great! There were no lines at all, so we just walked right on to all the rides! Everything was just perfect until we went on the Pirates of the Caribbean. Hannah did not like that at all! It was pretty scary for her, so after it was over, we got a big lollipop to try to forget all about it!

When we picked up Hope, she was happily playing with the toys, and came to us smiling big. What a great day! Now we are off to pick up Jonathan and Abby at their new school that they started this week, a charter school where they will be attending on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then we homeschool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So far they love it!

There are many awesome people out there in the world, and I really wanted to highlight some of our friends in Kansas City: The Loux Family! They announced today that they are adopting a little boy with Downs Syndrome from Eastern Europe. They have huge hearts for adoption, and have been working tirelessly this past year to help other families adopt. They have 3 biological children, and just adopted a sweet little girl a year ago. Please pray for this family, and if you are so led, you can contribute financially to help bring little Aiden home. Their family website is http://www.thelouxfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/ & http://thespiritofadoption.blogspot.com/

Last week, we took Hope to the hospital to have an MRI and cat scan to test and see if she has any brain damage or previous fractures. The opthamologist wanted to see if there was any other evidence that might suggest Shaken Baby syndrome. Well, the good news is that she has no sign of either brain damage or bone fractures. So now we are going to have her tested for a genetically rare disorder, that her detached retina might be due to. She has an appointment on Friday with her opthamologist, so I will probably have more information after talking to him.

On a fun note, Hope starts preschool tomorrow! Details and pictures to follow!

We had fun this weekend attending a fancy dress up b-day party for our friend Alea Hurst who turned 5! Here are some pictures of the event.

In China – 22 pounds

Today- 27 pounds!

Total gained in 3 months- 5 pounds

She is now wearing a size 3t!!!!

Go Hope!

Please pray for our friends the Cliftons. They are trying to adopt Hope’s best friend from Bethel, and have run into a ton of hurdles. They have been working for the past year to get this little girl’s file. It has seemed at times an impossible hurdle, but they are still making progress, and the Lord is granting them small victories along the way. At this point, they need the file of this little girl to go to their agency. I dont want to go into the logistics of the whole thing, but if you could just pray that the Clifton’s agency would receive the little girl’s file from China, we would absolutely appreciate it! These folks need a miracle, and we need it now! Thanks everybody!!!

Love,

Kim

Hope experienced her first earthquake today. She was sitting in her high chair, chomping on cheerios, and then it hit. I was on the phone with my mom, and I said, “I gotta go! We’re having an earthquake!” She said, “What? You’re having an….Oh My! We’re having an earthquake!” So we hung up, and I ran and got Hope out of her chair, and all the other kids were sitting on the couch, so we all just sat there and rode it out. It wasnt too long, and it was actually, in everyone’s opinion, pretty fun. Hope didnt seem to mind either way. It didnt even seem like she noticed anything. Just wanted to update all of you out of staters!

Love,

Kim

This little sweetie pie resides at Hope’s orphanage. We had the priveledge of meeting her when we were in China, and fell in love with her. She is 11 years old, and has been blind since birth. She has a sweet, gentle spirit, and loves everyone she meets. If you or anyone you know might be interested in adopting her, please contact us. We would love to answer any questions you might have, and hook you up with the staff at Bethel who can tell you more about her. She is a gem, and really longs for a family of her own.

Things on the homefront have been good. Just plugging along, doing summertime stuff with the kids. We had Hope’s bloodwork done, and the results came back today that she is healthy, and everything looks fine. But we had some interesting news. It turns out that after having her bone age x ray, her real age is somewhere between 3 and 3.5! So she is considerably older than was reported. She was abandoned as an older baby, so the orphanage had to just guess her age and assign her a birthday when she came to the orphanage. So it turns out that her real birthday is somewhere between October 2004 and May 2005. We are thinking of changing her birthdate to make it her adoption date. It would give her a fun birthday of 5-05-05. Easy to remember! We will keep you updated. Next week, we go to the pediatric opthamologist at USC who specializes in her eye condition. Stay tuned….

We have been enjoying the start of summer around here. Last weekend my parents took us to Palm Springs to celebrate Abigail’s birthday. We had an awesome time and Hope really got to bond with Papa and Camper (aka: grandma and grandpa). We had connecting rooms and she spent lots of time going back and forth and playing “uh oh” with grandma. ‘Uh Oh’ is a game that consists of Hope dropping an object, my mom saying “uh oh”, Hope laughing, my mom handing her back the object, and the fun starts all over again!

One thing we discovered is Hope LOVES to swim. She has no fear of the water at all. She sticks her face in and blows bubbles; something the nannies must have taught her at Bethel. She likes to splash, kick, and most of all, loves to be thrown up into the air, and dunked underwater. She comes up out of the water with a huge smile on her face, and a ready giggle. We have been having a blast with her in the pool back home too. She is a definite water girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes a competitive swimmer, or something of the sort. She is strong, and I could just see her being good at it, among other things.

Hope has settled in, and we have watched her go from being really aggressive, and hitting us a lot, to now being a real cuddly little snuggle bug. She seems content to be with us, and she absolutely LOVES her siblings. It’s so sweet to watch them with her too, and I can’t imagine doing all this without having the older two kids around to be so much help. They have been amazing through this whole process, and I have to say that I am so proud of them!  Hannah too, although she is still figuring out what kind of relationship she is going to have with Hope. Hope is definitely not at a stage where she can play with Hannah, although Hannah would love it to be so. And Hannah is not big enough to really hold Hope, so we are trying to find ways for her to bond with Hope. She wants to cuddle with her, or reach out to her, but then ends up squishing her, or making Hope mad… but the neat thing is that Hannah always talks about how she loves her baby sister, so thats good!

Just wanted to post some cute pictures taken of Hope this weekend at the park. She has gained almost 3 pounds since she came home! Here she is:

Today Hope had her first trip to Disneyland! It all happened on a whim. It started out 2 days ago, when I prayed for a good idea … I wanted something fun to do for our oldest daughter Abigail’s birthday. I really wanted it to be special for her. Then, yesterday, we got a call from our friend Jenny. They had some friends in from out of town, who were at Disneyland, and they called Jenny to see if she wanted the second day of their 2 day passes, because they wern’t able to use the second day. Jenny immediately thought of Abigail, and said that she knew of a special little birthday girl who would love to have them. So we ended up going to Disneyland tonight, and the neatest thing of all was that we were able to upgrade the tickets into annual passes for only about $50 more per person!! So we got Disneyland passes for a third of the regular cost. We were amazed! We live pretty close by so we will definitely be spending lots of time there this summer!

I was kind of worried about Hope, wondering if it would be too much for her, with all the sounds, people, etc. Can i just say the girl LOVED it?! She had a blast on the teacups, the carousel, Casey Jr.’s train, Alice in Wonderland, and then the teacups one more time. She loved the spinning part, and all the music going on. She lived it up, and the other kids had a great time too!

I noticed today that her eyes seemed to be better. I don’t know if its my imagination, but I could have sworn there were quite a few times today where her eyes fixed right on me, gazed right into mine, and she smiled and held her gaze. Jonathan noticed it happened to him too today. She has had a large amount of prayers going up for her eyes, so I would not be surprised if they are getting better. Keep it coming Lord!

Here are some pictures of our fun day. Enjoy!!!!

June 11th – Disneyland

And here is a link to the slideshow.