We've Been Chosen!

We didn't think it would be happening this soon. It hasn't even been a month yet since our special needs paperwork was filed. But Julie about had a heart attack Thursday morning when our social worker called and said that a child has been assigned to us. Even our social worker was surprised that it was so fast. It's a 2-year old boy in China with special needs. He has a cleft palate. We will give you more information and pictures when we are able.

Cheerios for Jesus

This past Sunday morning, Lily and I are having Cheerios with Reese's Puffs mixed in. We do this to cut the sugar content while still enjoying a little bit of "fun" cereal.

Then came the following exchange.

Lily: "I no like Cheerios. Why put Cheerios in, too?"

Me: "Because Cheerios are good for you."

Lily: "Why?"

Me: "Because they have oats in them. Oats are good for your heart."

Lily: "I eat Cheerios, go down into my heart, Jesus eat my Cheerios."

More Paperwork for #2

This week we've been filling out and filing more paperwork for adoption #2. As you may already know, we have expressed our willingness to adopt a special needs child, or "Child of Promise" (COP) as our agency calls them. The process for adopting special needs children from China has been modified, so we needed to fill out some more paperwork for the new process. Rather than bore you with the details, suffice it to say that things are still in the works. As of now, our wait is about the same...about two years...but that could change if we are matched with a "COP."

And thank the Lord for scanners and email. That sure makes all the paper shuffling a lot easier.

More Pics from the Fair

Here's Lily and Daddy. That's Daddy putting on a good face...he was getting a bit queasy.

Lily learned how clothes were washed in the "olden days."

Finishing out the day with an ice cream dip all over the face.

We weren't even out of the parking lot before someone nodded off.

A Day at the Fair

Lily went to the Puyallup Fair with her Mom and Dad and Grandma and Papa Hepola. She got to sit in a miniature fire truck.

Then she picked out her very own "hog" to ride.

Here she is getting ready to ride the kiddie roller coaster. I think she's saying to the other girls, "Do you really think is such a good idea?"

Driving is one of Lily's favorite activities. This beats those cheesy fake cars with shopping cars attached at the grocery store.

At first, Lily and Papa were going to go down the giant slide together. They made it all the way up the stairs, and then started back down. She wanted to go down with Daddy instead.

First Day of Preschool

Here's Lily (and her monkey backpack) all giddy about heading out to her first day of preschool ("Little Lambs" at our church).

First thing you do is hang up your backpack.

Next, you find your nametag and your box with your name on it.

Then, you finish your long, hard, busy day (well, okay, 2 hours) at preschool with a chocolate shake at Red Robin.

Best Thing Lily Ever Said

So we're watching a baseball game on TV the other day, and one of the announcer mentions the Yankees. Lily gets up, puts her hands on the counter, sticks out her bottom, and says...

"Show Yankees my bum."

I finally feel like I've succeeded as a parent.

(I had to post this one, just for posterity's sake...or should I say "posterior's sake")

First Trip to the Magic Kingdom

So ... can you tell what we did on our vacation? In addition to going to Grammy O's house in Rancho Cucamonga at the end of April (I know, I know...why didn't you post these pictures sooner?), we visited a certain amusement park in Anaheim, CA. I'll post some more fun pictures from our trip another time.

Notice that it was "Pup-pup's" (Lily's ever-present stuffed animal friend) first time there, too.

Good Bye Crib, Hello Big Girl Bed

Lily got her first "big girl" bed not long before her 3rd birthday a few weeks ago. Here she is waving good bye to her crib and "testing out" her new bed.

DTC

DTC means "Dossier to China." We were informed today that our paperwork has been mailed to China for our second adoption. This is an important milestone in the adoption process, and now the next date for which we wait is the LID ... "Log in Date" ... the day our dossier is logged in in China.

I also read this article today that says China is considering scrapping its one-child policy. I don't know how that will affect us at the moment. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. It's going to be a long wait no matter what.

Year of the Rat

Happy Chinese New Year!

2008 is the "Year of the Rat." For more fun information about the "Year of the Rat," click here.

We're not having as big of a shindig as we did last year. Not to mention the fact that you are supposed to have a feast on the eve of the New Year. Kind of hard for us to feast on Ash Wednesday. Today we're going to have lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Then tonight, the church youth group meets at our house, so we'll probably have them help us celebrate in some way.

Plowing Right In

We had our first snow of 2008 yesterday. Unlike Lily's first excursion into the snow, when she was so tentative and skittish, this time she plowed right in. No fear. She plopped right down and even got on her belly several times and said she was "tend swim" (translation: "pretending to swim").


And then we made Lily's first snowman! Below is a picture of our masterpiece, complete with carrot for a nose and chopsticks for arms. That was not supposed to be any cultural reference to Lily's national origin...it was all mom found in a moment's notice.


By the way, please, no wise cracks about the kid's gloves. We still have not bought her any snow mittens or gloves. So we used the poor man's method...fleece mittens covered by surgical gloves. Hey, at least it's a step up from the last playtime in the snow. We used baggies and rubber bands then!

Today did not start out well

Don't worry. It did get better. More about that in a moment.

We were on our way to Olympia to get all our our documents state-sealed so that we could finally get our dossier sent to our agency in Seattle, then off to China.

Our first stop was Bartel Drug Store to get a photocopy made. Copier was out of order.

Our next stop was Albertson's supermarket. Copier was out of order.

Julie then drove across the parking lot to Staples' to make the photocopy. Success.

Back to Albertson's and our credit union branch inside to get a couple of signatures notarized. The branch officer could not locate her stamp. After a futile search, she had to get another notary to do the job.

Before driving to Olympia, we needed some sustenance, so we went over to Starbuck's also inside Albertson's. Water supply not working. No coffee.

No problem. We bought a couple of bagels and drinks from Albertson's. Total price? $6.66. Freaky.

Now, I don't put any stock whatsoever in stuff like that, but the way things were going, you have to admit, it was a little weird.

Everything else went swimmingly. Weather and traffic were fine on the hour and forty-five minute drive to Olympia. Hardly had to touch my brakes even going through downtown Seattle. Same on the way back. And it took all of a half-hour at the state offices to get our paperwork completed.

Julie's putting the finishing touches on the dossier as I type this. Tomorrow she will deliver it to our agency in Seattle.

Lily in Her Christmas Dress

Merry Christmas!

As many of you know, we don't send out Christmas cards. We send out Easter cards instead. However, click here to view a fun little Christmas greeting to those of you who check out our blog. God's blessings to you this Christmas and New Year.

End of November Update

No, we haven't been watching Survivor. We're simply trying to survive being parents of a 2-year old.

We're also waiting for our paperwork to come back from immigration. We traveled to Yakima to the Department of Immigration back in October to submit our paperwork and get fingerprinted. We were told that by going directly to Immigration rather than the Dept of Homeland Security to get fingerprinted shaves about a month's time off the whole red-tape process. It was a day-long excursion over to Yakima, but worth it to save a month, if that's really what it ends up being. Not to mention the fact that the fall colors over the mountain passes were beautiful.

We didn't know what to expect in Yakima. Homeland was near Seattle...big building, big crowd, ethnically diverse. Yakima was a small one-storey building in a downtown neighborhood, and it was the three of us with three other families waiting to be taken care of. We were in and out in about 20 minutes. I don't remember how long we waited at Homeland last time, but I can assure you it was MUCH longer than 20 minutes.

As soon as the paperwork comes back to us, we'll then have everything ready to take to Olympia, have it state sealed, then given to our agency to submit to China. There's still a lot to be done and a lot more waiting.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration. We had a good laugh towards the end of dinner. Lily has become quite the comedian. Julie asked all our guests to share something they are thankful for. One young friend began by saying "I'm thankful for..." and paused, when Lily jumped in with a loud, "MONEY!!!"

Survivor in Jiangxi

I've never been a big fan of the TV show "Survivor," but I have a feeling we'll be watching it this season. This year it's in China, in particular in Jiangxi province where Lily was born and where we received her. Read more about it on the CBS Survivor website or here on a news site from Jiangxi.

The Red Thread Continues

We're still here. Betcha thought that we were going to stop blogging. We had thought about it ever since our last post on Lily's "Gotcha Day" anniversary. We thought maybe we would have one last post on Lily's second birthday party in June. Well, obviously that came and went...along with the rest of the summer. Here we are in the middle of September, and only now am I getting around to posting something new.

And boy, do we have news. We are adopting again! Julie and I were blessed this summer with an amazing, completely out-of-the-blue, generous monetary gift from some dear friends in order to adopt another child. We were in shock after it was offered to us. We told our friends that we would have to think about it and pray about it. Driving away from their home, Julie and I started discussing things. After a while, I said, "You know...we're talking as if we we're going to do this." Guess it didn't take too much thinking or praying. We immediately recognized this as a blessing from God, called our friends as soon as we could, and accepted their generous gift.

The process has already started...filling out paperwork...visits from our social worker...fingerprinting appointments...and on and on it goes. We're not as stressed out as we were last time. Maybe that's because we know more about what to expect...the whole "been there, done that" thing.

We will be adopting from China again. We want to provide a sibling for Lily with whom she can share a common heritage.

When will this happen? It's probably still a couple of years off. China has extended the waiting period for adoptions since we were last there. However, it could be sooner if we adopt an older child (2-3 years old) or a child with some minor special needs, both of which we are open to.

So, it looks like the Red Thread to Marysville has been extended across the waters once again. Our blog will continue. We will give you updates on our new adoption journey. We will post other interesting bits and pieces of information for you that we run across. And we will share new pictures of Lily with you now and then to show you how much she is growing.

Lily and Dad at the Ballpark

This one was too cute not to share. It looks like Safeco Field in Seattle, but it was really just a backdrop at our local minor league park in Everett. And in case you were wondering, that's just a cutout of Raul Ibanez, too.

"Gotcha Day" Anniversary

One year ago today, Lily Ping was placed into my arms at the Gloria Plaza Hotel in Nanchang, Jiangxi, China. I can't believe a year has gone by already since that momentous occasion that changed our lives forever. It seems like it was only yesterday.

We celebrated in a quiet way by being together at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. Point Defiance is a beautiful little zoo, and Lily seemed to enjoy looking at all the animals. However, what gave her the most pleasure was running herself ragged and finding rocks to pick up along the pathways. She loves to pick up rocks wherever she finds them, so mom and dad have to be ever vigilant when she draws her hand behind her ear. That usually means the windup has begun. By the time she was ready to climb back into the stroller, it was time to head back.

All in all, it was a special day remembering and reflecting on the many ways in which God has blessed us with this beautiful, active, strong-willed, precious, and even precocious, little girl.