Peek-a-Boo

First Family Photo

Hamster Balls at the Mall

We went to the mall and they had an area where the kids could pay to play in huge hamster balls in shallow water. Here are some pictures of them having fun.

Kenzie

Kylie

Keaton

All Dressed Up

The girls all dressed up for church. The polka dot dresses were Karli and Kenzie's for Easter 2009.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

The answer is...YES!!!!

Yesterday Kacee got her hearing aid. It's not really a hearing aid though; it is a bone anchored hearing system. It is worn on an elastic headband and sends the sound waves through the skull bone to the small ear bones. This allows her to hear just like everyone else. She is so excited to be hearing. When she hears a new noise, she points at her hearing aid and then whatever is making the noise. She woke up this morning and pointed to her ears indicating she wanted to wear it. The picture above is Kacee and mom at the doctor's office when they turned on the unit and mom was talking to her. The pictures below are Kacee wearing the headband and hearing aid today. You can see that the black headband blends in with her hair and is even covered by part of it. The picture with the side view shows her hearing aid. It is about the size of a small bluetooth phone. The small wire is attached to the hearing aid and a clip witch attaches to her shirt in case she knocks it loose from the headband.

For Fun...

Today Kenzie and Karli got the fingernails painted. They picked the colors, too. I thought I'd add a picture of Kacee and her Kacee new shoes.

One Month Together

It has been one month since Kacee's Gotcha Day. Since then, she has changed so much. When her adoption was completed, the orphanage gave us a memory stick with 107 photos of her. Below are a few of the ones from when she was younger. The first one is probably the earliest photo of Kacee since it was taken just a few weeks after she was brought to the orphanage.

This is a picture of Kacee in her crib at the orphanage.

A Day of Firsts

Today we went to an indoor playground and the pool. Both were firsts for Kacee. At the playground, she was very timid at first, but by the time we were ready to leave, she was was climbing up and down the slides like a pro. We spent about an hour at the pool, and she was not steady enough to play by herself, but as long as someone was with her, she enjoyed the water. Oh, and I finally got a picture of Keaton jumping off the diving board. This is the first summer that he has swam well enough to go in the 12 foot part of the pool.

Happy 3 Year Anniversary!!!

Three years ago today, we received an email from Great Wall China Adoption.

Dear Great Wall family,

The Stork Has Landed! If you have received this email we are pleased to announce that we have received your referral! Congratulations!

We are EXTREMELY busy getting everything prepared to contact you (sorting referrals, scanning your pictures, etc!) So, that all of you will have your child’s photo today! **We will contact each family by phone today and also email you your child’s photo!

We are working as quickly as we can to bring your referral to you! We thank ALL of you for your continued patience and support!

Congratulations!

We had been expecting the referral to arrive any day, but were not near a computer all morning. We came home around noon and read the above email. Then we waited anxiously for the phone to ring with information about our new family member. About 1:30, GWCA called and told us "It's a girl. She was born December 4, 2008." We were ecstatic. At 3:43, we opened an email from the agency and saw Kenzie for the first time.


Here is the post that was originally published when we received Kenzie's referral.




OK. OK. OK. So I KNOW I haven't posted since October last year, and when is it now? Yes, it's August. Wow, that's almost a year! And...a LOT can happen in that time. Trust me! We have been so busy, because (if you don't already know) we recently went from "matching room" to "having a referral" all in the last week! That's right. WE ACTUALLY GOT OUR REFERRAL! Finally. She is a beautiful baby girl who just recently turned eight-months-old last Saturday. She is from the Jiangxi Province, and her orphanage is in Ji'an. Her full Chinese name is Ji Lu Yang. That's pronounced Jee-Loo-Yawng. Her story is rather interesting, as well. She was abandoned at the doorstep of a retirement/assited living home. There the "older people" took care of her until she was almost five months old. Then she was taken to the orphanage, where she spent nearly three months before being matched with our family. Lucky for her, she will only spend a month-and-a-half longer there! At the retirement home, they called her YangYang (Yawng-Yawng), so to help her adjust, we will be calling her that when we first get her. Right now, it is just me, my mother, and my father traveling to pick her up in China. WE are all SO pysched for the trip. We are already packed halfway, and it seems to grow every day! Oh, how I've been waiting to pack. Pretty much ever since '05!!! But we haven't just been sitting around waiting for information. We got our referral on Thursday of last week, and we drove up to Austin to pick up the paperwork on Friday. (That way we could have it before anybody else!) Late Friday night, we took it to a Chinese restaurant we like to get the lab results and other papers translated. We found out about where she was abandoned, and some things about her. Like the fact that she has chubby cheeks. (Can't you tell?) She also likes to play with blocks, and enjoys toys that make noise, which is rather surprising for them. We were actually rather discouraged when our agency (GWCA) told us that they didn't think that there was anybody who was referred a baby from that orphanage. So sad...until we were looking at other blogs, and it turns out that a family in Georgia is getting a baby girl from there, too! The girls are only one month and one day apart (ours is born on December 4, 2006, and theirs is November 3, 2006). They may actually be cribmates! They may be together right now! And, the good thing is, unlike some people, they live within a semi-reasonable driving distance from us. How cool is that?! Anyway, we already FedEx'd our paperwork back to Austin, so it can go to China. Tomorrow, they will send everybody's out, and we will be expecting TA soon. I'm so excited! The projected travel date (from our agency) is September 13th!!! Yes! It actually seems real now! Before it was, 'oh,yeah, we're adopting from China...' But now we have something to look forward to! Earlier today, me and my Grandma picked up somebody from the airport and I said, 'Think. Next time, it's us you'll be picking up with the baby.' And those words are SO TRUE!!!

Here is picture of Kenzie taken the day we met her.

Here is a picture of Kenzie taken today.

Kacee

Here are some pictures of Kacee. She's finally comfortable with the camera and will smile when she sees it instead of crying.

Here is a picture of all of "The Little" together. (This is the best one out of about 20 shots.)