A New Addition to Our Family!!

Hello everyone some exciting news yesterday - K got the call from Children's Bridge that we have been matched up with a little boy from China - B. We hope to travel to pick him up this December or January. He is from Guangdong province -- see the map below (the island of Hong Kong is just a short distance away - so about as far south in China as you can get).



He has a cleft lip (repaired) and a cleft palate (to be repaired in Canada) and two wild older twin sisters (he hasn't met yet). He will be 14 months old at the end of this month. B was born on April 26, 2007.

We think some of these photos are older than others (certainly older than his 6.5 month old medical report - it said he had no teeth and in one photo, when you zoom in, it looks like he has a mouth full). The 6.5 month report said he weighed about 16-17 pounds (the girls only weighed that at a year old) and his height was 70 cm (apparently in the top 25% for height, at least for Chinese kids). It also said his sleep was moderate and that he goes to bed at 10 PM and gets up at 6 AM (K groaned at those). He is apparently "active, outgoing and has a ready smile" (perhaps he can survive his sisters yet). It said he was crawling and could support his weight if you helped him stand up - so he may be walking by the time we get him (he would be 20-21 months old by then).

We will keep you posted if anymore info becomes available (when travel plans firm up etc).

Spring is here!

Hi all, the snow is finally gone and weed season has begun! Here are a few photos of the girls and you'll see in the background some shots of our recently finished basement (yay, my main floor no longer looks like the toy aisle in a department store after a Boxing Day sale! Now my basement looks like the toy aisle in a department store after a Boxing Day sale).

Below are the girls after picking them up from daycare last night (usually I need to start the DVD player before I can get them into the van). Last night I showed them how to blow the seeds off a dandelion - A managed to ingest a few before she got the hang of it). When we got home, I found the remnants of the stem in E's mouth, A confirmed she ate hers as well - apparently dandelions are a tasty toy.















The girlies putting their shoes on this morning - notice E's intense focus in getting the job done and A waiting for Daddy to do it.
















A dialing for pizza while shopping with her dolly in the basement.
















E plays "peek-a-boo". Meanwhile note A in the background in the next shot calling Grandma M.
















Thing 1 (A) with bus and Thing 2 (E) with plane















A hides behind her umbrella while rabbit-ear E opens hers. A working in the construction zone.
















E takes a picture of Dad (thankfully she can't post hers - yet).
















A (left) and E enjoy their new flutes a little too much (Ah Tylenol work your magic....)

















The girls in their Sunday dresses (not so easy to get them to sit still for pictures anymore).

E wearing her lovely robe from Great-Aunts in NB (not so easy getting them both to wear robes at the same time - "no want it" is a phrase I hear a lot these days, usually followed by the flinging of whatever item they "no want" across the room).

A has also mastered logic at age almost-three. One day at the table she pronounced "I no push E, I no sit naughty chair, I be happy!" If only she took to her own advice. A is a bit of an agitator - if she is bored she will tap E to get something started. E will occasionally start something but mostly it is A. Sounds a bit like my mom and her older sister...

Happy Referral Day

Hi all,

Last Monday was the 2nd anniversary of the date that DoT and I received our referral for E and A. So, as a tradition that I hope to carry on yearly, I took their pictures holding one of their referral photos.

Uh, yeah, so for those of you who remember last year's post on the anniversary of the day we got them (See the July 2nd post in the archives - http://andstillwaiting.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html) you may remember that I wasn't clued in enough to comb their hair for the photo. Let's just say, some things never change....

K..

Signs of Spring

A couple of weeks ago I thought spring would never get here. We had more snow in Ottawa this winter, than I remember ever having. Not enough to set a record, apparently, but we were close. (Incidentally, I don't feel the need to break the current snowfall record.) Here are some pictures I took a few weeks ago when we all went out for a walk...

This is A and DoT walking down our street...

And this was the front of our house...

Finally, this was what we saw when we looked out our front door...

But, happily, the snow is now starting to melt. Today we went for another walk, and the streets were bare enough that we could pull the girls in the wagon. (That lasted for about five minutes, and then E had to get out and stomp through all the puddles.)

Here is a picture of our front yard today...

And look!!!...

In the strip of flowerbed that is exposed (right beside our driveway) we have a lot of spring bulbs that are up. I wonder if we'll have flowers before all the snow is gone.

So, since our last post, we've had a couple of holidays... St. Patrick's Day and Easter. On St. Patrick's Day, our caregiver had told us to dress the girls in green. That morning I discovered that I don't have a lot of green clothes for the girls. E ended up in an outfit that I'd saved from last year (since it was a bit big and I thought she might still fit into it this spring and summer). Clearly she's grown (usually it is A whose belly is hanging out, but not this time) ...

And here, finally, are a few picks from Easter weekend. The girls were fortunate enough to be at two Easter egg hunts. The first one was in Shakespeare (grandma and grandpa G. are in-the-know when it comes to fun social outings). A got right into it...

But E wanted to be carried around most of the time. Here is her favourite position...

The second egg hunt took place at grandma and grandpa G's house...

Here are E and A collecting up their eggs ...

And here they are discovering that there were M&Ms or skittles inside them!!

Well, that's it for today. Happy spring everyone!

When Will Winter End?

Greetings from snowy Ottawa. We have been outdoors a lot lately but always with shovel in hand, so most of these pics are from inside. That being said, every night when we get home, the girls ask to "shovel driveway?" That wouldn't be so bad except their definition of shovelling is taking snow off the driveway and dumping it into the garage. We are also in the midst of having our basement finished, so there is a "before" picture listed for comparison. The girls also ask at least once a night to see the basement, to make sure they haven't missed anything. Well that's it for now, hopefully next time we post the snow will be melting. Bye for now - DoT

Chinese New Year and other events

Hi again,

So, it's been over a month since our last blog update. And we've been social butterflies. This year we went to two Lunar New Year parties. The truly wonderful thing about the parties this year is the fact that the girls had great times playing with all their little friends, and not clinging to DoT or I. That was a nice change from parties of the past.

Here are a few pictures from one of the parties. (I know I took my camera to the second party, too, but I can't seem to find any of my pictures from it.)

First, A climbing through a tunnel...

Next, both girls riding a toy horse...

And finally, the couch shot that needs to be taken anytime we have a get together...

Also this month, we had a visit from DoT's cousin Devan. The girls took to him right away, and were sorry to see him go. For the next couple of days they kept asking where Devan was and didn't really seem to understand why he'd want to go off back to school instead of staying to live with them. :-)

The other big news around here is that we are finishing our basement (or at least part of it). We've been wanting to do that for awhile, but haven't gotten to it. But push finally came to shove and we decided that it really is time to reclaim the house from all the toys that seem to have taken over it. So we're building (well I guess actually our contractors are building) a playroom, washroom and guest bedroom in the basement.

Well, that's it for tonight. I'll close off with the photo that went out on our Chinese New Year cards this year (which some of you have therefore already seen)..

Happy Year of the Rat!

K..