World Series Win for the Rangers and Ev's First Haircut All on the Same Historic Day!

We watched game 3 of the World Series via our Slingbox. Since I don't have a camera I took video footage of the kids watching. I even happen to get Josh Hamilton's home run on tape. Although Todd told me he got it on video tape live which is a lot better. We called Todd through skype to his dad's cell phone and got to hear a little of the crowd and talk to him as he was there. The kids REALLY wanted to see dad on TV but that didn't happen. I think until he comes back they will want to see him on the TV. We all miss daddy!!

So in honor of the Ranger's winning their very first Word Series game I thought it would be fitting to record yet another milestone for our family- Ev's first haircut. I cut about 3 inches off and when it dried it is about shoulder length. I guess that is what you get with curly hair, it dries a lot shorter. Sadly it took her 4 years to get her hair long. Meanwhile I gave Elijah another cut, his hair grows really fast. I am tired of people calling him xiao mei mei. We went to the play ground tonight and every one was calling him mei mei (little sister). The kid was wearing a gray hoodie, he didn't look like a girl, you couldn't even see his hair. Oh well for 2 years everyone called Ev a boy and with Elijah they all call him a girl. Don't worry Elijah still has curls and some length to his hair. It is just about an inch or more shorter now. :)

I'm without a camera since Todd has ours in America. So here are some pictures of the kids right before Todd left.

Ian

We have new pictures of Ian and updated information! He weighs 9.5 kilos, is 78 cm tall and his foot is 12.5cm. So that is about 21 lbs, 4 inches shorter than Elijah I think around 31 inches and wears a size 5 shoe.

With all the recent baseball excitement around the house Elijah has been asking Todd every night after dinner to play baseball. I am not sure what I am going to do when Todd leaves. I can't exactly play like daddy can :).... so we will see how he does with me.

Hobs has even wanted to go to bed wearing his Rangers Hat, holding his glove and ball in his hands. Is this normal for 2 1/2 year old? It seems to me like he is older kid and trapped in a 2 year's old body.

He's pretty cute. When he pitches to Todd he'll call "strike 1, or strike 3, you're outta there!" And when he is catching he will put his pointer finger in between his legs signalling to Todd what kind of ball he wants him to throw. It is hilarious.

I think he is going to be lost without Todd these next 10 days. All they've done the past weeks is watch baseball, play baseball and sleep baseball. I'm trying to prepare myself for a major meltdown when Todd leaves. Hobs is going to be devastated that his daddy is going to go to a pretty important baseball game without him.

4 Years ago....

My little girl is getting big. I can't believe she is 4 years old. It seems like yesterday that Todd and I were anxiously awaiting her arrival. I remember the day she was born as if it was yesterday,

She's been eating a lot this week so I think she is going through a growth spurt. Ev started out as a healthy 8 lb 4 oz baby who was 21 inches long. She is now a healthy 31 lbs and 40 inches tall little girl who wears a size 10 shoe!

Ev loves playing with dolls. She especially loves Disney Princess Polly Pockets. She loves playing with her doll house and she loves wearing dress up clothes and jewelry. She loves to twirl and she also loves to play baseball. She loves to watercolor, color with crayons,make crafts and read books.

We are pretty proud of her and thankful that she is a part of our family. We love you Evangelia Joy. Happy 4th birthday.

2010 World Series

The past few weeks have been stressful around our house. Todd has been getting up at 1am, 3am, 4am, and 8am to watch the Texas Rangers play. And last Saturday when we didn't Internet he was pretty sad that he wasn't able to watch the game.

Last week Todd had reserved International tickets to fly back home in case the Rangers made it. He also spent about 2 hours on the Internet with his parents trying to buy tickets for one of the World Series games. I'm glad I grabbed our video camera and got footage of him purchasing his World Series tickets. If you know Todd well, you know how much he loves baseball and how much he loves the Texas Rangers. This is a dream come true for him to be able to watch the Rangers play in the World Series!

With his language test behind him and with a few days left of vacation time he has the okay to head the America for 10 days.

Todd is leaving our Tuesday October 26th and will arrive in Tulsa on October 26th and then leave America sometime around November 2nd but not get here until November 4th. We are really excited for daddy to be able to go to a World Series Game. The kids don't completely understand and maybe that is good for Elijah. If he knew what daddy was going to do he would be devastated that he wasn't going with him. Elijah is just as much of a Rangers fan as Todd. He can't say his full name but can say, Josh Hamilton, Cliff Lee and other player's names. :)

Todd will be taking some of our luggage home early for us so when we attempt to take the long flight back to America with 3 kids we won't have to worry with as much luggage. I guess I need to get packing!

Sent off a Care Package

Last night we sent Ian a care package. We sent him a soft photo album with 6 pictures of our family and a camera for his nannies to take pictures of him and where he lives right now. We also included a letter telling him a little bit about us and that we are excited to get him.

We are hoping that we will be an update or new pictures of him. We used a care package service that not only delivers the packages but the lady doing it has great relationship with the orphanages and can get pictures and updates for families.

This lady wrote us back today and told us that the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute is a good facility and they make a "growing kids album" of each child and they will give it to us on adoption day. I have to say that that in itself is amazing. I think I read somewhere that they may be as many as 900 kids in the facility right now. It is very special to have something like that or that they would even take the time to do this.

We wanted to send Ian some pictures and information so he can start to know who we are. I have heard that the SCWI does a really good job of preparing the kids for the transition when they are adopted. I've heard that they show the children the pictures of their "forever families". We are hoping that Ian will see our pictures and that our information would help him when we come and get him. Our paperwork told us that he is a shy boy but once he is familiar with others he warms up. We are hoping our pictures will help him for the day that is approaching.

We wrote in our letter that we both can speak Chinese so I am hoping that since we can speak Chinese the nannies will be excited. In our letter we told them where we live so they can tell him that too. I am hoping to talk with them when we meet him and them. I have a lot of questions for them but I think they will enjoy that I can speak to them and maybe they will share more things with me than they usually do!

I've also heard that this orphanage likes to get pictures and updates on their children after leaving. In my opinion this is rare and it shows that they really care about their kids. And again these things are just more confirmations of prayers we've been praying over the past year!

lately...

A few weeks ago when I was out of town I bought Ian an fun stuffed dog, some plastic bibs, a bath towel, set of sheets and some other things. We have under the bed storage boxes for each kid so Ian's is getting pretty full with the new things I've been collecting for him.

A few weeks ago I made Elijah a baseball card holder. I had seen something similar to this in Pottery Barn Kids catalog so this is my take on it. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. I thought it would be a fun way to display Todd's old baseball cards.

The kids and I have been water coloring a lot lately. Elijah took a picture of me painting a long side them. He's getting better at taking pictures.

The Pinkalicous 4th Birthday Party

We had our pink party. We woke up to find out that we didn't have Internet and Todd went to the place 3 times to get them to fix it. We later learned that our whole complex didn't have Internet or phone lines until almost 9pm tonight.

What a day to not have Internet. I guess they didn't know that we were having Evangelia's birthday party. They didn't know that both sides of our families were waiting to take part in her special day. I was a little frustrated to say the least. But...

The party went off well. As each friend arrived they got to pick a felt flower head band to wear. I enjoyed how each girl picked out their headband perfect to their outfit. :) Once everyone arrived we had lunch. Elijah had been watching me all morning and when I wasn't watching him his little hands were sneaking food off of my table. After lunch the girls and Elijah sat and listened to the first PINKALICOUS book. I loved how Ev was so into the book. We made Pinkalicous' star wand out of pipe cleaner, stars, glitter and stickers. Then girls listened another Pinkalicous books, the Pink Drink. We ate cupcakes and iced sugar cookies and opened presents. Ev's friends love to dress up so everyone joined in adding jewelry, high heels and other fun things to their outfits.

It was a fun day for the girls and our little girl especially loved it. She soaked in every moment. During the craft time I got some great pictures of her hard at work. She was the last one at the lunch table savoring her pink food and she loved when we sang happy birthday to her. She is at a fun age.

Here are some of the many pictures. Hope you enjoy them!

Our Baseball Players

The week I was gone Todd taught Elijah how to pitch the ball straight. Ev learned how to step as she swings so she can really hit the ball well now. Elijah also figured out how to dive for balls throwing himself head first to the ground.

We've been taking several short video clips of Elijah pitching. Here are a couple from the other night. Ev and her dolls are in the stands (couch) watching and cheering. :)

Birthday Party Prep

It is the season for yet another birthday party. And as usual I am spending the week decorating and preparing and enjoying every minute of it! We are having Evangelia's birthday party a week early because one of her friends has a birthday the day before hers and her birthday happens to fall on the Saturday.

Ev requested a PINK party. So I went with the theme and have been slowly turning our dinning room into a pink place. I've also been making pink food. So far I've turned our homemade granola recipe into a pink granola. Today we made sugar cookies and added some food coloring to make the dough pink. I also added a little food coloring to my Ranch dip too. On the list for tomorrow- making pink bagels. I've already bought strawberry yogurt and strawberry Oreos. We will also have pink cupcakes with pink frosting we'll have pink lemonade and we may all turn pink ourselves. Are you familiar with the book PINKALICIOUS? It is about a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and turns pink. We are going to use this book along with one my mom sent with our party theme.

I've made pink flower felt head bands as party hats for each girl and their goody bags include pink lip gloss, pink glittery nail file, pink notepad, pink coloring book and a pink Polly Pocket including accessories and clothes that are all shades of pink.

What more could a little pink loving girl ask for? pictures coming soon!

Hard Day with the Culture

Before lunch time the kids wanted to go to the play ground but they wanted me to go with them. They usually go with their babysitter. I had spent 2 hours this morning with one of my teachers asking her some cultural questions and trying to better understand the my friends and the people. One thing I was told and understand is that they are very indirect people. I guess in some ways they are and in others they are not. They are not very indirect when they tell me my kids are not wearing enough clothing! Ironically people were making comments today because my kids had hats and gloves on. It's pretty cold here but I guess not freezing cold so they were saying we had too much on. I guess I can't please anyone. That was a little frustrating but what got me today deals with us bringing sand toys with us to play with. We have a couple of buckets, shovels and fun stuff like that. When we arrived at the playground no one was there but within 10 minutes we had a crowd. I am starting to think they wait until the foreigners come so they can play with our toys. We had built a sand castle but then a little boy came and kicked it over. His mom didn't say anything. Another kid came and took a shovel and went off to play. Then when Elijah got upset that the boy who kicked over his castle purposefully took a toy out of his hand the other moms and grandmas were talking about how my kid don't share. We had about 4 kids using our toys and so my kids were a little frustrated. I was frustrated that the moms and grandma don't do anything to their kids when they do things to other people. The little boy who kicked over Elijah's sand castle spent the next 20 minutes taking the toy Elijah was playing with and running away. Elijah called him didi which is what he calls boys younger than him but then it clicked in my mind. Whenever we talk about OUR DIDI he is upset and doesn't want to share. He's seen pictures of our didi Ian and he looks like the kids at the playground. I think he thinks Ian will act like the kids do. Once I realized this I told both kids that we would train our didi to not do the things the kids were doing around them.
Once I had enough and was done with the other ladies talking bad about my kids we went home. Ironically everyone else went home too. I tried to explain to our babysitter that Ev was upset because she has to share with the kids who take her toys without asking yet when we don't bring our toys the kids won't let her play.
There was a point where both kids were wanting me to help. I didn't know how to socially stand up for my kids in that situation. Being too direct with them would cause them to lose face, yet at times they are too direct.
In the past when it has been just me and the kids at the playground and we had our sand toys up because we were not using them. I've watched kids try to walk off with them. We've had some things stolen before so I feel I have to watch our things really carefully. I'm done with the interactions at the playground.

My Niece

I just saw an updated baby bump picture and realized that my sister in law is 37 weeks pregnant right now, seeing her large belly made me think back to when I was pregnant with Ev. Then I realized 4 years ago this week I WAS 38 WEEKS pregnant. WEIRD! Maybe my niece (Maggie) will be born on Evangelia's birthday. :)