Three years ago a little baby girl was born in a land far, far away. That little girl had a head full of hair and tiny little rosebud lips. That little baby has now turned into a full-fledged toddler. She is sweet, sassy, independent, funny, opinionated, completely lovable, and always full of hugs and kisses (especially for her big brothers). She is a mother hen, constantly making sure the boys are following the rules and quick to let me know when they aren't. She is such a girly-girl - she loves to wear dresses, paint her toenails, wear bows in her hair, and is dying to get her ears pierced (which Daddy has forbid). She also loves to play in the mud with her brothers and can run circles around Monkey and Pudding with a soccer ball. She is everything I've ever dreamed of in a daughter and I can't wait to continue to watch her grow up into a beautiful young woman.
We celebrated her big day by having lunch with Daddy at Chu*ck E. Chee*se. HD had only been once when she was much younger and this was Pudding's first visit. The Littles had fun (though Pudding got WAY overstimulated!) until HD made her way into the tunnel maze. Poor girl couldn't find her way out and became hysterical; adults aren't allowed in (due to weight limits) so I had to wait until a teenager came by and went in to rescue her. I'm pretty sure HD was traumatized and will never go in another tunnel as long as she lives.
We ended the day with a small cake and ice cream. Lucky girl gets to continue the birthday celebration this weekend with our extended family. Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet little HD!!

The Birthday Girl


Game time


Pudding love



Amazed by the big cheese-eater



So much fun to open presents




Anyone think Monkey is more excited than HD?



Girl loves cake!

One Year

*I meant to post this Friday (the 25th) but life got in the way.
One year ago in Beijing, China, Stu and I had a quiet, timid little boy placed in our arms. That shyness lasted about ten minutes, until we pulled out the Cheerios. We quickly got our first giggle and the smiles haven't stopped since. Pudding is quite possibly the happiest child I have ever seen. People ask if I have any pictures of Pudding where he is not smiling; the truth is I probably don't. He wakes up (even at 3 a.m.) with a huge grin on his face and it stays there all day long. Even when HD takes his favorite cat, he tries to give her a mean look but dissolves into giggles within seconds. It's a good thing that he is so darn cute, because that smile often keeps me from wringing his little neck. I thought after three kids I would be prepared for almost anything. Wrong! Pudding is constantly demonstrating how inept my child-proofing efforts are; of course, I'm not sure that even Fort Knox is Pudding-proofed. He can find trouble anywhere he goes and leaves a trail of disaster in his wake. I had no idea how much joy this little boy would bring to our family...and I wouldn't change one single second of the past year. I can't wait to see the coming year brings our family.


Pudding enjoying his "Family Day" celebration


Pudding with his very tired, happy Mama


Our Happy Boy

Reactions and Details

As we have started to share our good news with friends and family, I have been amazed at what a warm welcome our announcement has received. Not that we were expecting people to be rude; but in all honestly, we received a lot of less-than-enthusiastic responses after we announced we started the journey for Pudding. I wrongly assumed that our news about #5 would be met with a similar response. Of course we have received the standard "Are you guys crazy??" question, but most people have been genuinely happy for us and can't wait to meet Sprout. Most family members haven't even seemed too surprised by our news. I've only received two negative responses which, ironically enough, were preceded by "You are such a good mother with an amazing family, but...". If they believe I'm such a good mother then why would they think that Stu or I would make a decision that would be bad for our family? Instead of getting defensive, I've just smiled and said our entire family was very excited about our newest addition and we were doing what feels right to us. The older I get the more I realize that I need to focus on what makes me (and my family) happy and not worry about what others may think. Living in a small town makes that a little difficult at times, but I'm working on it.
Many of you had questions about our little Sprout that I didn't include in the last post.
Sprout turned two-years-old the week of Christmas; Stu is none-too-happy about another Christmas birthday (mine is the week before) but I'm so happy I'll have somebody else with whom to celebrate our "birthday month"! This means she is nine months younger than HotDog and sixteen months younger than Pudding. Yikes! I can't even imagine how busy I'll be with three young toddlers. Amazingly, due to their birthdays they could all be in different grades (though it looks more and more likely that we will be holding Pudding back a year which will put him in the same grade as HD).
Also, our little Sprout is waiting for us in Shanghai. I am SO excited about getting to travel to Shanghai. Stu and I both agreed after Pudding's adoption trip that we would love to visit China again and Shanghai would be our first stop. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that we would be traveling there to pick up our daughter! With Pudding being from Beijing and Sprout waiting for us in Shanghai, I'm a little disappointed that we don't get to see the rural areas of China; we will just have to save that part of sight-seeing when we make a heritage tour when the children are older.
Many of you have asked about Sprout's health. Just like Pudding, we found her on a waiting child list. After talking to our pediatrician, we were open to a wide variety of special needs but thought we would probably pursue another child with heart disease/defect (like Pudding). However, Sprout's special need is one we never even considered; she has an underdeveloped thyroid. That's it. When we found Sprout's file, I was sure that there was something else in her medicals because her special need seemed so minor. But a thyroid defect seems to be her only medical issue. She will be on thyroid medication for the rest of her life and she will have to get a monthly blood draw to check her hormone levels. But it is completely manageable and she should be able to live a long, healthy life.
I'm hoping to send another care package to our cutie soon and am keeping my fingers crossed we will receive and updated picture of her. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a baby picture of our little Sprout.

Here We Grow Again!

Another three months since my last post, but I have a good reason this time. We have been keeping a big secret and I didn't want to spill the beans before we were ready. Well, now we are ready and I can shout it from the rooftop...we are adding another little one to our family!! I'm sure this may surprise some of you, but no one is more surprised than us.
After Thanksgiving, I began to feel a little tug that our family might not be complete. I couldn't let go of the idea of HotDog having a sister. She adores her brothers and has a lot of fun with them, but a sister relationship is so different. I threw the idea out to Stu, thinking he would immediately dismiss it. Imagine my surprise when, a few days later, he came home and said we should do it! I couldn't believe it. I've been a member of several groups that advocate for waiting/special needs children in China since Pudding's adoption so I immediately started to search. I inquired about one little girl who looked like she would be a perfect fit for our family. Unfortunately I was told she was on hold for another family. I continued to search and looked at a few other files but I couldn't get the first little girl out of my mind. I couldn't believe it when I saw her mentioned again on an advocacy blog. I contacted the agency coordinator (she was on an agency's individual list) who said the other family had declined and she sent us her file. I immediately sent the file to our pediatrician for review but knew in my heart we had found our girl. After getting thumbs-up from our pediatrician the next day, we sent in our LOI and received PA the very next day. Since then we've been busy updating our homestudy and meeting with our social worker. We are thrilled that we can take advantage of China's new rule, allowing us to reuse our old dossier since our last adoption was less than a year ago. It is saving us a little bit of money and a whole lot of hassle. We are now waiting (im)patiently for our I800 approval so we can send all of our paperwork to China and let the real wait for our little sweetie begin. Assuming the rest of our process proceeds smoothly, we are hoping to pick up her up in late summer (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for August).
While I know this sounds like a spontaneous and random decision, this is not something we decided without a lot of soul-searching. We discussed (a lot) whether we had the time and energy for another child, while at the same time making sure that it wouldn't have a negative impact on our four children at home. There were (and still are) moments of pure panic where I think to myself, "What in the world are we doing??!!?" Honestly, at this point our household operates in contained-chaos mode and we usually have extra children in and out of our house. Our house may be loud and messy, but it's fun and full of love.
I'll post another entry soon with updates on the Bigs and the Littles as well as a look back on Pudding's first-year with our family (can you believe it has almost been a year?!?!). But right now, I'd like to introduce you to our newest little girl...affectionately dubbed "Sprout" by her big brothers.

Princess Playdate

Although Kyrgyzstan has a relatively small IA program, we are lucky that there are many families in our region with children from Kyrg. And it just so happens that HD's best friend, Ellie, only lives about two hours away. We try to meet up every couple of months, but between our crazy schedules it usually ends up being 3-4 months between visits. We were SO happy to figure out that all of our kiddos were out of school for Election Day so we decided to meet up at a fun playplace half way between us. As it turns out, all of the big boys had other plans so it was just the toddlers; but boy-oh-boy did they have fun together. We played for hours; the kids jumped, ran, and played the entire time. They were so tired afterwards that during our quick lunch, we were actually complimented on their behavior. Ha! It was such a fun day. We can't wait for our next playdate and hope many of the other families with Kyrgyz kids can join us.


The girls had so much fun in the bounce house.



The playhouse/kitchen was another hit


Anybody want some eggs?


Ellie, the future musician



Ellie's face in the window cracks me up!


HD loves to slide


Pudding was fascinated by the Lego wall


The girls spent a lot of time at the train table


My little monkey


Smiles at lunch!

Happy Halloween

My little goblins has such a fun time trick-or-treating. We were a little concerned how HD would react; she has been going through a phase where she is terrified of almost all Halloween decorations. I'm not talking about a little bit scared...she gets absolutely hysterical at the sight of anything the least little bit scary. My big boys were troopers when we couldn't put out our usual Halloween decorations this year so I was keeping my fingers crossed that HD wouldn't cut short our night of fun. I needn't have worried; as soon as HD realized that she received candy at each house, she was a happy camper. Pudding LOVED the night. He would literally run from one house to another, shrieking in joy as his bag filled up with sugar! We could barely keep up with him as he ran from house to house. At almost 8-years-old, Chipmunk is an old pro and thought he was such a big kid as we allowed him to go up to the doors without us. Monkey enjoyed going door-to-door but was much more interested in handing out candy at our house.


The only picture I was able to get of all four together and looking at the camera.

I can't believe how big my first two babies are getting...sniff, sniff...



The cutest little pig ever

I think the monkey costume was very appropriate for Pudding


Mommy and her little goblins

Monkey loves any opportunity to get messy!

A Long-Awaited Catch-Up

I know I always begin by apologizing for how long it has been since my last post and this time is no exception. I'd like to say the absence is due to some extenuating circumstance but that is not the case. The reality is that being a mom to four kids is wonderfully exhausting and takes up nearly all of my time (not surprising, I know). I usually have an hour to myself in the morning between "the Bigs" going to school and the Littles awaking. I then have another free hour while the Littles are napping before the Bigs get home from school. It seems as if every other waking minute is spent cleaning up a mess, chasing (absolutely adorable) toddlers or chauffeuring the big boys to soccer practice. Understand I am not complaining one bit (okay, maybe a little...but just to Stu!); I just want to apologize for the long time between posts. I usually have great plans to catch up on long-delayed communication (like this blog, for example) during those few free sacred hours in my day, but I tend to just sit on my couch, enjoy the silence and wait for the next round of chaos to begin.
I had plans to try to do a recap of all of our events from the past several months but that will have to wait (as it's 5:00 in the morning and my "official" day will begin soon)...needless to say, it has been busy. Chipmunk and Monkey started back to school, second-grade and kindergarten respectively; Pudding celebrated his 3rd birthday and HotDog celebrated her 2nd Family Day (aka Gotcha Day); we have had several weddings of family members and all of the trappings that surround such celebrations; we have just finished another season of soccer for the big boys; and we are now gearing up for the beginning of the holiday season. As a child, I was never a big fan of Halloween. My-oh-my how that has changed since becoming a mom. I love the crisp fall air that surrounds this time of the year. I love making our annual trek to a local pumpkin patch. I love seeing the excitement in my children's' eyes as they debate for weeks about which costume they are going to choose. It is so much fun. Of course, this year Pudding will be celebrating his first round of holidays as part of our family. I cannot wait to see how much fun he has trick-or-treating around our neighbor!
Speaking of Pudding, may of you have been asking me about his progress. He is doing fantastic! I still cannot believe how easily he transitioned into our family. I was so worried about the difficulties of a toddler adoption but I can honestly say he made the smoothest transition out of all of our kids. He is just the happiest kid I have ever seen. He has been home a little over six-months and the progress he has made is amazing. He is starting to speak in sentences now (although I'm usually the only one that can understand him), but still uses a lot of sign language. He has been going through a huge growth spurt and is now on the charts for height and weight. We just finished a check-up with his cardiologist (all good news) and underwent allergy testing to determine if that is causing his breathing difficulty (of course not...not allergic to anything; the allergist/ENT say he just has the smallest sinus passages they've ever seen and simply can't pull air in through his nose). He has transitioned to his own big-boy bed and I'm thrilled to say sleeping has gotten (a bit) better. He usually falls asleep by himself now and sleeps through the night about 50% of the time. The other nights he tends to toss and turn and will wake up a couple of times during the night. I know it is still not ideal but I am so happy with the improvement he has made it that area.
All in all, life is great. I promise I will try to update on a more regular basis and catch up on all of my favorite blogs. I have missed everyone!
In the meantime, I'll share some pictures of our recent trip to the pumpkin patch.