My dolls

The girls were playing with their dolls before bed tonight.  

Here is ZoraLin and Kanani.

Tessa and Piper.

Kendalan and Roxie.

Jordis and Jordan.

Ho Ho Ho!

Hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone.   After Santa and Mrs. Claus visited opening the present was kind of anti-climatic.   We opened the gifts on Christmas Eve day as I had to work Christmas Day.   The night before we did our traditional one gift of Mom and Dad's choice.  Even though we have done this for years, the girls always forget that the gift is pajamas!   I bought them all H@nna And*rsson jamies this year and they were so soft and warm I wish I had a pair myself!

Today we headed to the closest American Girl store so Kendalan and Jordis could cash in on their gift certificate from Santa for their choice of doll.   Tessa and Zora each took their dolls to get new outfits. The store was crammed full of girls and their dolls!!   I would love to see what the total sales were in the store today.    Jordis came home with her doll who is named Jordan.   Kendalan has Roxie.   These two girls join Zora's Kanani and Tessa's Piper and they are all a well dressed group!!

Visitors!

We were getting ready to start supper last night when the door bell rang.   All of a sudden I heard "It's Santa!"   Sure enough, Santa and Mrs. Claus were at our house!   The girls were pretty much in shock.  Their manners went out the window as they stood and stared at the pair.    I suggested that Santa and the Mrs. have a seat.   The girls sat stiffly on the couch while Santa asked them if they had been good this year.   He also mentioned that an Elf named Dasher had come to see him with some information.   They looked a little nervous when Santa asked them if they know Dasher!   They told Santa that Dasher had left last night and we hadn't seen him since.  

With Mrs. Claus helping, Santa read "The Night Before Christmas." to the girls.   After the book Santa invited the girls to take turns telling him what they wanted for Christmas.   The girls were very shy and we chose RaeAnne to go first as it was also her 13th birthday!   She told him she wanted either a laptop or a video camera.

Jordis was next and she told the man in red that she wants an American Girl doll with a purple dress.

ZoraLin finally sat on his lap and wasn't shy about telling the duo, "I want it ALL!"   One of everything in the Justice store that is.  

Tessa is still under the weather.   Even though Santa tried his best to coax her, she remained laying on Dad's lap.

Kendalan told Santa that she wanted an I-pod.   She has her brother's old I-phone but she can't get new apps for it.

Evidently Santa must dance in China as Linzi was all excited when Santa arrived and showed us many times how to wiggle your hips and head.   She made sure that Santa was the real thing by pulling his beard and she told him something in Chinese.

Soon it was time for Santa and Mrs. Claus to go back to the North Pole and see if the Elves are getting everything ready.   They weren't gone a few minutes when I heard a chorus of  "I'm hungry!"   Santa forgot to ask me what I wanted for Christmas!!

The girls love Dasher

We first met Dasher on December 6th, 2010.   The girls L~O~V~E Dasher!!   So much that they are seeing who can get up the earliest to find him each morning.   Kendalan and Tessa have started setting their alarm for 5:30AM to come upstairs and look for our Elf.

So Dasher has been found hanging out on the floor lamp.   From this area he can watch the Christmas tree and see if anyone is peeking in packages.

Dasher hid in Daddy's stocking one day.   I am not sure why, but the girls really had a hard time finding him there.   I mean, he was right at face level...maybe it was just too obvious.

Then Dasher decided to get a real birds eye view of the lving room from the clock.   He also thought he would blend in with the red of the China flag and be missed....but not by my eagle eye girls!!

Then one night Dasher decided to hang out in the kitchen.   I think he wanted to watch them do homework and go back to Santa and report what they are getting grade wise.

I think that Dasher needed a nice easy night of watching the girls.   How better than to be really close to the Christmas tree and right in the living room where the girls are talking, and fighting all night!!   I bet that Santa got an ear full that next morning!!

Then Dasher wanted to hang with the girls!  

Then Dasher found himself another woman!!   He was in her arms all night long!!

Tonight Dasher is doing a little undercover work.   He is at an advantage point in the room.   It will be pretty interesting to see what he reports to Santa from this site!!

The truth is hard.

Just to update where things are:

We had Linzi to the pediatric infectious disease doctor yesterday. We
took Tessa to this physician after she first came home too. Dr. Harris
will run her vaccination titers to see if she actually did receive the
immunizations in China as we were told. While we were in the office
Dr. Harris also had Dr. Crouch a pediatrician see Linzi. Linzi does not
like doctors very well. She started screaming and crying when they first
called her name and tried to weigh her. She continued to cry, kick and
wave them off. When Dr. Crouch was visiting with me we both tried to
turn our backs to her so she would think we weren't talking about her and
to try to get her to be quiet. Dr. Harris finally found Dr. Zhao who is
a neurologist and had him come in. Dr. Zhao is from Taiwan and speaks
Chinese. Linzi did kind of talk to him. Since Dr. Zhao had not been in
the room he did not know what was going on. Once Linzi responded to his
Chinese questions he looked at all of us and said "There is something wrong
with her." He says that her responses were not really correct and that
her Chinese is not very good, her speech is kind of slurred. We explained
to him that she had just been adopted from China and that she was in an
orphanage with many Down Syndrome and severely delayed/handicapped
kids. He again tried to talk to her. He asked her something and she told

him no. He said that he had to kind of guess what she was saying to him.

That her responses were just words that didn't totally make sense.
He then again said "Something is wrong" and he mentioned

autism or autistic? The other two doctors said they don't think she is

autistic and that they see hope that she may become able to be a productive individual.
They did see the "self stimulating" behavior I have seen from the get-go.

She is in constant motion...if she is standing she will rock from foot to
foot, if she is sitting down she will rock back and forth. She also will roll
her hands together and in a circle while repeating the same thing over and
over and over and over...to the extent that it drives me crazy, especially
as I have no idea what she is saying!

She is adorable.   She is Loud.  Has she bonded?  I don't know.  She calls
me "Ma" and will hug some of us and pat us on the back.   She will also
go to strangers and hug them.   She loves to "talk" to anyone and everyone.
Well. except for the doctors at first.   After she realized that they were not
going to do anything to her she was fine with them.   When I drop her off
at school she happily waves to me and says "Bye bye."   She did not get
upset when we left the orphanage staff either, just happily waved.


We did start her in Kindergarten for 1/2 days. The teacher says that she
follows around the other kids and kind of does what they do. The teacher
is pleased how she is doing at this point. We plan on
moving her to full days after the first of the year. We are fully planning

on her repeating Kindergarten again next year if she needs too.

She is constantly on the move. She can sit still in the car and occasionally
on the couch, but she does not have the attention span to watch TV,  play
video games or DSi games. The girls are all very disappointed that she can not
play with them and they feel like we are just babysitting her. I have heard
them call her "stupid and crazy" and ask "What are we going to do with her?"
We have reminded them that Tessa and Jordis didn't speak English when they

first came home either. It is frustrating for all of us.

She is really rough on everything. I am sure that this is from being in the
orphanage and not learning the proper behavior. She does know when she is
doing something she shouldn't. I have gone to the bedroom and as I come back
into the living room she is shutting the laptop...she knows she is not supposed
to be on it. She went from being scared of the cats and dogs to chasing them
around and being rough with them. We keep working on "Gentle" I was told that

Ching Ching Da means Gentle?

She is very happy most of the time. She will eat anything that we put in front
of her. We do have to be careful that she does not overeat. The orphanage
warned us of that. She is definitely spoiled and gets mad if she doesn't get
her way. She is a total clutz. She can fall over her shadow at times. So
her legs are covered in bruises.


It has been tough, tough, tough. I feel like I brought this on the family as
I was the first one who wanted to adopt again. I also feel like I jinxed the
adoption because I had Linzi tattooed on my arm before we got her....I know
crazy but that is what I think sometimes. Zora has told me that the adoption
was stupid and lame. Honestly we have talked about disrupting her but again
then we feel like we have failed. But, this is not what we were expecting.
We feel that it is possible that we are not meant to be her family, that it was
just our job to get her here so we could help her find the family she was destined

to be in.. A "pay it forward" from our getting Kendalan through a disruption.

It is rough. I feel like we are plodding along, pretending that everything will

be okay and knowing that it will never be the same.

To the mean, negative posters who think they are authorities who have left comments about this...if you REALLY knew what you were talking about you would post with your REAL names!   We have NOT said we are going to disrupt..just that we have thought about it.   I would have left her in China if we were going to disrupt.   This isn't our first adoption.  DUH!
This is why people do not post the truth to their blogs because nasty people are very
quick to judge those they do not know.   If you want to give helpful suggestions great!
If you want to cuss at someone go find someone else!! 

New photos

Had a chance to have some family photos taken last weekend.   Belinda has taken photos of the girls for the last 4 years and we like how they turn out.   For those of you on our Christmas list, you will be seeing more of them!   This is kind of a sneak peek!!

Linzi had a hard time sitting still.

Tin grin

RaeAnne had braces put on Thursday afternoon.

I remember when she had to have her molars capped because they were so weak.   We were living in Texas and the pediatric dentist tried to sedate her in his office.   Unfortunately the "cocktail" they gave her to drink actually wired her up instead of making her sleepy.   We had to resort to having her put under for the procedure.   She has been a white knuckle dentist patient ever since.  

So I was really proud of her when we found out that she needed braces.    She did a great job...well, we did have one little catch.   The assistant was busy getting her teeth ready for the brackets and she was going to put some cleaner on Rae's teeth.   The tool that had the cleanser in it did kind of resemble a syringe....RaeAnne just about climbed off the end of the chair!!!

Now to pay for them for the next 30 months.   And Tessa has an appointment in February to see if she needs braces too!   Yikes!!