Eight years ago.......

Thanks to my friend Debby for reminding me that 8 years ago today our lives forever changed!


In the Guangdong Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau office we were handed a nine month old, 21 pound armful of JOY! ZoraLin MeiHe quietly arrived accompanied by her orphanage director and a nanny. She was taking in everything that happened around her and very intently checking out these new people in her life. She didn't utter any noises, didn't fuss, didn't cry, she just took us all in. Her new big sister, RaeAnne YuQi, was very busy playing with the toys and took a brief look at this new addition and ran back to play! Big brother, Nicholas was just smiling and watching. When I handed Zora to her Daddy, that little girl wrapped him around her little finger in one heartbeat!




Now that girl is 8 years old going on 25! If something is missing in the house we turn to ZoraLin as she knows everything that is going on! She has accompanied me twice to China to get new siblings and each time "Mini-mom" Zora has saved the trip with her ability to take over showing her sister how things are done and how things will be in the house of Zora!!





Those that know us are aware that ZoraLin has ADHD and living with her has it's ups and downs. When she is good, she is VERY good and when she is BAD....LOOK OUT! But even when she is BAD we can't help but love her to pieces!




We met ZoraLin 8 years ago and Forever Family Day is tomorrow, but she was ours from the get-go! Even if she is giving me the stink eye we love this girl all the way to the moon and back!!

Busy days

While I have been slowly regaining my strength...I can now walk all the way up the stairs without stopping halfway to catch my breath! Life has not been standing still at home.

We took big Bro out to celebrate his Forever Family Day a few days early. We had some good food and fun at Red Robin.





This past weekend we went to visit our travelmates and help celebrate their little girl's 3rd Birthday. We had a great time visiting and watching the kids play. Amazing how much these kiddos change and grow in 6 months time!! And it is always fun to have adult conversations!!

Did you get the number of that bus......

That ran over me?!! Funny how life is just swinging along, singing a song and then BAM! Some thing jumped on board my body and the rest is history!!

I was going about my usual routine. Worked all day Thursday, had Friday off and then back to work Saturday. Other than having some residual headache from quitting my Coca Cola habit cold turkey, I was feeling fine. Sunday the girls were busy playing Wii, Daddy was busy watching football and I decided to take a couple of naps. One long nap in the morning and then another in the afternoon. Dishes were caught up, laundry too. Until Sunday night when I started having the fever and chills and nausea...I had been doing great up until that point! BAM!! By 10:30pm I had a fever of 103.5 and was feeling pretty abused. Daddy kept wanting me to call the ambulance to take me to the hospital and I kept telling him that I would probably be told that I have a 24 hour bug that just needs to run it's course. Fast forward to Monday AM and now my temperature is 104.7 and I am dry heaving. Okay, my doctor tells my husband to take me directly to the ER....no stopping!!

So....now I have a much greater perspective of what it feels like to be a patient with pneumonia! And oh no! I can't just go in for a quick patch me up and sent me home visit. I had to stay there from Monday afternoon till Saturday afternoon!!

Then as much as I was excited to come home and sleep in my own bed....there were things that I missed about the hospital. It just sucks to lay in bed and need something and the only way you are going to get it is get up and get it yourself! Call lights are a very nice thing to have when you are as weak as a kitten!!

However, after the first week and one half home, I am glad to say that I am slowly regaining my strength. I will have to admit that I am a pansy! Two women that I work with both came down with pneumonia and they were working through their pain. Gotta love them, they are much younger than I am and I just did not feel like pushing myself to go back to work before my body was up to it.

So I am slowly trying to build up my stamina and strength to be able to go back to work. I am happy that I can finally make it all the way up the stairs without stopping to catch my breath half way up. This is a major accomplishment!

In the meantime, Tessa had her sedated MRI of her heart. The verdict was: really not anything seen on the MRI that the 3 D echo had not already shown them. So the pediatric cardiologist will visit with her colleges and let us know what their recommendations are. Tessa continues to do absolutely amazing! Her weak spot is reading, but I can't imagine what it would be like to learn one language and then all of a sudden switch to a completely different one!





She also had a dentist appointment last week. Two cavities! Today she went in and had them filled and she did great! They used the nitrous oxide on her and it put her right to sleep! She wanted to do an impromptu photo shoot for me the other day. She kept running around to different areas in the living room and would demand, "Taka picture Mom!" So I obliged! She is just cute as a button!!





I love the one where Oreo's tail is in her face!! Funny how much she loves the critters in our house now. Not too long ago she was petrified of them....now she can't get enough of them!!

Snow days revisited!

Just received the call from our school district...no school tomorrow. I heard a whoop and holler from the basement...guess the girls know! The girls helped me make brownies the last time we had snow days. Then to burn off the calories from the brownies they showed me how to play on the Wii. No photos of it, but Mom showed them she knows a few dance steps!






And yes, they licked the bowls!

Little cheerleaders!

Last year ZoraLin wanted to do the mini cheer camp put on by our school district's high school cheerleaders. This year was no different and she convinced all her sisters to do it too. Well, except that RaeAnne decided that she was too "old" to do it. Even though they only practiced two nights for an hour each night, the girls did a great job during the half-time of the boys varsity game Friday night.







However, I did discover that there are hazards to going to a basketball game infrequently. First be very careful when you have a husband taking blood thinners. Don't let them try to climb to the highest point of the bleachers. RaeAnne and I were still standing by the entrance to the gym looking for the ideal spot to sit during the performance. I spotted the place I thought looked like would work, then turned to tell my dear hubby and he was already gone. I moved on around the corner to see where he went and found that he had taken a tumble on the bleachers! Seems he went to step up and lost his balance and down he went. I won't bless this blog with photos of his incredible bruise, but will just tell you that it is impressive!



And when you have four girls doing the cheers...it is always hard to be in the right place to catch the best photo ops! So make friends with the other Mom's so you can share photos!!

Snow days!!

When I was a kid, there was nothing sweeter to my ears than "School has been called off due to snow!" Well, that has been the case here for the last two days. We knew that could be a possibility when we went to bed Sunday night. Daddy was up early Monday watching the school closings on the news and had just told me the good news when our school district telephone notification system rang our house and Daddy's cell phone at the same time to let us know the news too. That woke the whole house up and the girls were thrilled!

Tessa is from the southern part of China and had never really seen snow before. Her sisters couldn't wait to get her out and show her how to sled!





Then at supper time last night we received the news that school was called off for another day! Mom and Dad actually kept that little bit of info quiet until just before bedtime. They actually were able to go to sleep! This morning they couldn't wait to go back outside and sled some more. And they were more than a little upset at Mom when she bundled them up extra carefully as the temperature was 11 degrees and the wind chill was a negative something!






Tessa has decided that she likes sledding...she just doesn't like to do it in the snow!! Here's the girls enjoying hot chocolate and marshmallow's after sledding!

This and that

I think it is an old wives tale or something about "Busy is as busy does." Well, we have been busy! December gives Mom a double whammy for birthdays. RaeAnne's is four days before Christmas and Daddy's is four days after! Trying not to roll Birthday's and Christmas into the same gifts is sometimes tough....and expensive! RaeAnne was pretty easy...she has been wanting and upgrade to a DSi for a l-o-n-g time. Daddy was harder. (Why is it the older we get sometimes the things that we want have so many zeros behind them?)

So the day before Daddy's birthday, the Geek Squad arrived bearing gifts and had work to do. We have had a projection TV for over 9 years now. It still works great, but the thing is a monstrosity! So Daddy has a new controller and a 46 inch flat screen LCD TV. Mom is the lucky one as it is mounted on the wall and takes up so much less space! And the girls...well they scored too, because their Bubby "loaned" them his Wii and their Aunt and Uncle gave them a Wii fit....wow! We have a real "play" room in the basement!



Jordis had an appointment in Kansas City at Children's Mercy Hospital today. All the girls went along for the ride and posed with the statue children in front of the hospital.