{Celebrate China} Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Our Spring Festival celebration has gotten off to a fabulous start!  We spent Friday with our dear friends dressing up in our Chinese silks and makings lots and lots of jiaozi!  I mixed up chicken, turkey, and beef fillings.  The turkey was definitely the favorite - it was mixed with Chinese cabbage and hen hao chi (literally meaning " very good eat").  If you are looking for some amazing jiaozi recipes, I highly recommend the cookbook, Asian Dumplings.  You won't be disappointed!  We did attempt to make our own dumpling wrappers but I gotta say, it's not my favorite thing.  Sweetie was able to do something with the dough when she came home from school, but we ended up with wrappers that were a bit too thick.  I think I'm sticking with the pre-made ones from the Asian market from now on, ha!

For dinner on Saturday night, I made my most favorite Chinese dish, Kung Pao Chicken.  I had never made it before, but I am thrilled with how it turned out!  I followed the recipe from RasaMalaysia exactly, except for adding thinly sliced carrots.  Even Sweetie had only good things to say, she loved it!  I also picked up a couple pork and salted egg-stuffed zong zi (a traditional dish served during Dragon Boat Festival, but available all year).  Yum.

New Year's Eve at the beach

I am a week late in posting about our celebration with good friends at the beach ... we couldn't have asked for anything better to ring in 2014!  Lots of silliness, delicious crab cakes (pizza for the kids), fun decorations, hours of games, and just having a good time pretty much sums up the night.  It was a great party that I'm sure none of us will be forgetting.  What a blessing all of our friends are!

Christmas gatherings

I usually forget to pull my camera out during all of the Christmas festivities, especially because we host a lot of it.  I at least managed to snap group shots with the timer this year though.  There were a lot of laughs involved, but I think I managed to at least capture the people there :)  Christmas is my favorite holiday for many reasons, but I adore all the family time.  We spend two days together, and it's really just wonderful.  Lots of chatting, coffee, and eating.  Ohmygoodness, the food.  So. much. food.  We will have leftovers for awhile.  We are also still digging out, but I am beginning to see more of my floor.  It was a magical day for the kids, it's so fun to see Christmas through their eyes.

Tin

It's amazing to believe that I have spent almost half my life with my husband.  We dated for five years, were engaged for one, and now celebrate 10 beautiful years of marriage.  We met when I was just 17!  I was such a baby, and totally in love.  When I reflect on all the blessings God has bestowed upon us, wow I am simply speechless!  Three children, three houses, two dogs, so many amazing friends, a supportive family, multiple businesses, and a whole lot of love through the years.  I am honored to be sharing life with this man, God sure knew what He was doing!

I was looking through some pictures of our early beginnings, and thought I would share ... from the very first picture ever taken of us just a month after we met, the years we dated, our engagement, our beautiful wedding, and our most recent family portraits taken in front of the very same chapel we were married in :)  Sixteen years together, 10 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary, babe!  I love you more every day!  God is so good!

A too-quick weekend getaway

We took the opportunity for a quick trip to the beach this weekend.  It had been planned for awhile, so naturally we found out it was going to rain all. weekend. long.  No matter to us, we still intended to go.  Although it was definitely wet, very windy, and way too short of a trip, we had a wonderful time relaxing.  And we had perfect Fall weather on our last day - even making it to the beach for a treasure expedition.  After particularly rough storms, it's miraculous what you can find washed up on the beach.  So many tiny, intricate, perfect little sea shells and other cool finds that are an awesome representation of Our Father's artistic eye for detail.

Sporting the iPhone again :)

Back to school for me

I always said I would never go back to school.  I really need to erase "never" from my vocabulary.  Ha.  Fortunately this is a non-credit class and I am actually pretty excited about.  Mandarin Chinese with my hao peng you once a week?  Yes please.

Terrible quality iPhone capture ... and I love it.

Catching up

I have so much to catch up on, especially because our super-sweet exchange student, Yana, arrived on Saturday.  But that was after a super-duper awesome week of this (well sort of).  More to come.

Ready to rock

It's VBS week here.  This year's theme is "Turn It Up!" and we have been rocking out the last two nights!  That includes crazy-colored hair, blue and green makeup, and fishnet gloves.  Oh yeah, totally reliving the 80's punk rocker days!

iPhone selfy with the kiddos

Enjoying the outdoors

If you've followed my blog for any length of time or know me personally, you know that I am not an "outdoors" girl.  But I am trying to enable the outdoor side within me, for the kids' sake.  And as long as we get outside first thing in the morning before the sun is very high in the sky and before the humidity is 200%, well it's not that bad :)

Yes, that's right.  Shot with the iPhone again.

Passing the time ...

... with a nice walk, despite the humid dampness that makes my hair even curlier.  Loves these sweet gifts.

Shot with my iPhone.  I'm learning to embrace it.

It feels good to be heard

Almost two years ago, we took Sunshine to her first cleft clinic day.  It was a very long day (smack dab in the middle of nap time, mind you) filled with seeing lots of doctors who poked and prodded my child ... the child who had only been home from China for a month and had already been through more trauma than a lot of kids will experience in their whole lifetime ... the child who didn't truly trust her parents yet.  The last doctor we saw that day (after hours of being shuffled around) was the ENT.  At that point, Sunshine was starving, sleep deprived, traumatized, and just plain mad.  Totally understandable, I would have been mad too.  As I forcefully held Sunshine down while she was kicking and screaming, the ENT looked into her ears and told us she couldn't see anything because of the wax build-up.  She then said she'd need to clean out her ears to get a good look.

That's about the time I put the brakes on.  I didn't even know what "cleaning out her ears" would entail, but I knew it was going to be too traumatic for my girl.  Very much against the ENT's judgment, I told her that we would not be cleaning out her ears right then.  I just knew it was too much.  She had already been through so much that day, and let's face it, Sunshine. didn't. trust. me.  Annoyed and frustrated with me, the ENT reluctantly agreed and said that it could be done while she was under general anesthesia before the tubes were placed.  That sounded like a much better idea to me.  My mama bear claws retracted and I turned back into my "normal" mostly-pleasant self.

Now let me be clear, I do not advocate routinely denying medical procedures for children.  But in that moment, at that exact time, I knew in my heart that "cleaning out her ears" was just not in Sunshine's best interest and it was up to me to say so.  Almost two years later, I still believe that was the right decision.  Sunshine went onto have her ears cleaned and tubes placed under general anesthesia without complication, and it all worked out just fine.

So fast-forward to yesterday, Sunshine had an ENT check-up.  It was "standard procedure" - just to check her hearing, and decide whether she'd need another set of tubes.  I'm happy to report that she's on the lower end of "normal" for hearing and that because her speech is coming along so well, they don't see any need for another set of tubes right now!  She did need to have her ears cleaned though (something about Asian ear wax and those tiny ear canals makes them difficult to keep clean at home).  I agreed and made some off-the-cuff comment about it being totally different two years later.

And that's when the ENT had a lightbulb moment ... she said, "Ahhhh, you're that mom.  You know, I have to tell you ... ever since you said what you said, I've stopped requiring newly adopted kids to have their ears cleaned.  You really stuck with me, and what you said makes a lot of sense."  A big smile came across my face knowing that my decision had been validated.  Mamas really do know best and we are our children's best advocates.  Sunshine then went on to have her ears cleaned out yesterday, sans trauma.  It sure does feels good to be heard.

Nature vs. Nurture

Sometimes as I rock Sunshine to bed at night, I think about her first mother. I mostly grieve for all that she will not have the privilege of experiencing with our special girl. I wonder what she is doing now and if she thinks of our daughter. I wonder if she knows how loved Sunshine is and what a true blessing she is to our family. I wonder if she knows how honored I am to be her mama. I wonder if she is curious about her personality, and the cool little person she is growing into.

A few nights ago as we rocked and I was singing You Are My Sunshine, Sunshine started singing along. She’s been singing with me off-and-on for several months now, and it is just the sweetest thing a mama could hear from her speech-delayed baby! But it got me wondering about her first mother a little bit more. Did she like to sing? Does Sunshine sing along with me because her first mother was musically inclined? Or is it simply because I’ve been singing to her for almost two years? Is Sunshine’s feisty, sugar and spice personality a product of her environment or is her first mother the same way? Is she silly because she learned from her older brother or was her first mother also silly? Do they have the same desire to help others? The same keep-trying-till-I-get-it attitude? Are they both observant and careful or did Sunshine learn to be that way because of her life experiences? Is Sunshine loving and affectionate and sweet because we love her in a similar way? Or is it because her first mother was sweet and loving and caring as well? Maybe it’s nature. Maybe it’s nurture. I can’t help but wonder what parts of her personality were decided while still in her first mother’s belly. It’s a part of my daughter’s history that I just don’t know, and is unfortunately unknown in many adoptions.

Oftentimes, I take it for granted that Sunshine just is who she is. I don’t think about the parts of her that her first mother gave her. She is just “Sunshine” to me on most days. There are sometimes when I see her do something that I know, without a doubt, she learned from our family ... things she does that have her big brother or big sister written all over them. It’s undeniable. “Oh, she got that from Lovebug,” I can easily say. But I just don’t know about many of the other traits. I’ll probably never have answers to these questions, but it doesn’t stop me from wondering. And it shouldn’t stop me from celebrating what may have come from her first mother. Even though I may not know the exact traits that she gave Sunshine, they are no less important. And I love her first mother for giving them to her. Sunshine is growing into a miraculous, inspiring little girl partly because of “nature” and partly because of “nurture.” What a beautiful thing that is to witness.

Created 4 Care 2013

Too many thoughts are swarming around in my head to make a comprehendible post, but I had an amazing time at C4C again this year.  450 of my adoptive mama friends all together to support each other and worship our Heavenly Father.  Yes, it was beautiful. 

Here are the blog posts from Created 4 Care 2012: HERE and HERE.