May Update & Starfish Reunion!

Where on earth does the time go? How did it get to be May 21st already? I see my last post was Easter for goodness sakes! Our girl continues to learn and grow by leaps and bounds. Our life has been busy the last couple of months with Steve starting a new job, me continuing to work 30 hrs/wk and balance home and child care. My mom has been taking Lia 2.5 days/week to help me pack my work hours in, which has been a godsend (thanks mom!)

We are currently searching and hoping to get into a more long-term housing situation in the next few months. We've been moving around a lot due to job changes, but we are ready for some stability for Lia (and ourselves) for the next few years and hope to put down some roots.

Lia loves school and has really blossomed over the past six months since she started. I'm sad to see the school year come to and end. She doesn't really get the concept of "summer break" yet, so I know she is going to miss school over the summer. Here's a short video that her teacher got of her playing at school:



We've been lucky to have some nice weather recently and have been spending some time at the park where Lia has overcome her fears of the slide and play equipment for the most part. She seems to particularly enjoy helping the younger toddlers and making sure they are safe. It's very sweet to watch her play the role of caregiver to the little ones.

Our most exciting news is that we're headed to Nashville this weekend for Lia's reunion with her friends from China. Starfish families from across the U.S. are traveling to meet-up and see our kids reconnect for the first time since they lived at Starfish. There are sure to be some very emotional moments - but we are very excited to be going and feel very blessed to have the opportunity to connect and stay connected with these people from Lia's early life, as we know this is a luxury that most adoptive families never have.

Easter 2012

Today is April 10, 2012. It's hard to believe that five years ago today, my adoption paperwork was logged in with the Chinese Government, and I officially began my "wait" for Lia. Amazing. Those first three years seemed to crawl by so slowly, and yet the last two have seemingly flown by!

This weekend we celebrated our second Easter with Lia. On Saturday we attended the local "Spring Fling" egg hunt and Lia got to meet the Easter Bunny herself. A sunny, 70-degree Easter is almost unheard of in Seattle.

On Sunday we had Easter dinner at my parents' house with my uncle and sister. Needless to say, Lia got LOTS of Easter goodies! She was a happy girl.

Working and Playing and Picture Taking

Once again, the weeks have passed without a blog entry! Where does the time go? We've been busy, busy, busy - lots of working and playing over the past six weeks. Lia is loving preschool and her speech is really continuing to blossom. As the weather continues to warm up here in the Pacific NW and we start to see streams of sunlight poking through the clouds on a more regular basis - here are a few of the highlights:

First visit with "Auntie Linda" (my BFF from high school). Good times!

Great Grandma Harriet's 90th Birthday Party

Practicing her computer skills on Valentine's Day

March - Low-tide beach exploration on Vashon Island

A quick trip to the lighthouse/beach after school

Enjoying a rare sunny day in February on her backyard swing

"Hugs for Amanda" Campaign

This is Amanda de Lange. She is the founder and director of the Starfish Foster Home in Xi'an, China. As most of you know, our daughter Lia was adopted from Starfish.
This is Amanda's story:

In September 2005, Amanda de Lange founded Starfish Children's Services to save children who have special health needs that are the most at-risk in its partner orphanages. After nursing them back to health through solid nutrition and a loving environment, Starfish organizes and pays for the children’s surgeries before providing post-operative care. After the surgeries, the goal shifts to getting these children in the adoption pipeline so that they can join a stable, loving family.


At Starfish, Amanda has taken care of 150 children to date, arranged more than 175 surgeries and had 66 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US, Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Australia and in China. Starfish currently has 49 babies under the age of 3 and a half at the foster home. Amanda is an amazing woman with an amazing vision. She has always maintained that the purpose of Starfish is, “For this child, I will make a difference…..”

Now, Amanda needs our help:

To our great sorrow, Amanda was admitted to a hospital in Xi’an recently for tests, and the doctors have determined that she has advanced stages of uterine cancer (stage 4/type B). She has begun chemotherapy and Amanda is receiving top medical care and will continue to receive the best treatment and care possible.

However, without medical insurance, her medical costs will be extremely expensive. Friends and loved ones worldwide are being invited to help cover the costs of her medical needs. For one who has given her life so unselfishly for the lives of babies, for the life of each “one” – including our Lia - this is our time to rally around her and make a difference in her life.

We invite you to consider making a donation in Amanda's name to help with her expenses. You can go to the Starfish website at http://www.thestarfishfosterhome.org/. Click on the orange Donate Now button in the upper right hand corner. Dedicate your donation “In Honor of” and type in "HUGS FOR AMANDA" in the box.
Help us make the "Hugs for Amanda" campaign a huge success and let Amanda know that we are here for her by sharing this information on your blogs, on Facebook, on the Yahoo groups you belong to and with your family and friends. Starfish will continue to post updates on their website about Amanda’s situation. Thank you for your help in this hour of her greatest need.

CARDS AND WELL WISHES TO AMANDA:

Jeannie Butler, a very close friend to Amanda and major supporter of Starfish, is going to China to be with Amanda - she will leave on March 1st. If you would like to send Amanda well-wishes in the form of a card or letter, please send them to Jeannie Butler to be received Jeannie no later than February 27, 2012 to the following address:


Jeannie Butler

Caring for China's Orphans

PO Box 210003

Nashville, TN 37221

2012 Begins!

Two weeks into the New Year and Lia has already come down with, and overcome another cold. All it took was two days back at preschool and she was down for a week, but thankfully she has now bounced back and we can (hopefully) get back into our pre-holiday routine - just in time for Chinese New Year next week!

Lia's Christmas extended way beyond December 25th. She continued to receive gifts and cards well into the new year. Needless to say, this little girl is well-loved and doted on by many friends and family near and far! Thank you so much to everyone who helped make our holiday special...



Another package from Grandma Wall...Tinkerbelle jammies - YAY!

 

Loving her oversized Unicorn pillow pet...

Those eyes - is this kid gorgeous or what??? 
This was after a long day at preschool...and with a cold coming on...

First snow in Seattle this year!

Christmas 2011

First time visiting Santa!

Christmas Eve fun

Our happy girl on Christmas morning...

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Halloween, Birthday, and Preschool!

So much activity to catch up on over the past couple of weeks! No wonder I can't find time to blog...

First of all, Lia celebrated her second Halloween with us and this year dressed up as "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast. She decided on this costume a couple months ago and I was glad she didn't end up changing her mind at the last minute. She understood and was able to say "trick or treat" (or "rick or ree" as she says it). We were pleasantly surprised that the small town where we now live celebrates Halloween in a BIG way! They close off a six block radius of main street for three hours and all the businesses stay open late to give out candy to the kids. Some businesses even do group-themed costumes. It seems like the entire population turned out for this event. I'd never seen so many folks in town at once! My parents, sister, and uncle Dave all joined Steve, Lia and I for trick or treating. It was a fun night.

Next up? Lia's 3rd Birthday, which we celebrated last Saturday. She again wanted to wear her Belle costume, but this time the theme was (again, her decision) "Purple, Princess, Pony" (her three favorite things currently). The party was a great success with lots of extended family and friends present for her big day.

The biggest moment (for me) was watching her blow out her own birthday candles. Redirecting air flow to her mouth (from her nose) has been a big goal in speech therapy the past several months, so it was awesome to see her blow air with enough force to extinguish those three candles.

After the big party, we were lucky enough to have won tickets (for the second year in a row!) to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live, so we headed downtown and took in the big show. Needless to say, we had a very tired little girl by the end of the night... 

Last (but definitely not least), Lia started preschool on Monday! This was a big deal because she had to be three in order to qualify for the school's early preschool program, which is communication-intensive and integrates kids with speech and hearing deficits into the same classroom with "typically developing" three year olds. During her time there (3 days/week, 2.5 hrs/day), she will also receive two half-hour sessions of one-on-one speech therapy with the therapist she has been seeing the past four weeks (who we love!) All in all, a terrific situation for us. We are so happy to have found this program in our local community! 

Definitely a busy and exciting few weeks around here, with only more to come as she gets used to school, and the big holiday season just around the corner. She's already excited everytime she sees Santa and his "ponies" (reindeer). "Rudolph, the red-nosed PONY..."