Happy Family Day!

Yesterday we celebrated Lizzie's family day.  It's hard to believe it's been two years since this little baby was placed in our arms!

And two years later...she brings a great deal of joy and laughter to our house, and we love her so much!

 
Her favorite things to play with are her "pigs" and her siblings.  Here she is reciting the Lord's Prayer (and let me tell you, she NEVER talks that quietly at home):

Happy Family Day!

It's hard to believe that a whole year has has passed.  Happy Family Day to our sweet little (well, bigger now!) honey bun.  We love you, Liz!


One year ago...

And now...

Helpful Speech Concepts

Although I try not to talk too much about my kids (foibles or successes), I know people like to hear how Liz is doing.  Plus, this is a good place to keep track of things, since, like most #3 children, she does not get documented as much.

Just this week, instead of blithely accepting whatever I pull out of her drawer to wear, she said, "no" and pointed to a different shirt hiding at the bottom.  First time she's ever shown a preference for clothing!  It was kind of fun.  :)

So, two things that have helped a lot around the house.  First, Liz started using possessives about two months ago.  I remember we were doing laundry, and she pulled out a sock and said "Luke sock!" and another, "Mama sock!"  It's so nice that she can recognize possession, because it makes the whole sharing thing (marginally) easier.  Actually, I take it back.  We still really struggle with sharing. 

It's made a much bigger difference at the table.  For example, she used to finish her food and then fuss/whine/reach for whatever she saw on other plates.  Now, when she finishes her blueberries and wants mine, I can say, "These are Mama's blueberries, where are Lizzie's?"  She'll repeat what I say or say, "Tummy" (which is where her blueberries are!), and we can generally distract or move on from there without descending into a tantrum. 

We have also been working a lot on two-step processes--first cut the food, then eat it; first drive home, then you can have baby doll; fill the bottle, then have it.  Liz is beginning to understand the whole idea of two steps, but I think she is also trusting that we will fulfill what we say. 

Merry Christmas!

My friend offered to do a photo shoot for us this week...although it'll be too late for Christmas, you may get a card with some very adorable children around Chinese New Year.  Here's a little sneak peak!

We Interrupt this Blog...

I'm not really up for this level of busy-ness right now.  :P  We're deep into our new fall schedule, and between preschool, knitting group, and Bible study, we have something every morning.  Not to mention teaching, life group, and whatever else comes up.  I feel like I have time for the house, or my kids, or me, but not all three!  Oh, and David too.  I was hoping things would settle down once we got used to it, but they haven't.  I need to figure some things out with our schedule so I can squeeze in all four of the aforementioned items.  

In the midst of life, Liz's six-month anniversary came and went!  She's been home six months now, and it's a little hard to believe how much she's changed.  Last night she was helping David empty the dishwasher, and she was so excited to take her plastic spoons over to the drawer...she opened the drawer and carefully put them away, one by one, then ran back to David, excited for the next job.  She's so big!

I still wish she'd communicate less with whines/fussing and more with words, but for only six months of English language acquisition, she's done really well.  Someone who has adopted internationally told me that six months is great milestone, but a year is when you go, "Oh, so that's who you are."  We can't wait to get to know her even better!

First moments together

Almost ready to leave China

First night in the US (3/13)

One month home--it was so fun to see her do the same things Katie and Luke did.  (4/11)

Sister morning hair (5/15)

Squished!  (6/7)

Hanging out at the zoo (7/25)

First cider of the year (9/4)

Oh, that black thing in my face.  Better not smile.

Birthday Girl

Some had a birthday this week!

Birthday breakfast at IHOP--no matter what we have going on, we always need to eat breakfast!

Birthday card from Marmee, with balloons on the front.

Katie and Luke decided Liz needed a bear cake (she has a bear doll that she really likes).

She loved it!  Sadly, it was an excellent cake...which makes a too tempting snack for Mama.  I used a high-altitude recipe from High Altitude Bakes; so far, I've had great success with her recipes.  

I'm not sure what to do with this?

Aha!  Playdough toys from Marmee.  :)

She also received a little tricycle from the family and some dress-up clothes from Grandma.  I'm not sure that Liz really knew what to make of all the birthday celebrating, but we all had lots of fun!

5 months

But first, the peach report:

I have been obsessively checking the peaches, but they are still mostly hard or not quite ripe.  It's hard to gear up for the game and then have to wait and wait.  You need a critical mass to start canning, and we're definitely not there yet.  But I did start freezing some of the windfalls, and there's a crockpot of peach butter going right now.
My goal was to count peaches this year, and although I've already processed a bit, I'll try to keep track.  I always say we have tons of peaches, but the scientist in me wants to quantify.

Okay, 5 months--what's new?

It's feeling more and more like we have an almost two-year-old rather than a newly adopted child.  There's still a lot of toddler issues to deal with, of course, but I feel like they are mostly the ones that come with the territory.  She understands most of what we say to her (where she wants to is another story, of course), and the day-to-day operations seem to be getting a little easier.  For example, instead of coming to me and crying at my feet when it's time for a meal, I can say "if it's time to eat, where do you go?" and she says, "chair" and runs to her chair.  She's getting a bit pickier about eating, which is both encouraging and annoying.  At least she trusts that there will be more food and she can afford to turn up her nose at that delicious chicken shawarma.  Now we're getting into no pushing and trying to share, but like I said, normal toddler stuff.  :)

One potential issue for cleft lip and palate is speech.  It has been a little hard for me to judge Liz's speech, partly because she's learning a new language, partly because it's been a while since I had an almost two-year-old, and partly because our kids were both pretty early talkers.  So we made an appointment for an evaluation with a speech-language pathologist who specializes in CL/CP.  Within a few minutes of arriving, the SLP said she could tell Liz was perfectly fine.  Yay!  By the end of the evaluation, she placed Liz in the 'advanced' category and said just keep doing what we're doing.  I guess that's lots of reading and talking.  We talk a lot in this family.  :)

A friend was reminding me how nice it is to be able to look back on 5 months and see how much progress Liz has made, rather than looking forward and focusing on what is still challenging.  I was reminded again of how gracious God has been in Liz's life.  We (and others) prayed and prayed for all these things, and I know God must have delighted in saying, "Yes!"

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory..."  Eph. 3:20-21a

All done with ear tube surgery!  Bear got a mask and hair cover.  :)

I like to help out

Three months

Three months!  And that's three months since we got home with Liz (we were in China with her for almost 2 weeks).  

She's changed a lot since then.  We hear lots of laughing, words, and playing around with the kids.  We've got bedtime routines down (although she still wakes up), and our mealtime routines are getting better too.  I feel like she understands a lot more of what we say, which makes it easier to give her instructions--whether she follows them or not is another story, of course.  And it's definitely not all peaches and cream...she's currently pitching a fit because I said she had to wait...

...and we're back.  :)  We're getting settled into our summer.  I've started knitting again (yay!) and attending my weekly bible study.  Katie started summer school (sniff!) and has been enjoying that a lot.  Luke and Liz get some fun time to play together (lots of banging on blocks, tubs, and pots), and it's a little easier to run errands with two kids.  

And let me tell you about the words!  Liz has ear tube surgery scheduled for this Thursday, and when we first saw the doctor about it, I thought we wouldn't be hearing many words till at least after that.  But I'd say she knows at least 20 words right now, and even more, she will try to copy new words when we say them.

My favorite words are "up" and "help."  She has trouble saying h and l sounds, so they sound very similar, but at least when she starts fussing, we can coach her to use one of them.  Her least favorite word from us is "wait," especially when it relates to food, but really about anything (see above).

A little story to close with...David sings "Down To The River To Pray" to Liz when he puts her to bed.  Today we were driving in the car, and Liz started saying "Dada, Dada!"  I was pretty confused, until I realized "Down To The River To Pray" was playing.  So sweet!

My newest model for the shop.

First day of summer school!

Why you do this to me?

Oh, that's why!

Hiking in the foothills.

Time for monster game!

My little man.

Someone learned how to get up the slide!

Two Months

Yesterday was May 14--two months since we arrived home with Liz.  It's kind of hard to believe, both the long and short of it.  She's made a lot of progress since then, but we are still (and will probably always be) dealing with challenges too.

Liz has found her place in this bibliophile family.  We often find her sitting in front of the bookshelf, surrounded by books, babbling to herself as she turns the pages.  She will look at the pictures now when we read instead of racing through the pages, and she'll even sit for some longer picture books occasionally.

We're still working on communication.  She tries to say "Ball" and just added "Dog" (pronounced Gog) to her vocabulary, but she often communicates with a cross between crying and whining.  My patience for that wears pretty thin by the end of the day, and it's hard to strike a balance between being responsive to her and still teaching her to use appropriate behavior.

We're making more progress in the food department.  Sometimes, she will hold our hands now and squeeze her eyes shut when we pray!  Even with food on the table!  But her typical response to food is still a demanding "bring it here" gesture accompanied by loud noises.  Again, hard to strike a balance between responsiveness and teaching.

At the beginning, Liz had no idea what to do when she got dressed.  We'd pull her shirt over her head, and she'd just sit there with her arms down.  She's progressed through moving her arms around to actually getting them into the arm holes!  Not all the time, but she's figuring it out.

One of Liz's favorite toys to play with is our set of Duplos.  Of course she enjoys taking them apart, but she's just as good at putting them together. 

The girl has some serious volume when she wakes up...kind of reminds me of Rufio from Hook.

We had lots of fun at the Botanical Gardens.

Whenever I try to take these pictures, there is usually one that looks like this, and then four other pictures with children heading in various directions.

We enjoyed a fun visit with Aunt Steffie--here she and Liz are playing with one of Katie's clips.  

Our Easter Traditions

The last week and a half has been weighted more to the "slightly overwhelming" side than "things are going great!"  The first two weeks at church, when people asked me how things were going, I said more than once, "I don't want to sugar coat adoption, but everything is going so well!"  Last Sunday our pastor asked again, and we had a nice chat about how adding a third child is one of the harder transitions to make.  It would be way harder if David didn't do everything he could to make my evenings a little easier, though.  He's a great guy.  

A few highlights from the week:  

--Liz has added "Pippin" to her words, and has dubbed David "Gaga."  We are working on making "L" sounds, and she can now make them when she sticks her tongue out.  

--When we first got Liz, she would cry in her crib after waking until I picked her up and calmed her down.  Now, she cries/whines until one of us comes in, and as soon as she sees us, she gets super excited.

--I went running on Monday after dinner!  Two miles without stopping, and my pace wasn't too bad either (first time since Christmas).  I'm planning to go again today...still haven't gone with the kids.  :)  Although the weather is super nice, it's still a little cold in the mornings.

We've also enjoyed sharing some of our Easter traditions with Liz.  It all starts with our Maundy Thursday celebration.  We always eat lamb for dinner, to remember Jesus' sacrifice as the Lamb of God.  This year, I took David's advice and got everything from our favorite Turkish deli--even the lamb and beef shawarma.  After dinner, we read John 13-17 aloud.  At the appropriate time during the reading, we paused and washed each other's feet.  Katie's been asking since last year when we'd wash feet again, so I think it's pretty memorable.  Every time, we go over how washing each other's feet reminds us that we are supposed to love and serve each other.  

After reading, we take communion, and then our fast begins.  We've done everything from bread and water to just going vegetarian (when I was pregnant).  This year we are eating a vegan diet.  I'm pretty sure if we'd just told the kids "no milk," that would have been enough to have an impact.   :)  The fast lasts from communion on Thursday through the sunrise service on Sunday.  This is what we're having for Easter dinner: Braised Beef Brisket

Luke washing Liz's feet

Katie washing Luke's feet.

Liz was supposed to wash David's feet, but after spilling the first basin of water, we passed that duty on to the other two kids.  :)