Relaxing weekend

It has been a nice, relaxing weekend. We have had very few plans this weekend which has been great. The older girls had a friend overnight on Friday but she left very early Sat morning. I didn't even know she needed to leave early and she was gone before I got up! She is the next door neighbor and they were at her house till after 8 before the came back over here to ask if she could spend the night, so by the time they got over here, I guess they just concluded I didn't need to know! So they set the alarm, woke up on their own, and she went home all by 8 am.

The rest of Sat was spent relaxing until I had to take Ellie to a friend's birthday party at Lazer Kraze. It always makes me smile to see her playing with all her Asian friends. One of her friend's turned 5 and though the entire party wasn't made up of Asian friends there were quite a few of them there. I hope that we are able to connect with a good Asian/adoption community when we move.

Mackenzie, however, was sick all day yesterday. She said her head and tummy hurt and she had a fever so she will be home with dad today since I have to oversee the kid's area at church today. Poor girl. She hates being sick on the weekends. She doesn't seem to mind it during the week since she can skip school, but on the weekends...not so much fun :( Hopefully when she wakes she will be feeling a little better.

All in all a nice, relaxing weekend. It will be our last for a while, so I am trying to really enjoy it!

Surgery??

I have learned why someone else should come with me to appts, especially when those appts involve Ellie!

Ellie had an appt on Wednesday morning at the VPI clinic at Children's. If you don't know what VPI is check is out here. How it has taken this long for someone to mention this to me I don't know..but off we went. She was seen by a nurse and then by a speech therapist to evaluate her. She got to wear a cool headpiece that had a plastic visor with an attached microphone under her nose. I wish I had brought my camera! She did a great job and after the testing, the speech therapist told me she doesn't have VPI. There wasn't any air coming out her nose which is good, I guess. We continue to rule out things that she could have which is great. We just want to make sure there is nothing structurally hampering the development of her speech. So the doctor decided not to scope her based on her results. However the speech therapist recommended we get a voice evaluation. They listen to her talk, etc and then they do another kind of scope that looks at her vocal cords. She thinks she has nodules on her vocal cords. However, all they do in kids that have nodules is practice good speech and push fluids. She probably got them from all of her crying, yelling and loud talking. I will probably try to have it done, but we already knew this info and are trying to help Ellie correct her speech and drink more fluids.

The interesting part of the meeting was when we saw Dr. Saal. She has seen Dr. Saal several times before, but it has been a couple of years. He is the director of genetics at Children's. We saw him the first year we brought her home. He did testing, didn't find any abnormalities with standard testing and decided not to pursue any additional expensive testing for now. After seeing her, he was still concerned about the size of her head and the structure of her face. He ordered a more extensive chromosomal study done and then asked me to come back to either him or 2 other geneticists that he recommended in St. Louis in the next 6-9 months. He would like her evaluated by the craniofacial team. Click here to learn more about Dr. Saal. I think he's concerned that her face shape may be affecting her speech. Her jaw is too far forward, etc. I didn't think to ask a timetable on this however...I knew she needed surgery but I thought they would wait until after her jaw was done growing to do this...

When we get the results of her lab work, I think I will try to call and ask him a few more questions. Ellie heard the word blood work and was ready to hit the road! She did great though and I was so proud of her. The best she has done by far!

Will post more when we have more results...

Counting

Just wanted to post a video of Ellie counting to 10 in Chinese...

I have been sick the last few days with a cold so please excuse my voice...

It arrived!!!!

We received our USCIS approval!!! So excited that this paper arrived so quickly! I can't tell you enough how God never ceases to amaze me. This was a pretty quick turnaround for this specific piece of paper and I am so thankful!

It actually came yesterday but I was busy and didn't blog yesterday. I made a copy and sent it off with part of my liver and my spleen...ok..so not really...but I sent it off with two checks which equalled a lot of money! It is our last step before our dossier gets prepared by our agency and then sent off to China!!! Thank you God for helping us stay patient. Please bring just the right little girl into our lives! Love, your daughter.

For the birds

So glad I kept Mackenzie home yesterday as we had a really fun girl time.

We spent the morning at the aquarium where there was almost no one there! We have never been to the aquarium when there has been so few people and it was pretty cool. There was a group of young moms with kids in strollers and that was about it.

The girls got to go to the "touch and feel" area and hang out with the horseshoe crabs and starfish until they got their fill. They also got to pet the sharks without lots of kids everywhere which was loads of fun.

Ainsley's favorite part was buying nectar and feeding the lorikeets. She thought that was great fun. Of course my camera is still in St. Louis with Jeff but I did get a couple of poor quality photo shots with my cell phone camera.

Since it was cold and windy and we were hungry, we decided to eat at Johnny Rockets because it is right near the aquarium. It was a first for us and the girls had a blast. We got to sit up at the counter and order which they thought was pretty cool! And the food was yummy! Ellie asked out waitress many questions including why she was wearing a bow on her outfit, and what that man was doing (I am pretty sure she phrased it this way too...referring to the cook who we could see the whole time).

A very fun day had by all!

Snow days

Unfortunately Jeff took the camera with him to St. Louis this week so I couldn't get any pictures of the kids playing in the snow. We got a few inches of snow which always slows KY down.

So the younger two had school off yesterday and today. Mackenzie went to school yesterday and I am allowing her to stay home today against my better judgement. She has school but she is sick of having to go to school while the other girls get to be off. So I gave in and am letting her stay home.

I understand her frustration. Really, I do.

In another month or so we will be moving. The girls will all be in the same school district and therefore will all get out of school at the same time. So she will have gone to school 5 more days than Ainsley and Ellie but not get out of school earlier.

If we had stayed here, she would be out earlier than the other two by quite a bit.

This is what causes her frustration. And honestly it is still early on. Burlington cancels even when there is a hint of snow it seems. So in the next 4-5 weeks, we could potentially have several more snow days. Beechwood, being an small independent public school district with lots of walkers and no buses that I have seen, almost never cancels.

So I am allowing a mental health day for her. Keeping her home from school even though she is perfectly healthy. Hopefully I don't regret it...

There are times when life seems to be moving at breakneck speed and then there are times when it seems like it couldn't possibly get slower.

Life seems to be alternating between those two feelings right now.

There's a lot to be done on the moving front, but not a lot of action happening on our house.

As of yet we haven't had a showing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

And though I am doing ok with it all, I would like our house to sell. And not just sell, but sell to someone who will love our neighbors as much as we do!

This might be asking too much, but I still hope!

We dropped the price so we are hoping to get some action soon. We got the buy out price from P&G and it isn't good, so we really would like to get this house sold on our own without having to accept their buy out.

So while all of this is happening, I am also trying to save money for our move, which means I have been hanging out around the house a bit more. The kid's teachers have had testing this week so they haven't needed me at school. So there are moments when I feel a bit bored and I wonder...how will I feel when we move? The kids will be in school all day...what will I do?

I don't want to look at getting a job since we will be probably be bringing another little girl home from China in the next year or so. But lest I think I will be bored, I am sure I will find ways to fill my time. Painting, decorating, reading, volunteering...and the list goes on.

So that's our week in a nutshell. It seems to have alternated back and forth between busy and slow.

On our agenda for this afternoon is Ainsley's last soccer game. Maybe I will actually get pictures of this last game! And then to Lowe's to look for appliances for our new home! Mackenzie has a sleepover tonight with a friend, and they had a friend sleepover last night and then tonight is P&G's family movie night/Colts and Jet's game. Not sure which one will win out, but I am thinking probably we will tape the family movie night and watch football :o)

Here's a few pictures from when Jeff's mom was in town for a visit...