We are LOGGED-IN!

LID

In just 3 days we have been Logged-in with the CCCWA (China). Now the countdown really begins. We wait on China to invite us to come get our boy. What an exciting end of summer. Ty's 4th bday is three months from today!

The time line they give from here (could be sooner):

2-3 months for LOA (Letter of Acceptance)

9-12 weeks from then to TA (Travel Approval)

2-3 weeks from then before departure

CRAZY!

In other news we go back to Shriners this coming Wednesday to get our Lightning Baby a lower limb check up and hopefully molds taken for a new and larger set of "feet". She gained three inches and three pounds in the first 9 months with us. The ones she has, the first set, are already getting too small.

Baby girl became the long awaited "Dancing girl". She likes it...sometimes. So far for both classes she has fallen asleep on the way to class! Not great for a two year old to get a 20 minute nap. Anyhow looking to go with a different strategy this coming week. But she is DARLING!

C-dub hosted his baseball team for the end-of-the-year swim party. He had such a great year, with great kids, families and coaches!

Fashion-Faith (track) and C-dub (baseball) each enjoyed some camps so far this summer while Jumping Joy did some extra work in gymnastics.

Another package off to our boy! I feel like it is important this time around to send him packages more frequently because he is older. I really want him to know we are thinking about him, praying for him, anticipating him and COMING! I think we can still get in two more packages before we travel.

Happy summer y'all!

Video post...

I wanted to share these fun videos of our Lightening Baby getting her new feet!
How fun! We were a little nervous as to how it would go.

Would she like them?

Would she refuse them?

Would they rub?

How long would it take her to adjust to having a longer foot?

Here goes...

Here we are with the Orthotist. He is measuring them with her shoes. She's nervous but trying to be her helpful-self. Funny girl.

Baby girl's first moments trying out her "new feet" in the small room. She seems pretty excited. We all are!

The Orthotist asks us if we'd like to go into the hallway. He says that in the next day or two, at home in her comfortable environment, she will probably start to run...or now!

She's such a go-getter! #aintnothinstoppinthisgirl

Shriners: Getting her new FEET!

THIS HAS TAKEN FOREVER to post (sorry...life)

We set off for our third trip to Shriner's Hospital in northern California. This has been the most exciting trip thus far. (And I hope that with each trip our girl will get more comfortable with medical professionals)

It was Jumping Joy's turn to accompany her little sis. The hubs stayed home to work hard on finishing our back deck. Nonna also joined us to have some good conversations to keep me awake on the one day trip.

Here is the Orthotist with the special made little shoe-fillers for our girl. She has done much more than we ever thought or imagined already but with these she should be on her way!

The outer white is a very thin leather material to cover the firm foam. He measures the fit and LOVES it. What a relief. We were worried about her little curvy toes that they might rub causing lot of problems. Nope, we're good. Now he says to come back in about an hour and a half while he shaves the toe area to fit in her shoe.

We try to get a quick bite and head to IKEA. This is a new store experience for both of these two. Baby girl went last time, of course and enjoyed her first soft serve cone bites.

We were called back right after that picture so in the car we went. The "feet" were ready!

While we waited we ran into these friends from Fresno, again! Crazy!

Back to IKEA for our, now it's a tradition" soft serve cone. What a great day!

The Orthotist wanted her to wear them just one hour the first day or so then work up to regular wear to make sure they don't rub.

After just one week we could tell such a difference. She loved them right away but it took some practice to get smooth.

She loves her "new feet" and brings them to me. She also definitely has shoe preference. She loves her Easter shoes. They are a light silver with rhinestones on the toes. Girls ;)

Shriners: trip 2 (upper eval)

Hi all! Wow, it's been a whirlwind since our second trip to Shriners. The trips are hard on our little Lightening girl which lead right into Christmas. 

Here is a synopsis of her upper evaluation:

This trip we took one of our older kids...Fashion Faith. She was so excited to tag along. She is so interested in all things related to adoptions, babies and of course her littlest sister. We left early in the morning and arrived just in the nick of time.

Here we go:

This day went much much smoother than the first...

This is the upper limb doctor we were assigned. She was very nice and came in (again after a Residency doc took some initial info and back story). Little girlie did great! Hardly a whimper. 

We asked to see her X-rays this time. SO COOL! Last year C-dub read about Marie Currie and learned all about the discovery of radium. Amazing to see it in action. Great news! Both of her lower arm bones are there and the correct length and such. Awesome! They explained how sometimes in kids this young they can't quite see all of the bones that are forming or have yet to form. There was a bit of fogginess on her left "hand" area, what we affectionately call her ANH (arm no hand) and where her missing radias' are (fingers). I feel like the tips of her missing fingers have grown some since we got her. We will see I guess :) At this point there is nothing they will do. She has such good use of her hand with fingers and uses her ANH as an assist when she needs it. Their plan for her upper is to continue to check in and see what she wants to do.

"If she wants to ride her bike or play violin we'll make her something so she can do that."

 Two sisters...love!

 waiting, waiting...

After her upper evaluation we had an appointment to get fitted for her "new feet". Total freak out and thinking they are going to stick her with something sharp, hence the tears! She did better than I thought. This is the Orthotist. He was very nice and also said it went better than he expiated. I thought she was going to kick him in the face.

Here he is just looking at her feet and legs. She's not a fan. Great action shots by Daddy-O.

 He looked at her little baby toes and wondered if the orthotic he was going to make her would rub. That would NOT be good! I don't even want to think about the possibility of surgery at this point. She uses those little toes for so much balance. And since it's the only ones she has it would be super sad to lose them. But we want what is best for her long term so we will wait and see.

Now on to casting her feet and lower legs to get a mold. Really neat process. He put a little sock on her foot/leg to keep the plaster of paris off her skin, then a strip of what a zipper is connected to (kind of thick nylon), then a cord, then a few layers of plaster that is quick drying.

He continues to press on it and mold it to her foot as it dries. He said that if he continues to rub it it dries faster and that is good in this situation. This particular Orthotist has worked at Shriners for about 16 years. He will retire this coming May.

Once that's done he proceeds to cut along the cord that goes down the front of her shin to her toe with an open blade.

And there you have it...little Lightening Baby boots.

...and the smiles have returned! Yay! We made it through another appointment and to the play area.

I am hoping that after enough appointments of her not being "hurt" our little one will come to enjoy the visits.

When we were with the Orthotist we talked about what size her "new feet" would be once he had finished. His response,"What size do you want her feet to be?" We brought shoes that were size 3, 4 and 5. We chose size 5 so she can grow into them. I don't imagine we will get another pair of these "new feet" within a year. 

 Her new size 5 kicks!

After our appointments and a few rounds in the play area we headed to lunch. We let our big girl pick from the choices around IKEA. She had never been to IKEA before, and being the design-always-on-her-mind that she is we thought it would be a treat for her. It's only about 10 minutes from Shriners. Little sis was out in the car on the way to lunch and slept through.

Big girl enjoyed a hamburger and fries and Five Guys.

So fun!

She named the rooms for the different people in our family. :)

Ended the day with soft-serve and it was time to head home.

First bites and it was "more, more more!"

With the precision it requires to make the special little booties for our girl they will not be ready until late February-early March. There are two kids ahead of her and very time-consuming to make...and she needs two.

Stay tuned.

We're glad to have some longer time between visits!

the merriest of times...

I am just going to write.

I have so many thoughts running through my head and feel like I have these "awesome blog thoughts" when the keyboard is not around...

instead I am rocking my baby to sleep as the night terrors keep coming,

 

or watching her little baby face light up as her daddy comes into the room,

listening to her giggle when her doggie licks her hand, 

and feel her pull her best blankie close as she snuggles into my shoulder, 

My heart smiles when I am listening to my big kids read 

or watch them practice their new tricks on the trampoline.

But when I finally get a chance to sit down, without total exhaustion consuming my brain and body, some of those great thoughts have left for good. Oh well...

Today marks 4 months that our lives changed forever...we adopted our sweet and spicy 

Aunna Hope Yanjie

What a doll.

What a privilege.

New things for our girl:

--says bite, bike, peese (please), na-noo (thank you), ni-nite (night night), goo-gel (good girl), and a few other things

I have not had time to post about our last trip {2nd} to Shriners yet. I hope to do that tomorrow.

But our girl is growing and a ton of fun!

In the last month or so all of the grandparents have gotten some baby-love. It's so funny, if she senses that you have visited and are about to leave she will come over and hug your leg.

We started demo on our front and back yard about a week before we decided about Ty. Our overgrown yard was mostly taken over by a HUGE tree in the back. This made it difficult for our big kids to play. We knew that we needed to take out everything that was there and start over to make room for much more play space, especially if you don't have feet it was a particularly frustrating space :) Now with two little one with limb difference we were excited to level out the grass in the front, get rid of the multi-hedge thing we had going on in the front, take out the "way too big tree with exposed roots" in the back, and random little patch of grass in the back to use the space better. We love having people over (which usually means tons of kids too). We are excited to get this yard ready for Lightening Hope and Mr. T, as well as our big kids and yours too!

(See the tree in the background on the left of the left post...

...NO MORE TREE!

Some fun in the leaves at our very own house. We have never had enough leaves to rake together and jump in. It wasn't the biggest pile but fun nonetheless. And guess the best part...the big kids got the idea and raked them up all together! So cute to see them working together.

The big kids all finished school well in early December. Considering we started school at the end of June we were ready for a long Christmas break! It has been a very nice break and I have enjoyed my days of sitting with my big kids during baby's naps (she still struggles with possessiveness of my lap and arms), playing board games, going for walks, watching movies, playing in the mud, doing art projects and a nap here and there.