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Just a quick note to thank everyone for your prayers for our family. Emerson was able to come home today. He did an amazing job at the hospital and the surgery went well. Thanks be to God!!!!

Surgery

If everything goes as planned, Emerson will be having surgery today, Wednesday, December 22, to repair his palate as well as have ear tubes put in. Please pray for his well being before, during, and after the surgery. He tends to panic at the site of anything that looks medical. So, we fear that even going to the hospital will be rough on him let alone the surgery and recovery. Please, also, keep our three other children (Max, Sydney, and Veronica) in your prayers as they will not be with us. Granted, they will be at their grandparents' house; so, they probably will not even notice we are gone. Ha, ha! :)

Silly pictures (photo heavy)

Yep, that is a sippy cup in Sydney's boot.
Veronica had to try it then too, plus make a silly face.

Nothing says sibling bonding like a DS.

Don't you just love his heels?!

That poor snowman does not have a chance against the giant tongue!

Veronica has crazy hair!

This is not really silly; but, it is quite a milestone. Emerson never liked doing this!

Christmas fun (photo heavy)

decorating one of the trees
trying to figure out how to hang the ornaments

one of Enzo's favorite Christmas resting spots

so tired after the Christmas program

visiting with Santa

large light displays

the gingerbread house Sydney made at school

Max's gingerbread house- made today at home

Sydney's gingerbread house and snowman- made today at home

Veronica's gingerbread house- made today at home

Emerson's gingerbread house- yep, made today at home

an "aerial" view of our village

Emerson's Baptism

Last Sunday, December 12, Emerson John Shan _____ was baptized. It ended up being a private baptism. There were suppose to be two other families; but, they postponed due to the nasty weather. The ceremony was short and sweet. We had decided to not have a party afterwards. We just felt it was not fair to ask everyone to give up a couple more of the hours they are already lacking this time of the year. Plus, this was sort of a last minute decision to have him baptized this month. We felt it was important to do before his surgery on the 22nd.

It all worked out in the end; but, there was a moment of panic on my part. We had decided to not take our camera. After all, we would be standing up there and would not exactly be able to take pictures. Plus, we usually always have a gazillion cameras flashing at family events. Everyone likes to take pictures. Guess what, we were not the only ones to leave our cameras at home! Thank God, my father-in-law did have his and was able to take some pictures and our niece was kind enough to take pictures with her cell phone (What did we do before those things?!). So, thank you to both of them for "saving the day". I thought for sure we were going to end up not having any pictures of our little fella's big day!!!!

Emerson did a great job. He was entertained with the missalette during the beginning of the ceremony. He thought it was quite funny when our deacon blessed him with the oils. When it came time for the Holy water, I thought I was going to have to go in the font too. He was not a huge fan of that; but, he really did not cry or anything. He just tried to get back into an upright position. Afterwards, he touched his hair/head like "What just happened?" It was quite cute. Emerson looked absolutely adorable in the Chinese outfit that we bought specifically for his baptism while we were in China.

Thank you to Tom and Jenny for agreeing to be Emerson's godparents and thank you to Janet for standing in during Jenny's absence. Thank you to all our loved ones who joined us for the ceremony despite the yucky weather. You are all very special to us!

I am not going in there! Must get back up!

What just happened?!

How many more pictures do we have to smile for?

Sydney's birthday party

Sydney's 7th birthday is coming up soon...December 24th. Yep, she is a Christmas Eve baby. We had a birthday party with some of her friends this past Saturday. It was a blast! Sydney, Veronica, Max, Aunt Janet, 9 of Sydney's friends, and I went to see the new Disney movie "Tangled" in 3D. Too cute!!!!

We had a terrible time with the theater at first because for some reason it did not make sense to them to put aside their special "Tangled" kids' packs for the party. These packs included reusable cups with removable character toys on top. They knew we were coming! They sold out! They were okay with giving us "The Chronicles of Narnia" cups/packs. REALLY?! We were scheduled to see "Tangled". Why would we give the girls special cups/toys that were from a movie they were not even seeing. After a lot of tweeting and emailing on Ron's part (Thank you, Love!), the theater overnighted what we needed from another state to our theater. Yippee!!!! I cannot even tell you how excited I was to see the correct supplies. As Ron said, "It may seem trivial; but, it made all the difference for the party." The girls were thrilled (as were we!).

After the movie, Ron and Emerson joined us in the party room. The girls finished making their beautiful crowns that looked similar to Rapunzel's in the movie. They, also, drew wanted signs just like the one for Flynn in the movie and did a maze. We then took pictures in front of the huge "Tangled" theater display and Sydney opened her gifts. She got so many wonderful things from her friends. It was a very memorable day for our princess!

Again, thank you to Ron for his help in getting the cups. I do believe they were worth all the stress and hassle. Sydney has used her cup every day since the party.

Thank you to my sister, Janet, who once again helped supervise the party and take the pictures. She cracks me up. After every children's party she helps me with, she says she is going to just be "that crazy cat lady" and never have her own children. Something about 13 children running around crazy hitting each other with balloons just pushes her to that decision. I am not sure why though. :)

the past few days

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great time over at my sister-in-law's house. Thank you to her and her family for hosting this year. The food was great and the company was wonderful.

Black Friday...love it! This year I got up at 2, left the house before 3 and was at Target around 3:15. The line was already all the way behind the building. No joke I was in the back by the dumpsters in the dark with several gazillion of my newest friends. Ha! I truly do love talking with people in line. I am not sure why as I usually tend to be a shy person. I met a lady and her husband (behind me) in line this year who said she was adopted. The lady in front of me was only there for one phone...for her husband...who had decided he was too tired to get out of bed to go get it. :) She said that she had actually been knocked over before at a different store on a black Friday opening. Yikes! I am not sure I would be going out again during the craziest shopping day of the year. I am thrilled to say that I was able to get everything I wanted at Target. I had to stand in line for over an hour to check out; but, of course, I talked with those around me. I even saw one of the ladies later at Toys-R-Us. My family tends to think I am nuts to go shopping at that time; but, this lady had been out since midnight! While waiting to check out, I bumped into one of my former kindergarten students and her mom. This beautiful young lady is getting ready to graduate from high school this year and is planning on studying psychology in college. I am so proud of her! It was so nice of them to come over and say "hi" to me. Very cool!!!!

Today, we started to get the Christmas stuff out of the attic. Max is such a big helper now. He was actually the one who climbed up in the attic and handed the stuff to Ron who was on the ladder ready to carry the boxes down. This was a huge help for Ron! I carried the boxes into the house and sorted them by rooms. Emerson enjoyed shutting the door between the house and garage on me...not helpful. :) The girls, Emerson, and I set up the tree in the family room. I started to set up the tree in the foyer while the girls and Emerson ate lunch. After Max was finished in the attic, he helped me assemble the rest of the tree. We now have two undecorated trees up in the house. Like Ron always says, "Incremental progress." All the kiddos were a huge help today and we appreciate that for sure!!!! Ron and Max decorated the outside and the lights looked beautiful when we got home from church this evening.

I had to laugh when we were setting up the tree in the family room. Emerson smelled the tree a couple of times. I was hoping to get a picture of this but have not been successful yet. I just thought that was so cute. One has to wonder what he is thinking about all of this. When we were at Target the other night (not Black Friday), Emerson's eyes got HUGE when he saw the Christmas decorations all lit up. Wait until Christmas morning....

It is official- again...

Weird as it is we had to refinalize our adoption. What? Really? According to webster.com, finalize means...

transitive verb
1
: to put in final or finished form
2
: to give final approval to
— fi·nal·i·za·tion\ˌfī-nə-lə-ˈzā-shən\ noun

So, if something is final/finished, how can we refinalize it? Does that even make sense to anyone? Anyways, we had to and in Ron's words we had to just "shut up and color".

Although China and the USA have agreed that Emerson is part of our family, our county and state have not made it official yet. He still was not officially Emerson even. We are unable to get his state birth certificate, SS#, passport, etc. for him until we went through a few more hoops. We had to collect (again) a bunch of the paperwork that we collected for our dossier back before we brought him home. They were not recent enough apparently. We had to have a court accessor come out to our house to ask a bunch of questions and to look around the house. Sounds familiar too, huh?

We were very frustrated by all of this. It was an insult to us. It was a waste of time and money. Nobody from our county or state made us do this when we brought our three bios home. What about all those families out there who do not take care of their babies that they bring home from the hospital? Yet, we are singled out because we adopted. Again, we had to "shut up and color". We just had to do it.

So, as of yesterday, he is officially...again...a part of our family. He is legally Emerson now. We still have to wait about 3-4 months to get his birth certificate in order to do anything else though.

The judge was nice and even gave each of the 4 kiddos a stuffed bunny to remember the day. It was nice of him. However, he is the one who made the rules on us having to collect all that information and have the accessor out to our house. Local friends who live in nearby counties did not have to do that when they adopted. Let's just say we are happy that it is done!

Finally, the county realizes what we have known for a long time. Emerson is part of our family and we love him.

November 2, 2010- part 2 (finally)

Not only was November 2 when we spent the entire morning having Emerson evaluated, it was also my birthday. I am now 38 years old. You know, I am really okay with saying that. In the past, I would have been one of those women who would have shaved a couple years (maybe more than a couple) off of that number. Now, I am okay with it. I feel blessed to have been on this earth for 38 years. Not everyone is so lucky...so blessed.

My wonderful family gave me a box of Godiva chocolates for my big day. This is a tradition, a very yummy tradition, now. Another tradition is that they, also, get a smaller box so that the rest of the family can have some too. They do this so that I do not end up with a bunch of helpers eating from my box. Sydney even started getting excited before my birthday because she knew what was coming. :) I was very surprised to find a new phone underneath the boxes of candy. I will tell you what...I needed this phone. I now have access to my email- Whoo-hoo! Who knew as a Daisy Scout leader I would have to be able to get to my email and the web so frequently. There are 3 of us leading our troop and we are constantly in touch with one another. It is crazy! So, thank you to my family for making it possible for me to check my email during those times of the day when I am waiting for drop-off, pick-up, and any other time that I am away from home. I can stay on top of things a bit better.

Thank you to my other family members who, also, gave me such wonderful, thoughtful gifts.

I love you all!!!!

November 2, 2010- part 1

Emerson's clinic-

It started off with us going to the wrong place! They had failed to tell me that it was not in the same building that all the other appointments we have taken him to were in. I know it was an over site on their side not mine because we scheduled it for 9:00 a.m. and I would NOT have done that if I had known we would be downtown in the big ol' city. You see, I do NOT drive downtown unless I absolutely, positively have to. I prefer the country roads. Even if I had no other choice but to have it downtown (It turned out it was my only choice. I just did not know that when we were scheduling.), I would definitely not have set it up for 9:00...really?... rush hour time?! Uh, NOPE!!!! By the way, the address was not on the paperwork either. We checked.

Thank God, Ron reached the parking lot just as Emerson and I were heading to the car to head downtown. What choice did I have? Yikes!!!! So, we ended up following Ron down to the hospital where they were kind enough to still see us. We were only about 1/2 hour late...not too bad. Soon after starting the process, Ron had to head back to school to pick up Veronica as it would take about 45 minutes to get there. By the time they made it back we had only seen two doctors. We had his ears checked. I am still not convinced that the tests were 100% accurate; but, I am not a professional in that area. I believe the tests that showed that he has fluid in his ears. The tests where they "conditioned" him to put balls in a bucket whenever he heard a sound was a little less reliable in my opinion. He is 2 1/2, just home from China, new situation, etc., etc. They even did a test where they stuck us in a little room, Emerson had headphones in his ears, and they made little boxes with characters light up and move. He had to turn towards the sound. To me, it was rather creepy. :) Anyways, they came to the conclusion that he has moderate hearing loss in both ears and will need to have tubes put in both ears. This will be done at the same time he has his surgery for his palate.

The next stop was at the ENT. They explained about the surgery and that was about it. Ron and Veronica made it back while we were sitting there. That tells you how long we were waiting at just those two stops. Remember Ron had to drive 45 minutes to the school, walk in, pick up Veronica, walk back out and drive 45 minutes back. To think this was only the start of it all.

We were then sent back to where we had started. We saw the plastic surgeon who explained the process for us. We are going to try to have his palate repaired and tubes put in before the end of the year. "Merry Christmas!" He will only need to stay at the hospital overnight as long as he is eating and drinking enough. Get this though, he will have to have brace like things put on both arms to keep them straight so he cannot undo anything they do during the surgery. He will need these on for like 3 weeks!!!! He will not be able to bend his arms at all. Now, how do we explain this to an almost 3 year old?! We will be feeding him. How will he play?! When he is around 5, he will have another surgery to try to repair his lip a little more. Then, when he is around 7, he will have his gums and teeth fixed. They will have to take some of his hip bone to do the graft. Scary! Our poor baby!

The next person we saw was a dentist. He explained that we need to keep the teeth that are turned into the gum clean and healthy. Otherwise, it could in turn ruin the bone underneath.

Our last stop was with a speech therapist. We had to explain that he really does not speak English yet. He understands it very well and communicates like a pro though. She had recently adopted a little girl from China; so, it was fun to compare our trips. They had traveled in January...brr!

So, in four hours, we saw 5 specialists. Just think, we will have to do this once a year at least! Boy is Emerson worth it though! No doubt about it. The bonus will be that I will be a pro at driving downtown...at least to the hospital. :)

I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the clinic the nurse wanted to get pictures of Emerson. He was not cooperating as far as not looking where she wanted him to. She went out and came back with a teddy bear for him. The teddy bear has a repaired cleft lip too! How cute is that?! Emerson took to that bear and it is now his special friend. So sweet!!!!

Time is flying!

Looking at the calendar, I just cannot believe next week is Thanksgiving already! Yikes!!!! I have not even posted about Halloween or Emerson's visit at the International Clinic on November 2. Goodness gracious, I am behind! Let me at least cover one of these topics now and I will try to get to the other soon.

Halloween was a lot of fun as usual. For the past three years or so, we have opted out of the traditional door to door trick-or-treating. We have made it our tradition to visit only family and then, also, visit a local fire station. They know how to throw a good open house there! There is always a ton of food, games, stations on safety issues, and the kids walk away with just enough candy.

Without further ado, here are picture of the kiddos in their costumes.

Max, aka Captain Rex from Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Sydney, aka The Butterfly Fairy

Veronica, aka Jessie from Toy Story

Emerson, aka Little Alien from Toy Story

Just in case you were wondering...nope, he did not like the alien head thing. It was one of those cases where one of us threw it on and another took the picture really fast. Ron, however, voluntarily put it on. :)

Veterans Day

God bless all the Veterans!!!! Today, we had the honor of celebrating Ron's father who is an exceptional man. He was recognized as "Veteran of the Year" for our county. We are so proud of him!!!! The ceremony was fabulous. Our U.S. Representative was there. (I got to shake his hand...pretty cool. He said we have cute kids. He is a good politician. Hee, hee!) The rifle salute brought Veronica to tears and Emerson got a little freaked out but not too bad.

We were very excited that they were having a Black Hawk land. AWESOME! We decided we wanted to be close so we could really see it. My mother-in-law suggested we go to the front row, so to speak. We did. Yep...we were close. The wind that that thing produced...no joke...blew us over!!!! I was grabbing for the children to keep them from blowing away. Two of our coats and Sydney's headband, amongst other stuff, ended up great distances away from us. After realizing we had all survived, we LAUGHED so HARD (except Emerson who is now scarred)!!!! There is a memory that will stick with the kiddos. Wait until you see the picture I took while I was going down. I will have to remember high-heeled boots and Black Hawks do NOT mix. Hee, hee. I love it. What a great story and memory. While sitting there afterwards, I even said I would have to blog about it. :) Max was absolutely thrilled because he got to sit in the pilot's seat!

In all seriousness, I am in awe of those who serve our country. These men and women are so brave. I am tearing up right now thinking about them and their families and all that they sacrifice for us. My heart aches for what they see and go through. My heart aches for those left here to go about life as if it is normal. My heart aches because our daughter just told me about a little boy in her class whose father died in the war and the knowledge that he is only one of many in that situation. God bless them all.

Now, before I ruin the computer from a bunch of wet tears, here are some pictures for you to enjoy. I am only posting a few as many of them have our family members in them and I do not like posting pictures of others without their permission.

It only looks innocent!


Here I am trying to get a good close-up picture. Yep, that was close. We were being blown away in tornado like winds.


It was very sunny today. We had beautiful weather!

Here are Max and Sydney next to the Black Hawk.

Emerson was not thrilled to be that close to the machine that caused him to fly through the air.

Max LOVED being in the pilot's seat with all those controls.

Flu shots and Pumpkin Patch Fun- 10-23-10

We started our morning out by taking the kiddos to get their annual flu shot. They were thrilled...NOT! You would have thought we were removing limbs the way they acted. :) They survived as did we when we stopped to get our shots right after leaving the pediatrician's office. Okay...not exactly right after leaving the pediatrician's office. We did have to go get coffee and donuts to help their boo-boos feel better and help our headaches from all the screaming (just kidding...sort of).

We decided to head off to the pumpkin patch for some Fall fun. We had a great time and it was so much fun to watch all the kiddos. Gotta love family time, for sure.

Emerson was not too sure about the hayride at first; but, we sure do love this tradition!!!! What can be better than being together with no phones, tv, computers, etc.?

Can you read that?! We bought 91 pounds of pumpkins. That was only 4 pumpkins!!!!

I love this picture. Sydney is looking off to her right. Emerson is looking down. Max is looking off to his left. Veronica is the only one looking at the camera! Too funny. That was not staged that way at all. I just wanted to get a picture of them with their pumpkins.

Veronica loves "Little Simon the Scarecrow".

We cannot take Emerson to Scotland. He may question what is under the kilts!

Rudolph Sighting

Imagine my surprise when I turned and saw Rudolph in our kitchen. Just goes to show that Santa does send his helpers out to check on the kids. I thought Santa just used elves for the "spying"; but, I guess with the economy the way it is even Rudolph is picking up any job he can.




Emerson just cracks me up! No, Darling, the dot paints do not smell!!!!

Firsts for Emerson (at least here at home)

Last week, (yep...little behind on this one) Emerson had several firsts.

He decorated and enjoyed eating Halloween cookies with Grandma and his sibs.

He actually had fun swinging. He used to freak out if we would sit him on it. Now, he can not swing high enough or long enough.

He used to be afraid of the slide too. Great progress!!!!

I was having a "blah" day.

Then, this arrived...


How can any one's spirits not brighten when looking at this beautiful arrangement?

Aren't they gorgeous?

They are just what I needed to put a little sunshine in this day!


Thank you, Ron, for this absolutely wonderful surprise. You are the best! Love you!!!!