One year ago....

One year ago in this very moment (if you factor in the time change), I was headed downstairs to meet our agency's liaison to head to Chung Yi to pick up Colby. My stomach was turning and I was nervous as heck. I didn't know what the rest of the day would bring - nevermind thinking about the next whole year!! Tonight, I sit here without my stomach turning and in fact feeling warm and content (I was cold as heck last year at this time because we didn't take any warm clothes and it was cold and rainy for days on end!). I just peeked in on a beautiful sleeping boy, and decided to sit down and count my blessings. I'm so grateful that God led us down the path of adoption and that He led us to Taiwan and to accept Colby's referral. I'm so grateful for my happy, jolly, joyful little boy - sassy mouth and bad attitude (as of late) and all. He's tender and gentle and caring. He is loving and funny and silly and playful. He's all that I could ever want or hope for in a child and I love him more than he will ever know. I can't believe it's been a year - it seems like a heartbeat and then again I feel like he's always been here. We are having Chinese Feast tomorrow to celebrate our family - and I'm sure that Captain Noodle and Dumpling Girl will make their appearances. How very very blessed I am!

Ni hao, Chinese feast!

I had the afternoon to myself on Friday and decided that it was high time to visit the Asian market I'd heard so much about. I was a little nervous as you have to drive through a "not so nice" neighborhood to get there, but it all went fine. As soon as I walked through the door I was in China (or Taiwan). The smell brought it back right away - in a good way - and I was so homesick!! I took my time and wandered around and got a bunch of stuff for us to have a huge Chinese food feast - and was sad that I was headed out for the evening and it would all have to wait for today (Monday).

I was anxiously awaiting dinner alllll day. I checked and rechecked the cooking instructions and looked up a recipe for dipping sauce for the dumplings. All the packages I bought were mostly labeled in Chinese, so I was really hoping that we'd be having some (decently) authentic food on the table.

Dinner was FANTASTIC. It was maybe the best Chinese food we've had since returning from China! Fresh lo mein noodles (takeaway lesson - CUT those suckers - they were seriously at least 3 feet long each!), dumplings (less rice wine vinegar in the sauce), and steamed buns (the real bready ones are never my personal favorite, but for bready steamed buns, these were pretty good). Kailin didn't like the buns, either, but holy mackerel did she wolf down the dumplings and noodles. She had a full helping of noodles and then ate FIVE dumplings! Oh, and she ate them all with chopsticks!! Cheater chopsticks, but chopsticks nonetheless! Colby used some as well - and although he did get some stuff in his mouth with them, he fared a little worse than his sister did.

We had the most amazing dessert dim sum in Hunan and I bought some custard buns that I thought might be something like the wonderful ones we'd eaten in China. These were....well....like a Cadbury egg gone horribly, awfully wrong. There was something gritty in the unnaturally yellow filling, and the filling immediately and entirely coated my teeth. I made a horrific face and let Steve know that he should proceed at his own risk. He was still eating dumplings... but Kailin piped right in and said she wanted to try some. I thought "oh sure, we'll see how far this goes..." She ate THREE. Steve ate half of one and Colby had two bites before he quit. As I put the rest away, Kailin was concerned that I was going to throw out the yummy "zert". I assured her I was only putting it away and that they were ALL HERS. ha ha ha.

After dinner, I remembered the guava juice and jasmine tea I'd purchased. The guava juice was a hit with everyone. I cracked open the jasmine tea and took a huge drink and nearly choked. I wasn't expecting it to be a. carbonated, and b. "jasmine flavored"(as I later learned from the can). It was NOTHING like the jasmine tea I love in China and Taiwan. It was pretty much like flower soda. Heavy on the flower and highly carbonated. The kids loved it. Figures. Ha ha ha.

I think we'll be frequenting the Asian market more often!!

Big time family outing

Last Friday was supposed to be an unusually warm day for early Wisconsin in March. I planned a trip to the zoo with our friends the Klopfs. Steve got wind of it and said he'd like to join us. Neither of us has had any vacation to speak of since the year before we brought Kailin home because we were either saving vacation for an adoption trip or taking one. It seemed utterly frivolous and fun that Steve could decide on a Tuesday that he'd take Friday off and come to the zoo!

We had a blast! The weather was indeed warm and the kids, after a bit of a rough start, frolicked and played and checked out the animals. We had a picnic lunch and then Colby eventually conked out for awhile. He looked so stinking cute in his stroller with his little monkey hat on that I couldn't resist taking about 10 pictures in his various positions. I won't make you view all 10 - at least not here - they're posted at our Shutterfly site. ha ha ha. Our friends had to leave, but we decided to stay on and tempt fate. I am so glad we did! The kids got a second wind and the zoo started to empty out. We finished the day up on the playground and both kids were in their glory. This is the kind of family day I long for and it was the perfect day to do it!

Captain Roar and Miss Ladybug take on the world....

I know - again with the woeful neglect. I try to be better, but I must admit that not having an easy way to get my pictures onto my laptop is a barrier to more regular posting. I'm hoping that I can get a card reader with birthday money and then all will be well with the blogging world once again.

The other night after a bath, Colby was insistent on wearing his "hat" some more, so Steve let both kids come downstairs with their hooded towels on. They zoomed around the house in true super-hero style. It was too cute to pass up, and I figured it was a good kick-off to "back to blogging".

The sweetest words...

The sweetest words I've heard in a long time came today not from my beloved, but from the very girl who earlier today took a pen and wrote (ironically enough) the letters H and A on our ottoman. Needless to say, it was not a pretty day in our household. When I inquired as to who wrote the letters (and also wrote on the faces of all three children in residence this morning) the answer came "nobody". Nobody did it, eh? Well there's only one nobody in this house who knows how to write letters and further, only one nobody who has a particular penchant for the letter H. GUILTY!!!!!!!

Moving on to the better part of the day... Kailin and Steve were playing with his Facebook pet while I made dinner. She loves to buy the mystery boxes and see what's inside. Well, Steve was done with buying mystery boxes and told Kailin he was saving up for a sink and a bathtub and a stove. So she suggested they go buy the stove. They did. Then she suggested that they buy the sink and tub. Steve said they'd have to wait for another day as he was out of money. She immediately said, "I have money! In my bank - to keep it safe from Colby. He will choke." It made my heart just swell to capacity to hear her so willing to give her piggy bank money to daddy for his pet. Of course he explained the difference between real money and pretend money that Fuzz has, but that part doesn't matter much.

I'm really glad that I get to be her mom all the time and not just when I find "ha" on the ottoman - and I'm glad she's such a forgiving little girl because I didn't do a fantastic job of handling the "writing on the wall" so to speak. She didn't care, though - 10 minutes later she was back to telling me that I am her best mommy. Oh how I love that girl!

All none - it's the time of the Christmas...

I'm hoping this will post back in February when I wrote it. I'm not sure how it didn't get posted.... I'm glad I wrote it down, though, because both of these are already gone. Although yesterday (April 21) I heard another charming rendition of "the time of the Christmas"!

The kids have been killing me lately with all their funny little quips. Out of the mouths of babes they say and "they" are so right....

Colby can be heard, many times a day, proclaiming that he is "all none" with something. It's easy to figure out that it's his version of "all done", but I'm amused at the idea of him wanting it all or nothing - even though that's far from his meaning. If food is involved, there's definitely none left!

Kailin's been into singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". However, instead of "glad tidings for Christmas, and a Happy New Year" she sings, "the time of the Christmas....the time of the Christmas...and a Happy New Year!" This morning it even changed into the time of the rocking chair, the time of the new door.... I bet you never knew what a versatile song it was!

Splish splash...

We had an unseasonably warm day on Tuesday. It was nearly 60 here. I think, with the strong wind we had it felt more like 50, but that's at least 30 degrees warmer than it's been lately. The kids and I walked up to the post office in the morning. We needed to take the Cherry Blossom Market package up to mail.

Have I already ranted about the Cherry Blossom Market? Ours came without one of the roof connectors. That renders the product useless. Of course we only discovered this AFTER we assembled the thing and the kids were really really excited about playing with it. I promptly called Mattel the next day. I was informed that the product is "too new" for them to offer single parts for it. They were all too happy to remedy the situation, but first they'd have to mail me a label and then I'd have to send the market back to them and then they'd send me a new one. Wow. That all seems really archaic to me - and also a little fiscally stupid. Don't you think it would be easier (and far cheaper) to email me the label and then open a box of Cherry Blossom Market and snag out the piece I need so that they can have the remaining parts for future customer calls? Surely that makes more sense, doesn't it? Anyway....

I was quite a sight at one point. I was pushing the double stroller with the wonder twins in it. The Market package was sticking out the side of the basket under the stroller. It was too big to fit in the bottom of the wagon ( my original idea was to have the boys sit on the package in the wagon), and too big to fit in the bottom of the stroller and too heavy to carry all the way up there. We approached a really really deep puddle and Kailin had her tennis shoes on. So I hoisted her onto my back and then held her with one arm whilst pushing the twinsmobile with the other and trying to balance on the soggy curb grass rather than walk through the 3" deep puddle myself. I did do it, but it was a little hairy there for a minute and I was actually laughing at the thought of seeing myself there.

After Steve got home, we decided to take the kids for a walk at the State Park near us. I told Kailin she could wear her boots and splash in puddles. We don't have rain boots for the kids yet, so they wore their winter ones and off we went. Kailin was so cute! The first part of the trail was covered in ice and snow yet, and Kailin immediately grabbed Colby's hand and said she was going to make sure he was safe and didn't fall down or get squished like a pancake (that part applied mostly to the parking lot). It was too cute!

We found a little puddle and the kids had fun splashing around in it. We walked a little further and I looked ahead and said "Oh Steve, there's the motherload!" It was at least 3-4" deep and ENORMOUS!! Steve told Kailin to look and her eyes lit up. She was looking at him he told her to go ahead and she was in disbelief... and then in she went, with her brother at her heels. They splished! They splashed! They danced and twirled and giggled and whooped. They would run to one end of the puddle and then splash their way back to the other end. They got SOAKED, but they had the time of their lives and I was so glad that we did it! On the very last run (we'd announced it in order to soften the blow of having to leave), Kailin slipped and fell and ripped her pants. I was a little worried that her puddle splashing days were over, but when I asked her if she'd splash again she said, "Yes, but not in any of those mean puddles!" Ha ha ha.

We walked back to the car and Colby was actually SQUISHING in his boots! Midway back I was thinking that he must be pretty cold so I offered to carry him. He was having none of that! When we got to the parking lot, he actually went entirely limp in protest of our departure. Only by telling him that Kailin and Daddy were waiting could I cajole him into going to the car. When we arrived, Steve pointed out that Kailin's pants were now torn and also bloody. Ick. We got the kids home and patched Kailin's scraped knee up. Steve took them upstairs to get some warm, dry jammies on and I got some warm dinner on the table.