Church on Shamain island & pictures

We spent the morning at the church on Shamain Island (where most of the kids appointments are). I have no idea about the history of the church or how it can hold services but I can tell you two very important things - 1 it was packed with those worshipping and they seemed to keep coming in. 2 worship especially the songs, in any language, calms the soul. We actually lasted an hour with not to much disruption.

When we left I saw a young couples praying over a tiny baby, you could almost feel the intensity of their prayer. It occurred to me either the baby was Sick or they were preparing to abandon her. This was only our impression but as many passed by them they were so intent, so sad, praying fervently over this tiny baby girl. Please pray for them.

Tomorrow is our TB tests and they look pretty good. My pictures are limited today due to battery issues, but we bought the darling squeaky shoes for FeiFei ( minus the squeakers). They were only $5 a pair and are comparable to bear feet or other boutique brand leather shoes! And they fit her wide feet!

Stitch aka cavanaugh is doing better. He slept from 4:30 pm yesterday afternoon straight through to morning. I am sure the disruption of his schedule has been hard on him. You can almost see him trying to be better - like putting his garbage in the trash can and looking for approval. I do have to say that he is incredibly agile despite the significant malformations of his legs. He "walks" so fast on his knees. Although I am sure it makes others around us uncomfortable, we let him down especially where there are slick marble type floors. We have gotten a few comments but truthfully people have been so kind here.

Pictures of us
Between FeiFei's dwarfism and cav's legs and little mans big eyes and traveling with 5 kids we get lots of stares and requests for pictures. We are fine with it, and the girls LOVE little man - in fact he got a calling card from one girl today! He has been so good about it and says hi to most people in both English and Chinese. Our big boy was outside the shoe shop today and received 6 requests for pictures in the span of about 10 minutes. Such an interesting experience!

I realized today that Christmas is in a week. There are Christmas decorations up everywhere and look like throwbacks from the 60's but we were told that they love the decorations and the idea of Santa but not the real meaning of Christmas. It makes me very sad. These are the small things that truly make me long for our home. Things may not be easier for a while and we anticipate a long road ahead for Cav but we at least have the freedom to live our lives in peace.
Gotta love the lady in the Christmas getup getting her pictures done on the island!

Alive & well

We finally can get online and post! What a trip! We just got to our final destination city - Guangzhou, china- where the US consulate is. We have had the kids not quite a week and have traveled almost the north- south length of China. I will post more about the trip later but I know that you are wanting to know about the KIDS!!

FeiFei is an absolute doll and charms everyone we meet. She is smart and talkative. She loves to perform, is prissy and just a jewel. Her gotcha day was rough though. They traveled with five kids by train 2.5 hours plus picking up the kids etc. then it was decided the kids would be brought to the hotels and not to a central location. FeiFei was the last to be dropped off. She arrived wearing 4 pairs of pants, a thick jacket, a turtleneck, and sweatshirt. We thought she weighed at least 10 lbs more! We were handed to bags stuffed full of cookies and treats? Apparently when she was returned to the orphanage in September she pitched such a fit they returned her to her foster parents. So not only had she spent all day traveling ( it was now 5:30 pm), watched 4 other kids gotcha day, and had just left her foster parents that morning - once she realized we were the "mama & baba" for her she screamed a blood curdling scream that wretched my soul until she fell asleep. Oh how I spent that night praying, my heart hurt so much for her. My head knew it was for better but how my heart hurt. When morning came she woke with her beautiful smile and has filled our hearts with her laughter.

Cavanaugh arrived arrived shortly after to 2 last Sunday. He was all smiles and we were amazed at how agile and fast he is despite his significant limb impairment. He apparently got sick on the way and his multiple layers were covered in vomit ugh. He arrived with a male caregiver who was awesome. He barely cried and we had a great time with him until FeiFei came. The next day we saw his caregiver again and spent the day with them again as we finished his paperwork. We really had no choice about this. His caregiver had to be in his mid 20's and was very nice to him but also gave into Cav's every want. When we said goodbye at the end of the day you could see that his caregiver was very shaken and I think that this affected Cav more than we may ever know.

The next few days were as close to hell as I ever want to come. We were warned before we left that Satan hated adoptions and if you remember cavanaughs adoption was totally a God thing. I am ashamed to say how easily we forgot to go to the foot of the cross during our time of trouble but in a land so vast and without any form of religion we faltered. We did have to search our souls as Cav's hands are also affected (we were unaware of this) and decided although this might be harder than we ever thought he was our son. Please keep us, him in your prayers - we have seen prayer calm him and help us.

We have affectionately named them Lilo and Stitch.

Now let's see if I can upload some pictures!

Leaving on a jet plane!

We left the house at 7:45 am MST on 12/7 and will arrive in Beijing at 10:20 pm on 12/8. So excited and thrilled that we were able to bring so many donations! All the tubs and 2 largest black bags are donations - the rest are our personal carryons!

Ladybugs!

Let me start this post by reminding you that we live in Colorado - 

tonight is going to be -15 degrees YES that is a NEGATIVE 15 degrees!

Gardens have been gone for months, leaves have fallen and the cycle of life continues.

School was delayed 2 hours this morning,

Performances were cancelled this evening due to dangerous temperatures.

And what do I find in my bathroom?

A Godwink,

a little assurance that the little ladybugs (as Chinese orphans are so often referred to)

 belong in our house.

I have no other explanation for 2 - did you catch that TWO!! ladybugs, 

living in my bathroom during the dead of winter.  

We first noticed them during our frustrating time waiting for the delays on our Article 5.

Just a glimpse of one at a time.

It was special, a sign I was sure.

But I about fell over when apparently they migrated from the far wall across the room to being in the same spot just over the balcony door 3 stories up!

One likes the crack in the door and the other burrows into the folds of the blind.

Two fabulous, gorgeous little ladybugs coming together just for us!

I fall to my knees in thinking of HIS grace, HIS compassion for our family.

FeiFei's Doll

It's been a long time since we had a little girl in our house, so my princess & I have kind of turned into freaks - but contained ourselves since we have no idea what size she wears.  One thing we were certain of is that our FeiFei needed a doll.  Oh but not just any doll we reasoned, nope a Chinese doll.  Well, that folks is an impossible feat - you jsut can't go to the toy store and buy an asian doll!  FInally after scouring stores and online (the ones they do make we didn't like) I found a doll pattern at Michael's.  So I got some tan yarn and crotcheted for the first time in almost 6 years!!

THankfully some of the wonderfully ladies at church were available for questions and youtube is fabulous!!  It isn't perfect, and I am still not sure if the face is cute or scary but I jsut was done redoing the eyes and mouth.  The neck is a little long so we added the necklace, and hanging off her dress is a matching bracelet for our little Fei-fa-lotta (the kids nicknamed her after watching pippi LOL!)

I wasn't going to bring her but she is so cute, I am pretty sure I jsut need to find space.  But if you see tears in my eyes it is probably because our wild little woman tore her dolls leg of in 5 minutes - you know the one that took me 6 weeks to make!

And I jsut had to show what my fabulous 9 year old made for our little Christmas trees!

She is a finger knitting fiend and she made the cutest tree scarves to dress up our minimal Christmas trees this year!

Pictures!

Ok I have to say that Angela with ladybugsinlove.com is AWESOME!  We sent Cav a cake over a month ago just so he knew we loved him and he is special.  Really, I am sure word on the street (ie orphanages) is if you get a cake you have a family.  His birthday was in May (we sent LOI) but we didn't send him any treats..

Besides I am sure that special treats are fun for the whole group plus it breaks up the monotony of their routine. 

If you have been following our story then you have seen his last pictures which were almost heartbreaking to look at - he was so sad.  I was over the moon to see him smiling in this one!  He looks so different and dare I say HANDSOME (good thing since that is what Cavanaugh means)!!

Don't you love his cribmate Samuel just clapping away on the right! 

And then Samuel in this picture - I don't care the language or how children grow up, they still are the same.  He is totally saying "How dare you put your arm around MY buddy!"

They did move to a beautiful NEW & clean building but the empty shelves behind them breaks my heart.  Hopefully the 80+ beanie babies we are bringing will be given out.

Cav likes cake - of course my husband said - shovel it in before they put down the camera and take it away heehee!  Sweet baby boy there will be a lot of cakes in your future!

My SHERPA is back!

Because I am either really bad at math or in denial I had to count 4 times - yes 4.  We have 5 more days and a wake up before we leave!  I still have no itinerary, have to figure out how to charge an unknown amount of $$$$ which I have been guaranteed is higher than my $9000 credit limit on my marriott credit card, oh yeah and finish my laundry so I can pack!

BUT today we crossed off two important things on our list.

Dentist - last vacation little man's teeth literally seperated as in the top of the molar sheered right off!  So we started the morning getting the boys teeth checked (I had made the appt months ago but decided not to cancel because of little man.)

He's good!

ALL is GOOD!  

and thankfully no cavities but I realized I probably need to look at getting dental insurance with FIVE!

 Because of issue with missing school, I ran our big boy back to school for a few hours before his next appointment.  Since we are not leaving until the 7th we don't have to worry about the whole getting dropped from the school thing but I didn't want to test the waters missing today too!  Luckily school is a mile from our house!


In the afternoon we went to the orthopedist to check and see if this little treasure was joining us in China!

Of course the cast had to be cut off, which scared little man so he hid in a closet but curiosity got the better of him!

X-ray showed bone growth on the distal end of the Humerus which means - 

With a little more care over the next week

MY SHERPA IS BACK!!

I still can't believe how perfect God's timing was in everything.  Starting on the 8th airfares go up $300 and they continue to climb until the week after Christmas.  The increase is as high as an extra $1000 per person!  In addition, we had been told by the school if we left on the 6th or before our big boy would be dropped from the school!  If we had left even earlier, he would have been in China, in a full arm cast which would need to be removed and a total PITA.  He jsut amazes me!

1. All of our kids are packed except I decided FeiFei needs either black leggings or a denim skirt ( or both!)
2. All of the donations are packed except for the Christmas presents going to New Day Foster Home.
3. Craft room was rearranged so the train table etc could be moved down there, and the little boys room is more open.
4. I think I have pet sitters lined up
5. I think I have all of the kiddos paperwork printed off and copied.
6. Slowly but surely we are getting there, and let me tell you for someone who normally packs about 2 hours before we normally leave I am doing GREAT!!