Guess who watched 'Annie'?!

Back to School=Lack of Posts

Can you tell we're all back to school around here?
There has been a complete lack of picture taking lately. Actually the least amount of pictures ever taken in the last year. Sad, very sad.

All is going well with school. I'm settling in to working again, Brett's settling in to 5th grade and Lili's settling in to ALL DAY kindergarten. She's doing very, very well. She's even gone to the after school Boys and Girls Club a couple of times. She begs me to let her go.
The other heart wrenching thing she's doing to me is making me drop her off before the school entrance. Yep: "Mama, you stop here. Lili get out now." Already like a teenager asking to be dropped off way far away so no one sees me because I'm such an embarrassment. And she got to this point on DAY 3!! sigh.
She's bringing home all sorts of papers, learning letters and numbers and shapes and colors. She will NOT let me throw anything away. "Mama, no garbage. please !" eek. Kind of makes me feel just a tiny bit guilty when I wait to pitch it until after she goes to bed. (shhhh....don't tell her, she hasn't noticed yet)

Oh my gosh! I just realized that last year at this very moment we were on our way home. We were on our plane from Hong Kong to Chicago. I think we were about 2.5 hours into our trip. We landed in Chicago around 8-9pm (I think). Wow. All through the olympics I've been thinking about how we were there. This was the day we went to the zoo, or the medical exam, or the temple, etc. And now we were gone, and the olympics are coming to an end. We're really going to miss watching it.

Well, that's about it for now. Nothing thrilling or exciting happening around here.
What am I saying? EVERY day is thrilling and exciting around here. woo hoo :)

Lili's New Glasses!

OK, I promise I'm not going to update every school day, but I just had to share what happened this morning.
I was standing with Lili at the school doors when the bell rang.
I asked her if she remembered which way to go and she said:
"Mama you stay. Lili go all self."
The little creep wanted to go all by herself !!
So I let her.
She turned around halfway down the hall and smiled and waved goodbye.
sniff .

**First Day of School: Update**

"Yay! We had fun at school today!!"

Poor little Lola missed her kids!

Lili came up to me after school and said "Tomorrow? School tomorrow?" like 'seriously? we're doing this again ?!'
She did say that she had fun and her teacher told me that she was shy for like 10 minutes and really, really blossomed throughout the day.
Heh. "blossomed", I like that :)
Little Miss Lili had a welcoming crowd of about 5 teachers just dying to know how her day went. The absolutely worst part of the day was when Lili's hairclip fell out and the teacher held onto it and Lili DID NOT HAVE IT at the end of the day. tragedy
So, Lili and Mrs. V (her teacher's last name has 4 syllables, so "Mrs. V" is the closest we're going to get!) ran back to her room to get it. Lili just happened to come back with a peanut butter cup too. Dear Mrs. V, nothing will get to Lili's heart like FOOD! Cha-ching!

Brett had a good day too. He gets to rotate classes like at the middle and high school, so he thinks that's pretty cool. He was very excited to see his friends (that he just saw like yesterday ). All his friends were very excited to see him AND Lili too. She's quite the little celebrity around here.

So, The First Day of School was a success!

Only 179 more to go! :)

First Day of School!!

Can't you just feel the excitement?!?!

Woo Hoo!!

Up and at 'em, boy!!

Mom got us up waaaaaay to early (yes, but now I have time to take pictures!)

The outfit you voted for! Isn't she cute? :)

Hope she doesn't actually need to put anything in that backpack. She may just topple over.

Such a big girl.

This is what every kindergarten parent received on the first day of school. aww.

I'll let you all know how 'Kindergarten: Day One' went as soon as I find out myself!

August 9, 2008: Happy Liliana-versary!!

Taking the train to Chicago

Chinatown: Chicago

"What? You expect me to eat with these things?!"

"Happy Liliana-versary to us!"

Our first Liliana-versary was a lot of fun.

We drove to the train station, rode the train to Chicago, took a taxi to Chinatown. On the way back, we took a bus to the train station, rode the Metra to yet another train station, then rode the train to our car and drove home. whew. We were exhausted.

And, of course, nothing with us is ever, ever easy. We missed the first train to Chicago. So instead of waiting around for the next train 2 hours later like a bunch of wimps , we raced the train at high velocity speed to the next stop. As we were getting out of the car, the train pulled away. Not to worry! We'll just beat them to the next stop. As we pulled into that station, in pulls the train, whistle blaring. We all RAN to the train, dragging whoever couldn't keep up behind us. (and I'm not going to say who that person was, but do you know how hard it is to run in platform flip flops? and that's the LAST time I'm letting Jeff borrow them too!) :)

So, anyway, we made it to Chinatown after utilizing every. single. mode of transportation imaginable. We had a wonderful lunch at a noodle place, even though no one but ME ate with chopsticks. Not even the Chinese kid. unbelievable.

We just cannot even believe that it's been one year already. It has gone so unbelievably fast. Just thinking about all that Lili's done and learned amazes me.

We've been through the China adoption process and survived! woo hoo!

I am so excited to watch the opening ceremonies tonight!
I was able to catch some of it on the CCTV channel this morning--live. :)

I'm hoping we're going to be able to do something special tomorrow for our

ONE YEAR LILIANA-VERSARY !!

I just cannot believe it's almost been one year.

Last year at this time we were about to leave for the Beijing airport to fly to Guangzhou to meet Lili.

In just 12 hours from now we held Lili in our arms for the first time.

Unbelieveable!

Looks Like We Have a Winner

It looks pretty clear to me that this is the winner, so I'm going to call it.

Thanks so much for voting! I LOVE reading all the comments and knowing that you're all playing along :) Lili will be sporting this lovely ensemble next Wednesday.

We went to the eye doctor today for Lili's kindergarten checkup.

Guess what?

She needs glasses.

sigh......

I can't help but feel a little bad about it. I mean, she's only 5.

I don't know, I wear glasses and it's not the end of the world, I guess I just don't want her to be dependent on them. It just makes me kind of sad.

The eye doctor said that we could wait, but Lili is SO EXCITED about it, we might just get them now.

She was looking at all the pink and purple frames. She really liked the pink ones, then she really liked the purple ones. Then she saw some black ones and said "I like these. Like mama!!" awwwwwww! I tell you, that kid can just make you melt.

Fashionistas! First Day of School Outfit Poll

1

2

3

4

5

And, of course, we have the shoes to fit any occasion!

Did you notice not one dress?! Although, outfit #2 can be worn as a dress without the leggings.

We all know that Lili has a ton of dresses, but none of them are brand new, so I'm kind of over them. Hey, there's 179 more days in the school year so I'm sure she'll have a chance to wear them all.....at least once :)

Remember to vote! If the race is tight, I'll narrow it down to 2 choices on Friday, then we'll re-vote until Monday. So get out there and vote!!!

Reflections....

Last year at this time we were on a plane to Beijing.
Right now at 8:00pm, we were on 'Hour 6' of our flight with about 7 more to go. (still can't believe we survived it in COACH!)
Last year, I wished we were at home all boring and comfortable, with Lili somehow just transported to us.
This year I find myself wishing that we could be in China again.
This whole Olympics hype is really making me miss it. Anyone else that's been there feel that way too? I think of all the things I should've bought, all the things we should've seen and done, all the things I should've taken pictures of (even though I took about a thousand ) and even all the things I just should've eaten.
Oh well, maybe someday.

Today we went to Chuck E. Cheese's for the last big before school hurrah. We had fun and got lots and lots of tickets (which corresponds to lots and lots of junk !)
Lili went to the school for her kindergarten evaluation this morning. She had to say her ABCs and count and hop and skip and draw shapes, etc. She even got her picture taken and the teacher even let her see it on the camera ;) All the teachers were so thrilled to see her since they have know about her since her referral, so that was nice. Lili willingly went with them and did her thing. whew !

Oh, and I had my yard sale Saturday. We made $377! Woo hoo!!

I plan on posting a "What should Lili wear to the first day of school" poll soon, so be ready to vote!
There's just way too much to choose from. :)

Thankful

As we quickly approach our One Year Liliana-versary, I've been thinking a lot about the whole journey and I've realized that I have a lot to be thankful for. (duh!)

Obviously, I'm thankful to Lili's birthparents/birthmother.

• I'm thankful that she (or they) chose not to abort her.
• I'm thankful that she chose life for her no matter how difficult, painful and even illegal it may have been.
• I'm thankful that she not only chose to give birth to Lili, but that she chose to place her in a public place where she would be found....and eventually adopted.
• I'm thankful that she purposely went to a place knowing that Lili would be found and taken in by someone. This could've been a very dangerous thing to do. (it's illegal in China to abandon your baby)

I'm thankful to the Chinese government, China Center of Adoption Affairs and everyone else involved in the Chinese International Adoption program/process. Without them opening their doors to the international community, we would not have Lili. period.

I'm thankful to our agency for matching us with Lili.

I'm thankful to Jeff for finally coming around to this whole 'adoption thing' in 2005.

I'm thankful to Brett for opening his heart, his home and his family to a sister.

I'm thankful to all our family and friends for all the prayers and support throughout this journey.

And, most of all, I'm thankful to God for being in total and complete control throughout this whole process (even though I kicked and screamed the whole way!) :)

God knew that this little girl named Mei Xiu Yuan was going to be 'Liliana Laura-Mei'. He knew that this girl on the other side of the world, that until just 17 months ago we didn't even know existed, would be our daughter.

We started this adoption process requesting an 'infant, aged 0-12 months'. NEVER, EVER even considering any child over the age of 12 months. (so much for thinking we 'knew' what we were going to do) :)

When we think about how the whole thing happened, we're amazed.

And thankful.