I love when daddy comes home from work!

My daddy is so funny!

7 Months of Bliss

Can't believe we have been home with Jenni for almost 7 months. My where has the time gone. Our previous life just doesn't seem like it even existed before. How boring we were. I now so admire a few minutes just to blog. I now go to bed much earlier than before. I still would rather be a night owl but in order to keep up with Miss Jenni I must try and sleep at night when she does just in case she wakes in the night. She once again is sick but this time it is the full and icky flu. All symptoms have been exhibited for the last 6 days and the worst in the last two days. But nothing to worry about just another "daycare sickness". Oh, well at least she is getting it out of the way while she young. Hopefully, building up her immune system. She actually has been doing really good for about month..ever since she got tubes in her ears things have been better as far as colds, etc. The ENT says Jenni's tubes look good and her hearing has returned to normal..actually "above normal". So we are very pleased. She did so good through all of the hearing tests and cooperated so well. I was very proud. Jenni still only has 8 teeth so I am sure we will have some cranky days in the future when she is teething. We did have our 6 month social worker visit on Sunday. It went really well and even though Jenni didn't feel very good she behaved so good and showed off all of her "talents" to Nora. Glad to have that visit done. We have to have one more follow up visit in June and then that should be it for what China requires. We are also starting the re-adoption process for Washington State in April. We would do it sooner but our attorney just had a baby girl! We are so happy for her and her husband. They now have 2 beautiful girls. Even though our Federal Government legally sees Jenni as ours we don't have a U.S. Birth Certificate which comes in handy for when she goes to school and needs a passport so we need to "re-adopt" her in order to get the birth certificate. Well, better go our princess needs my attention!

Hugs

Jenni is loved!

2009 Here we come!

The year of 2008 has come and gone. It had many happy moments for our household and many challenging and difficult times for our country but we have a new President and a hope for these bad times to get much better and a hope that our country learned from our mistakes. I do have to admit that Obama brings our family great hope for a "change" in our country's attitude. Our country is so behind many other countries when it comes to racial diversity. Now that we have an Asian daughter we are made even more aware of the immense prejudices that still exists in our country. We love the city we live in but it is very conservative and very little racial diversity but we do know that it is changing everyday and any prejudice that may still be present here will hopefully soon disappear with time. People just need to remember that none of our ancestors (except the Indians) actually came from the U.S. so we are all in one way or another an descendent of an immigrant. People still feel it is their right to question us on why we would adopt from China and not from the U.S. but that is whole another blog but I can tell you we know with all of our heart that Jenni was meant to be our daughter and she was living in China and that is where we had to go to bring her home.

Jenni had a wonderful Christmas as did we. We have had immense amount of snow (more 60 inches)in this last month so we have spent most of our last 2 weeks "digging out". Mama fell down our basement stairs and injured her hip and back. No broken bones but very sore. Each day she is feeling better and better. Jenni enjoyed having mama home with her over the holiday and seems to have "grown up" so much while having mama home. She understands more and more of what you ask of her and is very sweet and nurturing. She is just so smart! She fights to stay awake as long as she can as she just doesn't want to miss anything important. She actually stayed awake until midnight last night! She minds fairly well but seems to have selective hearing when she wants to. We have to say June 16th, 2008 our life changed forever and we are just so happy and in love with our little girl. Have a Happy, healthy and wealthy 2009. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Some Summertime Photos

Update on Miss Jenni Lin

Been awhile since we posted. Sorry no pictures this time. I am using a different computer so no photos. I just thought I would update everyone on Jenni's Milestones. I have another blog that I read and I enjoy reading their "milestones" post for their little girl. So I thought family friends would like to read Jenni's.

Jenni will be 15 months on Dec. 24th

*Jenni is 29 inches tall and weighs 19.8 pounds (my arms appreciate the low weight!)
*She now says Dada/daddy, mama (but always long drawn out maaamaaa),kitty, nigh, nigh. She really isn't much of a talker but jabbers in a strange baby language, she has a tendency to whine or do a low quiet scream or squeal to get whats she wants and points.
* Even though not much of talker she does know some sign language-all done, please, thank you. She does love to give kisses and blow you kisses
*understands yes and no and normally minds very well when we tell her no
*She still usually takes two 2 hr naps a day and sleeps about 10 hours at night. She rather sleep in her crib than in our bed with us. She normally sleeps pretty well through the night but lately has been waking at least once for a diaper change and a mama hug.
*She is getting much better about snuggling..she use to be nicknamed "jello" as she hated to be held for too long but now she actually comes to us to be held and snuggled especially from her dada.
*She is walking everywhere and still is partially potty trained.

She is feeling much better as she had tubes put in her ears about 1 week ago. Still has some mild hearing loss that they say may never get better. Still has vomitting issues but it has improved some. We are just having so much fun with her during this holiday time. Mama has been home with her the last two days as daycare and my work has been closed as we got about 2 1/2 FEET of snow so everything in our town is closed except of course daddy's work! He has a four wheel drive truck so he has been getting around pretty well. Our city has not seen this much snow in a 2 day period in over a hundred years so it has been interesting. Well, hope you all are doing well and I promise to add some pictures.

Hugs

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Well, I wish I could tell you we have many pictures from Thanksgiving but I have none. My family has some but I don't have access to them yet. Our Thanksgiving really wasn't very much fun. Dada had the stomach flu all Wednesday night and Thursday and then had to go to work at 4:00PM. He is such a trooper. He didn't want to have to call anyone in on Thanksgiving so he toughed it out. Jenni also has been sick again since Wednesday. Not just your normally cough and cold but also running a fever. On Thanksgiving she was as high as 103 degrees. We did attempt to still do Thanksgiving dinner at grandma's but bad choice. Besides getting thrown up on right before dinner..Jenni was just plain cranky. Nothing made her happy. She cried and whined almost the entire time we were there. Needless to say after a clothing change I attempted to eat quickly and get Jenni home. I also have not been feeling too hot. I first had some sort of stomach ailment that lasted almost 3 weeks. Some days were pretty bad and now I have a bronchial infection so all 3 of us were pretty miserable yesterday. Jenni and I both went to the doctor today. The doctor said Jenni didn't have an ear infection or strep throat just a little tonsillitis and cough. She has been very cranky all day today and has spent most of her day crying. I think her throat is just so sore. Since Jenni has been in daycare our home has just been a home for the most wonderful germ bugs! But I have to say we are still so thankful this Thanksgiving for our little princess and for all we have and our family. These memories can't be possible without all our family and friends!! Love you all.

Terri