The boys are doing great!

Yes, we have had meltdowns!

Yes, we have had tears!

Yes, we have had boundary testing!

Yes, they have yelled things at me in Chinese!

But...

we are having less meltdowns, tears and yelling!

They are getting settled into a routine.  Having beautiful spring weather has helped.  We have spent many hours outside playing basketball, soccer, kicking and catching a football, playing badminton, playing in the sandbox, swinging, drawing with sidewalk chalk, blowing bubbles and all of that leads to calmer boys who sleep well at night.

We enjoyed a great weekend.  Taylor gave the boys a ride on his motorcycle in the front yard.  They LOVED it!  He instantly became a best buddy!

They helped H.O. gather wood for a camp fire in our fire ring in the yard.  We cooked out hot dogs over the fire.

Yes, our house is NOISY!

Yes, we are all adjusting and getting into a new routine!

Yes, I am loving being a mommy to six blessings!

Life is good!

Home, SWEET, Home!

We are home!!

I must say my bed felt so wonderful and soft last night!

H.O. had great helpers getting our luggage checked in :-)!

The boys did great traveling, thank you for your prayers!  We arrived at the airport early in Guangzhou and they sat on the floor and played with some other children from our travel group, the time passed fairly quickly.  During our first flight they were very interested in the t.v.'s on the backs of the seats, after a little while this mean mama made them turn off the t.v.'s to get some sleep.  They slept for about six hours and then back to watching a movie, they stayed relatively quiet during that flight.  We then arrived in the wonderful United States and made it through customs and immigration.  They are now U.S. Citizens!!  On our next flight they slept the first half of the flight and then colored.  By our last flight they had had enough, luckily it was only an hour flight and we were home.  We arrived home at 9 a.m. our local time.

We were greeted at the airport by our wonderful family and friends.  What a sweet site they were!  We arrived home to a wonderfully clean house with food in the fridge!  I can not thank my mom enough for staying at our house caring for our children and cleaning and making our arrival so nice. 

Once home the boys had a great time exploring the house and seeing their toys.

They have fallen in love with their jie jie, big sister Carrie Anne!  A real advantage of some of our children staying at home is that now they are not suffering from jet lag and are full of energy and excitement to play with their little brothers!  It is so much fun having all of our children together!

After playing for a while I put the little boys down for a nap and H.O. and I crashed also, we all slept for a couple of hours and made ourselves get up so we would sleep last night.  Then after a dinner of pizza we headed off to the children's music recital.  We broke all of the rules of secluding the children for the first weeks home.  We didn't want to miss our children's music recital, they played well, it is always an enjoyable evening to listen to how well all the children play and to see their progress from year to year.  Andrew did not play since he had just arrived home.

 We then came home and crashed!  It is so wonderful to be home!  It is also comforting to have all our family together!

Heading Home!!

We are packed, we went and picked up McDonald's (we have eaten way too much Micky D's, it is just way too easy and familiar) for lunch and are just hanging out in the room waiting for departure time!  We started our day with our final breakfast buffet in our hotel and enjoyed feeding the fish at the beautiful fish pond in our hotel.  We have really enjoyed this hotel, it has a beautiful fish pond with a waterfall and gardens.

Our next post will be from home, sweet, home.  We so miss our children at home.  We also miss having ice in drinks, being able to drink tap water, a soft bed and the sunshine.  It will be great to be able to hear the people around us speaking English and know what they are saying.  However, it gives us a little insight to how our boys will be feeling, missing all their "comforts" of their homeland, especially now they will not understand anyone.  They will not be able to holler at the waitress or our guide to explain something to us, poor little fellas.  Please pray for their transition!

God has given me a love for the Chinese people, maybe the fact that now 3 of our 6 children are Chinese.  I've even gotten used to the China "smell", it no longer makes me nauseous :-).  I will miss China, but we are so ready to be home.

Thank you for your prayers for our travels.

The Beginning of a New Journey

The adoption process journey is coming to an end.  We are now embarking on a new journey, raising our newest blessings.  Eleven months ago I saw Seth's picture for the first time, he stole my heart and that began our process of adoption.  Tomorrow we will fly out of China, taking our boys from the only home they've ever known to begin a new journey in America.  Our prayer is that they grow up to be men who love, honor and serve the Lord.  They will be forever loved by us!

It's hard to get a clear picture of little boys that are constantly in motion!  :-)

Today we had our Consulate Appointment.  This was the last necessary appointment for this adoption process, tomorrow our guide will pick up their passports with U.S. visas in them and we will head to the airport.  Please pray for us as we travel home.  Our flight leaves Thursday night 9:30p.m. China time which will be Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m.at home, we will arrive home at 8:45 a.m Friday morning.  My hope is that since it will bedtime for the boys when we get on the plane that they will sleep for a big portion of the international flight portion of our travels.  Our flight from Guangzhou to Los Angeles is just over 12 hours.

 

*Mr. Burchette, Andrew came down with a cold our second day here and is just beginning to feel a bit better, but since it is not the bird flu we are bringing him home with us. :-)*

They had a great time in the bubble bath tonight!!

 

Thanks again for your love and prayers!

Our day

We had a low key morning.  We went shopping at some stores around our hotel.  We are searching for a suitcase, on our last flight some "liquid" covered my suitcase when it came out of baggage claim that smelled horrible.  The suitcase had to be trashed, so we have to find something to bring my clothes home in.

We came back to the hotel after a trip to Starbucks for lunch.  We had been told the boys were probably used to a nap, so we decided to try putting them down for a nap, sure enough within three minutes they were asleep.  After they woke up they had a lot of fun making paper airplanes.

Seth kept making funny faces and wanting me to take his picture, he is so funny!

Today after shopping and lunch H.O. commented how much better Caleb was doing, he was holding his hand and walking so nicely(not throwing himself on the ground).  Well, it went downhill this evening!!  He was a mess!  We were headed to the Pearl River Dinner Cruise and he fell apart.  H.O. took him and separated him from the crowd and had him sit on his lap and try to calm him down, he sat there and screamed and cried(Caleb, not H.O. :)).  I had our guide talk to him and he settled down and did a little better.  A few minutes later our guide said she told him if he was a good boy he could have soda with dinner.  Well just as the drink cart was headed to our table I asked him to do something and he stuck his tongue out at me so I said, no soda.  Our guide happened to be walking by and I asked her to explain that to him, she did and I fully expected him to have a meltdown as Seth received his soda.  But he did okay.  His behavior began to improve as he was distracted with eating, the show and the lights.  We have our work cut out for us with him :).

Here is the one picture I managed to snap during the dinner cruise, which by the way was a huge disappointment!  The food was hmm, not the best, they ran out of plates and forks, it was raining so we couldn't really see the lights and the clown was a joke.  Maybe, it would of seemed better if we had been in a better frame of mind. :)  The last 5 minutes the rain stopped and we were able to go outside and see the lights!

Tomorrow is a new day! 

We keep reminding ourselves it is not his fault that he is this way!  He has never been disciplined, we see great potential,  he can be a very sweet boy and loves hugs and kisses, we will get there!

Our Consulate appointment is in the morning and then we are going to Shamain Island to go shopping!  Woo Hoo!



Fun Day!!

Our day started at the zoo.  

There was a speaker in this "stump" and Seth had the strangest look on his face wondering where the sound was coming from.



This wading pool had goldfish in it, the children had nets trying to catch a fish.

Carrie Anne this is for you, sorry we can't bring one home to you but the giraffes certainly were pretty.

After the zoo we were all so hot, it has been very hot and humid, we decided to go to McDonald's for ice cream.  We then went back to the room to cool off and let the boys play.  Since we were leaving for the circus at 5 pm we decided to have a late lunch/early dinner, which in our family is called linner.  We went to our new favorite restaurant, Tekila's.  Yes, Mexican in China!  Thank you Briscoe family for the recommendation.

Then we headed off to the circus.  When we met our guide in the lobby she told the boys where we were going and they started jumping up and down, giving us hugs saying thank you mommy, thank you baba.  To say they were excited would be a major understatement! 

Wow!!  It was amazing, best circus we have ever seen!  It included acrobatics, animals, trapeze, clowns, even a diving show and much more.  It is well worth seeing for any one coming to Guangzhou, China.

Our boys were literally on the edge of their seats,

glued to the action.

The boys fell asleep in the bus on the way back to the hotel and they are sleeping sweetly in bed now after a fun filled day.  Luckily we have no where to be early in the morning so they can sleep in.  Yippee!

Things we know...

...one week ago our boys were considered orphans and now they are sons, brothers, grandsons, and nephews.  They are loved and cherished and we are so glad they are in our family!  Yes, we have had and will continue to experience hard times as the boys learn how to behave and be members of our family, but we see progress each day.  Praise God!

Other things we've learned:

Caleb

*He likes to eat oranges, breads, boiled eggs, gold fish, peanut butter crackers and tomatoes to name a few of his favorites, actually there are only a few things we've given him that he hasn't liked.

* He LOVES a bubble bath.

*He does not like bananas.

*He likes to play with cars.

*He likes mommy best and gives lots of hugs and kisses(even with all of our correction times).

*He like to color and play with his sticker book.

Seth

*He is athletic(interpret that to be he is a monkey and likes to climb, run, and jump!)  Sports are definitely in his future.

*He LOVES to play with cars and Lego's.

*He likes bananas and noodles, he also loves hamburgers and pizza.  Again, he eats almost any food we put in front of him.

*He is a sweet boy, and makes very silly faces.

*He likes to color and draw pictures.

*He does not like water on his face.

Today we ventured to the  playground, it is very hot and HUMID here, my camera lens kept fogging up because of the humidity:

Caleb

Seth

Caleb

Seth

Today we went with our adoption agency group shopping, as we were waiting for the bus I started giving the boys some gold fish crackers, mainly to keep them occupied while we waited.  As I've said before we are stared at a lot, a lady stopped and stared and watched us for about 10 minutes.  I had to correct Caleb several times for behavior, I kept waiting on her to say or do something, but no, she just kept staring and smiling. 

H.O. laughed and said that's what your mom will look like when she is 100.  He jokes with her all the time that she is Chinese. :)  We love you mom!!

Tomorrow is a busy day for us, we go to the zoo in the morning and the circus in the evening.  Looking forward to a fun day

with our boys!