Thursday, October 26, 2006

Family

Well, my family is certainly a goofy one. These are photos from my parents Linda and Joe Thomas' anniversary. For once, my brother and sisters were able to make it with their kiddos.
This was a photo session of the young group of Thomas family children. Me- Cheryl, Sandra, Jody and Joe.
There is a teenager group that consists of Chase, Samantha and Sarah but only Sarah could make it that day.

Here are the kids with the yougest batch of kids.
Cheryl and Mei Li, Sandra and CJ, Jody and Corin and Hannah, Joe and Joseph and Mia

It looks like mom and dad are going to kiss but they are actually planning their escape.


As you can see, my mom and dad had enough and they are running away.
We managed to get a couch photo- a bit much color with the Hawaii outfits- but it is appropriate for our wild bunch.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Moon festival and thinking of Birth Families





Friday night

was the actual Moon Festival date and Mei Li and I bought Moon cakes.

We got daddy- Jann to come out with us to look at the moon which he thought was silly until he heard Mei Li say Hello to her baby sister and told her we were going to come and get her soon as she ate the top off the moon cake. (next year we will probably use moon-pies).

Tonight she was playing with her dolls and had cribs out for them. She had made a mound of couch pillows and I asked her why. She explained it was cause she needed it cause her baby had to go back to China on a airplane and she didn't want to go on the plane by herself so she had to go with her. She said "Her's gonna go to China 'n see her birs (birth) parents and her birth mother said 'I miss you and I love you and I kiss you and I love you all day' I carried her to her birth mother. Her birth mother gave her a present".

Then she asked me to draw the present on paper- it was a round box with a lid and stripes- then she had to have 2 more, then she wanted me to draw a long box- 3 of them with stripes, and the activity blended into regular old art project.

I am so glad she can verbalize things like this and that I have been given a child who is so open and loving and who has such an imagination.

The pool, Moon Festival and 1 year Wait already!



Well, the pool has gone from a constant digging to an actual concrete pool with cool deck and river rock around the edges.
Thank God there is something to see progress with!
We had to re-do our homestudy, get local non criminal reports, non child abuse reports, medical letters stating we were free of communicable disease and give info to the social worker so she could re-do it.
We'll send in the new I-600A as soon as we get the homestudy.
Our fingerprints expire this month and our I-171H expires in January and it is so unlikely we will get our daughter before then- so thus the re-do.
We are officially 1 year in the waiting process from our LID to China, but it is actually longer as we sent it back in August of last year.
Yesterday our FCC group held their Moon Festival at the Children's Museum, with a book reading, dancers and Red Thread display.
The red thread was strung along the staircase and families attached a copy of a photo of the foster parent, passport or referral photo to link their child to China- many children chose the item themselves.
After the festival, Mei Li and I walked to a gellato (sp) place and she picked out PINK- can you believe it gellato. It was good and we sat outside at tables near the street and she was SO PROUD! She told me everyone could see she "has pink ice cream".
On the way there I was trying to find a parking place and pulled into a space and say a homeless guy passed out in the doorway in front of us.
I decided to back out and she asked why so I told her I saw a man asleep in the doorway near the street.
She said, "Oh, he's waiting for his mommy to come get him".
I explained he was a grown up. She insisted his mommy would come and get him.
Part of me wished the same.