Happy 4th birthday, Meili!!!

Oh, the excitment of a four year old. I can't believe she is already four. I remember Mckenzie's fourth birthday and it does not seem like long ago... and now look at her... oh.

Anyway, we had a great day! We woke up Meili much earlier than she is use to as you can see from the photos. She always takes an hour or so to wake up - she loves to lick her pillow and veg usually watching Dora, drinking hot pink milk in her Dora sippy cup... but this morning was different :) I love the pictures. They tell all. It did not take her long to go from sleepy eyes to happy smiles. She went through all of my gift bags the week before and instructed me that I needed to wrap the gifts in the green paper and then put the gifts in the bags. After presents we had breakfast - Lucky Charms- and got ready for her birthday party. We invited her sweet friend Mady, and the 10 girls (yes 10) from her primary class. I could not believe that there are so many girls her age... guess I've not paid to close attention to the nursery... They all played and got along so well. A very nice group of girls. Meili was in heaven the whole time. Mckenzie, Lexi, Ashlyn, Reese and Davis planned a perfect Dora party for the girls. They were a bit surprised how quickly the games went but it all ended perfectly. We tried making little pizzas and they ate cupcakes and Superman ice cream. After the party, I let the boys play with their friends and they had fun playing with Meili's new Wedgits. For anyone looking for a wonderful gift we all love these - they are the best. Meili got her purple set that she has wanted from Grandma/pa Hunsaker and we gave her a huge set for her birthday (she got a 30 piece set for Christmas, too) The girls love to stack the wedgits and you can also build challenging things. We had a great time spending time during the afternoon building them. Meili played with all of her new gifts from her friends and put many, many layers of fingernail polish on and eye shadow on. After Scott got home that evening we took Meili to her favorite restaurant - Idaho Pizza. She loves the chocolate pizza...mmmmmmmm..... and pop, croutons, sunflower seeds and eggs from the salad bar.

It was a perfect day. She did not get whiny (probably because she crashed for a while) but just kept her smile all day and enjoyed it. We are SO blessed to have her in our family.

Lunar New Year 2009

The college had a spectacular Chinese New Year party this year. We went with our friends who had adopted Chinese children in the area. It was a great time! They served lots of yummy Chinese food (pop to keep the girls still), had a traditional Chinese Dragon dance, drummers from Japan, Judo (Reese was able to go up and throw a guy over his back), Vietnamese singers and more. All five kids sat mesmerized the entire evening (ok... until about the last 1/2 hour). It was from 6:30 to 9:30 so that is pretty impressive for our kids to sit still for so long. I did not take many pictures because of the lighting so I will borrow some from Lora as soon as she posts hers... hint, hint Lora :) so grandmas, check back later for more picts. Anyway, it was a great night. So glad the Asian students put this together each year.

One year home from China with Lili

9 flights, 4 hotels, a new 20 month old doll and all very sleep deprived later ...Mckenzie, Lili and I arrived home a year ago today. What a trip!!! I'm still very grateful for the lady standing at the bottom of the stairs as we got off of our last plane... Lili in arms and tons of heavy porcelain on my back and not seeing straight - and my kids, Scott and friends watching from inside the airport... she caught me as we nearly fell down the slippery stairs. I still remember the feeling of being really unbalanced and going but not wanting too :) It has been fun remembering the experience and the amazing blessing miss Lili has brought to our home. Hope everyone had a Happy Chinese New Year. We are celebrating tonight at our local Junior College.

never a dull moment -

I woke up this morning excited for a slow, quiet day. Mady was on the calendar, scouts and orchestra (and Reese stayed home pretending to be sick ;) ). While Mady's mom and I were visiting (after we had watched her) the girls were playing. Lili was on the table (her favorite place - she is a climber) playing the drum and jumped off.... with a pen in her hand (did not see the pen until we noticed the pen went into her forehead. I am so glad Lora was here to keep me calm. I called Heidi, whose husband is a Dr. and works with a plastic surgeon... she could not get a hold of her husband but suggested I call our friend who is an opthamologist. Jamie told me to bring her into his office and he'd look at her (Our ped told us to take her to the ER... but I hate the ER... you wait forever with really sick people, pay a fortune - our insurance does not cover the ER unless it is a huge emergency). Anyway, Jamie was so kind and thought she needed two stitches. He did not have pain medication except for some numbing stuff - he put a ton of it on her and then we held her down and he kindly put in two stitches. We were in and out in a half an hour. Here is a picture of her (I should have washed her face but did not -don't her hemangiomas look fantastic)- the stitches are over her eye... oh, I was a nervous wreck feeling incredibly guilty and Scott's comment when I called him was, "so it could have poked out her eye"... hmmm a little more guilt. Thank goodness we were blessed.

I found the picture of Meili and Lili together on my camera.... not sure who took it... Looks like another dangerous activity. Lili loves this shell necklace. Most often the necklace can be found around Lili's arms and on her back as she pretends it is a backpack.

Hope all is well :)

Re-adoption of Lili

Yesterday, we took Lili to court with our attorney and completed her re-adoption process. I'm not sure why this is required... more money for our government and attorneys??? But we did it because it is necessary. It is essentially our government recognizing the adoption, even though they already did? The judge asked us if we thought it was in her best interest to have her adopted into our family (she already was... and duh, yes) and other questions like that.
During the closed door hearing Lili looked up at the court reporter and pointed at her and yelled, "you funny," the lady looked at her but did not respond so Lili said again as she pointed, "you funny". The judge turned to her and asked what Lili just said to her and she said, "Your funny". Lili thinks everything is a party. She is such a fun little girl and we are so blessed to have her.
Our next and last step with her adoption is to send the certified papers from the re-adoption to USCIS to get her citizenship (she is not a US citizen yet because Scott did not travel).

Meili is so excited for her birthday on Saturday. They sang to her in Primary last week. She was happy to tell everyone that she is having lots of friends over and she tried to convince them that she will be 5 (she is going to be 4). She has been busy putting her mind to work all week thinking of what we will do. A couple of nights ago she asked a thousand times what her cake will look like. She is gathering items for her party that she thinks her friends will want to see. She is having a Dora party and luckily Kenz, Reese and Davis are excited to plan and help. They each want to be Dora, Boots and Swiper for the party.

We are excited for my brother, Nathan, and his wife, Heidi. They arrived in Boston Monday night. He is starting his first post college job next Monday. They are busy trying to find a place to live and getting use to the new area. Before they left my sister, Leslie, and her husband, Tavis, did a pregnancy shoot. They turned out really, really well (I don't think... and hope... I don't have one photo of me pregnant but wow these are great - pregnancy styles have come a long way-). If you want to take a look go here: http://www.tavisjohnson.blogspot.com/

Here are some photos from New Year's at my parents. (thanks Greg and Kristi)

Hope all is well.
Melanie

Our first year with Lili

I am having a hard time believing that one year ago Lili's orphanage director placed Lili in Mckenzie and my arms. She is such an incredible blessing to us and has brought such happiness to our home. I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for giving her to us.

As I reflect on the first few hours with her I remember a quiet, curious little girl. She would not let me take off her black high top shoes - for some reason they were her comfort. I remember her sitting on the bed for about a half an hour trying to put her bottle together... we thought she was playing with it but instead was wanting a bottle to drink. I remember Mckenzie being excited to see her first steps - we did not know she could walk- I remember taking off layers and layers of clothes before we could give her a bath. After her bath we put a cute little clip in her hair and some pj's on and then I gave her a bottle and sang "I am a Child of God" and we enjoyed watching every move she made. We enjoyed a quiet evening in the hotel room trying to figure each other out. I love our memories and treasure the time Mckenzie and I had with Lili in her birthplace of Nanchang, Jiangxi.

A few other things this week:

Last week Mckenzie was asked to help the 8th and 9th grade drama class with her violin. They did and amazing two hour play on the Holocaust yesterday. This was a great experience for her. She worked so hard (4 hours a night) to get the song perfected. So glad the girl who had originally commited bailed so Mckenzie could do this - it seemed to be great for her self confidence.

Davis' class learned part of Martin Luther King's speech. His class went around to the other classrooms and presented their memorization. Here is a link to his class blog - I have not been able to view it yet (trouble with my computer) but it is supposed to be great (says Davis :) ): http://www.firstgradexavier.blogspot.com/

That being said - I know I've mentioned this before but I need to go private so... if you want to follow, please send your e-mail to me so I can add you.

Hope all is well. Peace xoxox

Lots of pictures and posts below.

Davis is sporting his new viola. He is excited to start lessons next week. We are looking forward to rereading last year's posts of Mckenzie and my trip to get Lili... we can't believe it has already been a year. She is such an amazing little girl!!! She gets a new laser treatment tomorrow here. Our doctor's office just purchased a new machine that is the same as Arkansas so we are hoping this works to avoid travel expenses.

The kids chose all of the music. Enjoy.

Hope all is well,

Peacexoxo

Melanie

'

I did not have my camera from right after Christmas to a few days ago. I will try to remember and recap our new year:
New Year's Eve was spent at my parent's house. All of us siblings, spouses and cousins (except for Rylee) were together. We had a great time eating, visiting and playing Rock Band. We all spent the night and woke up to go to breakfast at the Wayside. The kids loved breakfast and thought this was fun. We had a great time just being together and visiting.
I am amazed it has been a year since Ryan's death. Time has gone by very quickly and as we reflect on the year we were blessed in many ways. On the 'year' after Saturday our ward had a temple day at 9:30 am. This was perfect because we had received the call at 9:15-9:30ish a year before. I can't think of a place that would have been more comforting to be than the temple. It was a great experience and such peaceful, content feelings. After the temple session we attended Megan Miller's wedding which was so nice to be able to witness. Then we went home and hung out for a while, we got hair cuts (I cut off my hair - it feels so great), and helped with Megan's wedding reception. It was a wonderful day and I'm so happy that we were able to stay busy. He actually died on the 4th which would have been the following day but last year the call came in on a Saturday morning - so I convinced myself this was the day to keep busy.
We have been cleaning up our basement from a flood. We had so much snow and then it melted within a couple of hours. Apparently lots of basements flooded. We had Stilman's company come and clean it up and they did a great job - it just was inconvenient not to have the basement for a week (my camera was packed up in a box) anyway, we have recovered from this and have nice, clean carpets.
On Thursday, we had scouts planned at the church. The carpet layers showed up early (they were supposed to be there on Friday) to stretch the carpet so I called all of the boys to change scouts to our house. After the boys all arrived and we were getting ready to start Scott's brother Breck and Dixie came to visit. Luckily, the great other leaders took over so I could visit. Scott came home and we all went to dinner. It was fun to visit and a fun surprise to have them stop by. It was a crazy afternoon with so many different things going on in the house but it was fun.
Friday, the girls and I went to my mom's house to can applesauce. We enjoyed our time visiting and made lots of good applesauce... and, it only took about 4 hours longer than I anticipated :) Towards the end we convinced Nathan and Heidi to make apple juice to speed things along. I had 6 boxes of apples. Feel so domestic.

Here is Mckenzie, Reese and Davis ready for their school Christmas show. Mckenzie did awesome - she had a violin solo during the orchestra presentation and Reese did an amazing time for his first cello performance.

Each of the three kids classes did some singing and dancing - Mckenzie's did the waltz, Reese ballet (which they all love-i have to defend the boy and ballet - steve young did ballet) and Davis' class performed a tap dance. They had a great time and we loved watching them. Grandma Criss, Grandpa Randy, Nathan and Heidi came and enjoyed this with us and came over for smoked ribs.

Davis helping at the Miller's house. We are so, so sad that our great friends wil be moving. We love them like family.

This was a fun FHE. We had to leave Kenzie home because she was sick. This was the first time we cut down our own tree. We had a great time together. This will be a fun memory for us...we raced up the hill, stopped and bought our permit, raced to the top, came to a screeching halt to beat the darkness, ran out and found the tree, cut it down and headed home - we will plan better next year- plan more time, hot chocolate... but, for a first time it was very great!!!

Thanksgiving... posting photos of the fun after the dinner at Breck and Dixie's house... the kids loved the petting zoo.

okay... so, this is a bit stressful... I just noticed a ton of photos that I did not post about...isn't this supposed to be relaxing...???

back to before Thanksgiving.

Scott went to his annual tax classes in SLC. The kids were out of school so we decided to tag along. We decided to stay at our favorite Residence Inn for two nights and then went to Greg's for two nights. We had a great time. Scott took the trax to class and left us to veg for the first two days. We did many things - classic skate, swim, shop, ate with the Peery's (you know I must love them if I am posting this very disgusting photo of myself), and made yummy Thanksgiving pies and rolls. The kids always LOVE to get together with the Rich clan - thanks guys. (and ate at Cafe Rio ...mmm) Oh, Greg and Kristi took us adults (Nathan too) to Market Street Grill for dinner. It was so yummy and fun to get out without kids (we even tried oysters). One highlight was watching Allie, Austin and Ian run in their school turkey trot. Little Allie creamed her whole class winning by almost a 1/4 mile. Austin and Ian both finished in the top 2 of their grade - guess this family got the speed.

One blessing was Scott was able to visit his brother, Steve, while he was recovering from surgery in the hospital. Scott was very happy to be in town so he could check in on him to make sure all was well. It was a very scary time and we are so grateful he is doing so much better now!!!

Long overdue post

Scott and I read the Christmas Sweater over Christmas. It is a great book by our favorite, Glenn Beck. Glenn was at our local bookstore doing a book signing. I went with Shelly. Here is a picture of Glenn telling me how sad he is that Scott and I can't meet he and Tonya for dinner.

Christmas 2008

(Tavis- here are your pictures. It did not take Scott long after you left before he started enjoying the laser tag and rock band.)

We had a great day and enjoyed spending Christmas Eve and day with my parents and Nathan (Heidi) and Leslie (and Tavis, Mia and Parker) and Grandma Doris. It was a very laid back time but we made some fun memories and enjoyed spending time together and eating a lot of food. Here are some of our photos (thanks to Mckenzie and her new camera)

The kids have had a great time chasing Scott around with the laser tag (he slipped and twisted his knee down the stairs), playing bingo, wii fit (and 'we' are not fit :) ), legos doing our annual treasure hunt and just family time in general.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and are going to enjoy more time with your family.

Beautiful Christmas Card

Here is a beautiful Christmas card that Holt International put together. Holt is the agency that paid for Lili's foster care through generous donations of kind people.
Enjoy the sweet faces of these children who benefited from Holt's programs.
http://www.holtintl.org/christmas/
We are truly grateful for the kindness and sacrifice of these donors.
Merry Christmas!

addresses please

hey, I know everyone is swamped but ...please... will you send me your address so I can mail you a Christmas card???...please :)
I am trying to redo my address book and I am missing many family and friends (as far as cousins go - I could use all of the jacksons, jeffs, heiners (larry too), wards, damerons and browers - pretty much everyone- i think I have all of Scotts except for the canada bunch (darlene too) and mckees)
Friends, I'd love your addresses too- many have moved and I'm sorry to say that I have not kept very good records (if you havent moved Id love yours too )
Thanks for your help.
Hope you are ready for Christmas.

cute moment

Davis came running up to me this morning and gave me a tight squeeze and said, "mommy, mommy, mommy I love you cuz you adopted me."
It has never occured to me that he would think that he was adopted as well... so, we had a quick discussion on different ways children come into families.

I owe my mother

My mother sent this to me and I got quite a chuckle from it - so sad they are true :) but... I owe my mother :) and soon my kids will owe me.
1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE. 'If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.'
2. My mother taught me RELIGION. 'You better pray that will come out of the carpet.'
3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL. 'If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!'
4. My mother taught me LOGIC. ' Because I said so, that's why.'
5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC. 'If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me.'
6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT. 'Make sure you wear clean underwearin case you're in an accident.'
7. My mother taught me IRONY. 'Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about.'
8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS. 'Shut your mouth and eat your supper.' 9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM. 'Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!'
10. My mother taught me about STAMINA. 'You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone.'
11 . My mother taught me about WEATHER. 'This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.'
12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY. 'If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!'
13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE. 'I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.'
14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION. 'Stop acting like your father!'
15. My mother taught me about ENVY. 'There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do.'
16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION. 'Just wait until we get home.'
17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING. 'You are going to get it when you get home!'
18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE. 'If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way.'
19. My mother taught me ESP. 'Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?' 20. My mother taught me HUMOR . 'When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me.'
21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT. 'If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up.'
22. My mother taught me GENETICS. 'You're just like your father.'
23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS. 'Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?'
24. My mother taught me WISDOM. 'When you get to be my age, you'll understand.'
25. And my favorite: My mother taught me about JUSTICE. 'One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you !