Christmas 2009 - videos

Christmas Eve 2009 - Christmas cake, tree...

Christmas 2009

Digging Out - "Good job, Daddy"

Santa's Cookie Workshop

On the day of the blizzard, we had a cookie decorating party. The kids had a great time and are getting really good at crafty projects! Ali was so bundled up for her long (one block) trek in the snow! It was up to her waist by the time they went home - what troopers. The last 2 photos show the deck before we went to bed. It was STILL snowing a bit. Needless to say, even John had to concede that this was to much snow for grilling!

More cousins - what a GREAT visit!

Cousins!!!

Just cute...

We had an exciting trip home with our Christmas tree...

The tree wasn't entirely secure, so John held on to it through the sunroof. The girls were very concerned (horrified?) about the whole thing...

Decorating Christmas Cookies - Take 1

Thank you Grandpa and Mimi!

The girls got a great pre-Christmas package from Grandpa and Mimi today - they had so much fun with their new bags and animals. Thank you!

Grilling in the snow

Yesterday was the first snowstorm of the year - so of course we hit the grill. Here are a few photos of the girls on the deck with Daddy. Anna liked it, Molly wasn't so sure about the wet white stuff!

Welcome Finn!!

On 1 December 2009, my sweet, gorgeous, beloved new nephew - Finnegan Lukianoff - entered the world.

I am so happy to have met you on your 0th birthday little boy, and the girls cannot wait to meet Cousin Baby. SO happy for his spectacular parents, Mike and Sally.

Happy, happy, happy.

Molly, Anna and Elmo

What a perfect day. After a very fun Thanksgiving Day, today we just lounged around the house and watched the girls do things like this -

Thanksgiving Dinner

What a WONDERFUL time we had with our neighbors. The girls couldn't have been better behaved - it was a real joy to watch. Fantastic food (thank you so much, Laura!), excellent company - happy, happy Thanksgiving indeed. Here are some photos and a short video. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

Before we left to join friends for dinner, Anna had a little quiet time that I had to share. She's watching the ballet on youtube while she plays with her 'people'. Molly's watching football with Daddy. More to come!

Giggles

Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween. The girls were NY Giants cheerleaders (what a stretch, I know!). We went to John's favorite place for dinner and the kids helped us great the first few trick-or-treaters before they practically begged for bed (our early bed girls were zonked by 7:30!). You can see Anna in the video, but Molly was so tired (as evidenced by the last series of photos) that I was holding her. It was a great day!

Fall Weekend in CT

While I attended my brother Greg's amazing 10th Anniversary of FIRE dinner in NYC, John visited the wonderful Laber family. The girls had a great time! We really have to get a red wagon asap... Scroll down for video.

Happy Birthday Molly and Anna!

Molly's Christening - Photos

Here are photos of Molly's Christening - will try to post the birthday party next. A bit out of order, but doing everything in minute increments between toddler demands, so bear with me! Most of these great photos are thanks to wonderful Uncle Michael who manned our camera during the ceremony. It was a really special day!

Rainy Day

I have tons of updates (birthday season was wonderful!) but in the meantime, here are a few photos and videos from the last couple of days.

Happy Birthday Sally!

Playhouse

The girls love their playhouse - thank you Uncle Michael and Auntie Sally!

Hi Grammy, I love you!

Welcome home, Daddy!

The best part about John's business travel is the welcome home that he gets from the girls after a few days away.

Hi bug!

Here is a clip of a fun morning in the gazebo on our deck. Molly is signing 'bird' - one of her first words here in the US. Thank you, Sesame Street.

I realized when I watched this video that Anna is saying 'How are you?' (not 'Hey') to the fly on the screen - in between kisses. Too funny!

Baskets of Babies

The girls LOVE sitting inside their toy baskets.

Reading the Papers

Happy Birthday, Aunt Debbie!

My plan was to get a simple photo of the girls holding Debbie's 'birthday card', but they had other plans. Daddy stepped in to help (but note that the signs were backwards). I think at this age video is the way to go! In any case, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBBIE! We love you.

Happy Birthday, Auntie Deb!

Happy, happy birthday, Debbie. Have a wonderful day and enjoy the next 40 as much as the first. We love you!

MVI 5306

Just a fun Saturday

In search of a cool place to have lunch and walk around, we took the girls to the mall in Bethesda. Success! The girls ate lunch (as you can see from the video and photos below) walked around the mall and even ran around Build a Bear. It was a complete pleasure. Even John had fun - and he used to be terrified of malls!

Legoland

Molly says 'Hi'

Approaching Normal

I could name EVERY post 'Long Overdue Update', huh? Free time is the hardest thing to find here at the Toddler Ranch, but otherwise things are great. The girls have both adjusted to one another, Molly is making huge progress on a daily basis, we got up to CT to see our family for a whirlwind last-minute trip, and John didn't travel this week! Life is good.

Fantastic Weekend

Here are a few photos from a fun, fun afternoon with our wonderful neighbors, the Frank family. The kids were so happy - and slept soooooooo well that night (so all of the parents were too!).

A long overdue update

Wow - our last post was FROM China?!?!?!? On one hand, I cannot believe we have been so remiss! On the other hand... To say that the past 2 months have been 'busy' would be a drastic understatement. Words like 'overwhelming', 'life-changing' and even 'scary' would probably be more accurate. Where to begin?

On the night of 5 March, we landed back in the US with our Molly. We were tired, anxious - and ecstatic to be home. The first month was, frankly, brutal! Molly was confused to say the least, and Anna was also very upset with us for leaving and not too sure what we had done to her formerly ordered life. Understandably it also took Molly a long time to conquer jetlag, so sleep was a long forgotten luxury for the first couple of months. Happily, we've figured out some strategies to get a little more sleep and the girls are getting along wonderfully - there is NO other sound like the two of them giggling together.

Since our arrival back home we've been sick almost straight through. The kids had a really rough time - on top of a terrible flu (we really think we have had the infamous Swine Flu) Anna had her first run of ear infections and Molly had walking pneumonia. She just 'graduated' from the nebulizer and is finally healthy. Best of all, she seems HAPPY and you can imagine how good that makes us feel.

We still have a lot of settling in to do, but this is the GOOD part - we are all feeling HOME at last!

We will make a serious effort to keep the blog and photos more up to date now that we are getting a handle on things - but even as I type that the girls are giving me a hard time for trying to take 10 minutes on the computer! It has taken me over a week to write these few lines - so bear with us! We'll catch up. In the meantime, here are a few recent photos. Thanks everyone for your support and love - we can't tell you how much it has meant to us.

One of Molly's Chenzhou cousins

Becky - is this Cai Yun? Lindee? I hope so!

Leaving for Guanzhou - another step closer to home!

It is 4:30 am here, and in about 12 hours we will be in Guangzhou where we visit the American Consulate and finalize our paperwork so that we can GO HOME! Yesterday we received Molly's Chinese passport so that she can travel - what a keepsake that will be for her in years to come. Along with a number of families here, we also commissioned a local artist to create a calligraphy painting of her name, birthday and adoption day. I'm especially attached to her Chinese name now that we have had it translated locally (since every dialect can be so different) and am so glad that we kept it as her middle. The loose translation of Xidi means 'sunny little girl' - how sweet and appropriate! We are seeing more and more of that sunny personality - every day brings monumental improvement. When we first met our Molly, diaper changes were cause for total meltdown and we didn't even consider a bath for 2 days. Fast forward to her rolling around the bed and giggling during her diaper change and pj time on Thursday night and actually enjoying her tub Friday morning! Progress, progress. More photos on the next post, promise.

As John mentioned in his last post, the families we have met here have been amazing. All of the kids are thriving, all of the parents are ecstatic (and tired and homesick!) and the feeling we get from being part of this community is unlike anything I have experienced before. To top that off, they are fun to be around! When you go through such intense times with people, you bond so quickly - we will truly miss a lot of our new friends and look forward to keeping in touch for years and years to come.

Sometimes you get reminded just how great people can be ...

OK, so we have our first set of pictures up and Katharine has already updated everyone about how Molly is doing.  Her progress really can't be overstated.  Physically she's gained so much strength just because we have her running all over the place.  Monday night she couldn't sit up on her own - now she can pull herself up with the help of a chair or the bed.  And disposition wise she is hysterical!  If I pick her up to my eye level, she laughs.  If I'm holding her and I 'dip' her she laughs.  She still starts out fussy when we change her diaper but after a few minutes - you guessed it - she laughs!  The kid that just two days ago would lose it if she were laid down before she was completely asleep was rolling around tonight on the bed challenging me to tickle her!  She's even started showing us her mischevious side - she loves to hand us things - as all toddlers do - and now she's playing games with me where she'll pull her hand back at the last minute and giggle.  Today was an absolute joy.  Katharine and I took two hours each to be completely alone with her to start to bond - she and I played for almost two hours and then she fell asleep on me.

Back to the subject of my post.  As we've mentioned earlier it was a really tough week.  The airline lost our luggage with all of Molly's clothes, toys, etc. in it.  However there are something like a dozen other families here from other agencies who miraculously did not lose their luggage.  Once word got around people we ad never met before were coming up to us and offering to share anything that they had.  Medicine, clothes, toys - everyone offered something.  It's been this little micro-bazaar here this week with one couple offering extra benydryl while we were able to give another couple some of the onesies and clothes we have (Molly is so much taller than we expected!).  Whatever one couple forgot someone else offered to help out with.  It's the kind of thing that really makes us feel good to see how much all these folks rallied for us and for each other.  I hope we have time to thank each one before we go.

More to come - we're having fun now and are only one week from home!

John

What a difference a day makes...

It is Thursday evening here in Changsha. Molly is currently doing everything a toddler SHOULD do - tearing the room apart, unpacking suitcases, eating cheerios, etc. Best of all, she is also smiling, giggling, hugging and is even starting to give kisses. The difference in just a few short days has been astonishing. Today she sat in a highchair to eat her noodles, rice, cheerios, toast and eggs - plus the pound cake that she can't get enough of (yeah, we'll impose better eating habits when we get home!).   She is drinking from a variety of sippy cups and seems to be entirely done with the bottle - we are donating the formula that we bought with us to a local orphanage. She is so tall! Very few of the clothes we bought are long enough. John and I are very happy - and utterly exhausted! Molly has been a generally great sleeper, so we are hoping for a repeat of that tonight so that we can all wake up feeling more energetic in the morning. We are counting the days until we get home so that we can really settle in, but until then we are trying to document the area in photos for Molly so that she will have an idea of her birth country. Tomorrow (Friday) is our last day in Changsha. We leave for Guangzhou on Saturday where we finalize the adoption and from there we fly home on Thursday. We'll keep posting as much as we can.  In the meantime, here are a few more photos for your viewing pleasure. We are excited to share Molly's beautiful smile with you all - we are thrilled every time we see it!

Here she is!

What a day! I don't think an hour (minute?) passed today without one of us using words like 'finally', 'can't believe it' and 'surreal'. But this surreal day finally came - and we still can't believe it! We'll post more details and fill in the blanks about our trip so far (lost luggage, retail challenges, new friends) but for tonight we just want to let you wonderful people all know that at about 4pm today, Monday 23 February 2009, Margaret Xidi Curtin - Molly - finally came into our lives. She did a of crying at first. It was actually fairly traumatic for all of us, even though her reaction was expected. Imagine how confusing and scary it was for her to be handed away from her beloved nanny and into the arms of these funny looking strangers, especially at her more 'advanced' age (thanks Hague, etc). She expressed this opinion long and loud for about an hour, but after some hugs, songs and some time she started to cuddle with both of us. In fact - John earned a few giggles by the time we got back to the room. She was exhausted - fell asleep on Katharine and is now snoring away in the crib. We hope she will sleep for at least a few hours - partly so that we can (John is also snoring away - we are so behind on sleep!) and partly because she seems to have a chest cold that we look forward to curing. Our wonderful adoption agency has already contacted us and will arrange for a doctor's visit tomorrow. We tried to feed her congee, milk, bottles - but because none were as appealing as sleep, we expect to get a request for food before morning. On the way home from the long and dramatic 'gotcha' meeting, we had to stop at a local store for baby supplies since our luggage was still missing. But within less than an hour of being back in our hotel room we received a call to say that our luggage has been found and will be delivered to the hotel this evening! I've never been so relieved... SO - that is the update for now. There will be MUCH more to come as we get to know this little girl and as she gets used to us. We hope to see many more smiles in the days, weeks, months and years ahead - and we look forward to sharing them with you.

Finally!

We leave for China THIS Friday - the day after tomorrow! We expect to meet our Molly on Monday 23 February and we will be home in Maryland by 6 March. Katharine's mom is taking care of Anna while we are gone. Molly's room is ready and waiting for her - and we are packing like crazy people. After THREE years of waiting, you'd think we'd have been ready to go, but it just doesn't seem to work that way...

I can’t believe it is finally happening. While we are in China we will post updates on Facebook and will try to update our blog. Can’t wait to share the experience with you all. We REALLY can’t wait to get this baby home!

Thank you so much for your love and support. We are so lucky to have you all in our lives.

Good news?!?!?!?!?!?

Have you ever waited SO long for specific good news that when you finally got it, you couldn't believe it and were afraid to let your guard down? That would be me today! Here is the fantastic news – we got our I800A approval and have submitted the last of the paperwork in this phase (paperwork just seems to generate more paperwork!). We hope to have a new consulate appointment by the end of next week – and we should leave for China within about 3 weeks once that is in place. Of course, since nothing has been easy in this process (!) we have to factor in Chinese New Year on 26 January. The country essentially closes down that week, so we’d either be going before or, more likely, immediately after.

I thought I’d feel relieved and elated. Instead, after SO many years of waiting and worry, I am afraid to relax and enjoy! It seems inevitable that there will be another delay somewhere along the road after everything we’ve been through – hopefully not. So I am just throwing myself into the planning (setting up her room, packing…) and trying to let it sink in gently.

So much more to come – but I wanted to make sure that you all heard the news right away! Thank you ALL so much for your support. We are the luckiest people in the world to have you in our lives.

Feeling that Christmas spirit!

At last something good to say!

Good news!

After all these months of calling, writing, waiting we finally got a call from the agent who is handling our I800A petition. And get this – she was a kind, efficient, compassionate, proactive person! It seems that for some reason I will never understand (and will work to change) the USCIS holds I800A applications for approximately 90 days before anyone reviews them. No exceptions. Within hours of receiving our file, our agent had emailed me with an initial update, contacted our adoption agency to discuss the minor modifications they need to make and called me personally to tell me that it is her goal to get us our I800A approval by my birthday – 22 December! I am hesitant to get too excited because we have faced so many delays and disappointments along the way, but I feel better knowing that something is finally happening.
I am hesitant to get too excited because we have faced so many delays and disappointments along the way, but I feel better knowing that something is finally happening.

Thank you all so much for your continued support. I’m convinced that the many letters you have all written have helped in ways that we will never know – can’t ever thank you enough. We will keep updating you!! Keep your fingers crossed – we are hoping to have her home in January/February…

Update of sorts

You know how your mother taught you that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all? Well, apart from our appreciation of all of the work SO many of our wonderful loved ones have done for us, we haven't had much to report about our wait for Molly that was uplifting. I'll also admit that I get a little anxious right now about publically expressing my dissatisfaction with the USCIS since they hold our future in their hands in so many ways right now. I assume/hope that is unwarranted, but...

SO – here is some GOOD news! Sort of. Our Congressman in Maryland is Chris Van Hollen. Lillian Cruz in his office has been remarkable. Not only has she tried to help us track down information, she has even called to follow up. We’ve been pleasantly surprised and very grateful. We do have a bit of an update. Apparently, like everyone we’ve heard from so far, we are going to be asked for additional information. Ridiculous considering how much we have already provided AND infuriating that we had to wait 3 months to be asked, but I am trying to remain positive and see this as a step in the right direction. So we are waiting for them to send the next round of forms and as you know we will break records to get them completely asap. And as you also know, we will keep you posted on any additional developments.

Thank you so much for thinking of our Molly and sending your love and support to all of us. It helps keep her close to us in a strange way. We have you all to thank for helping us feel the presence of our child even now when we miss her so much.

Thank you all!

THANK YOU!

Thank you so much to those of you have responded and supported our cause - and our daughter, Molly! We can't tell you all how much it means to us to have your help in this critical matter. There is no question in my mind that your letters will have a HUGE impact on this case and the situation of so many other families.

According to the USCIS, as of September 15, 2008, of the 794 I-800 A applications received since April, only 107 cases have been approved and 687 are pending. I don't know about you, but if I was returning odds like that in my job, I would have lost it long ago!

We still cannot get anyone at the USCIS to give us information. We did get a 'new' phone number today and are optimistic, but the office hours are only 10-noon daily and although I called nonstop during that 2-hour window today, I only got through to a voice mail message. We will stay on it. Fingers remained crossed.

I also want to share with you our appreciation to Governor O'Malley's office. I was contacted by a representative yesterday.

Thank you, thank you. We are so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and such a loving family.

Anna's Winter Hat