Latest happenings

Spencer got to dress up for school today. He was excited to wear his construction "costume" and kept his hammer with him all morning. After three hours of preschool I went to his classroom to pick him up--he was on the floor reading a book and his teachers were smiling and giggling. They said Spencer refused to take off his helmet or work goggles. They apologized in case he had red marks on his face from wearing the goggles for three hours. We have parties to attend for the next four days so Spencer will have plenty more chances to wear his costume. Here is a photo his teachers took from today. Spencer is the youngest in class. A few of the eight are three already. And here is his school photo that we got back this week; picture was taken last week. Lastly, Aidyn's citizenship certificate came in the mail yesterday from Homeland Security. That photo was taken in China and submitted with our Consulate paperwork.

Woo Hoo!

Narration by Spencer as he saw me writing this post: "Oh, there's two Aidyn's, wearing a Arkansas shirt." He hadn't seen her wearing this outfit yet.

Aidyn is doing well adjusting to Georgia. She has been home a month yesterday and has been with us six weeks tomorrow. Today she met with a physical therapist, occupational therapist and speech pathologist. They recommended that Aidyn have weekly physical therapy and maybe some speech therapy. So we are hopeful that with therapy she will be on target by spring of 2007.

These pictures were taken this morning as I was getting her down for a nap. I picked her up, put her in a sleeper blanket, and she was asleep before I even walked her to the crib. So you can see that even when she is tired she can flash that pretty smile.

GACS Frog Hollow Festival October 7th

Today was a good day. Arkansas beat Auburn. We took the kids to Frog Hollow where we got to see Paxton and Lorelai. Spencer had a blast at the carnival. His favorite part was jumping on the castle. Then we met our travelmates, Mary Joyce, Dusty and Chet, for lunch at Cracker Barrel.

Harvest Moon Festival--October 6th

We had a fun day at the park with our FCC friends. Spencer couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to roam the playground like usual as this was our first outing with just mom, spencer and aidyn. We ate the cookies, crackers, and candy we brought home from China as well as some moon cakes. That night we continued the celebration by eating chinese food with Sean and Bridget. Spencer likes the terracota soldiers at home better than the ones at the restaurant since the onces at home are only a centimeter tall. He was not sure about this soldier's intentions, so Spence wouldn't get too close.

Enemies for the day Unite for Ring Around A Rosie

Florida-Bama game with a side of Rosie Ringing.
Ashes Ashes, Gators Won.
Callie won too.

Clay and Aidyn meet

Spencer reads a book

Spencer reads a book
Video sent by jandmduncan

Spencer loves to read and as you can see he can quote this one. And at the end when the last page says it is quiet now what do you say? Spencer always answers with, "Read it again."

Portraits

Today we had portraits taken in what Spencer has termed their "costumes". Here are some of our favorites. All grandparents, greatgrandparents, aunts, and uncles--you will be receiving your photos this weekend or in the mail, so no need to print copies from the website. The studio we took them to prints the photos right after taking the pictures, and gave us a picture cd so we could post and email them.

All dressed up

Medical update

Aidyn's surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, October 4th. We will find out Monday what time we need to arrive at the hospital. And her bloodwork came back with high white blood cell count so we will do more blood work in October to determine if her counts are okay. Her neurologist wants us to start her physical and/or occupational therapy to see how much she improves and then meet back with him in November to see if she still has muscle tone irregularities. We are pleased that she has already gained two pounds in two weeks and that she is progressing rapidly to catch up with her peers. Her doctors say she is currently at the stage of a five month old on all indicators but will hopefully be on track soon with her age group.

Thief at the White Swan

Glad to go HOME today!!!!!

Sitting

Sitting
Video sent by jandmduncan

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa

Thank you Grandparents!!!! Grandma and Grandpa left today after visiting and helping out for 12 days. Spencer already misses them. They hadn't been gone three minutes when Spencer was begging for them to come back. Fortunately Poppa and Deedee will be here tonight so Spencer's month of grandparent attention will continue.

Aidyn can SIT!!!!

Aidyn has made some remarkable improvements in the past two weeks since she joined us in China. And since coming home last weekend, she has gained another pound. Yesterday she started sitting. I place her in the upright position and she can hold it for a while as she plays with toys or looks around. This is amazing, considering that on Sept. 13th she couldn't even bend into a sitting position in our laps--as if the muscles just weren't even there. She seems so proud of her self when she sits, as is evident in these photos.

And last Sunday, Kylie, Brandon, and Kimberly came for a visit. And as you can see Kylie is a giant next to Aidyn. Aidyn is one week older. Kylie was born at 2.6 lbs and Aidyn at 5.5 (likely in 8 layers). Both preterm babies. Thanks Kylie for the hand-me-downs!!! As you can see in the "sitting" photos, the clothes are going to great use.

Sept 25th update

We added a few more pictures to Aidyn's website from the film we had developed today. Please look under Sept. Update on her website: www.adoptionvoyages.com/Aidyn.htm

China Update

We are Home!!

We arrived back to our house at 1:00 am, so it was a 31 hour journey from time we left our hotel.

The kids are getting along well. Spencer seems to love Aidyn already. And she likes to watch his every movement.

Saturday afternoon we sent a post in to Chet and Dusty for the adoption voyages site, but since it isn't up yet here are a few of the photos of Spencer and Aidyn meeting at the airport last night.

marsha

Aidyn's Party

Thanks so much to everyone who came tonight to celebrate Aidyn's referral party/baby shower/football game party. We really appreciate our presents and the money tree. And so many of you blessed us with gifts without leaving your names for us to thank. Thank You!!!!!!! The food was wonderful. Thank you to everyone who contributed, especially to Shelly who made the fortune cupcakes.

We had a wonderful evening. And we are glad that we got to spend our last night before travelling, surrounded by friends sending us on our journey.

Also we are thankful that so many of you finally got to meet each other since we combined efforts to have one party instead of several. Thanks to Angela Fogas, Brenda Hunter, Amy Hoffman, and Bridget Kiss for organizing the lovely evening for us and for Aidyn. Was nice to have friends from all over Atlanta join for one event, even though it coincided with a Georgia game and Ohio State at Texas.

I'm attaching a few pictures from the party and one of the gifts. Amy Hoffman made Aidyn a pair of Chinese slippers. They are exquisite. She also handstitched some burp clothes and bibs that are beautiful. Please continue to pray for us as we leave in a few hours and in the coming weeks. Love to all, Marsha

p.s. Blogger is doing something weird in that when I try to post a photo it ends up posting the wrong photo and deletes the one I meant to post so sorry that I can't figure out how to add more than these five. Guess I shall go to bed. Ha Ha.

Aidyn's Party

Here's our China itinerary

ITINERARY

DAY ACTIVITIES
_____________________________________________________________
Morning Afternoon

1. (Sep11) Beijing family arrivals
Stay at Huadu Hotel http://www.sinohotel.com/hotel/hotel.html?hid=551&lse=en_US

2. (Sept 12) Great Wall and so on

3. ( Sept 13) go to province
Stay at Lakeview Hotel http://www.lakeviewhotel.com.cn/intro.html

4. (Sept 14) meet your child legal process

5. (Sept 15)

6. (Sept 16) orphanage visit (tentative)

7. (Sept 17) local sightseeing

8. (Sept 18) obtain legal doc.

9. (Sept 19) go to Guangzhou medical
Stay at White Swan http://www.whiteswanhotel.com/eng/Public/index.asp

10. (Sept 20) Consulate appointment 10:00

11. (Sept 21) obtain visa

12. (Sept 22) go home!

Spencer's First Day of Preschool

Well, Spencer's first day of preschool was a hectic one. At 3:30 am we found out that we leave for China in FOUR days, so i was a tad bit distracted.

The Fletchers needed me to keep Ryan Ashton early at 7:30 instead of the usual 9:30. And jeremy was in Minnesota.

So i was running all over the house trying make sure that all loose ends were tied up. I discovered that my digital camera would not turn on, even though i had charged it for a day. Thus i had no way to take the traditional "headed to school" photo. (at least we still have real kindergarten for that) :) And as you can see Jeremy was able to fix the camera so all is well for china trip.

Spencer slept til 9:00 and needed to be to his class at 9:20 and i had to tote Ryan Ashton with us so we were all a bit frazzled by time we made it to Mrs. Kathy and Mrs. Susan. His teachers had a polaroid so they took this photo of him on the car mat. They and Spencer each told me that he had a fun day, but when he saw me he smiled and said, "Mama, I'm ready to go home." When I asked him what he did at school, Spencer replied "played with cars, played with toys and played on playground." I know that he also ate lunch bc his PB&J was smeared on his face. And I know that he did artwork bc it was in his diaper bag. Who knows what else he did bc all that he found important was Play.

Thank you to the GrandDuncans who called us up in August and said they would like to bankroll preschool for Spencer this year. So we quickly chose Northminster Presbyterian bc our culdesac neighbor teaches there and bc it is located immediately outside our neighborhood. His class has five girls and three boys, and Spencer is the youngest. He will be going to school on Wednesday and Friday mornings.

Travel Dates!!!!

Great news, our agent emailed at 3:20 am that we have our travel dates!!!!!

I had the blackberry in bed with me just in case she emailed during the night and here is what i saw:

"Hello friends, WAKE UP AND GET BUSY, YOU ARE HEADING TO CHINA IN FOUR DAYS!!!! I guess the Lord woke me up because 20 minutes ago Adam sent your CA information!!!! I am thrilled for you guys.The appointment with consulate has been made on Sept.20.Families can go ahead and purchase their ticket like this: Beijing tour: Sept. 10 , US -> Beijing, arrive on Sept. 11 Sept 22, China -> US . . . . "

Then i called jeremy in minnesota and told him to check his email. then i called our travelmates, dusty and chet in south georgia.

So now we must book our flights and finish last minute stuff. Fortunately we are already packed.

TAs are HERE!!!!!!

Hello everyone,

Our agent emailed at 9:00 pm Est on Labor Day to say that she hadn't heard from Adam, our Canadian facilitator, yet regarding our Travel Approval (TA). So we were dreading another night of listless sleep wondering where our TA is because we knew it left China early last week.

At 9:30 pm our agent called to say she heard from Adam and our TA is in the USA. He is now working to book our Consulate Appointment (CA) with the USA consulate. Hopefully we will get our CA tomorrow and then we can know our travel dates and book our flights.

Our agent said that if she hears any updates during the night she will let us know. It is so nice to have an agent willing to work on Labor Day.

Jeremy flies to Minnesota tomorrow and returns Wednesday. And we have already packed for China so we are ready to go anytime.

Will keep you posted,
Marsha