Thursday, March 30, 2006

Downright pissed

Usually I could give a rat's ass what celebrities have to say. But as an adoptive parent it really ticks me off when celebrities speak without thinking. Take Jessica "dumber than a stump" Simpson.

The 25-year-old singer, who recently filed for divorce from Nick Lachey, also said in a recent interview: "I want to adopt, and I plan to adopt before I have my own kids". "I think Angelina Jolie has done amazing, amazing things, and the international adoption rate just since her has skyrocketed. It's unbelievable," Simpson said.


What the hell does she plan to refer her adopted children as ???? Who's are they if their not "hers". People have quoted Angelina as saying she wants to adopt children from all colors of the rainbow.....what? I was at bunko the other night and my girlfriend was telling me she saw a program (while I was in China, otherwise I too would have watched it) about internationally adopted children and that some of them are put up for adoption after they get to the States. I guess because the parents felt that these children weren't "perfect", they should put them up for adoption yet again. Obviously this is happening often if it was worthy of a show being aired on TV? Did anyone see this show? I'm not sure if I am more pissed at the celebrities that make these children sound like the latest Prada handbag or the "average people" adopting these children then freaking out (or even worse, giving them up for adoption here)when they're not perfect. These are real human beings and not handbags!

CCAA brings a whole new meaning to the term "March Madness"

WOW....I have to say that I am really stunned. This months referrals came out and it only covered 4 days worth of dossiers logged in. At this point, this is a slap in the face. I'm not here to speak bad of CCAA, after all if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have the chance to adopt these beautiful children. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out what they'll do next and then when disappointed trying to figure out why. The best thing I found to "deal" with the wait was to sell my house during Thanksgiving and move into a new one 4 days before Christmas, unpack as quick as possible and set up a new nursery. Sure enough our referral came 15 days after moving! This may give you something to do while waiting but isn't good for the stress levels.
Well there are 2 things contributing to the longer wait, that I can think of. One is that the number of dossiers logged in each month is growing, which is a great thing. Like our guide in China said, "these little girls(boys and girls) serve as ambassadors". I think there are people who would consider adoption but need to see someone do it first, sucessfully. Each month hundreds of "little ambassadors" come home and possibly influence others to adopt from China. Then there is the other reason why people are waiting longer, the number of domestic adoptions in China is rising. As the life in China gets better, couples wait longer to get married enjoying this life and in return some have trouble getting pregnant. I do wish that CCAA could find a way to "catch up". I would hate to see people turn away from China as a resource for adoption because the wait has become unbearable.

For those waiting for you referral.

Be sure to have supplies, like formula, wipes, diapers, etc for when you get home. Don't just buy supplies for the trip.

If there is a grocery store in the area that delivers, sign up! I picked all the food I wanted delivered online and then waited to click the order button till after we got home. Most of the online grocery orders are saved till you're ready to have them delivered.

Enjoy a good book about parenting. You've already read books pertaining to China and adoption, now pick up a good book that will make you laugh and give you a "pratical guide to happy parenting". I recommend The Three-Martini Playdate, by Christie Mellor.

All I can really say is that this just plain sucks. For those still waiting, for the love of Pete..don't read into anyone's "rumors". I know it's hard when someone say's that "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. ............oops wrong quote. I personally enjoyed the rumors while waiting, only because I never believed them. Hang in there, the only thing we do know for sure, is it will happen.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Princess Alert

It's the simple things in life that make me happy

Like Emma Bear finally picking up food and putting it in her mouth by herself!



BUY ONE GET ONE FREE


Sunday, March 26, 2006

Throw me a bone!!!

I was thinking of changing the name of our blog. I wanted something that would incorporate the four of us. Let's see there's Phil who was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina and has lived more of his life out of the South than in it. There's Aimee who was born in Denver and raised at the beach in SanDiego. We met at the University of Oregon, GO DUCKS. In our past lives, we enjoyed going to see concerts(many Widespread Panic shows), skiing, traveling to various tropical islands and sharing good times. Then we have Jessica who is a wild, caring and witty 2 and a half year old. She too was born in Denver then moved with us, a cat and dog to California at the ripe old age of 3 weeks. And bringing up the rear is Emma who was recently adopted from China and is fitting in just perfect. She too enjoys music and is working on getting her groove on. Together we have fun dancing around to music, helping Jess color in her coloring books and making Emma Bear laugh, showing off her 2 new teeth. Post your new name ideas below where it says "your name" and then post the link to your blog or website. Thanks for the ideas.




This was us in Maui as we were enjoying our "last vacation" without kids. Well Jessica was acutally on the vacation she was just in my stomach.
This is Jessica with her best friend Rupert, he is the best cat in the world!





This is Emma Bear. This photo was taken for Grandpa...FIGHT ON!
Here's a more recent picture of Jessica

Put us all together and this is what we look like...sorta, actually after no sleep in 2 straight days we're lookin' rough

Don't have a website or blog? No worries, post your suggestion in the comments section



Friday, March 24, 2006

Lookin' Cute


Lookin' Cute
Originally uploaded by aimeenance.

CLICK ON THE PHOTO ABOVE TO SEE MORE

The stuff dreams are made of



Ever since we decided to adopt, I have dreamt about what days would be like with our new daughter. How would she get along with her big sister, would she be frightened out how loud we can be, will she like us, would it all just click? Here are pictures that can answer any questions or doubts I ever had.
Remeber that Jessica is only 2 and half and is letting her little sister sit on her and pull her hair! Patience is a virtue




Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Being sweet!!





The other day I sat Emma down in the play loft with Jessica and ran off to brush my teeth. When I came back this is what I saw...Jessica loves above all things (expect the Wild Animal Park...which we now have to call the WAP) to read!


We are so proud of Jessica and what a great big sister she is being. There are times when she can be out of line, but she really has surprised us.



This is Jessica giving Emma some toys to play with. She went a little overboard and emptied the entire toy box.


Monday, March 20, 2006

How to post video on your blog

Many people have asked us how we were able to post video on our blog. First off, we borrowed space on a friends server. For each video camera it will be a little different. Your camera should come with software (that you should download to your hard drive) that will allow you to take the video off your camera and put on your computer. After this, most people should be able to use Windows Movie Maker to compress and upload the file via FTP client to your server (or your friends server). If you have a friend with server space he/she ought to be able to guide you through the steps of how to post video to your blog. There are other ways if you don't find server space.

Try using http://www.dropshots.com/

or

http://www.youtube.com/

We also signed up with RedThreadKids.org just incase our blog wasn't going to work. Red Thread Kids also offers way to upload video.
Hope this helps. It took us a good 2 weeks to figure everything out and figure out what we were doing. Each night while in China it took a good hour to post pictures, video and content to our blog.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

sleep..............best birthday present

I got a really nice birthday present this morning.........sleep! Thanks to Phil I was able to sleep in till 8:45 .....after all we've been doing, this was a great gift. While Phil's family was here we had a nice birthday cake with some of those trick candles that relight themselves. With Jessica's help I sucessfully blew out the candles about 4 times....we were on our 5th time blowing out the candles when Jessica pronounced the candles as "broken" . Tonight we spent my birthday with my family who enjoyed seeing the girls. Would you believe I chose to go out for Chinese?


oh ya I also got my Giner Roll Petunia Pickle Bottom bag.....pretty sweet!

Friday, March 17, 2006

Pictures of the cutie pies

WE FOUND OUT TODAY THAT EMMA BEAR LOVES THE SWINGS!!



Mama and her 2 cuties!Cute sisters!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Still going nuts

Girls at the Wild Animal Park
Yes, Jessica ate the entire ice cream
poor Rupert
Emma made her way into the Princess tent...this is a good thing








Sorry that the posts are coming less often....we're a little busy. Nana, aunt Jennifer, and baby Channing are all here, and we've been going at it. Today we went to the Wild Animal Park...Jessica's all time favorite place. So far the "Nance girls" are doing great. Jessica truely loves her little sister and Emma thinks that Jessica is wonderful. Sorry this is short, I will post more after the house has cleared out.

Friday, March 10, 2006

One full week home

Hard to believe it's only been a week. A week ago I was ready to die. I wouldn't wish jetlag on my worst enemy. Now it's a week later, the girls are taking a nap and I'm getting ready for my mother in-law, sister in-law and her 6 month old. 3 kids in this house for the next week and the 2 and half year old with be the oldest...yikes! Now that I've sucessfully gotten some sleep life is good again. Emma has amazed us. Many people in and out of China would tell us that Emma was a "lucky girl", Phil and I are the ones that feel lucky. This baby has fit in our family so perfect and without a fuss. I worried before we left that Emma would have a hard time fitting in our family. We are loud, always on the go and can be obnoxious (although we try to keep this at home). I kept worrying about this quite little baby who we might scare. After the past few nights I feel much better. Jessica is running around dancing and singing to her favorite Jack Johnson CD, Phil's yacking on his cell phone pacing the floor (he always paces on the phone) and I'm banging pots and pans acting like I'm cooking more than just Stouffers. Then there's Emma.....flayling her arms around while jumping up and down in her saucer contributing to the noise by squealing up a storm. It's like she's always been right here. I remember reading other blogs and people were saying that even though the wait had gotten longer, that it's was all worth it as they had been given the "perfect for our family" baby. I remember thinking "ya right!" But sure enough, they were right. I remember thinking this while in China..looking around at the different babies with their families, thinking, "wow" what a perfect match. Emma seems to be doing great. She's eaten "American" food just fine...the other night she couldn't get enough lasagna. When we put her down for bed, it's a quick whimper or two and then lights out. She wakes up everynight with a small cry..as soon as she sees Phil coming in and getting ready to pat her belly she turns her head and goes back to sleep. She just wants to make sure we're still here. Jessica is doing a little better being a big sister. The first few days were pretty awful as she became even more demanding (hard to imagine, I know) and lost all potty training sense. Since receiving a few "big sister" gifts, that she knows are all hers and being giving a small potty all for herself, things have gotten better. Best example of this, was picking Jess up from preschool yesterday. I brought Emma in with me and set her on the floor in her carseat carrier (she gets the big carseat tomorrow). All the little kids ran over and wanted to kiss and touch Emma. Well, Jess came running over and shoved all of them out of the way proclaiming that, this was her baby Emma! She wouldn't let any of them touch her. So in just a short week, we all seem to be finding our spots in the new family. I plan to update the blog often and keep the pictures coming. I owe you the video of when Jessica and Emma first met. It's on it's way.......been a crazy week!

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Sleep deprivation at it's best

I get tunnel vision real bad when I am sleep deprived. That would be why (at least this is my excuse) I scratched the side of my car just trying to pull out of the garage. Oh well...I was too tired to even care. After picking Jessica up from school it was another sleep deprivation moment when I couldn't quite figure out how to park the car with the random poll in the garage. If I pulled up too much I couldn't open the back door to get Emma. If I backed up too much I couldn't get out. After a good 5 or 6 tries somehow I managed to get me and my two girls safely out of the car. The best part about this debacle is that I was supposed to go and have the car insurance people look at my car for our new policy. Somewhere between closing our business checking account (as we are no longer self employed) moving 4 days before Christmas and going to China for 17 days, I forgot to pay our car insurance, therefore it was cancelled while we were in China. Now I can have them look at the car plus the nice new mega scratch. I am doing the world one small favor and remembering to brush my teeth!

Monday, March 06, 2006

Normal ? Is there such a thing



Today we are working on getting back to normal. Today that means, Jessica went dancing off to school and Phil went to work. Actually today is a big day for Phil. He gets the keys to his brand spankin' new mortgage branch. Now if he can keep all the employees that have threatened to quit. I guess things pretty much went to hell when we left...long story and a whole nother blog. So wow...I have a baby in the house. Why is it, that since I've already done "this" before I can't seem remember what I should be doing with a 9 month old. Today we practiced sitting up for long periods of time and picking up Cheerios with our fingers. And of course we pretty much just sat around while Emma looked cute and I didn't. Still feeling some jetlag although it's getting better. Emma wakes up around 11pm thinking it's time to play. So today we're shortening her 4 hour nap...in China she would only take a 2 hour nap and then sleep for about 12 hours straight.
Yesterday Phil was feeling nauseous and only wanted Subway for lunch/dinner. Thankfully our friends Kim and Rudd (who came back from China in August and totally understand jetlag) came over with Subway for dinner. The wierd thing is that they walked in with a huge cooler. Huh? They brought over frozen dinners and stocked our freezer, how awesome is that? All of our friends have been very helpfull and we're real appreciative.
Ok, back to watching my recorded "Grey's Anatomy", my favorite show. Must fight the urge to take a nap.....


Kim and her daughter Cheryl....and happy Emma

Saturday, March 04, 2006

East meets West coast





finally home

We're home!!!

Welcome Home









Hey hey hey...... we made it! The plane ride home was great for Emma..thank you Benadryl. Not so good for us. We reserved bulkhead seating that had a bassinet, sounds great....too bad our baby was too big for the bassinet. We gathered all the pillows and blankets we could find and put Emma on the floor. Our plane was almost empty and there were ton's of empty seats. We would have loved to sit in a row where the arms on the seats went up to lay down, but by the time we figured out that bassinet wasn't going to work and wanted to move rows they were all taken. It really didn't take us much time to get home. Once we pulled up our street, it was great to see the "welcome home" and "it's a girl" signs! We walked through the door (with video camera in hand of course!) and there sat Jessica having a snack. Poor child couldn't believe her eyes. She asked "daddy", "mommy"..almost like we weren't really there. Jessica looked like she had aged 10 years. She and Emma met and it went well. Emma is in LOVE with Jessica. She kept reaching and grabbing for her. Later we put Emma in the saucer and Jessica would run circles around her screaming. Emma thinks it's just great. Jessica seems to like Emma too. It's funny because when Emma cries Jessica covers her ears and then she starts to cry. When Jessica is running around squealing it makes Emma start to cry and it all starts over again. After grandma and grandpa left, we shut the door and looked at each other. Now what? Holy crap we have two kids. And it's not like Emma was born yesterday and is going to sit and sleep for the first 4 months. We struggled to stay up till 7pm. Phil was litteraly falling asleep in mid sentence and ended up standing in the shower as cold as he could stand it. I was picking up the house and wouldn't allow myself to sit. By 7pm it was lights out for everyone. Jessica woke up once...she must of had a bad dream that we were leaving again. Emma woke up from 10:30pm till midnight and then slept till 7am. We slept okay. Today we took a trip to the park to keep awake and appease Jessica. All seems to be going well...we're trying to stay up till 10pm. Keep checking the blog...we plan to update it ....this journey is just starting, only without squat potties, hard beds and greasy noodles!
Emma's first bath at home. She screamed bloody murder and Jessica assumed the position....covered her ears!

Nance girls...haning out!

First stroller ride for 2

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Adios Muchachos



There are new pictures off to the right. Click on the "flicker badge" to see them


There is sooo much more I wanted to write tonight. It's pushin' 10pm and we are literally throwing things into suitecases. We decided at the very last minute to go on the harbor cruise for dinner. We went with Joe and Nicole Ferris....who are a totall blast. We took the oath at the US Consulate today...total formality and drug out. We are going to miss China. We have had such a total blast and really love China. We can't wait to bring the girls back on a heritage tour...which CCAI is now doing. OUr favorite guide James is the director of these new heritage tours. We have to have our bags out by 5am....argggg. We want to go home but know how exstremely difficult it will be. Jessica is not yet 3 years old and she'll be all over us like a rash. We'll all be soooo tired and with the time change. I also have gotten worse...my head is so full of junk. Oh well. To everyone who is coming to Guangzhou... you have to visit HEBE. No lie this woman will give you the bargain of the century. Go down the main drag...past Sherry's (which is all but closed down), past Double Happines, past Jessica's place and make a right. Her shop is small but I tell you.....dresses are 4 US dollars and outfits that have 2 pieces are 5 dollars. And when you need a BIG suitcase...12 Bucks. This woman is awesome. Seriously tell her Aimee sent you. I have also done all of us a favor and have explained what a diaper bag is. You will NOT find a cute diaper bag in China. Trust me....I have looked high and low. Diaper bags are not needed in China. The mom's don't load up the babies to have lunch with girlfriends or coffee at Starbucks. When I explained to Hebe how much us American mommies are willing to spend on a diaper bag...she about had a heart attack. Another woman was quick to show her the Petunia Picklebottom diaper bag. When I asked Hebe what she tought we spent on those in the states, she said $30???? I said, try $150.00 US Dollars. When she converted this to Yuen...she about died. I explained to her that if she were to "copy" the cute Asian diaper bag look she would be very rich very soon. Needlesss to say Hebe is working on something and should have something in about a month. She also has my email address. Today was gorgeous....are really good send off to a once in a life time trip to China. Sorry if my writting is that of a 5 year old, trying to get my rump into bed. I promise to write more once we are home and my eyes can focus. Thank you everyone for following our journey, hope you have enjoyed it. We certainly have LOVED sharing this with all of you. I can't wait to show of our little Emma Bear. I will post the meeting of Emma and her big sis Jessica. This may take awhile....jetlag is the worst thing I have ever felt and it will probably take a good while to get over. Please keep Phil's grandmother and Emma's great grandmother in your thoughts. We have learned since being in China that she is not doing well and well........Phil's father who was to meet us in San Diego has taken the red eye home to be with his mother. We love you Cora Lee.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Lazy day at the White Stork hotel


I woke up feeling awful. So Phil and Emma headed down to the buffet by themselves. We picked up the room and laid Emma down for a nap after breakfast. We got ready to go downstairs to do just a little more shopping. As we were about to talk outside (it wasn't raining) we felt another artic blast. As usual we stopped in our tracks and ran upstairs to put another layer on everyone. It must be comical for the floor attendant...every morning she says bye and every morning about 5 minutes later there we are again, going back to the room for more clothes. We ended up buying Emma and Jessica more cute silk outfits. Then after lunch we met the group and all went to the pearl market. We were able to buy some nice gifts. We also visited the DVD store and loaded up on ALL the Disney Princess movies! We stayed behind the group and opted to walk back to the hotel. On our walk back we stopped and had Pizza Hut. And that's pretty much it...not too much going on over in Guangzhou today. We both miss home real bad. We can't wait to sit in the hot tub and eat chips and salsa. Tomorrow is our last day. We will be going to the US Consulate to take our oath and whatever else. The weather is sunny...hopefully tomorrow will be the same. We took only a couple of picutres of the hotel. This hotel is super nice.