Hello....after a long rest!

Hi Everyone,

Wow....it's been a while since I posted. Busy with life and work and play...not nearly enough of the latter! Olivia and I are doing well though, but boy have we been busy. We've been traveling a lot -- mostly because of my job -- but Olivia can travel with me quite often. When she doesn't, she has been spending time with PoPo and Grandpa. She's going there for the week tomorrow because she has a two week break between school getting out and summer camp. I gave her the choice to go to her old school (from when she was 3 and 4) because they have 'drop in' care or to go to PoPo's....she took about 1.2 seconds to get out that she wanted to go to Grandma's. :)

Since it's been so long since I have updated, I'll revert to a list of where we are/what we're doing....

1. We're still in Chicago and it's not likely that we'll move this year. Economy being in the crapper is the biggest driver there -- I had our house on the market for about 8 months and "sold" it 3 times only to be foiled by financing for the buyer. And then....
2. In January, we had a massive flood. Our upstairs neighbors had a fire and the sprinkler system was blasting water for about an hour. So...thousands of gallons of water found it's way into our condo. :) We basically had to gut our place and rebuild so that kept us in a hotel for 6 weeks and I took our place off the market then...we may eventually put it back on but for now, we're just going to enjoy the summer.
3. Olivia enjoyed her preschool year at St. Mary of the Angels; was awarded "Student of the Semester" back in December; received a few awards at the end of the school year and graduated from preschool at the end of May. She's reading quite well and is learning to spell lots of words.
4. She will be back at St. Mary of the Angels for summer camp and then for Kindergarten in the fall. We're very happy there and she's still asking why she can't start Kindergarten now. :)
5. Work for me has been a bit nuts...lots of changes but am trying to roll with it. I am happy to be busy!
6. We are still waiting for summer.....it's taking it's time coming out this year but when it gets here we're going to take full advantage!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Maureen & Olivia

p.s....The Little Pearl grant has been awarded; waiting for travel confirmation but the little peanut should be home by the end of summer!

Volunteer Group in China Now

Hi Everyone,

You may remember that I volunteered in China with the China Care foundation about 3 years ago. There was a lot of interest in that trip by many of my co-workers and we now have a very large special interest group -- The Children's Advocacy Group. We have sent a group of volunteers to China for the past two years and have done many other fund raising projects for Love Without Boundaries (http://lovewithoutboundaries.com/) and Children's Hope International (http://adopt.childrenshope.net/index.php). I am the co-President of the group, but have not be able to go on the volunteer trips yet...maybe next year!

Anyway, the volunteers are keeping a blog about their experiences and I thought that some of you may enjoy reading it. Here it is: http://bofachina2008.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

I've Been Tagged!

Seven Things:
1. (Similar to Karyn) -- I am the middle child of 5 children - 4 girls and 1 boy.
2. I don't have TONS of friends, but I am very close to the core group that I do have. We are an interesting crew and I adore them all!!
3. I DO have LOTS of Online Friends that I have connected with during my Chinese Adoption experience. Although many of these friends I have not met "live", they are true friends and I think about them during the course of my day just like I do friends that I have met. I hope to meet more and more of this amazing group of people over the coming years. It is a blessing that we are all connected in the way that we are.
4. I have wanted to adopt from China since I was about 15 years old and became aware of the "One Child Policy" -- I still remember standing in my parents kitchen, watching an update on the evening news about what had transpired in the 5 years it had been in effect. It was a stark reality for me and I have never forgotten it and how it made my heart break. Twenty years later, I adopted Olivia and it was the best choice I have ever made.
5. Olivia and I both love to travel and we're planning a trip to China in 2009. After that, we hope to go to London, Paris, Australia and many other places together. She has already put in a request to "go to Italy for Thanksgiving". (I gently tried to explain to her that they really don't celebrate our Thanksgiving in Italy, but she was not to be deterred!).
6. Olivia's birthday is Tuesday (Oct 28th). She shares this day with 2 dear friends of mine...which I find VERY interesting.
7. My favorite season is Fall -- I love this time of year because of the pretty colors, the weather and College Football. GO SPARTANS!!! Moving to Charlotte will provide an "extended fall" since the winter there is so mild. I am excited about that!

I was Tagged by Karyn: http://emilyandoliviaupdates.blogspot.com/

I am tagging:

Kris
Deb
Jana
The Morris Family
Miss Meliss
Teri
Debby

My Little Pearl Fund -- 2009 Applications {UPDATED}

Hi,

I have emailed an application form to everyone that left a comment. There were a few commenter's that I could not get email addresses for because your Blogger profiles were set to private. If you have not received an email from me, please reply again with your email address (or send me an email directly) and I'll send you an application.

I will accept applications until December 15th and will make distribution decisions public in January 2009. Funds will be distributed mid to end February.

Thanks,

Maureen

My Little Pearl Fund -- 2009 Applications

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know that I am gearing up to accept applications for the next distribution of the Little Pearl Fund. Just to recap -- the grant is designed to support Special Needs adoptions from China. The funds are distributed at the end of February each year and it seems to work best if I can donate them directly to your agency in your behalf (for tax purposes).

If you're interested in being considered for this grant, please leave a comment here or email me privately. I will post an application soon.

Thanks!

Maureen

Happy Birthday to Our Little Family!

Two years ago today, in the busy lobby of a hotel in Nanchang, the capital city of the Jiangxi Province in China, I caught my first glimpse of Olivia. She was across the room quite a distance, but I could see her little face. It took my breath away at first...thoughts of "that's her!" and "ohmygosh, it's finally happening" danced through my head. She was very quiet and had a very concerned look on her face, but she was doing her best to "not cry" (she told me much much later that her foster mother told her not to cry).

Our first moments were caught on tape, but I have only watched it once. The exchange was quick and then the escorts from her SWI were gone in a flash. I then performed my first duty as her Mommy by picking up her frightened and crying little body off the floor and took her upstairs to our hotel room. I held her close and she let me....and from that moment on we were a family. We have always had a very deep bond; an underlying understanding of each other that I can't really even describe but am ever so thankful for. I think that those of you that were in China with us will remember that she was always on my hip or in my lap and got busy right away at snuggling in to being my girl. We have had our bumps, but they have only made us both stronger and better. We have a great life together and I could not be happier that she is my daughter. I am forever grateful to many people for helping us both along the way to becoming a family, but I am most thankful to her birth family for leaving her in a safe place, to her foster family for taking such great care of her and for the person out there somewhere, that I don't even know, who posted the message on one of the Yahoo groups I am a part of about the cute little girl whose file was about to be returned to China. She was just waiting for me to find her and I am so glad that I did!

Mommy loves you Olivia!

This is the picture that I fell in love with...instantly.

My Little Super Star!!

Olivia is playing soccer this fall...she got a brand spanking new uniform last week. Check her out....





And she's still in Gymnastics too. She LOVES it and is getting quite good...you should see her on the bars! Pretty amazing. I like her teachers and I also like that there are 4 girls in her class total (with 2 teachers) and 3 out of 4 of them are Chinese (2 adopted/1 American born Chinese). Kind of cool...

She is doing very well and is still enjoying her new school. I am pretty happy with it too. Her teacher is great and taught Kindergarten at a Charter school for the past 2 years called "Namaste". She is teaching them yoga. I love it! Olivia tries to show me new moves all the time now...I think that it's great. :-)

Hope everyone is doing well!

First Day of School

Olivia started at a new school this morning -- St. Mary of the Angels Preschool. We are so excited about it! It was a last minute switch for us but I think that it is going to work out so well. Check her out in her new uniform:

Since I took one of her...she wanted to take one of me too (I am holding her doggie)....

The outside of her school....

By her Cubby:

Today is only a half day so I'll pick her up at 11:30 and take her to summer camp for the rest of the day. She settled right in with the other kids and found her seat and started to play, so we gave a quick hug and kiss and I left. I hope she's having a great time!!

Look Who's Back...

We are not out of the woods -- she is still bruised and scabbed and swollen, but this is back:

Her silly, spunky personality is back and the hives are staying away (for the last 9 hours or so). She asked if we could go to the pool and when I said no, she said "well, then can we go to Uncle Julio's?" (her favorite Mexican restaurant). So, although she is still not well, I think that we're on the mend....which makes me so happy I can't even tell you. It has been a very stressful 3 days. Three days doesn't seem like much, but until this afternoon I had not slept for 3 hours in a row since Monday evening so it has felt much longer.

A special thank you to all my supportive friends and family both online and in "real" life. Big thanks to Debra for taking the time out of her day to call me and counsel someone that she doesn't even know. Your advice was invaluable and much needed since the information I was getting from her Doctors was not complete or totally correct. Also a big thanks to Aunt Barbie for dropping everything and running when I called her from the ambulance, to Uncle Mike for being a smarty pants and giving me excellent advice on her care and the rest of the family -- Aunt Shelly and Uncle Nick and PoPo and Grandpa for checking in with us and keeping a vigil from Michigan. We needed you and your support and we both thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Thank you!

Maureen

Poor Little Peanut

My sweet girl is sick...it's been a rough 2 days. At this moment though, she is snoring loudly next to me, stylish as ever with her bear, her bow and her dog. She's a tough girl...much more so than I.



Please pray for her to get better soon!



Maureen

Happy Birthday Dear Doggie!

Today is Murphy's birthday. The Little Prince turns 5 today!

We'll be celebrating with him this evening and I'm sure he'll bask in the glory of being the center of attention.

We love you little guy!

Love your biggest fans,

Mommy & Olivia

Gotcha = Done!

Shepherd is with his Mommy and Daddy...go take a look!

Mr Shepherd is Coming Home!

Stefanie and Chris are on their way to meet Mr Shepherd. They will come together as a family on the 17th. You can follow their journey here: http://www.myadoptionwebsite.com/shepherd/

The Little Pearl Foundation can't wait to see him with his family!

Photos!

Hi!

I hope you are all enjoying your summer so far. It has really just started here for us...2 weeks ago it was 55 degrees but now we've had several days of 85+ and high humidity so I think that summer is here. :o) Today, it is like a monsoon outside so we're safely inside...but yesterday we went to the FCC summer picnic and had a fabulous time. We met up with some online friends -- Andy, Karyn, Emily and Olivia. The three girls hit it off instantly and had just a great time together. (The big kids had a nice time too!) Here are some photos from our day....

A quiet moment...

The Three Girls -- Olivia, Olivia & Emily

Bunnies, Piglets, Frogs & Flowers

Her first Pony Ride!

Cool photo....

I found a program online where you can print your own passport photos...comes out like this:

Isn't that cool? You can find it here: http://epassportphoto.com/

Disney Fun

Hi Everyone,

No news here on the job / home selling front, but I did get our Disney Photo CD today so I though that I would post some pics. We were there about 2 weeks ago and had a perfect vacation. The weather was perfect, not too crowded and we thoroughly enjoyed our "holiday" together. Here are a few pics from our days....

Hope everyone is doing well!

Maureen

Ice Skating

A few weekends ago, Olivia and I went ice skating with our friends Sally and Violet. Olivia had never been and I hadn't in about 12 years. Olivia did great and I didn't knock out any teeth so I consider that a success...just like riding a bike I guess! O only fell once and I didn't fall at all...and we even went in the middle (though there was no spinning or backwards skating)! We hope to go again soon!

Olivia and Violet

Sally and Violet in action!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Hi,

It is Teacher Appreciation Week at Olivia's school so we've had "projects" to work on. Yesterday was "flower" day and tomorrow is "Letter" day.

For the flowers, I didn't really just want to go buy some at the store and give them to the teacher. I had a feeling that's what most of ther other families would do and it seemed a bit impersonal for a 4 year old. So...we made our own for all the teachers in her class, the director and her ballet teacher! Aren't they pretty?

She wrote out the names all by herself too (I wrote them out for her and she copied them onto the tags we made).

She did a great job on them and she was so proud to hand them out to all of the teachers on Monday morning. They all loved them.

For Letter day, we were given an apple for the children to write their letters on. Olivia and I talked about what she wanted to say and I wrote it down on another piece of paper for her and then she copied it onto the apple. She did such a great job that I wanted to keep a copy. It is a bit hard to see since I just took a photo of it, but I think that it'll work. I am so proud of her writing skills. She loves to practice her letters and numbers and I think that she is doing very well! As you can see, Olivia adores her teacher. She doesn't throw around the "I love you's" randomly -- she really loves Miss Jennifer. She is a great teacher and has been an amazing and constant influence on her for the past year (she also had her for the summer session!).



Great job Olivia and a big thank you to Miss Jennifer for being such a great teacher. We both don't know what we'd do without you! :o)

Sorry I haven't posted much...we have been ridiculously busy and I haven't had the energy to post. But, all is well and we're very much looking forward to spring (even though we have snow predicted for Thursday -- ugh). Hope everyone is doing well!

Maureen

It's My Birthday!

Hi,

Today is my birthday and Olivia got me some socks and made me a special picture. I have never really talked about her artwork, but she is quite prolific with it and I think she's quite good. The picture she drew me today brought those sting-y little tears to my eyes because it's so cute and means so much to me. I came to pick her up from school and went to her classroom and they were in the gym so the only person in there was her teacher. I went to her cubby to collect her things and I saw it. Oh, it was the most beautiful thing just hanging there off her little hook at her cubby. I looked at her teacher and asked her if she had seen it. She just nodded with a little smile and said "Yes, I saw it". I love her teacher and Olivia ADORES her. This is what she drew me:

It is me, her and our doggie Murphy. She told me that we are holding hands because we are a family and we need to stay together. It's the best birthday present I ever got, hands down.

Happy Birthday to me!!

Maureen

Ringing in the Year of the Rat

Hi!


Olivia and I have been very busy 'round here trying to stay warm (not easy right now!) and doing our best to make the most of the New Year holiday. We have had several very yummy meals and mini-celebrations on our own and today we went to a Chinese New Year celebration hosted by one of the local adoption agencies. It was a lot of fun and Olivia and I both had a really nice time. Since Miss O has grown so much, none of the Chinese outfits that we bought in China really fit her anymore. The tops fit, but the pants are like shorts so yesterday morning we trekked down to Chinatown in search of a new dress (and Mommy hit the local grocery store!). We found a beautiful turquoise outfit and she looked very pretty in it. She hasn't really worn that color much, but it is beautiful on her. We also needed some new shoes for her because she has taken to wearing her "party shoes" nearly everyday and they are WORN OUT. In case you didn't know, "party shoes" are her black patent-leather(like) dress shoes that I bought her for the holidays last year. Her feet honestly haven't grown all that much so most of the shoes she started with still fit her...some have been retired, but these party shoes have a lot of miles on them! She has been wearing them to school with her dresses for several weeks now. The girl LOVES to wear dresses and would do so every day if I would let her (and if she had enough dresses...she needs more if that will be her everyday attire!). Anyhow, the shoes were much harder to find so we settled for a pair of boots that are "like Mommy's" that have TWO bows on the side. They are cute and they were on clearance so that was perfect for me. A little tip for anyone who lives in a cold climate...since I know that she will outgrow most of her summer dresses from last year before it's time to wear them again, she has been wearing them all winter. I just pair it with a long sleeve shirt underneath and either jeans or leggings. It looks cute and she gets more wear out of the dresses that way. I recently bought a whole bunch of long sleeved t-shirts at Old Navy for $1.37 so we have lots of options. Today I think our "high" tempurature was 3-degrees, so she also wore her snowpants in the car on the way to the party. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 12 so I'm sure it'll feel like a heatwave. :-)


Anyway, here are some recent snaps of the Pearl:





Friday night enjoying her dumplings. They are her favorite thing! So far, I have just purchased these frozen, but very very soon, we are going to be making some from scratch. We can't wait!

Today, before the party....

Just for kicks....I was looking through some old photos today and I wanted to post this one again. This is the first photo I ever saw of Fu Chong Ao and I was instantly sure that I would move a mountain with a spoon if it would somehow make me her Mama. I am still 100% sure that she and I were meant to be together for myraid reasons. She is a handful, a spunky little spitfire, funny, charming, shockingly intelligent and very very sweet. She is 100% my daughter. We are very much alike and also very very different. I hope that we will continue to bring out the best in each other as we both grow and change together. I adore her every day, even if sometimes I'd pay $5 for 5 minutes of quiet! I am so happy to be her Mom and count myself as the lucky one every day I wake up to her daily mantra of "Mommy, I'm hungry!" (**usually sometime before 6am!**) . This is the photo that started it all....I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!