New Title....And other news....

Well our journeys have ended, and both children are home from China it is time to start a new chapter in our lives. I have been playing with the thought of changing the title of our blog. I know there are many titles for a family of 6. My favorite is "With Six You Get Egg Roll", but I'm pretty sure that is taken. This was a Doris Day and Brian Kieth movie and I really love it as well, but in our case it really fits being that the tail end of our family is from China. LOL
So I have named it "The Six Of Us". I think it says it all. What do you guys think?

I will try to add new updated photos of the kiddos today. Evan is eating all the time.....you would think he would be gaining lots of weight with how he is going at it. He isn't a meat eater, but he loves Broccoli. Noodles are a true favorite....even for breakfast.LOL As far as what we love well.... we love Italian food a great deal, but the only thing Evan will eat is Pizza. I guess that is fine for now, but Mike makes a mean Spaghetti. lol Hamburgers are out cause he isn't a meat eater. I have found that he loves turkey sausage when grilled! His English is coming right along. He is picking up new phrases everyday. The concept of "What's your name" isn't there yet. Nor is "How old are you". I contacted ECI here, but they won't help since he is three years old now. I need to see if we have a private Speech Therapist here.

Evan is very strong willed and will fight you on what ever it is he wants or doesn't want to do. ha
We have gone head to head on many things lately. The big one is not hitting Wendy. Luckily the biting issue is gone for now. One thing he does that drives me nuts is when I tell him "NO" he points at me and gives me this cute look and says "Nooo". I know we will be butting heads for some time.

On the bright side he is a very sweet boy actually. When not being obstinate he gives sweet kisses and wonderful hugs not to mention that wonderful smile. He loves the dogs! His favorite is Tallulah, and he also loves our ferret Bear. This is one thing that took a while for Wendy when she came home.

Things will smooth out one day I know. Luckily I have friends who have adopted toddlers and I have seen that it took them some time to adjust but they are now doing fine. Since Mr. Evan has many good qualities about him he will do great once things settle in and his English starts to come more and more.

Wendy on the other hand has gone back a few steps from 6 years old to about 3 herself. Ha You see when a Princess has felt like she has been dethroned it is a catastrophe. LOL!!! She loves him deep down, but fights for all the attention she can get these days. If she sees Evan hugging our leg she gets the other leg and holds tight. This is fine, but can have its problems when you try to move around. Sharing has been hard since she has never had to do it long term before. Sure when friends come over she does, but now that Evan is here full time it is another story. LOL The one thing he wants more than anything is a Barbie Magnadoodle like Wendy's. "Very Big LOL!!! They both love to draw, but Wendy has had that since her 4th birthday; so now we all need to be on a mission. ha

As you can see there are many adjustments going on including my own. I am finally trying to figure out how to keep him content while doing house work and so on. So any of our local friends who are wondering.....this is why we haven't had a play date yet. If I can get the big sum of things done I'm going to get a house keeper in every other week. I think I deserve that don't you?

As for me, I'm still having a rough time after losing my dad. I do fine for a long while and then there is something that reminds me of him like when we went Xmas shopping for example. I find my self crying. The week after the funeral I decided to go through the phone messages from while we were in China. My dads voice came on and I listened and cried. Needless to say I'm not ever erasing that message!!! The message after that was my mom saying they were at the hospital and it was bad; now that one I erased. This was very hard on me. My mother is handleing it really well. She will cry on occasion, but not just let loose. She wanted to hear my dad's message over Thanksgiving while she was here. She did well on that as well.
Our Thanksgiving was one of remembering and holding tight to each other.

On a fantastic note: Holly is about finished with school and will graduate on December 19th!!!! She has been offered acceptance into the PHD Program (Doctoral Program) for Human Development and Family Studies without having her masters degree in it!!!! We are beyond ecstatic for her!!! So, she will be attending Texas Tech this spring semester!

I know this is a LONG post, but I have been so behind on updating this blog.