Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to Ft Meyers for Thanksgiving weekend with Saiya.  We were visiting family down there.  I'm so glad that Saiya is a great traveler!  We had a great dinner and Saiya had a great time playing with Chris's Cousin Hannah.  We took Saiya to the Shell Factory where she filled a jar full of sea shells and got to watch a hermit crab race.  We were home on Saturday with Sunday to relax a little bit before going back to work.  Thank you to family for letting us stay at your house and eat all your food!

Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-Treating was a blast!  Saiya and 6 other kids in our group had a great time!  Got lots of candy and really enjoyed riding around the neighborhood in the back of my mom's pick-up truck.  It made it easier on us and the kids didnt have to walk as much between houses.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!  Funny that next year, we will be adding one more to the group!  So excited!

On another note, we received the orphanage address and I made tags for the items we want to go to Xylie.  We will be sending a care package out sometime this week.  She will finally get pictures of us and a few things like clothes and stuffed animals.  We really can't wait to go get her from China!

Harvest Festival and Lumpy Bumpy Pumpkins!!

On Saturday we went to the Harvest Festival sponsored by Saiya's school.  It was smaller than I had in mind, but there were bounce houses and games and all of the kids had fun.

Sunday we went GoodWill hopping and I bought a ton of stuff for both Saiya and Xylie.  When I was pulling out stuff for Xylie, Saiya had a (very) brief moment of only-child-jealousy.  We talked about it and when I included  her in helping me pick things out, she was much happier.  I'm sure she is going to be great with her sister!  She was so helpful and absolutely LOVED picking out clothes for Xylie.

Sunday night I went though Saiya's dresser and pulled out somethings that dont fit her any more.  There wasnt much since she hasnt really grown that much in the past year when it comes to clothes.  She has grown INTO her clothes, but not out of them.

Sunday night we also carved pumpkins for Halloween.  Since we waited until the last minute to get pumpkins, we were stuck with ones that were all warty.  The kids took one look at them and Said "EEW!!  I'm not carving that!!"  HAHAHA!  I think they came out great!!

Tonight we Trick-Or-Treat, even if it is raining and miserable!  :)

The Early Intervention Center

Yesterday was Saiya’s first day in her new aftercare program at the Early Intervention Center.  She was there for about three hours and WOW!  What a difference!

Before I dropped her off, she was complaining about going to a new school (again) and having to go all by herself.  I told her, it is the same as big-girl-school and she will be just fine.  All the teachers are very nice and she will make lots of friends.  She said she wanted to go back to Space Coast Montessori and that she missed her teachers.  I walked her to her classroom and showed her where her cubby was and talked to the teachers about her activities and developmental goals and then hugged and kissed her goodbye.

After work, I went to pick her up and the first thing she showed me was that she had gotten two “reward tags”.  When she gets 10 she can get a prize out of the treasure box.  She was so proud of them.  On the way to the car, she was telling me all about her day and that she made lots of friends and was a big help to the teachers.  She got to help the other kids with writing and did a good job listening and reading in the reading circle.

I don’t know what it was about her, but she seemed genuinely happy about this school.  I asked her if she still wanted to go back to Space Coast Montessori and she said “No!  I like my new school better!”

So after one day, there is a significant difference in how my daughter carries herself and her self esteem level.  I am amazed at how much this school makes a difference in my child.  Xylie will definitely be going here when she comes home.  I’m so glad we found this school and I really hope that Saiya will regain her self esteem and confidence here.

On a side note, the Space Coast Early Intervention Center is a non-profit child care/pre-school center that functions through the generosity of local companies and families.  If you would like to help donate to this school and do alot of shopping online, try this out!

New Information (YAY Updates!)

Thanks to our wonderful agency pushing the Orphanage in China, we received some new updated information about Tian Xing (aka. Xylie).  We were also fortunate enough to get some updated pictures!  She is so beautiful!  We are so happy and excited about this little girl!



Here is what the orphanage had to say about her:

田星身高 height 85cm，体重 weight 12kg，头围 head 47.5cm，胸围 chest


50.5cm，牙齿 teeth 20颗，足长 foot 13cm，智力发育正常，语言发育良好，能

说5个字的句子。mental development on target. good language skills and

can speak 5 words sentences.
 
 
She is currently one year younger than Saiya was when we picked her up from China and this girl is almost exactly the same size.  Given that, I am very sure that Xylie is going to outgrow Saiya very quickly.  Poor Saiya!  On the upside, at least we know what size clothing and shoes to bring to China with us.  There were many things we brought for Saiya that were way to big and we ended up not using it or using pins to hold it up.
 
We can't wait to go to China to pick her up!

New AfterCare Program and Fingerprints

Yesterday we had an interview/tour of the Space Coast Early Intervention Center. We are considering moving Saiya there for aftercare. She is picking up a lot of bad habits from school and very quickly losing her ability to show compassion and empathy towards less fortunate children. School is the one place where kids learn to be mean and nasty to each other. The other night she came home in serious trouble for calling her cousin a “loser”. At the same time, she is really struggling with her confidence and self esteem. She does her work just fine at home and can count, add, and knows all of her Chinese words, but at school, she has trouble. She brings home zeros on her tests. Its frustrating because we know she can do the work and that she knows her letters and numbers, but the teachers are telling us that she struggles with the workload. I really think she took a hit when she started kindergarten because she is no longer the “little helper” but now she is the kid who needs help, is the smallest and sometimes doesn’t understand the idiosyncrasies of the American culture. She is behind by about a year in social development and maturity level. We are hoping the change to a new aftercare program will help.

The Early Intervention Center works with kids with and without special needs or delays and helps them get on track. We really think this is the best place for her. Right now, her aftercare program consists of doing her homework, coloring pre-printed pictures, and playing on the playground. There are structured activities at the Early Intervention Center that help the kids progress and develop better. Hopefully she will have her “in room evaluation” today and she can start there on Monday. It’s a little bit of extra work, since we have to pick her up from school and drop her there everyday, but we really hope it will help her confidence and self esteem. She really has been struggling the last two months in Kindergarten as far as social level and independence.


On another note, today we drove out to Orlando for finger printing for the USCIS. We received our home study addendum on Monday and I express mailed it to the USCIS office in Texas on Tuesday. We are moving right along with Xylie’s adoption and we are still so excited about bringing her home. I know that Saiya is really going to enjoy having a sister!

Pre-Approval from China

We received our pre-approval from China! This means that China has received our petition to adopt Tian Xing from China. We will be getting tags and the orphanage address very soon so that we can send her a care package.  We already have a ton of stuff for the first care package.  We will probably end up sending three care packages between now and when we leave for China sometime near April of next year.  We are so excited to be going back to China and can't wait to bring home our little girl!