Another Fundraiser

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were working on some t-shirt sale options. Well, one is now ready. You can find the advertisement on the right hand side of the blog. A portion of each sale will go to our Bring Megan's Sister Home fund.

I'm also working on getting t-shirt sales set up though Show Hope, Steven Curtis Chapman's non-profit. Its not quite ready yet, but hopefully within the next week or so it will be. This one will be a bit different in that we will have take orders then place an order when we have enough. More on that yet to come.

We appreciate all your help to bring Yanglan home!

Klippies by Kris

In order to keep this blog about us and not about hair clips, I've started a new blog just for hair clips. I may occasionally post new items over here, but all hair clip info will be on the new blog: Klippies by Kris. Please check it out! I've added several new items!

Introducing Megan's Sister

We've officially received our approval to adopt her...so here she is!

We will add an American name to hers,
but we don't know what that will be yet.
Her Chinese name is YangLan

These pictures were taken in 2008, so I'm interested in seeing how much she's changed in the last two years!

More Large Flower clips

Here are some more beautiful large (4 inch) flower clips.
Each 4 inch flower is securely attached to an alligator clip. Each clip is covered with a coordinating ribbon and partially lined. All ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.
The clips stay in Megan's very silky hair quite well, actually. She always gets compliments every time she wears one!

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s)

Each clip is $5
Price includes shipping

Lavendar

Light Pink

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s).

There is a limited selection of these flowers available.

Hair Clips--Large Flowers

These flower clips are adorable. Each 4 inch flower is securely attached to an alligator clip. Each clip is covered with a coordinating ribbon and partially lined. All ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.

The clips stay in Megan's very silky hair quite well, actually. She always gets compliments every time she wears one!

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s)

Each clip is $5
Price includes shipping

My adorable model (acting very silly!)


The other orange sold out...so here's the new one.
It does a slight yellow around on the tips of the pedals, and it's cute, too.
Orange--Large

Yellow--Large

Hot Pink--Large

Deep Red--Large

I can use a crystal in the middle of all (except the orange), if preferred

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s).

There is a limited selection of these flowers available.

Hair Clips--Small Flowers

Have you been looking for smaller flowers to put in your little one's hair? These would be perfect! All flowers have coordinating ribbon covering the alligator clip. Each clip is partially lined and all ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.
To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and size.

My model with the 2 small flowers in:


Prices listed below:

Small white flowers (approx 2 inches in diameter)
I also have light purple (as Megan is modeling above) and light yellow.
These are small enough that you can use two.

Each $3 (includes shipping)
All of these are VERY limited


my cute model with the medium flower in:

close up of the flower:

Medium white flower (approx 3 inches in diameter)
Each $4 (includes shipping)

There are limited number of each of these available.

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and size.

Hair Clips-- Matching Pairs

One problem I've recently encountered is finding matching clips to use in Megan's hair to hold the wisps back with pigtails. Or do you simply want to clip the long bangs out of their face? These matching ribbon alligator clips are the solution! They are partially lined and all ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.

To order, simply click on "Chip In". In the Comments section, identify the number of pairs and your ribbon selection.

Each pair: $5
(includes shipping)

And here's the model!


An example of the finished product

These are your ribbon options:

spring green zigzag, light blue, lavender stripes, light pink with white dots

Red, Hot pink/black dots; hot pink; light pink; pink/purple dots; XOXO

To order, simply click on "Chip In". In the Comments section, identify the number of pairs and your ribbon selection.

Fundraising

One of the things that we will be doing to bring Megan's Sister home that we didn't (purposely) do to bring Megan home is fundraising. There are several things we have lined up to do in the upcoming weeks (there are higher priorities right now), but one of them is the "chip in" on the right hand side of the page. Chip in allows you to donate cash to help bring Megan's Sister home using a credit or debit card or a paypal account. Simply click on the 'Chip in' link and you will be directed to a secure website to donate. Don't feel pressured to do so, but I've had some people ask when/how they can donate, so I thought I'd just set this up.

What kind of upcoming fundraisers are we talking about? I've made several very cute, high quality hair clips for Megan (and gotten loads of compliments on them, as well!). I've shared them with some of my friends and they STAY IN fine hair. So, watch for them soon. I have most everything ready, I just need the time to pull it all together and create the blog post with the pics.

Another fundraiser we are working on is t-shirt sales. There's a website that handles everything for us and we get a portion of the t-shirt sales. Again, still working on that...hopefully it will be up within a month.

We've got a couple of other ideas...but need to work them out quite a bit more. And if you have any ideas, PLEASE let us know!!!

As if our life is not CRAZY enough!

We feel the Lord leading us to go back to China to adopt! Its not at all what I expected...or anticipated! I completely believed we were done adopting from China, but apparently we are not.

Sunday night as I was rocking Megan to sleep, I began praying for our "missing" daughter. I was reminded of all the reasons DH has said we need to wait (M's sleeping problems is the biggest one! But him feeling too old to do this again being another). Then I know it was the Lord that asked why not an older child from China? I have always said if we went back to China it would be for an older child (10-13 yrs old). In China, once an orphan turns 14, they become ineligible to be adopted into a family. This option "overcame" all of DH's concerns as she'd be older so we would not likely have the sleep problems...although we'd have a whole host of other potential problems (like her extremely limited English and our almost non-existent Chinese skills)...and it addresses his concern of having a younger child in his "old age". I knew EXACTLY the agency we wanted to use and emailed them that night. I did more research on their website and saw some of their waiting children. There are 5 little girls on there...but one of them COMPLETELY caught my eye...not only is she beautiful, but she's 12 and needs to be adopted before Sept 2011 (A little faster than DH was thinking!!!). One of my "musts" was that she has to love younger children...knowing how needy my Megan is with older girls!!! Well, there was very little information on the "description", but it did say something along the lines of loves to play with younger children. We both feel this is our daughter. We've contacted the agency saying we want to adopt this little girl and have begun the paperwork to bring her home. She will be home in about a year. My hope is that we will travel in April...then all my children will have joined our family in April!

I ask that you begin praying for our new daughter (who we are calling Sister at this point, because we want her to have a say in what her forever name will be). I also ask that you pray for God to open the storehouses and bring the funding to bring her home. If you remember, God brought incredible miracles when we began the journey to bring Megan home. He brought us $22,000 in a span of about 6 weeks. While I certainly don't expect to have the funding in 6 weeks, I do believe that God can bring the money we need to bring this precious little girl home, too.

Megan has been asking for a sister for several months. I asked her Monday if she wanted a big sister or a little sister and she said "big sister". Of course, since then she's saying "little sister"! So, I asked her if she wanted 2 sisters and her response? "No, just 1." (and she will frequently remind us she "just wants one")! This kid cracks me up!

Pics

A few of my favorites from the past week or so..

Such a little lady...and big girl. Her new favorite way to sit (modeled after mommy, of course!) And notice the flip-fl0p tan lines on her feet! She's SO TAN already!

My little fashion-esta! She is completely in love with these boots lately! We've worn them to the post office (but didn't get out of the car) and the mailbox a couple of times. I don't know how she can stand it! It's been SOOOO HOT down here!

Kota's turn with the crown...

Irish's turn (it's a "new" one)

In case you think only the dogs wear it...here's Megan's way of wearing her crown!

And now it's June

Oh man, I can't believe it's June and I have not even posted one time yet this month! And it's half over. That's bad, especially considering that I am using this as her "baby book" to keep track of things she's doing. I've been so busy working on my dissertation, I have time for little else. My goal is to have stage 1 done by July 1st; propose by the end of July; then I need to have everything written by October 1st in order to graduate in December. As you can see, this is major undertaking and to complete it in 3.5 months...well, may be just crazy. I honestly don't know. I just know I can and I must be done with everything by December. If I don't officially get to graduate until May, that's fine, but I simply CANNOT pay tuition for a semester past fall! I just can't bring myself to do it!!!

So, back to Megan...here's a quick list of some of the cutest things happening right now.

• Sleep is still an issue. Some days are better than others, but overall, its still not good. We've been using melat0nin, which has helped, but the little stinker has figured out to push past the exhaustion it creates (like she always has). And I'll just leave it at that.
  
• She Loves, Loves, Loves Punchinello (a character of Max Lucado's). I found a movie at a garage sale and she repeatedly asks to watch it. It seems to have replaced Elm0 (my heart is not broken). At any rate, she loves to "act out" and "repeat" so many things from the movie.
  
• One of her favorite 'repeats' is: "can I come, too?" I mean for everything! If I'm going in the bedroom, she says "can I come, too?" It's so funny. And the way she says "too"...it's more like "TUuuuu".
• She has gotten into movies. Kind of. I mean she'll watch Punchinello, as well as another of Max Lucado's story lines, Hermie the Caterpillar. In the last week or so, she's started watching Clifford, the big red dog. But, no telling if that will last! She still loves Super Why.
  
• It seems like there's always something I'm laughing about that she says every day! She's so fun.
• She started sitting on the floor and opening a book and "reading". She looks at the book, turns the pages, holds it with the book balancing on her hands, then she puts it away.
• She's still sitting in a booster seat with a belt at home. At some point during the meal, she typically asks to sit next to dad. At which point she repeats the rules "if you stand up, you have to sit in the buckle chair". Of course, all you can really understand because she talks so quickly and softly is "stand" and "buckle chair".
• She likes to tell the dogs to go into the bedroom (they, of course, don't listen) and she likes to put them in the bedroom. So, we have to tell them (and sometimes have to herd them as well) with her closing the door. Sometimes she likes to go in there with them and shut the door despite the fact that we're getting ready to eat and need her out with us.
• She tends to order the dogs around. A lot. She likes to tell them to "Stop barking, Irish. Stop barking, Kota." First she says it loud, then she repeats it softer as she gets close to their face.
• She loves to "walk with them" (aka the dogs). Irish tolerates her standing next to him a lot more than Kota. Kota has figured out that if she just lays down, then Megan will tell us what she wants to do requesting we make Kota stand up. Then we have to explain that Kota doesn't want to walk right now.
  
• She likes to play with the dogs with their toys. Sometimes throwing the toys and trying to get Kota to fetch (which is only does when SHE wants to!).
• She likes to put things on the dogs heads. For example, she's gotten into this princess crown. She loves to wear it on her head and put it on the dogs head. Her favorite is to put it on Kota's head. I took a picture of it on Kota's head. I'll have to upload it. One day. Sigh.
• She loves to spell words. Nothing new there.
• She's sleeping with bring one of her stuffed dogs when we go to the store. She's named two of them "doggie Chris".
• She loves to roll the ball.
• She loves to wear dresses.
• She loves to open the doors...and lock them. If you know where we live, you could easily into our back door (we've hidden a key outside b/c she's always locking us out!).
  

That's about all I can think of right now.

My Beautiful Girl

There are no words necessary...I don't think!

Megan Painting

Here is Megan painting, but she calls it "hand prints". For good reason.

Zoo Trip for Birthdays!

Megan's & Bethany's birthdays are 2 days apart. So we moms took them to the zoo to celebrate our girls turning 3.

Bethany is so darn funny! She HAD to bring her binoculars to the zoo so she could see the animals. That girls CRACKS me up!

The zoo has this river play area in the Children's part. It was pretty hot on Wed when we went, so we ended the day in the water.

Sleep

I've been wanting to write another post on sleep describing what "problems" look like for us. But, it's not an easy thing to explain. At all. Well, there's a website that we've followed since we started waiting for Megan. It's about all things China adoption. The author wrote a wonderful, very descriptive posting on sleep. Interestingly enough, her description of sleep problems for her daughter "GlitterGirl" are almost identical to what we deal with every night. Some nights are better than others, but right now we are definitely in a difficult time. You can read her post HERE.

And no, my idea hasn't worked all that well to get Megan to sleep overall. She will recite the "eat healfee, drink water and sleep good", but she's still having a tough time going to sleep.

A funny story

Yesterday we went to the zoo with friends to celebrate birthdays. On the way to the zoo, we got behind a truck with serious pollution problems. I said to Megan 'Boy that car is stinky!' What was her response? "I think it needs to go poop." I lost it. Since she hadn't napped, I had to pull it together VERY quickly or I would have had a crying little girl...but I'm still laughing as I think about it!

Birthday "Party"

We had very small gathering today in honor of Megan's 3rd birthday (which is Tuesday). I made these SUPER CUTE, super easy (albeit time consuming) cupcake flowers. The petals are mini marshmellows cut cross-wise, then dipped in sprinkles (or colored sugar). They were really yummy, too!

The cupcake experiment!

The soon-to-be birthday girl.
She did not get the bike (it was a hand-me down from the neighbor, but in very good condition), but she got the helmet & training wheels.

The pictures are deceiving, she is sitting on the bike while we push it (or it rolls down the hill that we live on). She does NOT push the pedals at all. We're working on it, though.

I can't believe she's going to be 3!! sniff, sniff

Sleeplessness Answer?

The verdict is still out...we just started it today...but in a very early moment of quiet before 5am, I'm fairly certain God gave me a great idea.

I've said for a very long time that Megan is afraid to go to sleep. I mean, she'll be almost ready to doze off, yet she will wiggle, clap her hands, kick her legs, sign mom & dad, whatever it takes NOT to fall asleep. It's been taking anywhere from 60-90 minutes every night. We've missed several naps, despite being absolutely exhausted. If there is one thing I KNOW about my sweet, precious daughter and sleep, it is that when we get into the cycle of not enough sleep, it is very difficult to get out of that cycle. Its vicious. And often feels never ending. She's been getting about 8-9 hours of not very restful sleep a night and many days refuses to nap. So, we are talking about a child who behaves absolutely horribly! Hitting, yelling, deviance, challenging and pushing all of my buttons.

We're back to waking up at 5am again. I so thought we were past this. But, she's getting her final 2 year molar (FINALLY!) so it could be contributing. Who knows. The other part is that she's yelling out more nights than not, at least once, if not every hour all night. By yelling out, I mean she'll thrash about, cry and yell something (typically, "Megan can do it" or "I need to go potty" or "Mommy do it" but her most common one "NO! NO! NO!"). It took me a few nights to realize she does this 100 percent in her sleep. One minute you think she's awake, the next minute she's snoring. Literally.

Okay, so back to the potential solution. I got this idea this morning...telling her that to grow big she needs to: eat healthy, drink water (another problem we have...not drinking!) and sleep. We've been talking about it all day. At nap time, she was asleep in 5 minutes. She hasn't done that for quite a while. So, tonight when it was time for her to go to bed with daddy, I said, "you need to sleep good tonight"...and she said "so I can grow!" So, maybe we've found the s1lver bullet? Boy do I hope so!!! Guess we'll find out in a few days!!

Growing & Stuff

I love this pic! It's at the park, Megan LOVES the park. The pic really shows her excited expression about being at the park.

One day last week, Megan didn't take a nap. My contingency plan when she has no nap is going to the zoo. We are members, so we can go for free. On this day, she was so excited about going to the zoo that she put her hat and sunglasses on as soon as I said we were going. She sat in the chair watching W0rd W0rld while I got everything together to go.

We made brownies together for the first time. As you can see...tasting the batter was a necessity!

Our friend's son turned 1, so we went to the party. She also decided not to nap this day so we really were not sure how it would go. But she did pretty gosh darn well. This is such a cute pic of daddy & Megan. She's wearing daddy's sunglasses.

She has started moving her chair away from the table before climbing in to eat. She likes to put her feet up on the chair...like such a big girl!

This was taken on Friday, I believe. She's gotten so big. She looks so grown up here. She's holding a specially painted hand print she did at school for me for Mother's Day.

A couple more things she does that I've noticed recently...and if I don't get them down on paper, I will completely forget!

• She JUST started opening doors. I've been waiting for the day...of course it makes life so much more interesting, but I'm glad we've finally accomplished this feat. She doesn't entirely remember that she can do it, so we're still somewhat "safe".
• She says "shepherd" instead of "special" more often than not. On occasion she'll get it right, but typically she doesn't. It's really too entirely cute!!!
• She also says "soldier" instead of "shoulder".
  
• To get her to motor, I often play the "I don't think she knows how" game, which she LOVES to prove me wrong and do it without drama! (Yay for me!) She's started saying it herself now "I don't think she knows how!" then she does say "oh! oh! oh! Wait! She DOES know how to do it." I guess that's what I must say? I honestly don't know. But she even does it when she's looking for something then finds it "Oh! Oh! Oh! Wait...here it is!" She's so gosh down smart!
• She's also started wanting to carry a purse like me. Of course, it's almost always empty. Details. Details. Most often it gets left in the car b/c she forgets about it, but sometimes it has to come with. Too cute.

That's all I've got!

Megan Update

Oh boy, it's been way too long since I wrote anything about what Megan's been up to lately. She seems to change every day. So, here's a quick list of things that I want to remember, one day:

• She's talking ALL THE TIME. Oh my gosh. She loves to run around the house making up words. Her favorite is one that sounds like Donkey Kong...but its more like shonkey dong. She also loves to add "dee" at the end of all of her words...mommy-dee, four-dee, no-dee, etc. It's just really too funny.
• Making up new sounds all the time
• She says "no, I don't think so" or "No, I don't" or just plain "NO!" to pretty much everything. If you ask her if she's cute, her response is "No. (pause) No, I'm not".
• She loves to say "You little stinker" and shakes her finger right by her mouth. I don't know where this came from. She also loves to say "stinky", but there's a southern twang to it and it sounds more like "st-Ankee".
• Another favorite word is "funky" (emphasis on the UN--fUNkee). We have no idea where that came from!!!
  
• She tells the dogs to "stop barking" and "come here. This way." (as she's attempting to herd them in a particular direction). She also loves to "play" with them. She goes to their toy basket, mutters something about what toy to play with, then tries to get them to play with her. She also loves to crawl in the dog crate with Dakota and shut the door. Dakota isn't so fond of this new playtime experience for Megan!
• She's waffling back and forth on whether she wants to nap or not. I think she's prefer not to, but she's still getting up so cotton-pickin' early she just can't make it without some nap. She's still getting up between 5:30 and 6:30am every day. She's going to sleep around 8pm, unless she doesn't nap.
• She can do 24 piece puzzles with very little guidance.
• She loves to do "hand prints" aka finger painting, except she does NOT paint, she just likes to put the paint on her hands and press (okay, really bang) her hands on the paper.
• I know we're a bit behind the curve, but she's now eating her cereal with milk.
• She loves to sit on the "big girl" chair (no booster), but she really just loves to push the envelope and stand (when she's not supposed to).
• She's doing all pottying by herself, but still wants us to go with her. She rarely has accidents now.
• She's spelling words like crazy. There are very few 3-letter words that she can't spell. It's nuts, actually.
• She's starting to follow with her finger the words in books that we are reading.
  
• She MUST climb into the car by herself. And she must get into her car seat by herself (and her time line, of course!).
• She sings the words to so many songs (Twinkle Little Star, Jesus Loves Me, Zaccheaus, and ABCs come to mind)
  

That's the best I can do right now...maybe I can come up with a few more in a few days.

It's the end of the semester, so things are really super crazy for me with 41 students each turning in 2 papers ranging from 4-9 pages each! Plus they have weekly discussion posting requirements that I get to read. Add to that I need to write my proposal for my dissertation by late May. The plan is to propose by mid-June and finish up over the summer and defend my dissertation in the fall. This would mean I graduate in December! Definitely do-able...assuming things don't come crashing down! I'm just trying to keep my head above water daily.

The move..I have mentioned that on here, right? The house is still for sale, the job hunt is still...hunting. Although, there is one lead that's got great possibilities. So, we'll just wait and see what happens with it all. I pretty much keep my nose in my work as I've got plenty there to keep me busy, that's for sure!