Happy Halloween (& Mia Walking)!!!!

This is a super short video of Mia walking. It is by no means very good as she is already walking much better but it was all I could get tonight. I worked today then came home and had to get ready for tonight. It was a crazy night and I hardly had time to talk to people let alone video Mia walking. By the end of the night Mia was standing up on top of our dining room table and walking to the other end. She is getting really good. I will get some better video off her tomorrow as this is not very good, but at least you can see her in motion. She is so cute!!!

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So here are our spooky kids(& nieces). Mia, Kaitlyn (skeleton), Owen (gangster), Ethan (scream-- which by the way I fought him on and finally gave in-- I hate that costume) and Kylie in the Vampire outfit. The final pics are of Mia trick or treating at a few of our neighborhood friends homes. She was so cute. She just wanted to walk into every house. The boys and girls had a great time and got a TON of candy-- far too much! We had Kevin's brothers family over for our traditional soup and pie dinner as well as my parents and sister. It was a lot of fun but a late night.

 

Here is Mia and Cameron going through some candy at Cameron's house. Cameron is the little sister to one of Ethan's best neighborhood friends Jake. She is totally a beautiful little 3 year old and I'm sure Mia and her will be great friends!

 

Can't Belive What I did~~ Uggg!!!

I am soooo upset with what I just did. Right before bed tonight we were all sitting in the family room and Mia just literally got up- stood- and started taking steps completely on her own. She started out by taking 2 or 3 steps but by the end was walking across the room completely on her own taking 15 steps plus. Standing up on her own and then just walking and even turning. It was amazing!! At the beginning I ran and got my camera and got most of it on video. I had amazing footage-- full of her walking the baby steps and then finally walking across the room. I was planning on putting the kids to bed and then uploading the video. I was scrolling through the footage on my camera so I didn't upload stuff I didn't want and I don't know how i did it but I TOTALLY DELETED ALL THE VIDEO!!!! I have no idea how I did it but I did. I have looked a ton of times through my SD card and it is just not there-- uggg!!!! I am so upset but I am going to try to get some good footage tomorrow morning before she starts to run. As soon as I get it I will post. It is just so darn cute and it kills me that I wont have that for the future.

Anyway, as consolation, I decided to post some weekend fun pictures. The first pics are of the kids at my brother and sister in laws farm. They live on a farm and Amy runs "Amy's Farm Tours" which is a business where schools take kids to the farm for field trips. It is a totally cool field trip and includes feeding baby calves a bottle--cute!! Our Sunday School class has a little get together there on Saturday so we all went and had a great time. The second pics are of some of our friends before we went to a Halloween party on Saturday night. We had a blast without kids!!! Well, I say without kids but the kids were being babysat across the street from the party and about an hour into the party the kids were knocking saying Mia was crying really bad. I went over and decided to bring her back to the party with us. I put her in the Ergo and she did fine and fell asleep within a short amount of time and just slept in the Ergo.

Anyway, have a Happy Halloween!!!

Happy 1st Birthday Mia!!!!!

October 29, 2006 the most beautiful baby girl came into this world. This baby girl was dressed in a pink padded suit to ensure she was warm and then lovingly wrapped in a blue blanket. Her birth mother must have felt so conflicted and endured so much pain as she laid her baby girl at the gate of the Civil Affairs Office in Yueyang County Hunan in the wee hours of the morning. She placed this baby girl in a location she knew she would be found and made sure she was warm. A few hours later as the businesses were opening up this baby girl was found just like her birth mother hoped for. She was taken to the Yueyang County Orphanage and they lovingly named this beautiful little baby girl Ba Jun Fei. JunFei was examined and deemed to be perfectly healthy and was placed in a loving foster home with very experienced foster parents. In that foster home JunFei, or FeiFei they called her, was loved and nurtured. Her birth mother must have known her beautiful baby girl would be well taken care of.

Four months passed and FeiFei was being prepared for international adoption. On March 6, 2007 FeiFei was screened and was given the go ahead to be adopted. On the other side of the world a family cried tears of pain and grief as the day before they had not received their referral for the baby girl they had been so desperately waiting for. This family knew God had a master plan but could not understand why China had skipped them. The very next day, March 6, 2007 the mommy in this family celebrated her birthday with an enormous hole in her heart, little did she know that the baby God intended for their family was being prepared for adoption a half a world away-- on that very day! God knew that the baby HE intended was not ready and had this family not been skipped they would not have received the perfect baby for their family-- the baby God chose!

A month passed and the family soon realized that their paperwork had been lost in China and that they would have to wait another month to get their babies picture. This family was very sad throughout the whole month and still did not understand what and why this had happened. On April 6, 2007 the mommy received a phone call. She was told that a baby had been chosen for them and that her name was Ba Jun Fei. She was only 5 months old and was healthy with big chubby cheeks. The mommy cried tears of joy as this was HER baby!! The baby she had been waiting for!! She quickly called the daddy and he too was so thankful for their beautiful baby girl. She told her boys about their new sister and they were filled with joy. Their family was now complete!! They now had their daughter, Mia JunFei Bock!!

The mommy and daddy spent the next 5 weeks preparing for their trip to pick up their baby girl. On May 21, 2007 the mommy and daddy held their baby girl for the first time in Changsha Hunan China. The second the mommy held her Mia she knew this was God's divine arrangement. That He had held up their referral so they would get this perfect little 6 month old baby girl.

Mia has now been home over 5 months and today is 1 year old! She is the perfect addition to our family and we thank God everyday that we were skipped so that we could get our perfect Mia. Mia has grown in every way. She is so beautiful and smart and so easy going yet exceptionally happy. She is just perfect for our family. I just cant imagine what another year will bring with our little light shining in our family. She is truly a little light- our little light-- and she is exceptionally loved!!!

We love you Mia and HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!!!!!

New Friends at Disneyland!!

When we first began paper chasing I somehow stumbled on a this other adoptive family who were sending their paperwork to China at the same time as us. We began emailing and eventually spoke in the phone and our log in dates were very close. As our 6 to 8 month wait turned into 18+ months and we lost touch a bit but finally hooked up again when we were getting close to referrals. Karen has the most beautiful daughter Kailee, who is 21 months old. She is just beautiful and such a sweet little girl. Karen and I decided to meet up at Disneyland on Friday since we both are annual pass holders. It was WONDERFUL to finally meet Karen and Kailee in person. We had a great time at Disneyland. The girls had a great time and it was a lot of fun getting to know Karen better. We have some strange "small world" coincidences like we know a few of the same people so it was fun talking about all our little coincidences.

Anyway, Karen and Kailee left at about 8pm and the boys, Jordan, Cassie, Mia and I continued going on all the Big Kid rides until midnight. Mia fell asleep in the stroller at about 9pm so it was a relaxing rest of the night. We cant wait to meet up with Karen and Kailee again!!

Fun With Mommy's New Camera

The boys got their hair cut tonight and they had a little bead thing for little ones to play with. A friend of mine has been giving me tips on my camera-- Thanks Amber-- so I thought I would try them out while we were waiting on the boys. What do you think?

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

All is looking up!!

Well, it has been a crazy couple of days here in So Cal! With the winds and then the fires and my daughter deciding sleep is not important anymore, it has been challenging. I am however glad to report that there looks like they are making headway on many of the fires as the winds have died down today. It appears that the cabin was spared although we do not know that for sure but it looks really good. Mia did well last night as I just let her cry it out. I put her down the second time as I was writing my post here and she cried for a good 20 min and then nothing-- she had fallen asleep THANK THE LORD!!! I expected her to wake up a bunch of times but she only woke up once at 1:30am. I gave her a bottle and she slept until 8am--- YAAAA!!! I wanted to show pics that she indeed made it through a night of crying and came out the other end just fine.

The first set of pics are of her cute new Gap shirt. I just love this shirt. Not sure why I love it so much but it is just adorable-- love the winter blue and the snow flakes-- too cute!! The second pics are of lunch with Kevin and Mia decided she loved to eat crayons. We just had to laugh as every kid in the history of time have ate crayons so we figured this was a right of passage. Anyway, enjoy!!!

Why is she crying???

OK, clearly in this picture we can see why she is crying (check out Owen and the paci in his mouth) but this crying thing has gotten to be a bit of a regular occurrence. As I type this Mia is in her room screaming. Normally, I put her in her crib and she goes right to sleep. She may wake up in the middle of the night a few times but she normally cries herself back to sleep in a minute or two. Ever since the winds and even before (which I totally understand the winds are scary as they literally shook our house and tore things from our house) she has been having a tough time going to sleep. I do the normal bedtime things and then I lay her down and she immediately begins to cry. I usually let her cry for a bit (10 min) and then go in and sit with her for a few and then lay her down again. I then walk out and she starts screaming again which is where I am at the present time. I have consoled her 2 times and I don't know what else to do so I am letting her scream. At first I thought she was scared so I went in and consoled her whenever she cried but now I think she has gotten use to it and I cant get her to stop. So, I let her cry. I know it is horrible but I don't know what else to do and I NEED some sleep. I feel like I have been walking around like a zombie for a week and I just need to sleep. So I let her cry. I hope I can stay strong and not go in and get her. We'll see!!!

Destruction In Southern California

UPDATE 9:30pm 10-23- We think we may have good news. On a few websites that are showing which areas have burned in Arrowhead, it is showing that my parents street did not burn. We will not know 100% for sure until we can get up there to check but as of now that is just amazing news.

The fires are still going crazy. Luckily the winds have died down a bit and we are only getting 30 to 40mph gusts as opposed to 70+mph gusts. So, helicopters were able to do water drops all day and they made a dent on many of the fires. Unfortunately, the fires are still burning like crazy and the loss is tremendous. Most are saying that containment on most of the fires will not happen this week and they speculate early next week but who knows? Please continue to pray that the wind dies completely so they can really attack these fires. There has been loss of life due to the fires so please pray for those families. I will continue to update as I hear more.

Christy :)

UPDATE 9AM 10-23- We still do not know about the cabin. We will not know until the fire is out and we can get up there to check it out. It is really not looking good :( There are fires popping up everywhere all due to the winds. The winds are still howling-- again the worst winds we have ever seen. Put wind and fire together and it is mass destruction. There is a fire "The Day Creek Fire" that is about a mile from our house. It is a small fire in comparison to the others but it is close. Luckily the wind is blowing away from our house so there is really no danger for us. Our kids even went to school today. It is 9am right now and the temp is expected to get into the 90's today so it is not good fire weather so we need to pray that the winds slow so they can actually fight the fires. Please continue to pray and I will keep you updated.

These are pics of our yard as well as of a tree in our neighborhood. Southern California is being tortured by wind and fire at the present time. We live in a windy area but these were the worst winds we have ever seen. We had gusts up to 100mph and it tore everything apart. We have neighbors with fences down, trees uprooted and much more. We had all the rain gutters ripped off our house and we had all our glass tables in the backyard broken into a million little pieces. All our pool furniture is in the pool as well as a ton of dirt and other items. We didn't know the wind was coming so we didn't prepare. We now regret that. Anyway, the destruction is horrible.

The next post is of Mia the my parents cabin this weekend for my dads birthday. The post will explain but there is a pretty goof chance the at the cabin has burned. We are praying for the best but it is not looking good.

I show these pictures below not only because they are cute and I love the cape Mia is wearing but also because in Southern California right now there are fires burning everywhere. At this point I believe there are at least 16 fires burning within an hour from our house. The most depressing fire is the HUGE fire burning in Lake Arrowhead, CA. At this point it has burned over 140 homes and it has been in the neighborhood of my parents cabin. My sister spent the weekend up there and she was woken up at 7:00am by firefighters with a mandatory evacuation. She had to leave the mountain and at this point we have NO IDEA if the cabin burned or not. We know for sure the fire is in their neighborhood and that homes less than a mile away have for sure burned and that wind unfortunately is blowing in their direction but other than that-- WE HAVE NO IDEA!! I don't want to speculate but I just pray the cabin is saved. We have wonderful memories that have been made at the cabin so we pray that their home is saved. I will keep you updated. The devastation in Southern California is horrific. Between the winds and the fires there has been an amazing amount of loss. Please pray for the families affected by the destruction.

The Arrowhead Cabin

5 Months Ago Today

5 Months ago today our lives changed forever:

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Part 2 to the video:


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And now 5 months later our little spicy Hunan girl has become a perfect part of our family! She has added so much joy to our lives it is just astounding. We received Mia at 6 months of age and we have now completed 5 months with her-- almost half her life. I cant remember life without her. Mia has grown in so many ways. A few days ago I posted about her being tentative and fearful when we first got her but now our little girl is outgoing, happy and a joy. She is inquisitive, talkative, eager to smile and just about the cutest little thing in the world. She is just amazing and we thank God everyday that He blessed us with our little miracle.

WE LOVE YOU MIA!!!!

Video, Video and More Video!!!

It happens every time you want to catch a great moment that you cant get your darn camera out in time to capture the moment. Then the next half hour is spent futile attempt to recreate the moment. It never happens-- UGGG!!!! This happened to us tonight. We were at dinner and Mia was standing next to my chair and she walked over to Kevin's chair. She took about 3 steps completely unassisted. We then jumped onto the ground and she took another 3 steps towards Kevin. Then the light went off in my head that we had to video this so I grabbed my camera and what did she do?? She went all rubber legs on us- uggg!! She took at step but nothing like what she had just done seconds earlier. The first video is of our pitiful attempt to get her to walk again. I would have cut it shorter but I cant figure out how to do that yet so feel free to stop watching it at anytime. I think it is like 4 minutes long.

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So our next video was taken yesterday when Kevin and Mia met me for lunch at the Elephant Bar. She was just talking away and I thought I would try to get some video of it. It was so cute because she is all into climbing up on things and she was wearing her squeeky shoes and kept climbing up on the side of the high chair and bouncing up and down to make the shoes squeek. It was a lot cuter than it sounds-- sorry :) So here is that video.


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The final video was just a short little video of our budding artist with her amazing coloring skills. She is just amazing with her artistic talents-- not really or at least not yet!!


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A Look Back

Today I was looking back at old pictures of Mia the first day we got her-- May 21, 07 (almost 5 months ago). I love these two pictures for a number of reasons. I love how smitten Kevin was with Mia. He could not take his eyes off her. He was just so immediately in love it blew me away.

I also love how Mia looks in this picture. She looks so little and afraid. At the time I did not think she was scared or fearful at all, but this picture shows how tentative she was. It took her a few days to start to open up and even after we were home she opened up more, but this picture shows- a whole hour or so after meeting us for the first time- wearing the clothes from her foster home- how tentative she was.

This picture is also from Gotcha day and I love the way Mia is looking at me. Again, it shows how tentative she was. She was totally checking me out. I think back and she was really quiet the first few days. She never really cried and we did get smiles out of her but for the most part she was really quiet and studied our every move- just like in this picture. It blows me away daily when I see how far my little girl has come in just 5 (almost) short months. From a tentative and quiet little one to a CONSTANTLY babbling, outgoing and smiley little 11 month old girl-- WOW!! She is amazing!!

A Look Back

Sorry all. For some reason the picutres were comming up on my computer but not on any other computers. I think the new one works.

Christy :)

She's A Walkin Fool!!!!

OK, I don't mean Mia is a fool but she is, as Shreck so eloquently put "she's a Walkin Fool!!!" Part of Mia's day ALWAYS includes walking around with her walker. She loves her walker and she loves to push the nose of the lion and dance to the music. It is so darn cute I just cant stand it!! We live on a street that is not really busy but we get a car every 15 min or so, therefore I like to go into the cold-e-sac across the street for some uninterrupted walk time. I took my camera today and here are some cute pics and video.

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Sunday Afternoon at Oak Glen

First of all let me say that Mia made it through the whole worship service at church today-- yaaaa!!!! I made it a point to say goodbye and then left. I kept looking at the pager during the service because it was not going off. Finally the service ended and I went to pick her up and she had just woken up from a short nap and was fussing but other than that she did GREAT!!! It was such a relief that she is doing OK on her own both last night and then again today. I am going to keep the trend going by leaving her for short times in the next week. I have an hour long Psych meeting (all out district psychs get together to discuss work issues) tomorrow morning and she is staying with my sister during the meeting so I will let you know how she does.

After church we went to Oak Glen which is an apple growing area in the hills of Southern California. It is beautiful up there and we decided to take some pictures. We don't have a lot of family shots so this was an attempt. There are a few cute ones but nothing that I totally love. I will say, I have a new found respect for photographers. Let's put it this way, happy nice sweet words were not flowing from my mouth as we were ATTEMPTING to take these pictures. Oh no, don't let the smiles deceive you. I was not happy during much of the picture taking time. The more the boys misbehaved the more determined I got that we were going to get a good picture-- darn it!!!! Alas, my efforts were fruitless and my anger unnecessary as there were very few pictures that were good. Anyway, I decided to post individually the ones that are OK and the remainder are in the collages.

Enjoy!!

I do love this picture. It is sweet!

She just looks so pretty

So so but OK

Too bad Owen's face is covered a bit. I really liked this picture. I wish there was a way to move the leaves-- uggg!!!

Boys in the tree-- my handsome boys!!

Owen in a tree-- just so darn cute!!

Ethan in the tree-- Mr. Handsome!

Family shot in front of the packing house

Examining the apple

Pumpkin Girl

Mommy and Mia

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These are many of the other photos taken at Oak Glen

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More Oak Glen pictures