So Long HSB!

Tomorrow is closing day.  I'm posting now because we won't have the internet up and running for a day or two in the new home.

Of course, tomorrow won't be easy or as simple as we'd hope.  Jay has his regional exam in San Antonio at 7:30am.  Then he'll head over to meet me at the closing.  Then I'll head to the new house and Jay will head back to the condo one last time to pick up our pop-up camper.  It would be insane for him to tow it down at 5:30 in the morning and then find a place to park it during his exam, not to mention the fact that it tends to blow tires.  He doesn't need that stress in the dark morning hours wearing a business suit.

We may be camping in the house for a while, doing laundry in the bathtub, and sleeping in sleeping bags until our stuff from Nebraska arrives (still working on dates with our friends who will do the loading of shipping containers), but I'm still excited to have our own place again and ample space to spread out.

I'd appreciate your prayers for the following:

Safe travel down to San Antonio, including the pop-up camper which tends to blow tires.  It's impossible to change a flat on that thing on our own as it needs a larger jack.  In the interest of saving money, we let our AAA membership expire when Jay lost his job, so we'd be relying on our Auto insurance to help us if we blow a tire.

Pray for a smooth closing, with no surprises and no hiccups or glitches, etc.  You could pray for well behaved children during the appointment as well.

But other than the camper and the closing, my largest prayer request is for our Quiet Tiger.  Think about it.  Her life has already been disrupted twice - once when her birth mom left her at the gate of the orphanage.  The second time, when I met her in China and took her out of her country and into a foreign land, a new home.  But it wasn't really going to be her forever home - it was my mother-in-law's condo.  Tomorrow she will leave this condo, her temporary home for a more permanent one.  But she'll leave behind the familiarity of this place, the rooms she knows, the furniture she knows (it's all Grandma's), the sights and smells of her first US home.  Tomorrow it all changes.  This is bound to stress her out, especially as we sleep in sleeping bags for a while (I am taking Grandma's pack-n-play with us for now to contain L at night).  I expect her to regress, to throw fits, to be sad and confused, to even break out in hives (please no!) but I pray these things don't happen.

Please pray for her during this transition.  Pray that our bond would be strong enough for her to know that mama and baba are always here, no matter where "here" is.  Pray for her to love her new home!  Pray for her to somehow understand that this is an exciting adventure that we are on as a family, one that we have been praying for since the day Jay lost his job in California this past spring.

Thanks for all the support, friends!  I'll update the blog as soon as we have internet connected in the new house.  It may be a day or two.

So long, Horseshoe Bay!

Let's Try This Again -- HOUSE!!!

Many of you may have seen my Facebook status that we had an urgent prayer request a few weeks ago on a Tuesday night about the [first] house we had an offer on in San Antonio.  What happened?  Well, as my realtor called at 6pm to confirm that the appraisal was being ordered, he asked me, "You do know that this home is in a flood plain, don't you?"

Um, no. 

The disclosure filed by the seller did not state that it was in a flood plain and the realtor didn't tell us that it was, even when we asked about it repeatedly since the home backs to a greenbelt and has a rain culvert right next-door.  I wish it didn't get 2 weeks into the buying process to figure this out.  I'll also say that the selling agent lived right next door to the property and she didn't even disclose the flood plain on her listing.  Hmmmm.

After living in Nebraska and witnessing the Nebraska/Iowa flood of 2011 and then watching my family in Minnesota experience "total losses" this year with the catastrophic Duluth flooding, I just couldn't go forward with a home in a flood plain.  I couldn't.

NE/IA flooding 2011

NE/IA flooding 2011

Duluth, MN flooding 2012 - this is Jay Cooke State Park close to where my grandparent's home was.

Duluth, MN flooding 2012

The very next day, I looked at 80 more houses online as we put the purchase of "Flood Plain House" on hold.  Jay drove by a few of the homes I liked online while he was in San Antonio for work.  He called later and told me to go ahead and schedule appointments because he found the neighborhoods desirable, and on Thursday I packed up the kids and we drove down to look at almost 8 or 9 more houses while Jay worked.

I don't recommend looking at houses with 3 children and no husband.  At one point, all 3 children were in tears at the same time.  Oh, please.

We now have officially let go of "Flood Plain House," have received our earnest money back (thanks for praying for that, those of you who knew) and have put an offer on another home.  Since our bank already has all of our paperwork on file, we should still be able to get in before October is up.  It will be the first week of November at the latest.

The home is in a great neighborhood with a much nicer feel to it than the first home.  It's actually a little bit hilly, which I love!  Any rain water will run right past us and keep going down!  Hard to believe this house was actually a bit cheaper than "flood plain house."  This house offers 5 bedroom too!  On the main level of the house is a HUGE master bedroom with a private master bath and huge walk-in closet.  This will actually be our guest room and great for Jay's dad when he visits due to his declining health.  The eat-in kitchen is a bit smaller than I'd like and it doesn't have the walk-in pantry that I loved in the previous house.  But I'll make due and I'll figure out where to store all my appliances.  There is one main living/dining room on the main level and a half bath too.

Upstairs has 4 bedrooms.  The upstairs master is smaller than the main floor master, but not by much and it's just fine for us.  I like being close to my kids in the middle of the night when they are young.  We may eventually want the space of the downstairs master when the kids are older.  We'll see.  The upstairs master bath is a touch smaller than the lower master bath, but not by much either.  They both have double sinks and tub/shower and toilet and huge walk-in closets.  The kids rooms are very large!  The boys will have plenty of room for their bunk beds and dressers and toys [the ones too small for Lauren] to boot.  Jay will take the smallest upstairs bedroom as his office since he'll be doing quite a bit of work from home.  All that rooms needs is a ceiling fan (all the other rooms have one).  Hopefully we can score a nice desk and file cabinets on Craig's List or garage sales.  The laundry room is also upstairs like the first house.  Still not sure I'll like it because it means kenneling the dogs in the kitchen downstairs instead of in a mudroom which I prefer, but I'll get used to it.  The upstairs also has a loft which will be big enough for our sectional, the kids toys and a home school area.  The carpets are all pristine, walls a nice beige that will never have to be painted (and I don't intend to, much to the surprise of my friends who know how much I LOVE color).  The fixtures are all nicely updated with no older brass finishes.  Nothing in this house needs to be done.  Maybe, just maybe in the future we could rip out carpet and put in hardwood, but not for quite a few years, and only for resale.  The backyard could use a shed for tools since the garage is only a 2-car, but we can do that later.  Landscaping is great!  It's just move in and be home.  HOME!!!!  We didn't have that with the "flood plain house" (required paint and a lot of work in the bare backyard).

And the best part?  The backyard has a pool!  Our realtor thinks the pool was a negative feature for the home because it was on the market for 97 days.  For us, with our kids in the hot Texas climate, the pool was a perk!  The boys are so excited.  This momma-fish is quite excited too.  Now to learn how to care for it myself so I don't have to call a professional.  How can we home school in the pool?  I'll find a way!

Lest you think we are going crazy with a 5 bedroom home with a pool after losing 2 jobs and completing an international adoption, remember that this is Texas, folks.  This house is in the "starter home" price range.  Insane, right?  It is tens of thousands cheaper than our first home in Chicago that we bought as newlyweds 11 years ago, working in ministry and it's also cheaper than our second home in Nebraska.  Housing is just so insanely cheap down here and that's why Jay wanted to try living here until we have our feet underneath ourselves again as he builds a business.  Once his business becomes successful, we'll have more options to move elsewhere if we desire to be closer to family again.  For now, we kind of wanted to start all over, be conservative and have the smallest mortgage possible.  We've never been over our heads with our mortgages in the past, but after everything we've been through and how all of you have helped us adopt and then bring home our daughter while unemployed, we vow to pay it forward and give generously when we are able.  To whom much is given, much is required.  We know that full well and we want our lives to reflect that.  That means a "starter home" is the best place for us for now.

While house hunting this time, I didn't take my camera with me because it was a last-minute, unexpected trip early in the morning with 3 kids with massive bed-head.  For now, enjoy a few outside shots from the listing.  The original interior pictures showed the home lived in (it's now vacant) and I don't want to post pictures of someone else's furniture, so hopefully these will do for now.  If I have to run back to San Antonio for any reason between now and closing, I'll see if I can get in to take more pictures of it vacant.

Prayers appreciated that we don't lose this one and that we can move in before Halloween!

In comparison to "Flood Plain House," this one has a much nicer, more elegant feel to both home and neighborhood.

"Can we have a pool, dad?  Can we have a pool, dad?  Can we have a pool, dad?"

The pool was a selling feature for us here in the hot Texas climate.  And with it being so nicely done with a beautiful deck and nice landscaping, we love it for our fish kids!

Wrestling

Be prepared for the real side of adoption; the ugly side, the sad side.

We may never really know the truth about our daughter's first 22 months on this earth before I met her face to face.  Her birthdate is at best, an estimate based on her dental development.  But I do know that she was relinquished at the gate of the orphanage around a month and a half after she was born.  I know that she was in an older orphanage, but at some point, her town opened a brand new, beautiful orphanage and all the kids and caregivers were rehoused there.  The pictures we have in the scrapbook I was given on Gotcha Day show a beautiful, clean building with play rooms, classrooms, toddler rooms with cribs, et cetera.

A view of her bandaged leg in the orphanage.

While facilities may be nice and pristine, the care may not be as spotless, in our eyes.  After we received our referral and were matched with L, we were so anxious to receive more current photos of her.  When we received those treasured photos, I quickly noticed what appeared to be a bandage on L's left ankle.  Her feet fit into identical shoes, but the ankle and lower leg clearly looked different from her right.  I inquired about it and weeks later, my agency heard from China that L was healthy and had sustained no injuries, there was no cause for alarm about her leg.

Not too long after that, a friend also adopting from China posted a picture of her waiting daughter on her blog with a tether around her ankle.  My eyes were opened to the fact that some orphanages around the world tether children to cribs, chairs, toilets and the like.  It's not just something you read about in the news and wonder if it's really a half-truth.  It happens.  It's unthinkable, isn't it?  But it happens.  I looked back at the picture of L and her bandaging on her leg.  Could that have been some sort of protection to her skin for times when she had been tethered to her bed or was it indeed a bandage concealing a hidden scar, bodily harm caused by being tied to some immovable object?  I may never know the answer.

L's ankles today.  Notice the purple scars, especially on her right leg.

Upon coming home with L, I certainly noticed marks on her right ankle, not the one bandaged in the picture.  She has faint lines on her left ankle and deep lines on her right.  Wanting to put the idea of tethering out of my mind, I put my hopes into the thought that maybe the lines on L's ankles are amniotic bands.  In reality, there is a chance that they are scars from being tethered.  Pediatricians can guess, but we may never know the truth.

We've found additional reason to believe L was tethered to her crib.  Lately we've been dealing with L's RMD - Rhythmic Movement Disorder - when she sleeps.  She'll lay there in her crib and will kick a foot to soothe herself into slumber.  She didn't do this until after she had been home for a few months and it has forced us to put her to sleep upstairs in her own room rather than sleeping in our room for bonding's sake.  Her RMD would keep us up at night.  Guess which foot she kicks?  The right one - the one with the deep scar.  It is, perhaps, just a little bit of a glimpse into her past.

However last week brought more disturbing behavior from my daughter.  I witnessed something fascinating, but in a heart wrenching sort of way.

I was doing school with my boys on Thursday morning.  C was in the back bedroom reading his history book and I set E up at the dining room table doing his handwriting activities while I quickly looked over the home inspection report that had just come into my email box.  I moved into the living room to read the report while L played in front of me.  She was lying in a pile of couch cushions and pillows that had been left by my boys from their most recent fort building spree.  L was laying on top of it all and was making a strange noise.  I can best describe it as a third fake, a third angry or frustrated, and a third sad or upset.  Needless to say, it was a strange sound, one I'd never heard from her before.  I looked up from my iPad to see what was bugging her.  She was on her back, on top of all the cushions, with a light blanket over her midsection.  Her head, arms and legs were all uncovered and free.  She was not pinned or trapped in the slightest.

Let me interrupt this story by saying that L dislikes blankets.  In China she was indifferent to them.  Once home, she simply didn't want one.  I'd lay one across her at bedtime and I'd later find it on the floor outside her crib.  She never cried over them but she'd toss them out once I left the room.  I quickly stopped even offering one.  We recently had a cool day here in Texas.  I didn't want to turn the furnace on, but it wasn't cold enough for a thick blanket sleeper for L to wear at bedtime either.  I laid L down in her crib and pulled a baby blanket out of the drawer behind me.  She screamed an enormous fit at the sight of it.  This was a whole new reaction entirely.  It was not a battle I was going to fight with a tired 2 year old at bedtime.  If she was fine without a blanket, I'd fold it up and lay it back in the drawer.  No need for drama.  Case closed.

So, watching L with this blanket in the living room was curious.  She'd lay on her back, blanket hardly covering her, she'd kick and wrestle it with this angry, yet sad, fake cry.  Not even 5 seconds later she'd roll onto her belly, out from under the blanket, looking almost like a cat that had just pounced on a mouse, and she'd immediately stop her fussing.  Five seconds later, she'd roll back onto her back and then reach and pull the blanket back over her belly; her arms, legs and head still free and unencumbered.  A few seconds of odd fussing again, then roll back over and stop fussing.  Then onto her back again with fussing repeated, then roll to her stomach without a sound further.  You get the picture.  Over and over and over again she'd wrestle with this blanket for a good 5-7 minutes while I silently watched this odd drama from the couch.  She was acting something out.

I wrote to my adoption community on Facebook and without offering my inference first, one friend in particular confirmed my unspoken suspicions.  She knew of some orphanages in China where children are bound in blankets and then strapped to their cribs.  And this wasn't her educated guess.  She had seen it with her own eyes and had even taken a picture.  In an instant, L's drama in the living room brought to light the idea that she was most likely bound in blankets and tied to her crib, unable to move freely.  It would also explain some raw skin L had on her waistline when I got her in China.  Thankfully, those lines went away with love and care and lots of baby lotion which she loved!  Her little act on the living room floor was acting out her anger and sadness over being trapped in her metal crib.  And rolling over onto her belly and being out from under the blanket was her escape.  She was wrestling for her freedom - freedom that she didn't have in China, freedom that she does have here.

We're not naive enough to believe that these practices don't exist.  We went into our adoption knowing that some orphanages, not all orphanages in our world, may use these practices.  Our required adoption training referenced it.  But we never imagined our daughter may have witnessed it herself.  This is tough!  So tough, it brings me to tears.  I would guess that the average person like me wouldn't understand how a 2 year old can have the memory, the recall of the traumatic events in her short little life.  But my daughter is proof.  She remembers and she's wrestling with her sad past and her happy present.  It's a heartbreaking reality.  No child should have to endure what my daughter may have endured.

Rest assured that my sweet girl is happy and has adjusted very well.  This was just a very rare, eye opening incident.  The rest of her day was happy and uneventful and the days that have followed since have been without incident.  But I'm just so thankful that L is now free with us here at home, yet I seek your prayers for the healing of her body, mind and spirit and that she can move on, free from the weight of her past, free to embrace her freedom and the love we desire to pour into her life.

I know God will do amazing things through my daughter and her story - her whole story.  I trust Him.


PS...  You don't read many stories like this online because many people don't talk openly about it.  I do not write this to blast my daughter's home country for their actions because this happens in other countries too.  Without China, we wouldn't have a daughter.  We love her culture and we will raise her to honor her rich heritage.  Its our utmost privilege to raise one of China's beautiful, precious daughters.  And I certainly do not want to open any of this up for debate or human rights discussions.  I'm not even opening up the comments section on this post.  This is simply our story.  It's just what we are dealing with now and I am choosing to speak out with the hopes that this might reach another family struggling with similar concerns so they would know they are most certainly not alone.

4 Months

Our Quiet Tiger, Miss L, has been home for 4 months.  Just a quick update on how she is doing.

Happy girl!

Overall, she's doing great!  She is happy and adjusted.  She doesn't appear to be grieving her life back in the orphanage in Shaanxi.  It's a thing of the past.  She likes to laugh and loves being tickled.  She's quick to come give me a hug and a kiss.  She loves her daddy now, despite wanting nothing to do with him when we first came home.  She gets along well with her biggest brother C, but she is still jealous over her other big brother Super E.  She loves the dogs, the guinea pig and all the stray cats and deer running through the condo complex.  She still loves to sing.

She loves her daddy!

We continue to battle food issues.  While she doesn't always sit and stare at me in the kitchen while I'm preparing food as much (she still does it, just to an ever so slightly less degree), she will still scavenge and scrounge after a meal for any scraps that might have fallen on the floor.  Mmmm... floor food.  Ick!  She'll still cry after eating a full meal if the food is all gone.  For a time, I was allowing her to eat as much as she wanted, whenever she wanted, at the advice of adoption physicians who specialize in food issues.  I saw my daughter balloon up virtually overnight and it really didn't sit well with me.  She could seriously eat a whole box of Cheerios and then come wailing to me for more.  I was told that it would be okay if she became obese in the short term as she's learning to deal with food.  But when on this blessed earth is it ever okay to become obese?  As a mom who admittedly and embarrassingly needs to lose a good 30 pounds, I couldn't watch my daughter become large enough to outgrow her 2T clothes when she's a healthy height and weight on the Asian Growth Charts.  So, I carefully monitor how much she eats and I offer healthy meals and snacks.

Not happy the meal is over.

Thankfully, her hives are a thing of the past, having linked them not to food but to the pool here at my mother-in-law's condo.  She doesn't react to any other pool we have visited.  Just this one.  So, we've kept her out and no more nasty hives!

Swimming at Aunt Patti's pool where her skin does NOT break out in hives!

Although she is doing so well, she is so defiant.  Let me retype that.  She is SO DEFIANT!  You can tell me, "Hey Brooke, she's 2.  She's supposed to be defiant," but you haven't seen this girl.  Everything out of her mouth is no.

"Don't kick the dog."

"No."

"Don't hit dad's computer."

"No."

"Don't play with electric cords."

"No."

"Don't take dirty laundry out of the hamper."

"No."

"Don't touch the remotes."

"No."

I can try to put a positive spin on things and tell her all the things she is allowed to do and it goes something like this:

"Go play with toys."

"No."

"Let's play chase with your brothers."

"No."

"Give daddy a kiss."

"No."

"Let's change your diaper."

"No."

"You can have a banana after your nap."

"No."

This girl does not know how to say "yes."  We started disciplining pretty early after she was home.  She has become one with the naughty step and some days she just seems to prefer it there.  If she's interrupting while I'm home schooling the boys, I'll tell her to go play with toys.  You know her answer.  I'll give her the option of playing with toys right next to us or coloring in her high chair or to go sit on the naughty step all by herself and she'll put herself on the step.  Every time.

She loves her big brother C and he's pretty smitten too.

And it's not just "no."  It's also refusing to listen and follow directions.  This week alone, she has come into the kitchen while I was taking dinner out of the hot oven and she walked towards me with her hands out, ready to touch the oven or the hot dish.  I said, "No!  Danger!  Hot!"  She backed up a few feet and then came right back at me again with hands outstretched as I was closing the oven door.  Same thing with the computer.  I was on it this afternoon right after lunch and before her nap time and she reached out to touch the computer (this is off limits to her and always has been).  I told her, "no touch" and she gave me one look and then whacked it before I could grab her hand.  Oh, she is naughty and she is giving me a run for my money!  Most days I really, honestly wonder if she'll ever learn.  She thinks she has control and she is refusing to give up.  Well, you and I know that she won't win.  I just hope she learns sooner than later for everyone's sanity!  Thankfully, I'm not alone in this venture.  My amazing adoption "family" group also reports similar stories in their households.  It's good to have people to vent to when you know that they fully understand because they have also adopted.

Her hair is getting just about long enough to pin back into a small clip and she's learning to tolerate "pretties" too.  It always looks best when her hair is wet, immediately after her bath.  But once it dries, the short hairs tend to slip themselves out and the clip is history.  Another inch or so and hopefully they'll really stay in.

Getting used to "pretties" in her hair.

She is now sleeping upstairs in her room here at the condo and no longer in our room for bonding's sake.  I can't wait to see how she reacts to her own room in our future house!  She still HATES blankets though and lately will scream if I pull one out of the drawer on a cool night.  Not sure what the hysterics are about.  It's not a battle I'm willing to fight, so if she doesn't want any blankets in her crib at night, that's less laundry for me to do during the week.  I know my friend Hilary's daughter doesn't care for blankets.  Anyone else out there?  Why does she freak out over them?

Home for 4 months!

It's been rough, I'm not going to lie.  Most days I feel like I'm drowning.  Our family circumstances are still crazy and time is running out for us here at my mother-in-law's condo.  My boys are begging for their belongings still in storage in Nebraska.  I'm longing for a place to call home.  Jay needs to be in his region for his 10 hour a day job and not commuting 3 hours a day to boot.  Please keep us in your prayers for all our general life stuff to iron out and for Miss L to lose the naughty, control-freak behavior and also to overcome her food issues.  Somewhere around 6-8 months home, adopted children tend to start showing their true personalities.  So, I'm excited to see what the next few months will bring.

HOUSE!!!!

I am so excited to announce that my family has placed an offer for purchase of our next home, negotiated overnight and this morning - and was accepted!!!  Oh my gosh, friends.  You have no idea how completely agonizing the last 14 months have been.

On August 6, last year we left Nebraska for California, leaving behind our fully furnished, decorated home because it showed better furnished.  We packed up 1 suitcase each, plus a couple of boxes of toys for the kids and that is what we lived on for 9 LONG months.  I know life isn't about all our STUFF.   But we never guessed our sacrifices of the comforts of home, the basic necessities and the familiarity of our own beds and pillows, and the simple joy of children's toys would seem so endless.  We thought surely our house would sell the very minute we left town and that we'd be able to settle into a home outside of Sacramento quickly and easily.  Not so much.

We moved in with 3 host families over the course of 9 LONG months.  I am so grateful for the Souzas for opening up their brand new home to my family of 4; then the Martinezes with the 3 boys of their own, for sharing their bedrooms and toys, not to mention the holidays; and lastly the Raus for allowing us to stay in their trailer and to be reunited with our dogs and feel like a complete family on your beautiful, peaceful ranch (especially when we needed that peace the most).  You 3 families gave us the gift of our family, because without your help we would have been separated by 2 time zones and mountain ranges for endless months while we waited for that darn Nebraska house to sell.

And again, my sincerest thanks to the Lew's for housing and taking such good care of our dogs for 7 months.  We never intended it to be that long but we're so grateful for your graciousness and sweet spirit so that we didn't have to give up our beloved American Eskimos.  Even our guinea pig Russell had a foster home too, with the amazing Le family.  I'm still a little sad that piggies Russell and Sally couldn't get married and have a family of their own.  Ha!

After a year on the market, our house in Nebraska finally sold this past spring but our time in California was cut much too short.  I'm still struggling with why God sent us there only to have our feet cut out from beneath us just weeks before I was to pick up my daughter in China and literally 2 days before we were going to put an offer on a home in California.  We had no place to bring our daughter home!  I can't tell you how completely lost and hurt I was.

Those feelings lasted all summer long as we moved into my mother-in-law's condo in Texas - the only place big enough to house us all that would give my daughter the room she required as part of our adoption agreements.  Texas?  Really, God?  Is this really where you want us?  Apparently so.  We had friends put all our stuff into storage in Nebraska while I went from:

Northern California...

to Texas... 

to China... 

and back to Texas... 

in 3 short weeks.  

Despite dozens and dozens of resumes sent to churches and non-profits across the country, no jobs popped up for my husband all summer.  The only things that came up were here.  And the job we took is here, for now.  So...

San Antonio, Texas will be our home!  We close in October, likely in about 20 days (still waiting on the title company to determine exactly when).  We'll pack up our few belongings here at the condo, drive down to sign all the closing papers, run to Home Depot for a carpet cleaning machine and then spend the rest of the day cleaning in preparation for our STUFF from Nebraska to be delivered to a very, very anxious wife and momma, 2 excited boys who are so thrilled to have their toys and bunk bed back and a little girl who has no idea that she has a full-sized crib, books, toddler toys, even a Jeep for her to drive, all on it's way.

Please see our prayer request page.  But for now...

Thanks, God for our new home!  I pray Your hand of blessing on the house and our family there in the years to come.  Amen.

Our soon-to-be new home!

View of the Living/Dining Room from the front door.  We LOVE the hard wood floors!  Planning to spray all the fixtures a silver color to get rid of the brass finishes - a temporary, cheap fix for now.

View of the formal Living Room from the Kitchen (we'll likely use this LR area as our home school area).  The door on the far left wall is an under-the-stairs storage closet.  Crown molding would look great in this house... eventually!

Kitchen.  My mom says this reminds her of my kitchen in Nebraska.  Same layout.  That open door you see on the right is a walk-in pantry (I'm not excited about that - YES I AM!!!)  The door that you can barely see on the left leads to the back yard.  I can hardly wait to paint the cabinets white and put some cool hardware on them.  Also, a glass tile backsplash would be amazing and fun to do!

Family Room right off the Kitchen.  Call me crazy, but I'm thrilled to have a fireplace, even in Texas!  I can HARDLY WAIT to hang the stockings on the mantle this Christmas!

Master Bedroom is HUGE!  I seriously will be looking at garage sales for furniture to fill this room.  Love the tray ceiling, just like my bedroom in Nebraska.  The whole house is painted very neutral beige and livable for quite a while.  Carpet upstairs is also very nice and clean!

Master Bath has double sinks, garden tub and separate shower.  Again, would love to paint the cabinets white!

Master tub and shower.  The door on the left is the walk-in closet, which is decent sized, but not enormous like in some homes we had seen.

The upstairs has a Loft that will serve as the kids play area.  That's right... THREE living spaces in one home.   This is awesome since we are giving up a basement that we had in Nebraska where the kids had all their toys.

Upstairs Bath only has 1 sink for all the kids.  That's a bummer.  Double sinks are hard to find down here, at least in our price range.  Oh well.  

The laundry room us upstairs and is quite large.  Not sure I'll like having laundry upstairs (I like a mudroom on the main level for the dogs) but we'll see.  Jay says I'll love it.  We still won't allow our dogs upstairs.  I need a fur-free zone!

Not pictured are the bedrooms.  They just don't photograph well.  But in addition to the Master upstairs, there are 2 additional bedrooms upstairs with decent sized closets.  The boys will still share the largest bedroom and L will have her own room.  On the main level of the house is bedroom #4 which will be a guest room/office.  That bedroom also comes with a full bath on the main level of the home.  It feels nice to have the guest room/office set apart from the rest of the house!

I don't have pictures of the back yard either, but its a clean slate.  Heck, there isn't even a patio out there.  That will be the first thing we add.  But the home backs to a greenbelt, so no one will ever build behind us.  It's a fully fenced yard for the dogs.  I'd love to see a patio and shed, trees and flowers out there sooner than later.  We'll see if we can swing that. 

Introducing Brooke's Best

The day I joined Pinterest I thought I was crazy.  I mean, who has time for one more thing?  Who needs one more mindless activity to consume our time on the web?

True confession:  I love it!  I often enjoy browsing after the kids are in bed and Jay and I are relaxing with a show on TV.  It's kind of my "me activity," something I do for myself to relax after a long day with the kids.  I know a lot of you might not have time or even interest in Pinterest.  That was me.  But I will say you are missing out on some fun stuff!

After months and months on Pinterest I found myself doing nothing with any of my pins.  Absolutely nothing.  I just pinned and left it alone.  After a while, that bugged me because if I wasn't doing anything with my pins, then I really was just wasting my time.  After a few months haitus due to life and a little trip to China, I have attempted to try one pin a week, be it a recipe, a home schooling activity, a cleaning product, etc.

So now my blog is going to have a little added feature that I'm calling Brooke's Best.  It's my best Pinterest pins that I have personally tried.  I'll give you the direct link to the pin's website (not my Pinterest board in case you don't want to join), my rating, any pros and cons, likes or dislikes, or tweaks or changes.  I'll try to categorize my blog pages here on the tabs above and it would be my goal to keep up with the 1 new pin a week and then blogging about it.  Have a question about something I blog about and you can just leave a comment on that page and I'll get back to you [hopefully] with an answer.

I hope you enjoy Brooke's Best.

Words with Quiet Tiger

Kids are sponges, aren't they?  I've been trying to keep a running list of all the words L says and the stories behind them (because you'll laugh at us).   For the most part, these are in order of her progress, as best I can remember.  She's learning quickly and I thought you might enjoy hearing her progress.  Don't miss the video at the end, but don't you dare scroll down to that first.  :)

• Mama...  She knew this word in China and would point to my picture in her photo album, but she didn't point to me in person.
• Baba...  Daddy in Mandarin
• Ge ge...  Big brother in Mandarin
• Gou... Dog in Mandarin - I included pictures of our dogs in the photo album.
• Hi...  She said this in China with me while we were looking out the window in our hotel and waving to the traffic below.
• Ball...  She loved the beach ball I brought to China for her.
• Uh-oh...  Her first word at home, but at first she'd call everything an "uh-oh."  Only a day later and she was using it correctly.
• Noodle... She loves eating them (she's back on wheat again - yay!) and she likes playing with the pool noodles too.
• Good, good, good!...  My mom said this over the webcam one night to her and she loves saying it.
• Bye bye
• Night-night
• Hi kitty... She loves the stray cats that roam around the condo complex
• Hi deer...  She also likes the deer that roam through the neighborhood both here and at Jay's aunt's place. 
• All done...  A very rare occurrence heard from her high chair, complete with sign language.
• Polo...  We play a lot of Marco Polo in the pool.
• Hey!...  She likes The Duck Song on YouTube.
• Ow...  She repeated big brother C with this one and she was smiling thinking she had learned a new word.  She now uses it correctly.
• Cow/Moo...  She only said this once on National Cow Day (yes, there is such a thing apparently) and the church we were visiting that weekend offered free milk shakes and had 2 cows we could all pet.  She seemed to like the cows and I wished I had my camera.  She was fascinated and she'd point to them and say, "cow."
• Miami...  Here's the story:  When we first took L into the pool, she didn't want to swim with Jay, only me.  To keep things fun, Jay would take L in his arms, make choo-choo sounds and visit all the number placards for the depth markers along the pool wall.  3 feet.  4 feet.  5 feet.  But the company that made the pool has their own logo on the steps and that would be Jay's last stop - "Miami Pools."  :)
• Eight...  Swimming at the fancy pool at Jay's aunt's neighborhood, their pool goes up to a whopping 8 feet, so L likes the number 8.
• Goggles...  She likes all our goggles in the pool.
• Boat...  She loves watching the boats at Aunt Patti's lake house.  Even a wave runner is a boat to her.  Oh, and she's learned boating etiquette too - waving to all the boaters passing by.
• More...  Complete with the sign for it.
• Xie xie...  Loosely pronounced "shay shay."  Thank you in Mandarin (I loved it when she started saying this (along with gou for dog) and hearing her speak her native language because the nannies said she wasn't saying any words in the orphanage).
• Yay!...  Complete with a big smile and clapping hands and usually heard when I'm taking food out of the oven.  (sigh) 
• Bucket...  We carry all the pool toys in an old ice cream bucket.
• Ta Da!!!...  Oh, she is so pleased with herself sometimes. 
• Stay/sit...  Talking to the dogs.
• Wo ai ni...  Mandarin for "I love you."  My heart melted the first time I heard it and this phrase now flows freely from her mouth.  Oh, my heart!
• Eww... She doesn't like bugs.
• Ninjago...  (Heavy sigh).  Her brothers are obsessed with the show and she sings along with them.  Are your boys obsessed with Ninjago like mine?  I think I need a support group - for ME! :)   It's all they talk about.
• Rock...  From watching her brothers play rock, paper, scissors.  She also likes the rocks around the hot tub at Aunt Patty's.
• Daddy...  She has started this one recently.
• Bye bye, dead bug. ...  Her first full sentence.  She doesn't like bugs and she doesn't like them in the pool.  So, after she shouts "Eww!" I go over and scoop up the dead bug and flip it out into the grass.  I must have said once, "Bye bye, dead bug," because she says it every time now.
• Bow...  She's learning to like bows in her hair but they still don't last long.
• Airplane...  When she sees the small planes flying into the local airstrip, she's fascinated by them and makes sure I'm watching them too.
• No/uh-uh...  I'm surprised this one took so long for her to say, after all, she is two!
• Yes... Only on rare occasion.  ;)
• Head...   She is learning the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes."
• Toes...  Again from the song.
• Minnie...  She loves Minnie Mouse.
• Torpedo...  We have these torpedo toys for the pool that we dive for.
• Bye lizard...  We drove away from Jay's aunt's house a couple weeks back and we waved goodbye to all the lizards that we were watching climb on their home.  She cracked us up with that one. 
• Please...  We've been working on this one.
• Pew!...  When she passes gas or makes a dirty diaper, she'll pinch her nose and wave the other hand.  Hysterical.
• I want that...  I heard this really quiet clear this morning when Super E was playing with one of her toys.  She was not happy to share!

For a girl who wasn't saying anything in an orphanage just a few months ago, she sure has come a LONG way!  I'm sure there are some things I'm missing too.  I think of something at 2am and tell myself to get it on here when I get up and do I remember?  No.  But L is a smart girl.  And she understands everything we're saying too, that's for sure.

I've been trying forever to get her to sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" for the camera.  Enjoy a quick 1-minute clip.  Sorry for the bed-head and lack of proper lighting.  You've got to catch these moments on camera when you can!