New Do's-Sage's First Haircut!

We had to borrow Grammy's camera on our way to our haircut! (grammy just got a new cut to!)
I was a wiggle worm during the cut!
Now you can see my beautiful eyes!
New Hair for Mommy & Makenna also! Bangs! Malaine got a trim, but wants to grow out her bangs!
Yeah for the New Do!

6 Months home/15 months old

I adore my big sister, and my pacifier still, not sure which is my favorite! ;)

Enjoying my first time out in the snow, it is cold!

Enjoying my first blizzard that mommy left sitting on the table.
YUM!

Sorry behind on posting. It has been a little crazy here! We have been having lots of fun and lots of parties so I apologize! Chinese New Year Party pictures coming soon...

6 months home, half of a year! WOW, wow. I remember when we first came home and this time seemed so far off. But here we are. We have been home long enough that our agency would now allow us to apply for our next adoption. Hmmm... We have been home long enough that China feels like a dream, some of the things I thought I would never forget, are slowly fading already. And we have been home long enough that life is just life. We feel settled and we feel happy. Sage is not so much only the new baby, but just another one of us and that is a peaceful feeling.

On a side note, remember my wonderful new camera we JUST bought? Well w/ out naming names, (but it was not a sister who is guilty) it was knocked off and i guess the lens hit the end table just right. No fixing that baby, we had to buy a new lens. Nothing covers that damage. Life...

Sage stuff for 15 months

• We are getting LOTS of teeth. We have officially 7 1/2, but her gums are SO swollen. I had her in the dr today and she said her molars are about through. I did not realize those came though before the middle teeth, but she did not find this odd. I HATE teething, to be honest worse than potty training. This has been by far the worst teether. Poor girl!
• Weighs in at 20 pounds still. She is losing that baby chub from all the running.
• moved to a big girl car seat! Still sitting backwards, did you know now they say backwards till 30pounds or till their legs are hitting, which hers are a ways off. She is so short!
• Eats, and eats and eats still! Every time she eats she gets a bath, which she loves, hmm, maybe she has a plan here, and does understand what happens when she rubs food in her hair!
• FINALLY gives kisses and it is the sweetest thing!
• When she is tired, she will go and get an empty bottle out of the cabinet, bring it to me and say nightnight.
• Sleeping, ask me once her teeth are in. For about a month now, she has been waking most every night. It is draining us. We are trying to figure out where to move her from our room, but till she sleeps better, feel she can't go near the other kids rooms. Mark says it is my own fault for bragging about her great sleeping. So no more bragging, I just want a full nights sleep!
• She is into EVERYTHING! You can't take your eyes off of her. She can have the entire kitchen cabinets pulled apart in about 90 seconds. And if I try to put things back, by the time i have that done she is in a toilet, or emptied all the trashcans in the house, or shredded up a pile of papers, or destroyed my piles of laundry i had sorted, or dumped over the dogs water and food, or , need I say more? We don't do much sitting that is for sure!
• She is becoming pretty friendly. Still not always sure once she first sees you if you can hold her, but let her warm up and she is NOT shy! Especially w/ her walking, she walks right up to everyone and grabs on to them, digs in their purse, very curious to figure everything out.
• Loves to "color" and draw!
• Loves music.
• Loves stuffed animals and baby dolls.

We are due for our 15 month checkup now. More shots, how fun! We had our 6 month home study visit last week. Our social worker asked me if i had my application ready to turn in for our next adoption.! Who knows what will happen. We are open to the Lords plan for our lives and if that includes another, He will make it happen. Right now we are so busy keeping up w/ 4 our heads are spinning most days! But despite the fact that the house is in chaos, the laundry piled sky high and we are not sleeping, we continue to count our blessings and know every smile we see, every kiss we get and hearing the pitter pat of 4 pairs of feet(or the stomps and jumps!)is a true gift and for that we are thankful.

Happy Valentines Day!

Our Luv Bugs..Makenna, Sage, Malaine & Sawyer

Sweet Sisters

Working hard on my valentines cards. I love to color!

Look Mommy, I signed my own name!

So, Do you think he needs a Brother?

Poor Sawyer. Girls EVERYWHERE! He does have a very cute bedroom of his own that is a Pirate Theme. Murals on the walls, an actual pirate ship for a bed. However, he does not want to sleep alone. He wanted to share Malaine's room. We reminded him that it was pink, but pink is better than sleeping alone. He did ask me to take down the butterfly pictures that were hanging over the bed and replace it w/ a spongebob calendar. And yes, he is playing Holly Hobby with his sister. What do you do when you have ALL sisters? Of course the holly hobbys were being kidnapped and held for ransom or something along those lines! If Mark questions on if he should be playing girl stuff, I remind him, China does have boys!

Hairbows!

You know we love hairbows here, and Sage was not with us a few hours and we had a big old bow on her head! She does really well overall keeping them on. Well my friend Stephanie who is Tatumn's mommy, is making hairbows now. Tatumn and Sage were in Chenzhou together. You can purchase one of these fun bows of your own at her site, here
The great thing is that Steph gets ribbon to match all gymboree lines and she gets them to you FAST! So check out her site and see the darling pictures of Sage's friend Tatumn. Her link is also on my sidebar, her site is called Adorned with Glory. And yes Sage is wearing the Valentines Bow upside down w/ a shirt full of drool, but still cute isn't she!
What do you think, is it time for a haircut yet?

Sleepy Time

White Swan Hotel, our last day, getting ready for the Consulate.

Waiting to make Sage "official", Day after Gotcha.

Sage with Bear, He is ALWAYS with her!

SWEET!

This weeks Friday Photo Challenge is all about sleep! And if you know me or most of my children, you know that sleep tends to be an issue here. Most of my kids don't sleep, or like to sleep. So there is NO WAY I have many pictures of them sleeping, as if I would risk waking them up! However, Sage is a much better sleeper so I do chance it w/ her. Here are a few of my favorites.

Laundry Fun!

Blessed with Information

Chen Yi Qiao 3/27/06 4 months old

6/20/06 7 months old(our 1 year anniverary of LID) & week of referral

8/14/06 9 months old-the week before we held her

Sage was a part of Half the Sky Foundation while she lived in Chenzhou, China. She was in the program almost her whole life. While in China were were given black and white pictures and some information. Once home I contacted Half the Sky to see if it was possible to get more information. We were so excited this weekend to get a package in the mail with the above pictures(the black & whites i had from China)! While the quality is not so great on the blog, because I simply took a picture of the picture, in person they are wonderful! We also got a report from each "season" that she was there.
We are lucky, I realize that. Most people bring their daughters home with nothing but maybe the clothes they were wearing on gotcha day. We not only have those clothes, we have the clothes she was found in. We have a picture of her from the first day she came to Chenzhou at 8 days old. We now have the above pictures along with her referral pictures from 5 months old. I have no doubt we are blessed to hold these treasures. And that is what they are. A treasure. While the pictures are just a glimpse of Sage, they are her. I can see it is her in the shape of her head, or the way she holds her toes, the concentration she has in those eyes, they are who I see now. And while there are days my heart still questions things, I am so thankful to God for the glimpse He has allowed us into Sage's past.

Profiles

Gotcha Day

Guangzhou with my new pearls!

Getting to know my big brother

Hello Great Grandpa

Makenna

Sawyer

I love Swimming!

Malaine in the Kansas City Snow!

Malaine

Makenna

Joining in once again to the Friday Fun Photo here

Changes

I am trying to play around with the blog, so hang on, hopefully I won't delete the entire thing! How do you like the pink?

Sage & Shoes

I joined in on the Family Photo Fun over here this week. One thing we have alot of (besides kids) is shoes. And we are so excited that Sage can now wear her squeaky shoes from China! Some in this photo are to small, some are to big, but we have a good collection for sure. And when not being worn, they keep Sage busy!

14 Months Old

First taste of White Castles and it's a winner! (as is ALL food!)Of course she is our child!

This is my favorite pose, here I am giving Sawyer lessons on standing on your head!

So Big!

Beautiful Sage

See my teeth and my long bangs!


We have held Sage for 5 months now! Sometimes China seems like it was just a dream. Other times it feels as if it was just yesterday that we were walking the streets and getting to know Sage. The first day I held her my heart was so full and I was so in love. Yet I am even more in love with her now, my heart continues to grow and stretch and she is so much a part of me, of all of us and we continue to give thanks for this blessing. She is a BUSY girl! She does not stop unless she is asleep. Loves to explore and nothing is safe, nor is she! We are doing ok with changing her bandage from the fireplace burn, we go back in a few more days to recheck that. It is not pretty. And I thought maybe she would be afraid of the fireplace now. Nope. She walked right up to it, looked at me, looked at it for a second and touched it with her non bandaged hand. Of course it was off, as it will be from now on when she is awake, but obviously even a BAD burn did not deter her. She is determined, or maybe we should say SPICY, as we were told those Hunan girls could be! Sage stuff for 14 months..

• Eats, and eats and eat. I am not sure she would stop eating. I guess all the walking makes you a hungry girl! Even with one hand she shovels it in! Will not eat it if she can't feed herself though. Makes for messy meals! Does not care for carrots, but that is about the only thing I have found that she won't eat.
  
• Have switched from formula to soy milk.
  
• weighing right about 20 pounds now.
  
• walking, walking, walking! She is fast & EVERYWHERE! Got to love those squeaky shoes, I can always tell where in the room she is. China is so smart!
• Now has 6 teeth, 4 top 2 bottom.
• Blows kisses, but refuses to give kisses. She thinks it is funny to tell me no.
  
• Puts everything in her mouth, but if I come near her pulls it right out and hands it over.
• Now climbs up all the stairs. (we figured that out when daddy was "watching" her downstairs and all of a sudden she was upstairs by herself!) We are trying to work on going down, not throwing ourselves down
• Still in our room, and sleeping pretty well overall this month. She is still taking 2 really good naps every day, goes to bed by 830 and sleeps on average till 7. Better than any of our other kids ever did.
  
• LOVES to dance & sing. When I sing to her she starts swaying her head and then if I stop she sings it back to me! SO cute!
  
• Remember I worried about attachment, well I am pretty confident that we are bonded as is anyone that wants to hold her! I can't believe how much that has changed. The first couple of months she let EVERYONE hold her. No looking back. Now, she fusses if you even act like you are going to take her. She is a mommy's girl, but gets very excited to see Daddy or her siblings.
  
• Knows where her hair, nose, eyes, ears and belly are.
  
• Repeats most words we say, we are amazed with how much she talks. Some new favorites in our house are Sissy for Makenna and Lainey for Malaine. We also love asking what a cow says, "MO"and a bear "AHHHH"

We are thankful to be starting out 2007 as a family of 6 and are grateful for the ways God has allowed us to grow. In the next month we will have our 6 month homestudy visit done, WOW!

Always Something

When asked "Sage, where is your owie", this is her reply, since she is always bumping her head!
It's been a VERY rough day, let me just sleep it off and forget about it.
It's a New Day & I feel much better & can even hold my cup w/ a bandaide on!

Who needs 2 hands, I can still walk!

Yesterday Sage touched the glass on the gas fireplace. I was right there, and did not catch her in time. She screamed forever as I tried to keep cold on it. The dr said to bring her in, and while I thought it was silly last night to go, today the blister looked pretty large. So, we went. The blister covers a good portion of her palm and for fear of infection they want to keep it wrapped for a week w/ antibiotic ointment on it. It took 3 of us to get it wrapped at the office, I am not sure what we will do here this week, it needs changed every day. So far she is doing great with the wrap. Only tried to pull at it once. She ate lunch fine w/ one hand. Has not acted like she is in pain. Will we survive walking? She fell in the tub one day and gashed the back of her head open, pulled open a cabinet and fell onto the corner of it and bruised her face, now this on her hand. And these all happen while I am standing RIGHT there watching her. Sigh.I think we need to move into a big rubber room where she can't run into anything!

It's Official, we have a walker!

I will get you Sissy, You better watch out, Here I come!
And back to Daddy. Is everyone watching, come on clap for me!
All that walking wears me out, how about a ride in my wagon? It is just my size!

Sage has been taking steps for quite awhile now. But for the last couple of weeks, she has been doing much more walking than crawling and I would now offically say she is a walker. Today we were out at the mall, and she was a riot wanting to walk like the big kids. In her squeaky shoes of course! She just seems way to tiny to be toddling around!