Grandma Winnie

We would appreciate your prayers for my Grandma Winnie. She is my mother’s mom and 93 years old. She is a lovely, godly woman and my Grandpa is waiting for her in heaven. Things have been tough for her these past months and getting increasingly difficult. She has been in and out of the hospital and emergency room more than I can count in these past few weeks. Her daughters and son have been with her for the past two months. Infection and drugs are making it near impossible to control her diabetes and blood pressure. We are praying that her body would stabilize so she can go home, that she would be free of pain, have rest, enjoy her children and be at peace. Thank you for your prayers.

Chinese New Year Celebration

Elle had a special friend from church over this morning and I enjoyed the company of her mother. We made cookies and played games while six inches of snow dropped outside. Huge, fluffy flakes coated all the trees - it's beautiful!

Due to the tremendous downfall, Eric's work let out early and he was home by the time the kids woke up from their naps. After a quick snack and change of clothes, we headed downtown to the art museum for the annual Chinese New Year celebration.

We saw dragon dancing, calligraphy demonstrations, a yo-yo performance and ate Chinese food. We also bumped into some friends from our adoption playgroup.

The dragon dance was fun, but loud! Zane was more than terrified and Elle got a little overwhelmed when one of the dragons decided to make her the object of his affections in front of a couple hundred people. The crowd cheered and said, 'He likes you! He likes you!' Elle wasn't as enamored.

The kiddos had a great time and we enjoyed the festivities. Elle said that the dumplings were her favorite part of the evening...they were good!!

There's a video below...been having problems with Blogger's video working or showing a double image...sorry!




Elle practicing some of her Chinese vocabulary.

Project Chosen

Jeanette, a China travel friend of ours, has launched Project Chosen. She decided to take the entire month of February and feature a family a day who has experienced the miracle of adoption.

It's a God moving mountain miracle when some stranger from the other side of the world places YOUR baby, that you've never touched or smelled but really know, in your arms for the very first time - it's just incredible! And then on top of all that goodness, we've had the privilege of seeing, up close, God do that same BIG stuff in about 30 other families. Reading these real life stories feels like being up close to another of God's mountain moving miracles!

See what God has done through the miracle of adoption at

Birth, Birthdays, Ballet & Babbel

We've been having fun around here! From fun to firsts, here's what's been going on...


We finally received Zane's Certificate of Birth in the mail on Saturday. We know we're Zane's parents, but now the Office of Vital Statistics knows too and we like seeing it in writing.

February is family birthday month! Today our nephew, Elijah (Zane's cousin that is also from Fujian), and our niece, Riley, celebrated their birthdays. Next Monday is our niece, Ami's, birthday (also from Elle's home Province of Jiangxi) and the following Monday, Elle turns four. We are celebrating these precious lives!


Today was Elle's first ballet class. She had a wonderful time and can't wait to return next week. She has been talking about wearing her pink leotard, pink tights, pink ballet shoes for a couple weeks now. And this morning she wanted to add pink pigtails and a pink barrett to the ensemble. She was adorable! Her teachers are godly women with incredible character, oh, and they can dance too. :) We're thrilled that Elle has a fun time with other girls from her church and community under the skill and loving care of these instructors. What a privilege for Elle to see even more examples of faithful women using their gifts.

Zane also had a first this evening. I showed him how to use the spoon last week, but he wasn't all that thrilled about it. I tabled the idea, but tonight he picked up the spoon with determination and got down to business. He doesn't have it mastered yet, but he's coming along. So proud of our boy - he works so hard!

Zane also said 'Mama' today. He said it very purposefully with a playful anticipation of my response. Of course I went bonkers and so that brought more 'Mama' from his lips all day long. Quite a few times I got a 'Mama' at my request. It actually sounds more like 'la-na', but I know what he thinks he's saying and this Mama is happy to hear it! :)


That's Harry Connick Jr. playing in the background.

Hospitality

The character card that we drew for our focus last week was 'hospitality'. It was perfect timing as we had plans to spend some time getting to know a family from our church and then friends we knew from our time in Michigan arrived on Saturday.

The Smiths just recently moved to town as Todd is now on staff at our church as graphic artist and curriculum developer. How exciting does that sound?! Also sounds like hard work! With 16 children's books to his name, we are just beginning to learn how deep his talents run. Every week our children hear the same message from the Word of God in their Sunday school class as we receive from our preaching pastor in sermon. Todd develops fantastic visual arts, take home devotionals, and hands-on teaching tools to reinforce the message each day following. Our church is tremendously blessed and grateful to have Todd join us in ministry! We look forward to getting to know them better and pray they feel at home and loved here.

Dave and his daughter, Erin, stopped in on their 16 day road trip. Unfortunately, Mama Jenn had to stay home for work, but what a joy to meet 2-year-old Erin for the first time and catch up on life with Dave. God has done amazing things through this family. We are encouraged by their Kingdom focused hearts and just know that God has exciting things on the horizon for them.

We were so blessed by our fellowship this week - what a joy to practice hospitality and draw closer to the true nature of Christ.

No More Peas In The Nose Please

Okay, last night was interesting....Zane has a hole in his alveolar that goes straight up through the floor of his nose. This will be there until his bone graft surgery, around five to six years of age. For now, we're going to see food and liquid escape from his nose, but we expect this to improve as his palate becomes full functioning and more teeth come in allowing him to chew his food better.

Because he has food traveling up to the nose, we saline and suction prior to putting in his nose stent before bed each night. He has learned to accept the nose stent and is quite cooperative, but irrigation is no fun and it takes me and Eric together to get the job done. Well, I've done it on my own a handful of times, but it's much easier with Eric's help.

So last night, I go to suction and no air moves. Eric and I said in unison, 'Whoa!' After more saline, suctioning and filling up a couple tissues of rice, carrots and chicken, out pops one whole green pea! Yakkkkkk - poor baby! But he can breathe now!

I still got a bit more rice and carrots out this morning - oh my! Here's hoping things improve...I guess it's good to know that the hole is large enough for a pea to travel through.

As for other cool tricks that Zane can do, today he cruised the length of the couch while holding on! That's a first and he knew he was big stuff!

Returning

Looking forward to returning to WOLFESONLINE! I've been posting these past months on Zane's site...everything from our China trip, settling in at home, and Zane's first surgery. I've added a few more posts and videos there recently, but it won't be up for much longer, actually just 24 hours more. Hope to get a few more things posted before closing it down and heading back over here to blog more about Elle and the rest of the family too. See you soon!