This past month has been a lot of fun!!

Ivy and Luke got to see real reindeer outside of Thanksgiving Point. They were not that impressed

Then we went to the Primary Christmas Breakfast to meet Santa Clause

It went as well as could be expected :)

Ivy was very excited!!!

For Luke's birthday we went bowling with a few friends. Luke loved it!

After bowling, Luke's friends and cousins helped him blow out his birthday cake.

Mmmm... Birthday cake

Birthday at the Bell's the following Sunday

I walked into the kitchen at our house the other day and found all my small appliances on the floor outside the cupboard by the fridge. I opened the cupboard to put them all back in, and this is what I found:

I have now rearranged this cupboard, and it is permanently Luke's. Ivy decided she wanted one too, so her's is under the island.


SILLY STORY:
I was in the other room and heard Luke wining from the kitchen. When I walked in, I found that while he was eating his snack, he had put both legs up on the back of the chair and got himself stuck in that position. So, being the great mother that I am, I ran and got the camera before I helped him down. That is Ivy laughing in the background.

One of the Young Women in our ward took these pictures at a baby shower they threw for Luke. I think they turned out pretty cute!

Luke's Language

Luke Chinese words that we learned so we could understand what he was saying - some of these are real words in Chinese (probably not spelled correctly, though) and some of them are just his Chinese baby talk:

• Ma: Help

• Neow, Neow: go on the potty

• Dzo: Go somewhere

• Bao Bao: Hold Me

• May O: 'I want' or 'I don't want'

He understands, but doesn't speak these himself:

• Tsua: Sit

• Gio Li: Come Here

• Cher Fan: Eat

Since he has been in our family, he has learned in English:

• No, No I E (I E is how he says, Ivy. He uses this phrase when she takes away a toy, or 'accidentally' sits on him)

• Daddy

• Na Na - I think this means Mommy, but it sounds a lot like 'Neow Neow' - to go potty, so the virdict is still out on this one.
  

The last two weeks

We went to the Petting Zoo at Thanksgiving Point. Ivy loves going there because she gets to ride the horses. She has been going there to ride the horses since she was 4 months old. Needless to say, she does not let us hold on to her anymore, she rides all by herself. She also likes to show off that she can ride one handed, as you will see.

Luke's Chinese name is Huiyu, and his nick name is YuYu. He still responds to that, or course, but is also starting to respond to Luke as well.

Luke absolutely loved seeing all the animals. He just kept screaming with laughter, it was so cute!

Tomorrow we will have been home for two weeks. I am finally feeling like we are getting into a routine. For the the first week, we would fall asleep at 8pm, we would ALL wake up at about 11pm and not get back to sleep until 2am. Then wake up at 9 or 10am. Our schedule was so off!!
Thank goodness for wonderful friends and family who brought us dinners, and some frozen dinners I had bought before we left because I didn't get a chance to go shopping until this week. - and by "didn't get a chance" I mean, I was too afraid to venture out to the store with two kids all by myself. Rick worked from home for the first week we were back, and that helped me a lot.
Having two kids is not so much hard as it is busy, trying to help both children feel loved. With all the changes in both Luke's and Ivy's lives, there is a lot of insecurity right now.
Luke has adjusted pretty well, a lot better than Rick and I expected.
The first little while he didn't want us to leave the room, very anxious, I think, that we wouldn't come back. Now he doesn't like us to leave the house, but leaving the room is usually alright. He used to wake up 3 - 4 times each night crying. He would seem confused and disoriented. I'm sure he dreams he is back in China, so waking up to a new place is hard.
He is used to sleeping in the same bed as his foster parents, and absolutely insisted on doing the same with us. He would cling on to us and sob uncontrollably until we held him in our arms to go to sleep. He didn't want us out of his site at night. It has since gotten better. One or both of us will lay down with him, but he dosen't always insist on being held. And after a few minutes he is fine with us leaving the room, even if he isn't asleep. After we come back in the room to go to bed ourselves, we move him to his pack 'n play right next to our bed. He usually only wakes up once a night crying now. Poor little guy. He has gone through so much and he is being such a little trooper.
Ivy is struggling a bit as well. She is so used to having both of our undivided attention, and doesn't always appreciate sharing that now with Luke. She tries hard though, and we like to give her "special Ivy time", like staying up 15 minutes later than Luke. If they are having snack time, I put her in charge of the snacks and she is responsible for giving Luke some when he runs out. Luke doesn't care who gives him the food, so for right now this gives her a small feeling of taking care of her little brother (or a superiority complex - one or the other, either way, eating = not fighting, so I'm fine with it). I can see how this practice may eventually back fire on me as they both get older and he begins to want to have a turn 'being in charge'. I don't like to think too far in the future, though, mostly because I don't have time. :)
The biggest disagreements they have are about parents and toys. Whatever or whoever one has, the other one wants immediately as well. Lots of drama! Surprisingly I haven't lost it yet, or hit anyone, or screamed, or thrown anything. I pray more than once a day to be happy, and by happy, I mean to not have the desire to loose it, hit, scream, or throw things - I think God knows what I mean, even when I talk in code like that.
Luke is not having a problem adjusting to food. He pretty much eats anything we put in front of him, ANYTHING.

We're Home!!!

Our friend, Allison, took some pics of us tonight. Our first official family pictures with Luke.
He's not smiling right now, but he really is a very happy little boy.

I haven't posted for a while, we have been getting over jet-lag, and adjusting to our new life with baby Luke. We are so happy, I can't believe we are a family of 4 now!!!

We're almost home!!

Tuesday morning we went to the memorial building of Sun Yat-Sen, the father of modern China
We also went to the Chen Clan Academy, which used to be a private residence, now a museum of different types of art.
Even though this looks like a painting, it is really a canvas of embroidery - amazing!

This is a group of High School boys surrounding Ivy, taking pictures of her with their cell phones.

At the museum

Ivy and Luke playing in front of statues on Shamian Island Monday before lunch

We can't wait to be home!
We just talked to United Airlines and are so excited because we found out the flight home is only 11 hours and 24 minutes!!! The flight coming was close to 14 hours, so 11 sounds like heaven to us.
We flew from Guangzhou to Beijing tonight (3 hours) - good trial run. The kids did alright, parents were a little frazzled.
We leave for the airport at 10am tomorrow morning (it is now about midnight here). Our flight leaves around 1pm Wednesday afternoon, and lands in San Fran at 9am Wednesday morning. We are all really excited to go back in time.
My next post should have a pictures of us all back in our own home - no more Hotels!!! We can't wait for Luke to meet all his new friends and cousins.

Rick's Post

IVY and LUKE :OK, they don't make it 5 minutes before I step in, more like 5 seconds. Pinching, bitting, pushing, good stuff. GUANGZHOU: We are further south than the Bahamas, hot and humid, feels good. TWO KIDS: Wow, I now respect parents with two or more kids. Our stay in Lanzhou was a big city but with old customs. The Buddhist Temple Park was a modern Indiana Jones experience with loud chanting from the monks and people bowing in unison all around us to Buddha. Incense and large alter fire. COOL! We even saw people burning paper money to their ancestors on the curb in front of the hotel, live chickens being sold in the alley, Chinese Muslims with their white hats, all this is strange to see as Toyotas, Hundais and an occasional BMW drives down the street. Guanzhou on the other hand is like any US overgrown city with with a few less caucasions, ok no caucasions except adopting couples and random Europeans. But the Chinese look like Chinese Americans in their dress an haircuts. They stare at us less( a little less) and seem up to date. I guess I always thought of China as a place but realize even though their are common threads in different parts of China, it is many places with very different cultures. Although, it seems like you could simplify the cities as close to the coast and far form the coast, the futher from the coast and Hong Kong, the more old school and interesting it gets, more split botom baby pants, more old dignified men with fu man chu beards and less American influence. Although, eventhe very inland cities have adopted American shopping malls and know who the Utah Jazz are. SQUATERS: Ten minutes and lots of steps to take a child to the bathroom here. Shoes off, hold up the child from the very wet and dirty foor, pants off, undies off, shoes on, squat, shoes off, pants on, undies on, shoes on. All this while holding a child in small stall. (sorry forth the long post- more for me than you - thanks).

Luke using chop sticks

One of the first nights we went to dinner with Luke, he picked up a pair of chop sticks, lined them up in his little hands, and started using them. He just used them as a spoon instead of opening and closing them, but it was very cute to see. He foster parents must have been teaching him how to use them.

Sunday - We got to go to church!

Luke loves giving Ivy hugs (and then sometimes pulling her down with him and turning the hug into a wrestling match). Ivy is alright with it for about 5 minutes, then Rick has to step in and get Luke to wrestle with him instead.

We went to the Ghuangzhou 1st Branch on Sunday. A lot of the members were here with their families teaching English, or they were Chinese from Hong Kong. It was really nice attending church. We didn't get any pictures, though, because by the time the hour was up, we were too exhausted. Two kids in Sacrament Meeting is very hard. I'm sure we'll get used to it. :)
The rest of the day we just took it easy and went on a walk around the island. It was established by the French and British in the middle of the 1800s. So the streets we walk down remind me of European streets I would walk down on lay overs in France. The architecture is very European as well, we'll take pictures today.

Medical Exam - Saturday

Examination Room for Adopted Children in Guangzhou Medical Clinic
We are staying on an island now. It is beautiful with lots of trees and very humid. We've been in 50 to 60 degree weather all week, and this is Mexico weather, so it's been a nice change.
This medical clinic is about 5 minutes walk from our hotel - the whole island is only about a mile long. For Luke's US Visa, he needed to have a physical, so we did this Saturday morning.

These two brothers and their adoptive family from California were waiting for their exam as well. They are around 9 and 11. They've been in an orphanage for three years. Their family died in a flood. Their family in California paid for a tutor to go to their orphanage for 3 months to give them private English lessons while they were waiting to travel. They could speak basic English. The were so cute and excited to have their new family.

Other adoptive parents waiting for their Chinese children to have their exams for their Visa

Luke with the doctor and Rick

The doctor was very nice and said he was a very healthy little boy!

Ivy charming the nurses