SNOW!

It's been a LONG time since we had this much snow to deal with! WOW! It started snowing Christmas Eve and I don't think it's completely done yet! The news says that Eppley got 10.9" and other Omaha areas got up to 14"! Tony spent all day from 4 a.m. digging out his customers and then us. A neighbor even had to get him dug out of our driveway when he got off the driveway a bit too far.

We went to Christmas Eve service at 7 pm and there were several people there, though not as many as usual. Meighan liked the music and was mesmerized by the candles we were holding at the end. We got home and had our new tradition of chili after 9:15 pm. My sinuses were so stuffed up that I couldn't smell or taste it but the warmth felt good! Meighan is much better health-wise.

Tony went out plowing at 2 a.m. Christmas morning and got home at 8:15 just after I got up. We got ready and got Meighan up and had some breakfast. After that, Meighan opened her gifts from Santa (table and chairs and a book) and us (a laptop and a book). We then went to Tony's parents' house for the day. We had to take the plow truck in order to make sure we made it! That left us very little transporting room. We even had to leave one thing there until we could get it home safely. Tony took a long nap and was up to see the news before going to bed again.

He got up at 4 a.m. this morning and didn't get home until early this afternoon. I fixed an egg casserole and had some about 1:30 pm while a neighbor was "un-stucking" Tony's plow truck. He did some more cleanup and came in and ate some casserole. He got a snow blower out of the 2-car garage that he's never used since he's been up here and got it working and did a little cleanup with that. There's just SO MUCH snow right now that we aren't going to be able to use the door from the kitchen to go down in front of the house for a LONG time. He scooped a path on the deck from the door to the east so we can turn on the Christmas lights and eventually he will get a path to the tool truck but not sure when that will be!

He's sleeping at the moment but we'll go out for groceries later this evening before heading to bed. My sinuses are better today -- at least I'm not coughing as much -- and it would be nice to smell and taste things again!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and is content to be "stuck" a little while longer if you're in the Midwest (unlike SOME people who email a pic of themselves on the beach on Christmas day!).

Enjoy the pictures.

Meighan with her cookies and milk for Santa.

Meighan already working at home in her pjs.

Our deck this morning -- snow up to the top of the railing.

Where's the steps?

There's supposed to be a sidewalk in there somewhere!

That's a LOT of snow!




Tony snowblowing!

The "path" out our kitchen door that goes nowhere!

Mmmmmm, Mama and M&Ms

We finally have a new sound! Meighan is saying "Mmmmmm" while she's eating food. She's also started saying the sounds for "mama" and "mom"! That's probably the best Christmas present I could receive! We've been wanting that sound/word for quite some time. The orphanage told us she could say "mama" and "baba" but we haven't heard it until recently.

Also last night she wanted some candy out of her Santa sack and I had tried earlier giving her an m&m but she didn't take it. So, I ate one last night and she put one in her mouth and it came back out. We tried again and she ate it...and wanted more!

Actually, eating ANYTHING right now makes us happy as she's been sick and not wanting to eat much. She's drinking milk and water really well, though.

On top of that, she gave me a cold, too! I hope Tony stays well because he's going to have some plowing to do later this week.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, MEIGHAN!

Today Meighan is 2 years old! We had a party Sunday afternoon with our families and then today she opened the gifts we had for her. Tonight we went and had studio pictures taken. She did fine and we got a good pose.

It's DONE! It's Official in Everyone's Eyes!

We had our readoption hearing today at the courthouse. We met the attorney right before 9:00 a.m. and by about 9:20 or so we were done! The judge was very nice and even let us take "formal" pictures while he signed the paper official-izing it all. My parents and brother and Tony's mom were there to see it all, too. Enjoy the pictures!

On another note, our friends who are bringing a daughter home from China have now landed in Portland, OR, and we can't wait to see pictures of their homecoming!

We've got a VERY busy weekend planned (assuming the weather cooperates! - there's a chance of freezing mist tomorrow afternoon) so we're trying to get ready for that and do our regular things as well!

Meighan's First Visit with Santa

We attended the Nebraska Children's Home's Adoptive Families Christmas party tonight. A potluck filled us all up and then Santa came to talk to the kids. Meighan actually sat on his lap! She was actually quite fascinated with him and wanted to be right in front of him (and in all the other families' pictures!) the whole time. Finally she got to sit on his lap and gave him a couple of hugs and he gave her a bag of candy. We've been showing her pictures of Santa for a while and we even saw him and Mrs. Claus at the Holiday Lights on Thanksgiving night and she gave him a high five. Tonight she gave him several high fives. We are so glad she didn't cry. Enjoy the pictures!

Reliving Our China Experience

We are currently reliving our first days with Meighan through the posts of another couple who is in China and in province right now. They received their daughter on Sunday and have posted pictures of her. She looks to be about the same size as Meighan (they have the exact same birthday!) and has the same toys as Meighan started out with.

Check out their blog and pics http://theskipsgreatadventure.blogspot.com. We are so excited for them!

Thanksgiving was filling and relaxing at my parents'. We ate a lot and then some people took nice naps. We came back to Omaha in time to see the Holiday Lights get turned on downtown. It was a little chilly so maybe we'll get back to see them even better later on when there's not quite so many people.

One year ago today, we told our family and friends about our referral of Meighan. It's been quite a year!

Who's Cute?

Just have to share these couple of pictures. Tony taught Meighan to raise her hand when asked "Who's cute?" She added the little "pose."

Last Paper

Yesterday we received the last paper we need to file for readoption. We'll get it to the attorney on Monday and he will file on Monday afternoon. Then we will get a date for the hearing which will be sometime in November (probably).

Meighan can now climb INTO her crib if the side is down. It's another no-brainer! Once she can climb OUT of her crib, the crib will come down. We already have a toddler bed that I found at a garage sale so we're ready when she is!

She had her first cold since we've been home. She's all done with it. Tony's and mine lingered for a while and I think Tony is pretty much done with his. I am still fighting a cough but it gets better every day.

Let's hope the Huskers can come up with a win today at Baylor! GO HUSKERS!

Two More Teeth!

Meighan has 2 more teeth coming in -- that makes 16 teeth! The tooth just to the right of her two front teeth had not come in yet when we got home from China and the orthodontist that looked at her in the cranial facial team's evaluation said to take her to a pediatric dentist and have it x-ray'd to see if it was there and just late in coming in or if it wasn't there (due to that's the side her cleft was on). I took her to a dentist in May and that dentist did not want to x-ray her and he wasn't worried about it yet. So now that tooth and another one on the bottom is coming in. Now she just needs 4 more molars and she'll have all 20 of her baby teeth! Yippee!

Today Meighan and I went to the attorney's office to drop off more papers and sign the petition for a hearing for adoption finalization. Tony went later on his lunch time. We STILL need another paper from Holt before he can file the petition so hopefully we'll get that late next week. I didn't know we needed this paper until the attorney told me yesterday that we needed it. PAPERWORK, PAPERWORK, PAPERWORK! Wow!

Well, all the deciduous trees on our place have pretty much lost all of their leaves. There are still trees along the roads that have leaves and they are such brilliant colors this year thanks to all the rain and cooler temps we had during the summer! It has rained all day today and will rain into tomorrow. (We've had over an inch here so far.) Then it's supposed to dry off. We need SEVERAL days of dry, warmer weather to get the crops dried up again so the farmers can get their harvesting done.

First Snow

We had a VERY early snow here last Saturday and up here in this part of the county we got about 5" of fluffy stuff. It was very pretty and now it's gone because it warmed up and then rained today. However, Meighan, was NOT too thrilled about her first snow. She didn't want to touch it but on Saturday morning while it was still snowing, she looked up into it and felt it fall on her face. Interesting reaction.

Here's a picture taken later in the day. She wanted out of here!

6 Months Ago Today

We met our daughter, Meighan Beibei Smith, six short months ago today! April 7, 2009, was quite the day. We had to leave the Beijing hotel at 6:00 or 6:30, I think, to get to the airport. Our flight was at 9:00 and we landed exactly three hours later at 12:00 noon in Guangzhou. We claimed our bags and found our guide, Joyce, and got checked into the White Swan Hotel. We were told to meet the Holt people at 2:30, I think. We got in a van and drove to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and met Meighan, a very frightened little girl, near tears the whole time, who didn't know what was happening to her.

These last six months have changed ALL of our lives dramatically. We've learned many things about parenting a toddler (having not gotten to gradually move into that stage) and she has grown by leaps and bounds in her physical and mental abilities. She's a very smart little girl and will probably pass us up in "smarts."

Compare the following two pictures. The first is from Gotcha Day and the second one was just taken last night. It's what Meighan does when Tony asks her "Who's cute?"

No More Bottles/Formula!

Two days in a row now Meighan has basically refused her bottle/formula in the morning. I guess that means she no longer needs it! Yippee! That means no more buying expensive formula! (And I think I can have my counter back now!) She's drinking quite a bit of milk from a cup and seems to LOVE milk -- a girl after my own heart!

The next step will be to potty train her. Maybe it will be easy and maybe not. She sometimes doesn't really like change.

She and I went to the OCCA Full Moon Festival on Sunday and got LOTS of fresh air. We met some new people and even saw some people we knew! Other FCC families were there, too, so that was fun. The Chinese Full Moon Festival is kind of like the American Thanksgiving where they have family reunions and eat lots of food.

Tony raced in a benefit race on Sunday and won his class and then won the run-off between the box and no box class! Pretty good for not racing much earlier in the year!

My progress on my medical transcription class is slow but steady. Still, finding time to study is the hardest part. I just started the last lesson in the third course. Then I have two more courses to go.

Milestones and Re-Adoption

We went to the pediatrician yesterday for Meighan's "6-month well-baby checkup". The office was confused since she's 21 months old. I always have to explain the adoption thing. Meighan has always hated having her face/head touched so the doctor looking in her ears was not pleasant. Also, she didn't particularly like him listening to her lungs, heart and tummy, and the vaccinations even less! She had quite a few vaccinations while in China so she only has to continue where she left off. I wasn't going to "start over."

Last night she reached another milestone of trust. Tony took her outside to play on the swingset and slide. I was working in the kitchen and he knocked on the window and told me to come watch. Meighan climbed up the slide ladder by herself (which she has been able to do for a while now) and got all set and Tony was at the bottom of the slide and coaxed her a bit and she slid down the slide ALL BY HERSELF! I had no words for the moment -- I was so happy!

She's also a little helper when it comes to emptying the dishwasher. She likes to pull the silverware out and hand it to me to put away. That's all I let her do right now (I pull any dangerous things out before she starts). It's really cool how she is learning so much and so much of it is copying us! Wow! What a responsibility!

We are getting ready to re-adopt her in Nebraska so we can get a birth certificate for her. We've spoken to a lawyer and he expects the hearing to be sometime in November, which is cool because November is National Adoption Month. This is another reason we had to go to the doctor so he could fill out a form for the Nebraska Children's Home who is doing our 6-month update report for China and sending the paperwork to the lawyer.

Well, Tony is planning to be racing on Sunday assuming it's not raining, so Meighan and I and my mom and maybe dad are going to the Omaha Chinese Cultural Association's Full Moon Festival in the afternoon. Hopefully we'll learn some more about that Chinese holiday. They have a LOT of holidays in China, the biggest and most important of which is the Chinese New Year in January or February, depending on the moon.

Too Smart For Her Own Good!

We have found Meighan on top of the kitchen table at least a couple of times since we've come home. We had to move the one chair so it was harder for her to get onto it and then onto the table. Well, yesterday the chair was not pushed all the way in so she found her way up onto the kitchen table and my glasses were up there. She knows how to get the case open and she bent my glasses out so far that we had to make a trip to the mall last night to get them fixed. They will do for now because they are only my reading glasses.

Then, also last night after we got home from the mall, Meighan decided she wanted to be in her high chair. She has figured out how to push the chair that the high chair is strapped to over to the red stool and climb the stool and then over to the high chair. We've had boxes on the red stool for a while which has prevented this...until now. We also have two bar stools under the island and Meighan pushes them around just for something to do. Last night, she pushed one of them OVER TO THE HIGH CHAIR, climbed it and then climbed into the high chair!!!! I told Tony he needed to come see what his daughter did. He came into the kitchen and saw the situation and said "she's too smart for her own good!"

We've also been trying to get her to stay in childcare at church, partly for the socialization and partly so that I might be able to take her to Bible Study while Tony stays home and gets some things done. We tried again today and she lasted most of the service! We got the pager buzz right at the end of the sermon. Hopefully she will last longer next week.

We went to the Nebraska State Fair on Tuesday and Meighan finally got to see some BIG horses up close. We saw some Perscherons (sp?) and, of course, the Clydesdales. Wow! Those are BIG horses! We had some ice cream and ate lunch that was better than the normal state fair fare. It was quite a nice day weather wise and I'm glad we went because this was the last fair in Lincoln. Next year it will move to Grand Island, which is a longer drive and I doubt I'll go as often when it moves.

We found a winter coat for her today. It's too big but it's only a 12-month size! She might even be able to wear it NEXT winter!

Enjoy the pictures in the next post.

Recent Pictures

Teeth

When we met Meighan she had 9 teeth. Soon after we got home she got 3 more teeth. I just saw last night that she is getting 2 more teeth!

Climbing is one of her favorite things right now. Getting up on the couches and recliners is a no-brainer anymore. She is also climbing onto the red step stool we have in the kitchen with no problem. It sits right next to her high chair chair so she slips on over to her high chair with absolutely NO PROBLEM! The problem we have is getting her to SIT in chairs right now. Sometimes her balance isn't that great (and sometimes it's amazing!) and she needs to learn how to sit.

Meighan and I went down to the Cass County Fair last Thursday and she had her first merry-go-round ride! She also saw all the different kinds of fair animals. She laughed when her finger touched a bunny's nose. She also saw chickens, goats, cows, pigs (all sleeping, of course), and sheep. One sheep was about a foot from her when it baaa'd. You should have seen her JUMP! (It was a pretty loud baa!) It baaa'd again and she started crying so we left and went and had some ice cream.

Home with Meighan

As of July 15, I am officially unemployed. After (almost) 10 years (about 3 months short of it) with The Knot, we had decided that I should stay home with Meighan. I've been taking a correspondence course in medical transcription so that I will be able to find a job working at home. There are 5 courses (sections) and I just started the 3rd course. It's very interesting and when I finish I will have had about 240 hours of dictation/transcription experience. They have CDs to practice with that include (I think) 7-10 different accents and all kinds of actual doctor dictation. And, of course, there's all the medical terminology to learn and that is generally done with flashcards. Finding time to study is the most challenging part so far.

Anyway, we're getting back into a routine again after Meighan spent a couple weeks with our moms while I went back to work for a couple of weeks. Looking back now, I would have insisted that they try to keep her on the schedule we had established because now naptime is difficult and it hadn't been before. Kids in an orphanage are on a pretty strict schedule so they are used to doing certain things at certain times. When we met her they told us her schedule but then said, "But now she's on your schedule." So, we tried to get her onto a new schedule as quickly as possible and I think we had succeeded.

If anyone reading this is thinking about, planning to, or in the process of adopting, please keep schedules in mind and make sure to let any new or even temporary caregivers know about the schedule. It will make it much easier for you and your child. If you are used to just picking up and going somewhere, it's a lot harder to do that with a child who is used to a particular schedule. Books that I read ahead of time talked about this, too, so I'm not just talking from my own one-time experience. I'm also reiterating what professionals have said.

On another note, I've been reading a blog lately of a family that recently accepted a referral of a little Chinese girl who is EXACTLY the same age as Meighan! They had left a comment on our blog and now we've also been in contact via email. Their little girl, who they have named "Mei", is in a different province than Meighan was in but their birthdays are both on December 16, 2007! How cool is that? Mei has cleft lip and palate so she will have to have more surgery when she comes home. We hope that someday our daughters can meet. I would guess we'll need to take a vacation to the west coast someday and see that part of the country! Check out their blog http://theskipsgreatadventure.blogspot.com. They sound like a pretty neat family!

Meighan's First Independence Day / Holt Picnic

We took Meighan down to Murdock for the 4th of July parade. I decorated her stroller all up and found an outfit at the last minute so that she could be a "star-spangled girl"! I think she didn't know what to think about the whole thing.








Later in the day we went to watch the Ralston fireworks show. It got too late for Meighan but she watched some of them. Keeping her busy until they started was quite the challenge!

Feeding popcorn to Daddy

Getting tired!

Yesterday we attended the Omaha Holt Picnic at Cooper Memorial Farms. The Korean Presbyterian Church provided the food. We had hamburgers but could also try the Korean BBQ. I did get to try a few things. Some were too spicy but the eggrolls and spring rolls were pretty much like their Chinese counterparts. Meighan liked the little kids' slide. The church did a fan dance (see below pic) and Meighan also got to see cows up close and pet a horse (see pic below).

My mom took the following two pictures of Meighan with Grandpa and her first ride on a 4-wheeler.