We got Dawson's Certificate of Citizenship today! I was just thinking about that this morning and wondering if it were about time that it got here. Meighan's came in about the same amount of time.
We also had our 1-month post-placement visit from our social worker last Thursday. She hadn't seen him yet and was very impressed at how he is doing.
We keep settling in and getting used to our new routine. I actually have a hard time with major changes like this so I'm still adjusting myself to dealing with 2 kids and trying to give each the attention they need. Having Tony around really helps.
I'm also trying to find time to clean out "stuff" in the house that we aren't using. That time is not too available, though, so I do what I can when I can.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
We Have A WISE Little Girl!
Tonight Tony is going to a visitation of a racing friend who passed away last week. Meighan wanted to go along but he said she couldn't go this time. She asked "Why?" like all 4-year-olds should and he said he was going to visit a friend for the last time. He told her his friend had died. She still wanted to go but he still said no because it will be sad. She continued to ask questions about where Daddy's friend is. He said that he's living in heaven with Jesus.
She then said, "But that's not sad!"
She then said, "But that's not sad!"
Friday, March 9, 2012
His Name
We've had lots of good comments on Dawson's name. Our social worker said she has a friend with a son named Dawson--it's not a common name. Other people like it because it's different or "cool". Others have asked how we came up with it. So, here's the story:
A boy's name was not as clear as Meighan's name was. We started thinking of a name before we even took the application into Holt in July of 2010. I started a list that we added names to whenever we came up with a possibility. We'd throw out a name and if we didn't get a negative reaction from each other, we'd write it down.
Some of the names we had on our list were Nicholas, Banjamin, Levi, Daniel, Seth (although I could never give that first name to a child with our last name...!), Austin, Justin, Dustin... I am not in favor of naming a child after someone else in a family, especially when the child will never know the person they are named after AND when they are not blood related.
Then one day I was at the mall in the play area with Meighan. It was really crowded and loud but apparently there was a reason I was there that day. I heard someone call their son "Dawson" and I thought it was kind of neat. I told Tony that name when I got home and he went "Hmmmm..." OK, not a negative reaction, so it went on the list. A few days later Tony said, "I like that name." I looked up what it meant (Son of David) and it stuck. It became permanent when we had to fill out our child's American name on paperwork that would be sent to China.
After we got the referral and found out his Chinese name that was given to him by the orphanage, we ended up using the "Le" part if his name and adding an "e" to make it Lee. "Le" in Chinese means "happy." I found out the meaning of "Lee" is "short for Farley"--not exactly a cool name as far as I'm concerned. Then I found out the meaning of Farley is "bull meadow or sheep meadow". Huh? Kinda strange in itself. Oh, well. Since we aren't using "Farley", that's OK. Dawson Lee Smith sounded good to us and we hope he likes it well enough.
So,...
A boy's name was not as clear as Meighan's name was. We started thinking of a name before we even took the application into Holt in July of 2010. I started a list that we added names to whenever we came up with a possibility. We'd throw out a name and if we didn't get a negative reaction from each other, we'd write it down.
Some of the names we had on our list were Nicholas, Banjamin, Levi, Daniel, Seth (although I could never give that first name to a child with our last name...!), Austin, Justin, Dustin... I am not in favor of naming a child after someone else in a family, especially when the child will never know the person they are named after AND when they are not blood related.
Then one day I was at the mall in the play area with Meighan. It was really crowded and loud but apparently there was a reason I was there that day. I heard someone call their son "Dawson" and I thought it was kind of neat. I told Tony that name when I got home and he went "Hmmmm..." OK, not a negative reaction, so it went on the list. A few days later Tony said, "I like that name." I looked up what it meant (Son of David) and it stuck. It became permanent when we had to fill out our child's American name on paperwork that would be sent to China.
After we got the referral and found out his Chinese name that was given to him by the orphanage, we ended up using the "Le" part if his name and adding an "e" to make it Lee. "Le" in Chinese means "happy." I found out the meaning of "Lee" is "short for Farley"--not exactly a cool name as far as I'm concerned. Then I found out the meaning of Farley is "bull meadow or sheep meadow". Huh? Kinda strange in itself. Oh, well. Since we aren't using "Farley", that's OK. Dawson Lee Smith sounded good to us and we hope he likes it well enough.
So,...
Dawson (English) = Son of David
Lee (English) = short for Farley meaning "bull meadow or sheep meadow"
Americanized from "Le" = Happy
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Videos
OK, I actually got some of our videos uploaded to YouTube and put the Gotcha Day videos together into one. So, without further ado, here are "Gotcha Day" and "Coming Home" videos. (Still working on the pictures!)
Gotcha Day
Coming Home!
Gotcha Day
Coming Home!
Friday, March 2, 2012
Many Pictures
For those of you asking for more photos, we will eventually get them up. Between the two of us and our TWO cameras, we took over 1000 photos this time. Last time with one camera we took almost 700 photos. So please be patient. I haven't even gone through Tony's photos yet, and mine I've only quickly looked at and gotten them to the correct orientation.
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