Notice Stafan's costume--I left it up to Mike. : - ((
Lyric was not too impressed with her costume. She said she was a butterfly, fairy, witch. Hey, it was better than when we were kids. We had two choices--a fat ole lady or a Hobo.
My niece Darby was quite the showoff.
My sister made Gabrielle's costume.
We ran into 4 of my other sister's girls.
Have no idea who this baby was, but this was so cute.
She is 17 and all grown up. We got Lael (Bian Yuhong) when she was 3 years old in Wuhan, Hubei. I might add she was on the special needs list. She was special need all right--NOT. What she was, was mad at the world -- and she wasn't going to take it anymore! After we got her, it took her several months to get over abandonment, fear and her old orphanage life. Today she is a wonderful Christian girl, has her drivers licenses and I don't want to brag, but she just got selected into NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY! Did you hear me? LAEL GOT SELECTED FOR NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY. OK, so I'm a little excited and proud. Honestly, I would have been surprised if Lael hadn't made it. Thank you Jesus for giving Lael to us.
I can't find Lael's referral picture right now, but here she was around 7 years old.
Lael decided for her birthday she wanted to eat at FAGO DE CHAO. It is a Brazilian restaurant. We let her take her friend Nate who just happens to be a high achiever like Lael. We had a blast at this place, because none of us had ever eaten there and it was very interesting. I highly recommend it.
In case you haven't been and are interested, here's what to expect. The waiter comes up and gives you a list of instructions on how it all works. First, notice the green circle that says "yes please." They serve 15 very expensive cuts of meats. When you want them to bring it to you you turn the circle up, and when you want them to stop you turn it over to red. We kept it green most of the time. The waiter said we must "glide" the meat to our plate with our tongs. OK, I can glide!
I picked up the fork and oh my goodness! I didn't even know they made forks this heavy. I know they don't sell them like that at Walmart. : - )
Oh the salad bar was so good we were torn on whether to stop eating salad or go for all the high cholesterol. We mainly went for the high cholesterol.
This was a huge bowl shape of Parmesan cheese.
Nate was like us and was laughing and loving it! Now this was service.
Keeping it coming baby!
Here Mike and Lael were making fun of me, because you're supposed to share the potatoes and I kind of took all of them.
Right after Lael got home. Still sporting the famous orphanage hair cut and still mad at the world. After she learned enough English she told us how she was sprayed with cold hoses for a shower and there there were no chairs to sit at when you ate. She had some infections we had to get cleared up and after she got some hair she was good to go. :- ) Whitney was used to being in charge around most kids, but I'll never forget after Lael got her English Whitney saying to her "close the door!" Lael kept right on going and said "Do it yourself." Whitney has respected Lael every since.
In the adoption world you get a lot of odd questions and comments. Tonight Mike took the kids to the Wednesday dinner at church. He and the kids both love it! I'm not exactly into it and usually don't go. Mike said a man he didn't know sat down at a table beside them and kept looking over at them and smiling. He said the man seemed nice enough, but got in a lot of the usual things like "Wow! Ten kids! How big is your house?" Do people really think orphans in China each have their own private bedroom and bathroom? So I couldn't help but laugh at some of the snappy answers served up to this guys weird questions. The man looked at Mike and then said to Lyric, "Do you like this man?" Lyric said "Yes." Man: "Why do you like him? Lyric dryly: "Because he is my Dad." Man: "What is your favorite thing about him?" Lyric: "He has a job." On second thought, maybe Lyric wasn't being sarcastic. I guess with all of the Occupy Wall Street nuts out there, there is something to be said for having a Dad with a job.
Our good friend Jennifer's son got married last weekend.
If you read my blog, you know Jennifer traveled to China with my sister and they adopted two beautiful babies. Jennifer adopted Katie and my sister, Becki on the left, adopted Gabrielle. The babies came together and now they look like twins. Hmmm...
Gabrielle has on the black. Katie is with Jennifer's grandaughter who happens to be the prettiest thing ever!
Becki's sons Sawyer and Eliot. As you can see, her boys are always dressed a notch above mine--OK two notches. But Lyric did say this week her teacher used her as an example as to how to dress warm on the field trip the next day. Does that count for anything? LOL I remember when I was a very little girl my Mom seeing another little girl in cloth tennis shoes--and it was wet and snowy. My Mom said, "Her mother should be horse whipped!" Funny, the things your remember. I know some people are thinking, "maybe she didn't have any thing else," which is true, but we didn't have a lot either and my Mom always made sure I was dressed warm. Oh, don't get me started on our country's entitlement problem. : - )
Payton is still not happy here, because her Mom made her wear hoop earrings. She is happy and dancing above, because she agreed to get on the dance floor if she could take them off. People are always talking about "picking your battles." Ha! We may compromise a little, but we don't pick battles.
I'm tired and have had enough!
Me too! We got 3 rooms, my sister had one, we had one and we put all the older girls in one.
The morning after. They think the buffet is cool!
And then a long drive home.
When we got back home, we had lunch with Jennifer's family, because they drove the newlyweds to the airport, which is close to us.
