Happy 4th Birthday Lottie Lee

Today we celebrated Locomotive style at CedarRock Railroad, Lottie celebrated her 4th birthday along with friends and family.  She was so excited to be surrounded by those who lobe and adore her.  It was a HOT Texas day but the cupcakes were sweet & the train provided a nice breeze.  Happy Birthday sweet girl we love you more every single day.

Trains, trains, and more trains

I would never have though when daydreaming of my sweet Lottie Lee that she would love trains, planes and cars more than dolls. Her closet is stocked full of every doll you could imagine, yet she loves Thomas the Train.  I love her passion for the things she adores, even if they do not include playing house.  Lottie's interests are so unique and make her so special, we love exploring her interests together as a family of four.  And of course I still can get away dressing her in themed outfits! Thank goodness she loves hair bows and dresses! (And shout out to a sweet AP Mama who noted Lottie's love of trains and sent her this adorable dress)

So today we were off to a local park to ride on the Cedar Rock Train. The Cedar Rock railroad is a fantastic quarter-scale train that takes passengers on a relaxing 1.3 mile ride through the nature-filled fields and forests of the park. This was the cutest train station perfect for ages 0-5 years. The station was located in one of our local parks, Williamson County park on 1431.  Lottie and Bette absolutely loved it!  With a real ticket booth (tickets were $2.50), real conductor & authentic steam engine it was such a fun experience. 

Sisters

Charlotte Lee Wei & Bethany Lin Capri

"A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life."

 

 

I've always wanted daughters, ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of the day of having a family and all of my daughters ( I think at one point I wanted 8 daughters, now thinking 4 may be a good number and a son would be a blessing as well).  As a young girl a dreamed of adoption, I played with my dolls each one different yet perfect in their own way.  Often friends would question how these baby dolls could be sisters, they don't look alike.  I would confidently say "you don't need to look alike to be sisters" and I would take the time to explain adoption and how one day this would be how my family would look.

 

This photograph gives me chills, for one it beautifully captured my most precious gifts, my beautiful daughters, but in a selfish way I see my lifelong dream became a reality.  I am so blessed to have these two beautiful girls,  so lucky that God trusts me to be their mother, and all the years ahead to watch them grow.  My daughters may not look like each other but God knew all along that they were meant to be together. 

Forever a Family

One year ago, on March 3rd  she was placed in our arms, and our lives were forever changed.  We are so thankful for this sweet, beautiful, smart, funny, happy, loving, strong, sassy, outgoing, little girl.  A year ago she was an orphan and today she is a daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, classmate, friend, and goddaughter.  She has changed our lives and continues to bring sunshine into everyone's days.  How can you not love this little girl.  We are beyond blessed that God chose us to be her parents.  We are forever grateful, today and everyday of our lives.  

Gotcha Day Celebration: Part 3

We couldn't throw a party without cake!  We ordered this special Gotcha Day cake from our favorite local bakery, Round Rock Donuts. They make the yummiest donuts and cakes too!  The Lottie Lee special- vanilla icing with vanilla cake.  It was delicious and we ate it all in less then 24 hours.  

And it was the perfect ending to a perfect celebration!  Happy Gotcha Day Lottie Lee We love you!

Gotcha Day Celebration: Part 2

Tonight we celebrated Lottie's Gotcha Day with close friends. We decorated the dining room with Gotcha Day memories and tons of photos.  Thanks again to Minus One Designs for the fabluous Gotcha Day banner we can use every single year!  Since it was a Monday, we kept it small but special none the less. 

We invited her best friend from school Lyla and many who have been a part of our story from the beginning including the Head family, Roy & Krystle, and Lottie's Godmother Kim.  On the way home from school, we explained to Lottie that some people were coming to celebrate with us, but she didn't truly understand until she saw them standing on our doorstep.  She was especially excited to see her best friend Lyla and her teacher Tiana and her wonderful family husband Eric, son Ryan and daughter Cami.  

We celebrated with pizza & cake and a little wine for the adults.  It was just so very special and found myself tearing up at times.  We are so blessed to have our daughter, but all of these people who have become part of our family has made it even more special.  Lottie had a blast running around and playing with her friends. 

Gotcha Day Celebration: Part 1

Today was our one year anniversary of Lottie Lee's Gotcha Day.  What a special day for our family, in a way it feels like yesterday our sweet daughter was placed in our arms, yet we cannot even remember our lives without her.  Lottie started her special day with a new outfit.   She is getting to the age to have an opinion and really enjoys "fancy" outfits anything with a tutu will do. The tee shirt was from Minus One Project

www.minus1project.blogspot.com, (check out their blog what a fabulous company) which coordinated nicely with a pink tutu.  Lottie was thrilled!  

She doesn't understand the magnitude of this day but we kept referring to it as her very special day. She was excited to bring cupcakes to school and celebrate with all her friends.  We also sent a special book about adoption, which her teacher, Tiana was able to read during circle time.  We want to make a BIG deal about her gotcha day and to embrace how she became a part of our family. On March 3, 2013 will always be a very important day in our family's story.   

Although I was sad to send her to school, I knew how special it would be for her to celebrate with all her friends, it also gave me plenty of time to reflect on this past year and how far we all have come.  More Gotcha Day posts to come!  I have a party to decorate for!

Happy Chinese New Year

This year celebrating Chinese New Year was extra special as we welcomed Lottie's little sister Bethany on Chinese New Year Eve, January 30, 2014.  We celebrated with Chinese take out in the hospital and again once we were home.  We snapped a few photos of the girls in their Chinese silks.

Month 11

This is our second to last Month-day post! Wow has time flown by its amazing to re-read all of Lottie's firsts and remember how far she has come.  This month Lottie is in full recovery from her palate surgery.  We are no longer afraid she will damage her sutures or injure her palate so she can eat whatever she chooses.  What a huge relief! She is beginning to say more words and is constantly singing and babbling.  This is a huge milestone for a cleft baby, since her anatomy was not complete until recently she is delayed in speech but now she is learning how to make new sounds and she is constantly "talking", although we don't always understand what she is saying. 

Her latest cuteness includes a version of singing a goodnight lullaby, she sings with the sweetest little voice "Nighty Night and good night"  she sings louder and louder as the song ends, seriously beyond cute.  She is obsessed with colors and loves to label them- her current favorites are black, yellow, red, and purple.  She also enjoys counting and although everything sounds like "one" she is trying to count 1, 2, 3.  She also keeps us laughing with her various animal sounds- although she is convinced a dog says NO! well that's what we are constantly saying to our two dogs so any dog she sees she refers to them as NO!  Also we always would have her teddy bear wake her up by saying a long drawn out HEY...so again she thinks all bears say HEY.  Honestly too cute to correct, so what if she starts Kindergarten thinking a dog says NO and a bear says HEY.

This month Lottie became a big sister, she is still adjusting to the role.  It has been hard since she has been fighting various viral infections- constant runny nose and congestion we haven't given her an opportunity to get to know her new baby sister.  Its hard but what is best right now, as we know how fast these kind of germs can spread.  So for now Lottie sees her sissy from a distance,but we talk about her and she refers to her as Anna.  

Lastly, Lottie continues to love Elmo and can now sing the entire version of Elmo's world, again beyond cute, she working on the /l/ sound and has it down in all of the "la la la" parts of the song.  We are surprising her with tickets to see Sesame Street Live in April, she may just die when she sees Elmo up close in real life.  Counting down the days!   

Some more serious faces of Lottie Lee as she is still fighting a cold

Updates are finally HERE!

Oh my how have we neglected our blog this long...we had such high hopes to update everyone about Lottie's palate surgery but obviously we failed!  Everything went beautifully and hoping on this dreary, wet, sleeting day here in Austin we can play catch up...so here goes.... (in order to keep the blog dates accurate we may be post dating some of our posts!)

Here is our Sweet girl 2 weeks post palate repair on New Years Day Happy 2014!

Month 10

Month 10 was a crazy month for all three of us, as it was the month Lottie recovered from her palate repair.  So we don't have too much new milestones, she was so strong but needed lots of extra cuddles.  Here are some of her monthly photos.

Month 9

Wow 9 months!  we are getting closer and closer to our 1 year anniversary of becoming a forever family. We could not love this little girl any more, she is our world!  Lottie continues to blossom in front of our eyes, she is talking more and loves playing with various toys.  She is really starting to imitate us, answering play phones and pretending to eat play food.  She continues to love Elmo and is beginning to sing the Elmo song, that goes "La, La, La, Elmo's world"  Lottie is starting to have a preference to toys she plays with, besides Elmo some of her favorites are balls,  small books, and small miniature items-think little gadgets you get in a goodie bag.  Lottie also loves cars and trains. Lately she has been fascinated with birds, and living in central TX, when they say birds fly south for the winter they aren't kidding...she is finding it so fun to see all the birds and signs bird with her tiny fingers..it is priceless. She has a new fascination with the moon, and enjoys looking out the window each night to point it out for us, of course we are reading Goodnight Moon and this is also becoming a quick favorite, a must read every night.

This month was somewhat uneventful, Lottie is staying cooped up at home to prevent exposure to germs, in preparation for her upcoming palate surgery.  She is starting to miss school and we can tell desperately wants to go "bye-bye" but with cold and flu season being at the peak, we are really trying to keep her in a little bubble.  Literally a bubble- she hasn't left the house in weeks.  If we need to run errands one of us stays home.  Its hard for her now, but in the long run it will pay off as we need a healthy little girl for surgery on 12/17/13.

Lottie is enjoying the holidays and really loves our Christmas tree, she loves to pull some of the ornaments off and hand them herself (thank goodness for plastic holiday ornaments that actually look pretty) She is very gentle with them and so far has only rearranged the ornaments with our permission.  She looks at the tree and will say "wow" over and over again.  We know she doesn't understand the meaning behind the decorations or the season itself, but it is wonderful to see the joy in her eyes over the little things like sparkly ornaments, bright lights, and wrapped packages. 

Sharing the Joys of Adoption

"Our words are like seeds dropped along the road.  We may never know what beautiful things will take root and blossom because we were there. But we can be sure that something good will grow"

Recently we were asked to share our story with our Adoption Agency, Children's Hope International, and have been thinking long and hard about how we might put into words such an emotional and powerful experience.  We have so much to tell others who ask us about adoption- it's hard to describe in words alone- but here it goes.  We always knew we would adopt, and it mostly came down to timing.  After a sudden death in the family we realized life was too short to postpone our dreams.  Three months later we applied for the China Special Needs program through Children's Hope International.  Looking back it seems so long ago, we were so excited and so very naïve. Oh, but what a wonderful time and part of our story that we will cherish. First time parents- dreaming about the day we would meet our daughter, knee deep in paperwork and wondering how we could afford the cost.  We remained determined and focused.  Although it wasn't easy and delays were inevitable, looking back this was the easiest part of our journey.

After seeing our daughters face for the first time, life changed forever.  It would never be the same. We waited 5 months before we could travel to meet her, and we only had 3 photos.  This was when it became HARD.  How do you wait patiently to get your child?  I am sorry, but only others who have been there done that- truly can understand this period of adoption.  IT IS HARD.  All your thoughts are consumed in wondering and praying if your child is being loved, fed, and taken care of while you wait to travel.  It is heart wrenching to wait and know they are growing older, they are alone without a mother and father, in an orphanage across the world.  There is nothing we could do but TRUST.  Those 5 months were challenging but gave us many life lessons.  This is a standard with international adoption - after a referral, the paperwork in both countries takes some time.  For us this stage was the HARDEST.  But like many of life's challenging experiences- looking back we think it wasn't that bad- we could do it again in a heartbeat.

The most joyous part of adoption...holding our baby for the first time. That day will forever be engrained in my memory- like any mother meeting their child for the first time.  There are no words to describe the overwhelming feeling of love. Our story has been easy ever since, Lottie was able to adapt to her new lifestyle immediately.  She was strong and obviously well loved in her orphanage.  We experienced attachment and bonding almost immediately.  She was healthy and happy, and with our love began thriving even faster.  She has been a joy to be around even on her toughest days, whether it be recovering from surgery, or sick with a double ear infection.  Yes, we are biased, but she is one amazing child.  We are so blessed to be her parents, and not a day goes by that we don't think about the gift we have been given.

One story that comes to mind, was after her lip repair about 4 months home from China we had been using signs to help Lottie communicate, one sign we were using constantly was I love you, we said it all the time and always showed her the sign.  Even after 36 hours whirlwind of surgery and recovery, driving 4 hours home, Lottie was so happy to be home.  She was exhausted, heavily medicated, and weak as she hadn't eaten much in the past few days.  We laid her in her crib and hovered over as she smiled at us, we were admiring her new look.  We told her how brave she was and how happy we were to be home, we said I love you.  Honestly, like a scene from a movie, this tiny hand reached up and signed  I love you,  then closed her eyes as was fast asleep.  It took our breath away- like that moment you can't feel your legs, might pass out, overwhelmed by love, this can't be happening moment.  This tiny being reached out to us told us she loved us, never in my life will I ever forget that moment, EVER.

Although, our story has been seamless after meeting Lottie we cannot simply forget about her past or the millions of other children who remain in orphanages around the world.   Adoption changes your life, it touches your soul to realize the depth of raising someone else's child as your own,  and we are so grateful we were chosen to raise Charlotte Lee.  Our lives will forever be changed by our adoption, as it has made us more thoughtful, gracious and giving individuals.  So many people tell us how lucky Charlotte is to have us as parents, to become a US citizen, and to have proper medical care, but honestly we are the LUCKY ones to be blessed with this precious, strong, and loving child.  We are confident she is going to change this world for the better, we look forward to the honor of being her parents and watching her grow into an amazing woman.  We are so very lucky.  In the end, we would do this a million times over again, the reward is so much greater than the struggles.  We WILL adopt again and again.  We will spend our lifetime trying to make a difference in the orphans lives around the world, most important teaching our children about God's love and compassion for those in need.  We will continue to share our story, in hopes it will inspire others to choose adoption to build their families. 

We are BLESSED

This year has been our best one yet!  We have so many things to be THANKFUL for, and decided to dedicate a post of 30 things we are thankful for in 2013!

We are Thankful for

1) our blessing Lottie Lee, she is a gift from God and we treasure every moment
2) the love & support from our family & friends we received throughout our entire adoption
3) Lottie's surgical team in Dallas, especially the talented Dr. Hobar 
4) Lottie's health and development since arriving home
5) our health, given our new allergies, we are grateful for good medical care & epi-pens
6) a healthy and uneventful pregnancy
7) the soon to be arrival of our second child
8) our exciting and stable careers- we both love what we do
9) life in the USA- visiting a Communist Country makes you realize how lucky we are
10) our beautiful house, which has truly become a home
11) our parents- not sure what we would do without them! they are the BEST Grandparents!
12) the simple unscripted moments of parenthood
13) Lottie's happy, and charming personality- she is a joy
14) all those who have prayed for our family this year and throughout our adoption process
15) holiday traditions
16) Lottie's healthy blood drawls and vaccinations
17) our pediatrician Dr. Enders, whom we adore
18) our neighborhood- Teravista, and all the yearly child friendly activities
19) our strong marriage- we have learned form the best-70 years of marriage combined
20) Elmo- watching Lottie fall in love with this fuzzy red character makes life sweeter
21) all those who helped us financially throughout our adoption
22) completing a debt free adoption
23) our adoption agency Children's Hope International
24) friends who are like family
25) life in Texas, and the wonderful Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons we had this year
26) our crazy dogs Benton & Crawford who are adapting to life with Lottie
27) the adoption community, we have gained so many wonderful new friends
28) baby belly kicks
29) laughter with a two year old- priceless
30) experiencing firsts with Lottie- first steps, first time to the beach, first words

Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving, we are looking forward to spending the weekend with family, taking in the simple moments and just enjoying the present.  We have so much to be grateful for this year!  Thank you to everyone!

Month Eight

This month we have witness an explosion of language which makes this Speech Therapist Mama proud!  Lottie uses signs to communicate with us, she signs 20-30 different signs regularly but knows at least 50 signs (mostly nouns- animals are her favorite). She understands most simple directions-"like get your shoes, where's Elmo? and let's go bye-bye" but until lately her only words were Elmo and Lola ( her grandma- although for the longest time she uses Lola to refer to phone- ha! tells you who Mama talks to all the time). 

Honestly, I was torn the Mama side of me felt she was making good progress and I didn't want to push her, but the Speech Therapist side of me was getting extremely nervous knowing her receptive language was improving but her expressive was severely delayed  

(like age appropriate of a 9-12 month old baby).  Of course we would expect a delay due to her cleft palate but we still would expect more babbling and attempts to use more verbal language.  We had heard her make sounds but she was not making the connection to use as speech.  All of these speech milestones are so important as little ones develop speech and language skills.

I am glad I followed my Mama instincts to give her some time, because sure enough it did come!  Lottie is now imitating and babbling many new sounds.  She is saying Elmo, Mama, Dada, Hello, Bye,  No, and More.  She is making more animal sounds- which is an important speech skills as well!  I am so proud of her! Hearing her use words especially hello and bye just makes my day!  I cannot wait until her palate is finally repaired and she will really be able to talk!  Something tells me given her outgoing, happy, and funny personality we are going to be hearing many funny stories in our future.