Home

Yes we are home. 

I know that I kind of dropped off there.  But we are having a terrible time with jet lag.  Terrible.  I do not remember it ever being this bad.  However we never made that trip both ways with a 3 year old.  She is just not adjusting.  Right now it is 3am and she is up and ready for the day.  The only progress we have made in her adjustment is moving her up to getting up at 3 instead of 1am.  And those of you with bigger families know that the rest of the kids still need you, even though another child is draining you. 

So here Sydney and I sat.

Ashlyn is doing great.  I think she was back on MO time by Monday!  Freaky child.

Sarah is having a bit more trouble.  She cannot hardly stay awake all day still, which is Sydney's problem too.  We have tried everything to get Syd awake during the day, but about 2-3pm she just crashes.  We have tried everyting from taking a ride on the four wheeler to chasing butterflies to get her to stay awake.  But she just drifts in and out of sleep for about 6 hours during the day.  Grrrrrr.

Abbey is doing wonderful.  She is such a sweet girl with such a positive spirit.  She is not timid about joining in on what we are doing but is not overbearing either.  She does very well speaking to all the new people she meets.  I think this is her best area of English, just casual conversational polite phrases.  She is adjusting well to the time change also.  We took her shopping Tuesday to get her some shorts and I told her how many pair we were gonna buy her when we first got there.  She looked and looked with her brow deeply furrowed.  It was kind of sad because I know that she was thinking that none of this looks like what she is used to.  But she did come out with 5 pair to try on and we bought her two of them.  She is a size 1!  Little bitty thing!  But I was happy that she could fit in to the juniors sizes.  I was afraid she would have to go to the little girls section and not be able to find anything old enough for her. 

We have had several visitors, but nothing overwhelming.  We have two boys that are friends of the girls stop by and they chatted with Abbey alot.  She did very well with them.  They used the translator to communicate what they could not.  Ashlyn noticed that Abbey would put what she wanted to say into the translator and then let it translate it into English, then read it and say it herself.  I thought that was a very good thing.  She is a very smart girl. 

She gets up every morning and makes her bed, which I love teasing my other two teenagers about.  She helps with dishes when we all do them and yesterday just went in and started washing them on her own.  Nice. 

Today we have eye exams for Abbey and Sarah.  I don't remember if I mentioned it on here that we discovered in China that Abbey usually wears glasses but she left them at the orphanage for the other kids to use.  She has also complained of a headache several times, so we think that may be related.  Please pray for us at her exam at 1:00.  Sarah is due too, so we figured that if Sarah went first and Abbey watched that maybe it would help her understand what is going on.  Hopefully we can communicate well enough to get a good diagnosis on her eyes. 

Overall, it could not be going better.  I prepared for the worst, and it is not anything like that.  I know we are still in the early stages of this, but I am so relieved that she is doing so well.  God is so good to us.  There is no doubt that she was created to be here as my daughter.  Oh what wonderful plans he has for us.

Trust Him, friends.  He knows what He is doing.