Henry's Room is Taking Shape

For starters, the kids got a haircut this past week, and for Lydia, it was her first. She's just a little darling!As we're in the home-stretch of Henry's adoption, we're looking for things to keep us busy as far as he's concerned, and right now, we're putting the finishing touches on his room.

Test Post

This is a test. As the time quickly approaches for us to go to China to
meet Henry and bring him home, Jenn and I have been giving thought to how
we're going to communicate with Lincoln, Lydia, and the rest of our
family/friends at home while we're there. Researching the blogging
opportunities in China has not been encouraging. Officially blocked by the
Great (fire)Wall of China are: Blogger (which is the platform for The
Gates Experiment), Picasa (which hosts the photos that you see
here), Wordpress (the blog platform to which I'd move if moving would give
better blogging prospects). I understand that Facebook access is spotty,
as well. So when it comes to keeping you all up to date while we're
half-way around the world, I'm hoping that I'll be able to e-mail posts to
Blogger. That's what this is, my first attempt to post here (after >450
posts!) via e-mail. If you're reading this, it worked. The real test will
be which e-mail I'll have access to while we're in China. We'll see...

First Hike of 2012

Today was our first real hike of 2012. The weather was beautiful, and aside from some muddy parts of the trail, it was very pleasant to be out there. We went on the Cross Country Trail, which is 2.5 miles, and Lincoln held up very well. It was his longest hike without being carried for at least some portion, and the fact that he did it on his first hike of the season impressed us.On a completely different subject, Lincoln is starting to gather some steam on the reading front. He's sounding out letters and making out simple words. Our teaching/learning bursts don't last long because he'll either get bored or frustrated, but he's making pretty good progress during the durations where we stay on task.

First Zoo Trip of 2012

I'm really getting behind the curve here.

Lincoln has been helping me with a few painting projects. One of them is for Henry's room, and when we're through with it, we'll post some photos.He's also been back to playing with Legos after a brief hiatus. This has been prompted a bit by his receiving the Lego Club Magazine where he enjoys playing some of the word games as well as looking at the photos of things that "kids have made." I'm convinced that parents are building those things, but what do I know. So Lincoln built a couple of guns of which he wanted me to take photos. I like his iniative spirit!
We've also been battling some coughs... all of us have.
Last Saturday I had a Daddy Day with the kids while Jenn was at work in the morning, so after a few errands, we went for our first Akron Zoo visit of the season. Sure it was cold, but we still had fun.Thankfully, Lydia has been more into books lately. You'll recall that Lincoln was interested in books seemingly from the womb. Lydia, not so much. But over the last few weeks, she's been more interested in picking out books and sitting still for longer periods of time while we read to her.She's also learned to use a step stool very, very effectively.
And word out of middle Tennessee is that the Hopwoods are still waiting...

Letter of Acceptance

We have received our Letter of Acceptance from China! In what has been a long list of steps, we're approaching the end. We'll get a call in the next 10 to 14 weeks telling us of our date at the American Embassy. So it's looking like we'll be traveling to get Henry in May or possibly early June. The time is coming!

Grandma Mullen's Jell-O

Today's Lincoln-ism:

While looking through a new kids atlas and noticing the different flags, he stopped to observe that the flag of Mauritius "looks like Grandma Mullen's Jell-O."

After both Jenn and I stopped laughing, we decided that this needed to be shared here on the blog.

Also, we decided to learn about the nation of Mauritius, pronounced "mawr-RIH-shuhs." It's a beautiful island in the Indian Ocean about 500 miles east of of Madagascar. It was lost by France to the UK during the Napoleonic Wars, and as a result has a mix of French and British heritage. There are no indiginous people to the island. After looking at photos, we then decided to see what it would take to visit Mauritius. The cheapest and quickest trip to Mauritius would take >$2,700 per person and the journey would take >28 hours. Even a journey from Paris would take >20 hours. Yikes!

So what started as a funny comment from Lincoln has turned into 30 minutes of investigative research on the part of his parents. We're nerds. Sue us.

Benchmarks

Brandon brought a cake to our most recent Edge small group get-together and it made all of us laugh.

Now it's time for listing some benchmarks for the purposes of future reflection.

Lincoln has been very interested in his songs in the car. These include hits from Superchick's Karaoke Superstars album such as "Big Star Machine," "Karaoke Superstars," "Super Trouper," "TV Land," "One Girl Revolution," & "Alright." Also, Superchik's "Rock What You Got," and "Hey Hey." Also, Fee's "Glory To God." Also, tobyMac's "Gone," "Made To Love," "Lose My Soul," & "Get Back Up." Also, Newboys' "Born Again." And a few other songs that aren't coming to me at the moment. What makes this all so fun and neat, is that he knows the words to these songs, and he sings along with all of them in the car.

Lincoln has been showing interest in a book about the planets that Auntie Em & Uncle Jeremy got for him a while back. He talks about the big storm on Jupiter, the rings on Saturn, and how small Mercury is.

Last evening we were reading the story of Noah, and when I got to the part about the rainbow, Lincoln said, "Dad, you probably don't remember this because I was a little boy, but once I saw a rainbow in the sky."

One of Lydia's new interests is climbing the step stool and playing with the light switches.

Lydia's also been brushing her teeth lately, and I do mean that she's brushing her teeth. She pitches a fit if we start the process without giving her a turn. This photo is from this morning. I was getting Lincoln ready, and Jenn was finishing getting dressed, and she turned around to find that Lydia had climbed up on the step stool herself.

Lydia has started feeding herself with a spoon. In fact, there are some things that she won't eat unless they're on a fork or a spoon and she gets to hold the spoon.

Lincoln has had the Dizzy Bat Bug in his mind since the Edge Games.

Lydia has also been adding some words to her vocabulary. "Betty" is pretty reliable. And she'll say, "Please," although it sounds more like, "Meeeese." We know what she's saying, though!

Flashback: 2/9/2010 & 2/24/12

Lincoln to the Edge Games

Last night marked the final evening of Edge Games VIII, and I decided to take Lincoln with me. He enjoys Edge events, such as spending some time with my small group guys or going to a Wednesday evening Edge "church service." But the Edge Games are no ordinary event, and I had a suspicion that he'd like what he saw. Boy, did he ever!The first game for our team, Togo, was Chocolate Covered Pickle. It's a relay where each kid gets to choose between answering a trivia question or eating a chocolate covered pickle. If they get the correct answer, they can run back and tag the next person. If they get it wrong, they have to eat a chocolate covered pickle. Some of the kids liked the pickles, others didn't, and Lincoln enjoyed watching the whole thing.

The next game was a number of variations on Steal The Bacon. There's not much like watching 60 middleschoolers converge on center court to gather as many balls, frisbees, ropes and pucks as they can and then throw/run/kick them back to their corner. Again, Lincoln enjoyed the show.The evening wrapped up with the annual Edge's Got Talent show, and once again, these kids brought it. Winning the whole event was Brandon, one of my small group guys. He played a song that he'd written himself. If you're on facebook, you can watch a less loud version here (he played a rockin' electric version for the talent show). While there were other very good acts, Brandon was clearly the best act, and the most talented kid in the show, and I'm not just saying that because he's in my small group. In my opinion, he needs to be encouraged to keep writing, and the worship team at CCC in the Cafe needs to use his music during the worship time. Great job, Brandon!
Today, after Lincoln catches up on his sleep, will be a day of painting. With the rearranging of furniture that we're doing to prepare Henry's room, he and I will be painting our old double bed and setting it up in the basement. Our downstairs guest room is turning into a dorm room!Lydia continues to crack us up. I've mentioned her talking before, but I forgot to mention that her first reliable word has been, "sna," for, "snack." She waddles into the pantry, picks up the bag of Goldfish, and waddles out to Jenn and says, "Sna." Sure, she's starting to say "dada" and "mama" with some degree of regularity, but not like "sna." Today she fell asleep on the way home from Patrick & Marrissa's house (they were watching the kids this morning). She just recently got over (another) cold, and our home is so much more pleasant when she doesn't have snot coming out of her nose. When she's not upset because she's sick, she's 100% on the move.Lincoln finished up his final Pike class and in two weeks will be an Eel. He's making very good progress in the pool.

Back to the Cold

Jenn and I experienced a 50 degree swing, and we weren't too crazy about it. To get some of the dogs' wiggles out, we bundled up the kids and went to the Ledges. And we lasted about 20 minutes, but our mission was accomplished, so we felt good about it.Lydia is showing a real interest in talking now. She's reliably saying "da da" & "ma ma." Sometimes she says "bye bye," and once yesterday she said "Beh tee." It's also neat seeing her actively immitate Lincoln in some of his play.