Precious!!

Today I was explaining adoption to a teenager (who made the comment that I was not Jian's "real mom" :)). I explained how I am his real mom, regardless of whether or not I gave birth to him. Then, Jian asked me what we were saying (he was behind me and saw half of my conversation).  So, I did, and his response was this: "In China I didn't have a mom or dad, now I have a mom and dad, God helped me to get a mom and dad.  Thank you God for giving me a mom and dad!"

WOW - can you get any more precious than that?  I had a bit of a hard time finding my way to the car through my tears!

A Party and a Plan

Wow, time sure does slip away quickly!  I can't believe it's the middle of November already.  We'll have been home for 4 weeks already tomorrow, and we've been a family of 4 for 7 weeks!  In many ways it seems as though we've always been a family and seems strange to have done many things without Jian! 

My parents came from Michigan to meet Jian - and we all had a great time together.  I can't believe I never got a picture of them all together, but, maybe that's because Jian rarely stands still.  We enjoyed several days together, and I appreciated them spending time with Jian giving me a little break to clean, do laundry, and rest, as well as them taking us out to eat for several meals.

Grandpa and Jian playing footall

Grandpa and Tanner enjoying watching football

 Grandma and the boys baking cookies.

Last week some generous and wonderful friends had a special welcome home party for Jian.  It made him feel so special and loved.  We feel tremendously blessed and overwhelmed by everyone's generosity and kindness.  Such wonderful memories!  Check out this picture, thanks Kathy Johnson for these great shirts - the boys LOVED them!

Below is a slideshow of pictures from that fun day.

So, things are really still going amazingly well.  We praise God for his amazing provisions for us.  Our communication is continuing to improve and Jian is settling in so well.  He's doing great at school in the mornings and really motivated to learn both at home and at school.  We're doing a lot of teaching, re-directing, correcting, modeling, etc. to show him appropriate behavior, proper ways to respond, etc.  He responds so well to these things and we're very thankful for that.  He hasn't said much about missing anyone until yesterday.  He mentioned several times that he missed his chinese parents (the people who would take him home from the orphanage on weekends).  He wrote them a letter and brought up several times about missing them, it's sad for him to miss them, yet good that he had bonded with them and so good that he is missing them. 

Overall we're doing well, some days are more exhausting than others, and some days are much easier.  One day this week I was thinking how much easier an infant would be.  Later, I reminded myself that at least I don't have to get up in the middle of the night with Jian :) and, that it may seem easier to me at the moment, but, that has not been God's plan for our life (and easier is definitely a relative term.) 

I love seeing him really begin to understand and comprehend things, it's so exciting.  Today Jian asked me what he would do for work when he grows up.  After explaining that he could do whatever he wanted to do, he replied that he couldn't get a job in China because he was deaf or that he would clean streets.  He's correct.  He could hardly believe that he could do any job.  What a blessing that we can live in this country where we truly can do almost anything we want, and that God brought him to us.  It's so exciting to think about the possibilities that God has planned for his future. 

OK, well, I still want to get to writing Jian's story before the adoption, and we've even recently learned more about others praying for him before we ever knew about him - how phenomenal is that?!  What a generous, gracious heavenly Father who loves this boy so much more than we ever could. 

" "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

A Fun Fall

So, we've been enjoying the nice cool weather and showing Jian the fun fall activities we do here.  He's enjoyed everything so far, his first rodeo, carving pumpkins, attending the Grace Bible Church Country Fair, dressing up for Halloween, going on our neighborhood Halloween hay ride, and more.  Here are a few pictures from these fun events.

 

What else has been happening?  Things are still going well.  Not much time for the computer, or much else for that matter :) but, really, things are still better than we could have expected.  Jian is incredibly adaptable and really loves everything about being here (so far :)).  Last week he was able to see on skype one of his friends from the orphanage that was adopted last year, we loved seeing his excitement at connecting with his friend.

Last Wednesday he was able to meet Grandpa and Grandma Bergeron for the first time and was so excited waiting for them to come!  Here they are with Scooter.

On Friday, I brought Jian to school for the morning.  We went to give him the experience and to be familiar with what school will be like.  He surprised us with how well he did.  So, this week, we're trying out school every morning.  I went with him yesterday again and will meet him there half way through today.  It helps him for me to be able to be an in-between interpreter either with signing or using an application to translate words into Chinese for him to read, or, for him to write and translate into English.    We come home and work on English/reading in the afternoon.  So, we're trying that out for now and will see how that goes.  We're really thankful for the flexibility we have and if it doesn't work out, we have plenty of options!  We're so thankful that he is enjoying school so far.  In the mornings he's attending math, science and social studies in the middle school deaf education classroom.

This morning as we were waiting for the bus, I went to see what the boys were up to, here's what they were doing, drawing together - so cute!

We are all excited that Grandpa and Grandma Lenger are coming in from Michigan tomorrow to meet Jian, the boys have been counting down the days.  I'm looking forward to perhaps getting a little extra rest while they're here too :).  I'm surprised how tiring having 2 children and one teenager can be (go ahead and laugh  at this, I'm not quite sure what I expected :)).

Thank you for your continued prayers for our family.  We appreciate them and know they are making a difference in our lives!  I'm hoping in the next week or so to finally write down how we came to know about Jian and our journey prior to going to China!

Coming Home Video

OK, I've finally been able to download and do a little editing of the video from when we arrived home.  You may want to scroll down and pause the music at the bottom since there's music with the video.  We're all doing well, will update more later.  We hope you enjoy the video.

Settling In

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch.  I really love fall and being able to decorate.  I'm happy we still have some time for the fall decorations, especially when the weather is so nice and cool!  Jian was really excited and said he's never carved a pumpkin before.  He loved picking out his own pumpkin and looking at everything there.  He kept asking if they were real. :) 

Things are going well here.  We're working on settling into a routine.  Tanner is now back at school full time and adjusting better than I expected.  I thought he would be upset to leave his brother, but, he's happy to be going to school, and we're so thankful.  This morning Tanner seemed a little down and while we were in his room, I told him his brother was awake, a big grin came across his face and he turned around and gave Jian a big high-five. 

Jian was pretty nervous about starting to learn english, but, now that he's started, he's doing really well and gets excited to learn something new!  This should help things a lot, he definitely has motivation.  We're working on finding things for him to do.  Right now, he's like a giant toddler.  We are following him around everywhere and helping him learn what things are as well as what things he can and cannot touch (it becomes a bit tiring :)).  Yesterday we went to a craft store and found him a couple of things to do for a few days.  We're doing school and then some activities (plus, giving mom a little break).  As we left the store, he was able to experience what happens with a fender bender :).  Two of us were backing out at the same time and rubbed bumpers.  Jian was extremely nervous and couldn't believe we didn't get out and scream at each other.  Once we were in the car he kept signing - that girl was so nice, she was so nice!  I'm thankful it was nothing big and was a good opportunity for him.

Jian loves his dad.  He can't wait to see him when Jon arrives home and is often looking at his watch to see how much longer until dad is finished with work.  He likes to play with him, chat with him, and just be close to him.  Clearly he's not had much male influence in his life and he has a fabulous dad to learn from. 

He and Tanner enjoy riding their bikes in the backyard every afternoon.  Yesterday, while they were outside, I enjoyed watching them have a conversation about their bikes.  What a blessing it is to see the two of them communicating so well and to be doing something fun together.   Jian is incredibly excited to go to a high school football game tonight, there's a possibility of rain, so we'll see what happens (though we can definitely use the rain here). 

I'm having some trouble getting video onto here, so, I'm working on converting the file right now, I hope it works, so that you can see Jian coming home.  I also am excited to post about how we found out about Jian in the first place and meeting (online) some new people  that had a part in us learning about him.  We love seeing God's handiwork throughout this story.  We also would love to post more about our time and people we met while in China.  I'm checking on the logistics of some of that and will keep you updated.