Just Having Fun!

Trey and his Spiderman bike. He sure does love his bike. His foster parents owned a bike shop so now I know why at 5 he can ride on 2 wheels.... One less to teach...

Trey has a worm in his hand... Uck... I should have known he is a boy. Soon he will be bringing in lizards.... Tessa wants no part in the bug hunting...

Both of the kids wanted to show off their artistic side. They had so much fun painting.

I had a fridge full of art work.

They first thing Trey painted was his numbers 1through eight. I could not believe he just did not paint pretty colors all over the paper. This painting was more of his artistic side.

This is the first time Trey had been on the waterslide. He thought it was the coolest thing ever. Tessa really is enjoying having someone to play and swim with.

Surprisingly happy to be sitting with each other today. They still have there moments when only

one can be in the chair at a time. So I make sure to get some photos of them sharing things so nicely together...

Trey loves this camera. We got it from the baby store in Taichung when we adopted Tessa 2 yrs ago. It came with the purchase of our diapers and the rest of the store shopping spree that we did...

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Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium

Oh, Tatumn you will find your prince someday sweetie!!!!!!!!

We had a great day at the Aquarium. Just the 4 of us headed down and Trey really enjoyed the aquarium. He loved the stingray petting pool and the horshoe crab petting pool also. He was pretty amazed to see the big tank of sharks. We spent most of our time there.The sandcastle is done in cement. They do a new one every year. Pretty cool to see in person. It was just an awesome day to have just 2 of the kiddos...

Out And About at Home

What a beautiful smile.

Playing in the sprinkler

Trey prefers to go up the slide to come down..

Well, what do you think Mei Mei. Can we do these monkey bars????

Ham!

where is the smile from Dad.... He obviously did not want his picuture taken today... Ha Ha...

Trey loves his big sister.

Our sweet baby girl. Almost 3. Where does the time go?

This is pretty much what these 2 do. Chase each other around then play fake sleeping.

They both are quite the characters to say the least

Our First Morning at Home!

Our adorable 3 little ones..... Of course the older 2 boys were still sleeping..

Our handsome son.

Trey JingLai was so giggly and squirmy trying to swing that he could barely stay in the seat. Plus he is no bigger then a minute. Still swimming in size 4T shorts. He is 43 1/2 inches tall and weighs 39.6 pnds at 5yrs old. Just a little guy...

My wonderful husband and family saw to it that we would have the decor of a birth of a newborn child..... Well he was a birth in our eyes. Just cheated a little...... No sleepless nights, no feedings every 2-3 hrs. Ready to start Kindergarten..... Thanks Bob for making the best homecoming for Trey Jing Lai.

My crazy girls......

I am doing my best to catch up over this weekend. I have tried to stay away from the computer and focus on the children and Trey. After spending my last 4 or 5 yrs on this stinkin machine with both of our last adoption processes it just about kills ya... But it is your lifelink to support and your agency. So I feel pretty good about not having to check my email 3oo times a day for any news..... So follow along as I play catch up with our blog over the next week or so.

Our first morning(Aug 12th) together was Awesome. Trey slept that first night in his own bed. He shares a room with Tessa. I asked him if he wanted to sleep with Mom and Dad. He slept with me at the hotel and I thought he just might want that the first week or so at home. But nope.... He so wanted to sleep in his own bed and he did just that... He snores. He sleeps hard and he slept 9 hours even with jet lag, 12 hr time change and slept every bit of our flights the past 2 days prior. Man... Did I know how easy this was going to be. All the worrying we did about sleep, adjustments and everything thrown right out the window....

Our 2nd part of his first day at home was spent at the city park and McDonalds of course. For a little guy he can sure put away the food.

So far he has ate absolutely everything we have eaten thus far. And eats spinach, broccoli, salads, tomatos, onions. Maybe he can teach Tessa a few things. Although he refuses cantaloupe, and did not care much for macaroni and cheese thus far. I am sure that will change.

He drinks lots of milk just like the rest of my kids. We certainly are at a gallon a day for sure now....Oh and he loves yogurt, and yogurt drinks. We still give him his chopsticks daily, so he will continue with those and he uses them. I will offer a fork if he wants it. We try to use our chopsticks also. A quick way for me to lose weight, because I really need to learn a few tips from him how to use them to eat my food... I still am not very good. Bob,Travis, and Tatumn do a great job with them.

He is just the best little guy ever and has certainly jumped right in to our family with both feet and is just so comfortable. He is sooo funny.... So whitty and can just handle our large family so perfectly....

............To hear the Videos Below.......... Go back up towards the top right of the page and pause the Playlist to stop the music......................

Welcome Home August 11th 2009

Trey with his big brother Tyler.

First 5 minutes in the door. Digging in to the toys.

Carrying on in his own, on the cell phone

Staying in his seatbelt. Whew! We will tackle the booster seat later.

The shuttle ride to the airport in San Francisco.

Waiting to check our luggage.

Exactly 2 yrs. and one week we arrive home with our 2nd beautiful child from Taichung, Taiwan. What a lucky family we are to have been given the chance to add to our already 3 beautiful children. Now we are a family of 7. Wow!!!!

Trey slept preety much the whole 6 hrs to Charlotte, then we had to wait and extra hr in Charlotte to head home on the next plane which he slept that last hr flight home also. He pretty much got the where your seat belt down by now.

We arrived home around 6:30 pm and were greeted by Dad, Tyler, Tatumn, Tessa and a few of Tylers good friends. Brenda, Ms. Iva, David and Pat and Sarah and Mary, caught up with us in the parking lot due to our late arrival at the airport. They had some starving kiddos....

We were happy to have everyone come out and greet our little guy. He jumped right up into Daddy's arms. Tessa was so giggly and so was Tatumn. It was so great to be home.

Our car ride home went well too. He stayed in his seatbelt and talked on Tessa's cell phone the whole way home. He was all smiles and was laughing so much..... We are just so proud of him. How well he had done in 4 days before arriving home. To ask a child to leave his foster family of 4 yrs, to ask him to trust you as his parents and to never shed a tear!!!!!

Only when the thought that your brother was leaving with out you....

Strong. Determined little boy to trust that we will love him and guide him through his new life in America.

I would have never thought this could have been so easy. It was a breeze.

We love you Trey JingLai. And we are so very proud of you. Being so strong.

Our Layover Night in San Francisco

We got into SF around 5:30pm the same day we left Taiwan at 9 pm.... Starting to wreak havoc on my brain. 12 hr time difference.... This was still the 10th of Aug. We take the shuttle bus to our hotel

and ordered Domino's and some water. The delivery guy came to the door and I put the pizza on the desk after paying and opened it up and Trey said something in Chinese really fast and then said Yeah Pizza....

Good Mommy...... Our other choice was Chinese.... Not that night for us....He devoured 3 pieces. Crawled up onto the bed and watched some cartoons and then out by 9 ish.... Travis beat us both to sleep....

We loaded up the next morning to catch the 4:30 am shuttle yep,,,, no snoozing in that day. We left SF for home around 7am. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our Last Day in Taiwan!

Both boys were in AWWWW of this huge transformer guy at the airport in an electronics store. Man is Taiwan cool....

I gave Trey his instant camera(Angie and Jason gave him) to take photos with at the airport. He loved it.

Chilling,,,,, Killing time outside of the Airport

The famous scroll guy.... We had the same written on it for Trey as we did Tessa. Love Forever Jing Cyuan.... Done at Snake Alley Night Market.

This was our last day in Taiwan. And I am just getting to posting it.... We have been very busy around here. To say the least. We spent our last day in Taiwan on the 10th of Aug. First stop back to AIT to finish up with the

American side of his visa paperwork to bring him home. Originally our appt was for the Fri. before but the Typhoon did not allow that. So I got to AIT around 8:30 and handed over a load of documents and did my 3 ? interview and was asked to come back around 11:30 to pick up his visa. So back to the hotel to do some more packing. I went back to AIT by myself to pick his visa up. Left the boys behind to play. It was ready around 12ish. Worked for me... Everything good to go to leave that night with Trey JingLai. Got back to the hotel and had everything ready to head out around 2pm and Travis started taking the suitcases down and Trey lost it.... He started to cry for the first time. Mona our unforgettable housekeeper on the 12th floor came to my rescue. She said he was upset his Gu Gu(big brother was leaving him) oh my gosh broke my heart. So she told him he was just taking the suitcases down to get ready to fly home to America. That seemed to help. Then we finished getting all 6 bags down. Trey came home with most if not all of the stuff we sent him while he waited for us... So I am sooo glad I packed one suitcase in another and bought a large one there. I filled another with souvenirs this time. Which I did not do last time and was so sorry I did not do more shopping.... So I had fun this time.

We headed over to Taipei 101 to do the observation deck and the fastest elevator. We had a great time. Trey enjoyed the secada Travis found after we were ready to catch a cab back to the Agora. They both have a love for bugs I see.....

Our last stop of the day was Toyuan Airport. Taipei Airport. Mr. Chun, Mr. Yeh's good friend we have met 2 times now at the Jade Market was soooo kind to take us in his taxi, while Mr. Yeh and Alex took Michelle and Todd down to Taichung to pick up their beautiful baby girl Tessa.

Mr. Chun and Alex have phones that will do video conversations so we got to talk to Alex, and Michelle and Todd and see sweet baby Tessa. That was so awesome......

Once we arrived at the airport we ate some dinner and waited to board the plane around 9pm. Once we got on Trey played with the t.v. in front of him for a bit then crashed out for 10 hrs or so of the 12 hr flight... He did every position possible to stay comfy. Even upside down at one point. I slept the first 4 hrs really good then about 2 hrs then another 2 hrs. Then up the last few or so.... I felt pretty good when we got to San Francisco. I know they did also. Travis slept pretty good too...