Why the little things matter.

We've been working on two things for the last few weeks....having Kara say "Please" when she wants something and "No thank you" when she doesn't. Last night she did both!! I wish I had a video of how excited I was and in turn how excited she was when I praised her and told her how awesome she is doing!!

These little things might seem so silly to celebrate, but all these little things add up to a bigger picture!! All these little things I am sharing with you show us that she is capable of bonding and intigrating into a family, they show us that she is mentally capable of learning a new language and more, they show us that she has so much potential with the love of a family!

Her world is so different, we really have no grasp of what it has been like for her and we probably never will. All these amazing victories show us that love is the ultimate language. When we focus on loving one another we can do so much, not only for the one we are showing love to, but for ourselves.

She is literally growing EVERYDAY, she has come so far in a month, can you imagine what 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or a lifetime with a loving family could do for this girl!

We are doing our best to advocate for Kara. Together with the help of our family, friends, donors and strangers who have shared our story we can help, we can make a difference. Everytime you share her story you are potentially leading her to her forever family. Please keep sharing...

We are looking for someone to take professional pictures of Kara. My camera (phone) picture taking skills are not the best, we want to highlight her personality! If you know of someone that does mini sessions (soon) or someone willing to donate some time to take pictures please reach out to us. You guys are AMAZING. We have someone willing to donate her time next week!!

Here are some pictures from Burger King last night. We found out that Kara doesn't like cheese on her burger. She also loves ice cream cones, but not the actual cone part. I had to show her how to lick the ice cream so that it didn't drip on her :)

Thank you for all your support, please don't stop sharing our story, and following along!!

Background....

Kara has told us a little bit about her life in China. She looks at pictures and tells us those are her good friends etc. Finding out all we can is so helpful in understanding her.

Here are some of the things Kara has told us. I was also able to connect with someone that had knowledge of Kara's orphanage and met her and was able to give us some insight to her life over 6,000 miles away.

"The orphanage (she is in) is a great orphanage in my opinion. It's still an institution so it's no comparison to a family, but overall it's a good place with loving staff."

"I actually used the word "spunky" to describe her"

"This orphanage has a special needs school that allows local children whose families did not abandon them to attend."

"A firecracker is a great way to describe her!"

"I live with a mom, dad, brother and sister, I don't like my brother." (She lives in a group home type setting, and she calls these people her family, it is all she has ever known)

"I love my supervisor"

She told us she is in 1st grade in China.

She likes school -music, sports, Chinese, mathematics, art, poetry. 

Unfortunately a lot gets lost in translation, but I hope these little tid-bits of information touch your heart like they have mine.  


Today was such a good day!! Kara is bonding, she hugs me, wants me to hold her (which is a little more challenging being that she isn't that much smaller than me), haha. I made an extra effort to let her sit in my lap, tickle her, etc today.

She's learning (and finally wanting to learn)! Today she was counting and couldn't remember number 5 so she looked to me to help her. I jumped for joy inside, before this moment she didn't want to learn. I am including a video of her counting today. I am also including a lot of pictures from the last few days!

 Audrey and Kara goofing around.

Kara, Siri and Audrey ....still goofing around.

 Kara and Raya saying (yelling) "bye, bye" to one of the daycare kids leaving.

 Kara LOVES the babies!

 Kara showing Colton how to play mahjong tiles on the kindle.

 Kara feeding her baby some of her yogurt.

Kara Counting

$2,000 Grant

This is so amazing!! Someone has donated a $2,000 grant for a family for Kara!!! Please keep sharing her story.

We had a nice long weekend. Spent a lot of time at home just being together. We visited the local Chinese restaurant again over the weekend. I know I have said it before, but this girl can eat!!! She is a healthy, happy and pleasant girl!

Here are some pictures from our time together this weekend.

 Eating popcorn and playing games on the kindles. Please ignore the popcorn all over the floor!! Yes, she really does have big feet ;)

Helping dad in the kennel!

Playing Crazy 8's at grandma Lori's house.

Dentist

Kara saw the dentist today. THANK YOU to Kopper Family Dental in Rochester, MN, they donated their services for Kara today!!

Kara was such a brave girl. Audrey went first and Marin (dental assistant) did an awesome job explaining things to Kara. When it was her turn she jumped right in the chair ready to go. She has one chipped tooth that could use repair and one cavity. We were going to get them fixed today, but I had to get Siri to an eye appointment and we decided there might not be enough time to translate and be sure Kara was comfortable with what was going on. We will go back next week and get these fixed. I think she will do great, but our main plan is to fill the cavity and if she is still doing great we will fix that chipped tooth for her.

We left today with a happy girl and Kopper Family Dental gave Kara a bunch of tooth brushes and toothpastes to take back to China with her!

Please consider visiting Kopper Family Dental if you are looking for a dentist, they are amazing with kids and we really appreciate what they did for Kara.

 Audrey and Kara.

 She had to go to the bathroom at this point. I took off her bib thing, when we got back she quickly handed it to Marin wanting it back on!

 Marin getting ready for Kara!

We had to stop at Kwik Trip so Audrey could go to the bathroom. Kara was amazed with the automatic paper towel dispenser. She had to wash her hands twice so she could use it two times ;)

"Aging Out"

In China, orphans "age out" the day they turn 14. 

What does this mean? This means they are no longer eligible for international adoption, which means their chance for a forever family is slim to none. 

What happens when they turn 14? For the lucky ones, children are allowed to stay on and work at the orphanage. They may help cook meals or serve as a caretaker for the other, younger children still at the orphanage. They work as they watch their younger friends get adopted, knowing that is now a permanent impossibility for them. For the not-so-lucky, they are turned out of the orphanage, sent to look for work in a local village or a nearby city. In many cases, the children who reach 14 are simply never heard from again. Human trafficking and child labor are real issues that many of the children face as they grow older and we are unable to protect them once they reach their age deadline.

Kare will turn 11 in January, this lovely girl needs a forever family, but she isn't the only one.  

Meet Parker, he came with Kara to Chicago (where I picked Kara up). Parker has 16 months to find a family or he will be considered no longer eligible for adoption. If you would like to follow his host families blog the link is here....

Parker's Hosting Blog

Here is a picture of Parker. Also a picture of Kara helping me with the laundry. She is so eager to help, if she hears me doing laundry, she comes running so she can pour the soap for me!!

Please, please keep sharing our blog, there would be nothing better than to find Kara her perfect forever family!!

Christmas

Our  family has celebrated 4 Christmases in 3 days. We had so many people say Kara looks so happy, always with a smile on her face.

These last three days have been crazy, but overall we think it's gone very well. There have been times it was clear she's been over stimulated. Today her and I took a few minutes away from the all crazy stuff and just sat quietly to de-compress. All of this is so new to her, we expected some toddler like behavior. This is normal! This is good, this is how she learns. It's hard and sometimes frustrating in the moment, especially because I worry about what everyone is thinking when I'm literally picking up a 10 year old off the ground, but we were prepared for this and is all part of the process.

This girl LOVES Santa or as she calls him "the fat man that brings gifts!" Hahaha.  She couldn't get enough of him when he visited our family get togethers.

She's been with us a little over a week now. She came with the clothes she was wearing and one other outfit. She has not wanted to wear anything else that we had bought for her. Yesterday she put on new clothes for the first time (I've been washing hers obviously)! I was excited for two reasons....1. I won't have to do so much laundry, haha & 2. That means she's adjusting even more!

I know I keep saying this, but this girl is smart! I had a Chinese lesson on Friday and she would read a question to me and I would answer it (in Chinese). She also recognizes Kara in English when written.

Here are some pictures and a video of her singing her favorite song (notice she's now singing parts in English). You'll notice she is wearing glasses. She does not need glasses, but has been asking for a pair since I picked her up at the airport, so we bought her a pair from Claire's as a Christmas gift. She loves them and looks pretty cute!

Getting to know each other.

Little by little walls are breaking down. Kara has been slow to warm up to people. She is starting to get to know our families. She likes getting rides from grandpa Roger and playing with auntie Michelle. (Some pictures below).

For the first 24 hours we couldn't get her to eat.....now, I can't get her to stop! We were joking that they would have to buy her an extra seat to return to China. She enjoys eating pretty much anything.

She is starting to play with toys and interact with the girls. Laughing and giggling. Her favorite thing to do is play in the snow. She loves sports and if it were warm weather we are certain she'd be playing outside all day.

She also loves baths. It's very difficult to give a laughing, wiggly 10 year old a bath! When she first arrived she wouldn't have anything to do with taking a bath, now she asks everyday of we will be taking a bath. The girls took a shower together the other day and had a blast!!

As Christmas nears I just wanted to touch on something (very quickly). Appreciation...please keep in mind appreciation is taught. We teach our children all sorts of emotions. Sometimes children from different social settings (orphanages, foster care children, etc for just a few examples) may not openly express appreciation. Please be gracious and remember they quite possibly didn't have anyone model/teach appreciation for/to them.

Merry Christmas!

Enjoy the pictures and please keep sharing our blog. So many children need a loving home.