VBS fun!

Starting on last Thursday night, we have been having our church VBS, the Pirates Who Don't do Anything. last night was our last night, and I'm very sad! I'm on the worship crew, and I help out in the Yo Ho Ho opening show. I love getting dressed up in my pirate gear and wearing my "Bucko" name tag. Bucko is my pirate name, I'm part of the quadruple B's, Bumpo(Molly Grace), Boho(Taylor), Billy Bob(Sarah), and then me, Bucko. The VBS is truly great, I love watching these kids learn about God.

On Friday night, mom, dad, and Luke came in to watch the opening show! Before we started, I took Luke back to the preschooler's playroom and he LOVED it!! It took me a while to get him to go sit down with mom and dad for the show!

There's always our clue for the day about what we're learning about, a skit from Bones and Bumpo(Bones is played by our friend Ms. Haley), our theme song, our theme verse(Phil. 4:13) , and our worship songs. During the opening show we also have snacks. We have a craft or science experiment that relates to our lesson, and then we head to the Bible Theater for a Bible story with sound effects and everything. That's my favorite part! After that, we go to the Yo Ho Ho Closing Show where we do our scripture verse, a quiz on our lesson, a skit again from Bones and Bumpo, and then our last worship song, "In the Secret". This VBS is so greatt!

Here's some pics from Friday night:


Praise and Worship


Bucko.Is.Fearsome!!


Ms. Rebecca, the Praise pirate, and Bucko :)


Pirate gear on and ready to go!


Argh!

More updates!

Life has suddenly gotten busier :)

But I think we're finally finding our new normal. The first few weeks were very very hard on me and mom, and Luke too. Sometimes he would cry solid for an hour or so when it was time for bed or a nap, and Luke was clinging to mom a lot, and she couldn't get anything done, and when I tried to help, Luke would scream and hit at me, so I felt left out. But now, he's gotten much better, and he's sleeping good; he's very happy and playful; and he's coming out of his shell around strangers! Yesterday he went over to Grandmama and Pop's house and stayed over there by himself for about 30 minutes, then I came over and we made brownies while mom and dad took a walk. He's learning SO much more English, and understands even more than he can speak. The other day, he was laying in bed with mom and she said, "Do you want to go wake up jie jie?" he shook his head. "Do you want to go nuya(potty)?" he shook his head. "Do you want to go eat?" he shook his head. "Do you want to lay right here in bed?" and he nodded. How cute is that?? He knows how to turn his light in his bedroom off and on and communicates with us pretty well. I taught him the hand motions and words to Phillipians 4:13 from our VBS, so maybe we can get that on video for you all!




I watched this video of Ms. Traci and Mr. Herman's Emilia, over and over again, so I had to try this. Luke can say "Pine" and "Apple" just fine, but when he puts them together, it's just mush! I hope we can get that on video too, it's hilarious!

Luke is fearless when it comes to the water. He will jump in by himself, be dragged, thrown, or pushed in and come up giggling and and coughing up water because he ALWAYS leaves his mouth open! It can be a bad thing, because he will bail off in the water sometimes, but then again, he's not afraid to get in and have fun, so one of us doesn't have to stay out and hold him while the other swim. He usually wears either his ring float and his arm floaties(which are very cheap), or he just wears his arm floaties and we hold onto him. He can swim from one person to another most of the time, so maybe next Summer we can get him into swimming lessons. It'll be a breeze for him!



If any of you follow Ms. Melissa's blog, you might remember this video. And if you do, then you remember how CUTE this one part is when she does her hands in a circle, then holds them up and looks at them, like one of those greek statues, lol! Luke does that in his own way, and usually it ends up looking like he's slapping someone, then putting up his hands as if saying, "What did I do?" lol. But it's still cute!!



There are SO many things I need to put on videos of, so keep checking back and checking mom's blog!

Love and blessings,
Joy

We're back, and it feels SO good.

We're FINALLY back. I cannot tell you how great it is to be in my OWN home, my OWN bed, my OWN good old USA. When we got to Michigan, the man who checked our passports asked us how long we had been gone, etc etc, then he handed our passes back and said, "Well welcome back to the USA." I promise you, I almost cried!! We got back a day before July 4th, so it seemed like we celebrated it early. We had barbeque and my cousins and Aunt Missy and Uncle Richie were there, and my grandparents, and Colt, and Amber, and of course, mom and dad and Luke! It was SO much fun!

Jetlag really wasn't that bad, and I'm not sure why. Maybe because we left Hong Kong in the morning, and, give or take a few hours, it seemed like we were in the same time zone as home, because we arrived home at 5:00-ish PM. Luke has adjusted pretty well for what he's been through. I mean he was in surgery at 1 month, at 4 months he was put in his foster family, then a month before we came, put in the orphanage, then us. Then, he saw the orphanage nannies the very next day, along with seeing other adoptive families and Chinese people who would speak to him and call him by name. The worst night so far was when he woke up at around 3:00 AM and cried solid for an hour and 18 minutes. The other night, we all got in the bed and watched a movie, Richie Rich. When it was time to go to bed, he freaked out and started crying. He led mom into the kitchen and opened the fridge, and touched everything, then got a bottle of water, took one drink, then led mom back to HIS room in his bed which he had been scared to sleep in, and climbed in with me and mom, and fell asleep. It was so weird! Mom said it's probably because he remembers us trying to get him to sleep there, and since we had never watched a movie in bed before, he was looking for something familiar. He's getting very attached to Pop and Grandmama. Whenever he sees Grandmama coming up the sidewalk, he'll run to the window and shout, "Gramamaa!!!" He likes riding in the mini trailer behind the fourwheeler, and he LOVES to swim. He actually knows how to kick his legs and move his arms already, but he still has trouble floating and keeping his head up. When he does let me put his ring around him, he can swim around and splash and everything! He likes dunking himself and playing around with my goggles. :) He likes looking at my magazines, and when he sees a picture of Victoria Justice, he says "Jie jie"! Haha! And when he sees a picture of Taylor Lautner, he says "Dang Dang!" Which is his Chinese nickname, pronounced "Dong Dong". Keep dreamin', little man! LOL.

I can't wait for him to meet all our friends and families, and I especially can't wait to get videos on here! He is learning english SO well. Everyone says so, even the doctor! His english vocabulary is HUGE. Let me see if I can remember them all:
Throw'm'way.
Mama
Baba
Joy(Jo-Eh! Lol)
Colt
Gugu
Jie jie
mom (it sounds more like MAAA)
Ready to go?(He found one of my old doll cars that says that and he repeats it over and over again!)
oh yeah, baby
no way, dude.
Say wha say whaaaa????
I love you!
Thank you!
Hello!
Hi!
Bye bye!
Please!
phone please
Luke
want
Grandmama
Pop
Laci
Kemper
Uncle Richie
Aunt Missy
Amber
Ring ring
water
pray
Thank you Jesus
for this food
In Jesus' name
Amen
Team Jacob!!! (That's my boy!)
Oh yeah!
yayyy!!
yeah!
No
And something that sounds like "quit"

And he can imitate just about anything! If my phone makes a noise, he can repeat it exactly!! It's so funny! He sings and talks in both English and Chinese all the time, but he's saying less Chinese.

He's super smart and whenever we sit down to eat, he says "pray!" and he puts his hands together, bows his head, and closes his eyes and waits for us to tell him what to say. If we don't pray, he doesn't eat! How great is that? Thank you, God!

So far, so good. We just got him down for a nap, and it went smoother than usual. Videos coming soon, for now, I'll just show pictures!


Mr Cool.


Pop's "Little Man"


Swimming lessons will be a breeze!


Cool vampire??!!


Little Fish!



Fun with Jiejie


Playing Guitar Hero with Jiejie at Incredible Pizza :)


A little kiddie ride at Incredible Pizza, he loved it!


Look at that grin :)

Blessings,
Joy