look what I found!

Ok fellow China travelers-- take a look at what is in Jena's snack bowl. Yep- it's Baby Crack! I found it at our local asian market and had to bring some home. Jena was thrilled to see an old friend. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, those little round crackers were a lifesaver in China. I don't know what they put in them but the babies loved them and there were many times that they were the only thing that could make cranky babies happy. Jena ate her way thru a large bag on the flight home. We jokingly called them Baby Crack because of their seemingly magical and addictive qualities. I'll be happy to ship bags to anyone who needs some!

a good time had by all

Much to Stefanie's dismay tonight was, in fact, the last night of channuka. Both Stefanie and Jena were very happy with all their gifts. I spent tues trying to get some sort of order back in the house. Here is a picture of the girls with the menorah and a picture of them playing with their wooden sushi set.

the miracle of Channuka

There was much excitement in the Rose household as my two miracles celebrated the miracle of Channuka. You can get a sense of the high level of excitement as evidenced in their inablility to sit still long enough for a picture! Tomorrow things should be a little calmer and I'll try to get a photo of Stefanie lighting the menorah-
Happy Channuka everyone -- hope you house is filled with as much laughter as mine!

now it's personal!

OK- I really thinkthis is it...

if at first you don't succeed--

here is my second attempt

good news/ bad news

the good news is I have figured out how to get a video onto the blog. the bad news is I still can't seem to get the video from my computer onto the youtube site.....a work in progress....

Stef's piano recital

hope this works:

Luckiest Mommy in the world

There is word tonight the CCAA (china government office of adoption) has announced that starting May 2007 they will no longer allow singles to adopt. They claim they have twice as many applications for adoption as they do available babies. I spent the evening looking at Jena thinking how empty our house was before she joined our family. I am so lucky I started the process when I did. Here is a picture of the girls being silly and finally getting some wear out of their Chinese dreses!

early intervention update

After three 'planning sessions' we were finally able to start Jena's early intervention on Monday night. The PT/OT person (michelle) came first and she thinks Jena looks great. She thinks Jena just needs some practice transitioning between positions. For example, when she is lying down she will get up by using her abdominal muscles in a sit-up fashion. great exersize, but not the way we would get up! She also thinks Jena 'w' sits too much and suggests I repostion her when I see her sitting that way. Jena is a very quick learner- whne I started to move her legs tonight she immediatly put herself in "cross legs ring seat" - the new PC term for indian style!
Next the teacher (Jayne) came to work on communication. Jena has alot of words now but chooses not to use them. Janye thinks that in the orphanage she probably didn't have much of a chance to communicate her needs, so the fact that she is making herself known non-verbally is great in itself. Jayne says she just needs to learn that she will get alot more with words! It is hard because we do understand her so well. We were playing a game and jayne was trying to get her to say 'more' "do you want more,jena?" Jena was nodding her head and saying 'yeah' --i'm sure Jena was thinking 'how stupid is this lady? can't she see I'm nodding and saying yeah?!' Both Michelle and jayne were impressed with Jena's play skills and attention span. They think she is working hard to keep up with Stefanie.
Speaking of Stef, she has her first piano recital on Saturday. She will be playing Yankee Doddle, Muffin Man and B-I-N-G-O. I am going to video tape it and, if you guys are really lucky maybe Dave can help me get in it on the blog.SHe is skipping school tomorrow to go shopping for an outfit so no matter how she plays she will at least look adorable!

no one told me Fedex was an option..

she only weighs 24 lbs....would have been a lot cheaper than a trip to China!

dressing up for dinner

you can never have too many jewels--

Mommy can be replaced with a lollypop

After a wonderful thanksgiving dinner is was time for the girls to spend their first night at my parents without me. When I work my 24 hour weekend shift I drop the girls off the night before I work and pick them up the day after. Since I had to work during the day on friday and there wasn't any daycare, it was Amah and Zayde to the rescue. I was worried because the girls wouldn't be in their "nest" and I wasn't sure if this was going to be a problem. As Julie T said- why do we even worry ? I am told there was less then 10 seconds of crying. I walked out the door, she started to cry, and as soon as a lollypop appeared, I was but a memory! Jena was her same happy self when I picked her up on friday night and even went willingly back to Amah and Zaydes house on Saturday, since I also have to work sunday. I can breate a big sigh of relief- final hurdle jumped!

birthday party Elmopalooza!

We had a small Elmo themed bash at our house to celebrate jena's birthday. We only had family and close friend because I didn't want Jena to be too overwhelmed. As it was she stuck close to me for the first hour, until it was clear that none of the guests were babysitters in disguise.
Earlier in the day I took the girls swimming. It was Jenas first trip to the pool and she is proving to be a little fish just like her sister. She splashed kicked and didn't throw a fit when I dunked her under. Stef was already swimming under water at two, so we have to get things going with Jena!

Look who's 2!

The big party isn't until Sunday, but Jena turned two yesterday. We had beautiful weather and spent most of the day outside. I went to work since I figure it is that last year I can get away with working on a birthday!
Everyone continues to do great. Jena learned to say "up" this weekend and now says "up" "hot" and "apple". Stefanie is now offically out of pullups at night (yippee!). We had our planning meeting with the early intervention people and have mapped out a plan where Jena will get a developmental interventionalist to work on communication once a week and motor skills twice a month. they were very positive and think she is already making amazing strides. i am hoping we will only need 6 months of early intervention and be done with it!
I will post some party pictures on sunday, but here a couple of Jena on her trike and trying to talk me into letting her try Stef's bike since Stef was off at shool.

to good to be true

I went back to work last night and there wasn't a single tear at my house. No one missed me at all. Margurite sadi i left and Jena sort of looked around and then figured she could deal with it. Went to bed without a problem and woke up with a smile! Tonight she was a little more clingy but basically the saem. Another hurdle down!

more fall fun

Here are the two little leopards playing in the leaves in front of our house. they both really like to be outdoors. I am sorry that soon it is going to be too cold to play outside!
I'm also posting a couple of pictures from dinner the other night. We stopped on the way home from school and bought two ballons at the party store. No reason except everyone loves ballons! Stefanie is catalogue shopping. Never too early ot get a jump on holiday shopping. Basically she wants everything so by time she is done the whole page is circled.
last of all I am posting a picture of where the girls are sleeping. We call it "the nest" and it is on the floor next to my bed. Before anyone calls DYFS, I did invest in a layer of 'miricle foam' so they aren't sleeping right on the floor. I figure we have plenty of time to get everyone sleeping where they belong- for now, they are sleeping and they aren't in my bed!

trick or treat

Here are my little trick or treaters. This photo captures the 15 seconds where Jena agreed to keep her ears on and Stef agreed to keep her hat and her horse. By time we left the house the costumes were a little less complete. At first Stefanie thought maybe she didn't want to go out, that she would rather stay home and give out candy. After about 5 houses she was good to go and insisted we keep going until we fill the bucket. This was made a little more difficult by the fact that we had to aviod any house that Stefanie felt was the slightest bit "creepy". My personal pet peeve-- if you aren't going to answer the door on halloween turn your porch light off!
Jena contines to do well at daycare. She has become attached to one of Stefanies old baby blankets we call 'silkey'. I am encourging this since she has to get used to sleeping here, there, and everywhere i like the idea of her having a security object. Remind me of that when she is 10 and I am trying to get her to give it up!
Last night was back to school night and Margurite came over to babysit. There was some crying after I left but Jena did manage to go to sleep without me which is good news since I go back to work next week.

bathing beauties

here is a picture of the girls enjoying their bath on a rainy friday night. Jena is doing much better at daycare although she has decided to survive on a diet of bananas and danimals (drinkable yogurt). I figure of all the things she could be eating that isn't too bad!

shots shots and more shots!

We have had a busy few days. On tues the early intervention people came over for Jena's evaluation. she will qualify for speech as well as fine and gross motor skills. They expect her to pick quickly as they think her deficits are just realated to lack of oppurtunity. it is amazing to watch her play, she is like a little spunge. She watches her sister and then trys to do everything that Stef is doing.
On weds morning we went the doctor where she got six (yes-6!!) shots. we have decided to catch her up but repeating shots and that means at least 2 shots a month fot thenext 3 months. She is really going to hate going to the doctor by the time we are done. We also have alot of blood work to get but I figured 6 sticks was enough for one week.
This moring we took her to my parents synagouge for her ritual bath, to complete her conversion. She was carried into the deep bathtub by her Zayde and didn't complain too badly when she was dunked under water. She is now offically named Yona Chava in hebrew. the Yona is in memory of my great Aunt Jeanette- no one knew her hebrew name and my sister came up with Yona - whcih means 'dove' since she flew across the ocean to find her home. The Chava is hebrew for Eve - in memory of my great aunt Eva. Big sister Stefanie watched the whole thing with great interest.

Big News--I am UNPACKED!

yep- after 3 weeks home I finally have everything unpacked and even have the suitcases back in the basement. I still don't have everything put away they way I would like but I am getting there. We went on a pumkin hayride on sunday with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave. We also met Stefanies friend maddie there. Jena really liked the 'petting zoo' area (no petting- just looking). Stefanie said that soem of the animals 'just freak me out!"After that we went ot visit Amah and Zayde and everyone had alot of fun playing in the leaves.

YEAH!! the babysitter is here!

When I work at night this wonderful woman takes care of everything. Stefanie loves her and it looks like Jena likes her too. I don't expect Jena to be as happy to see her once she realizes that when Margurite comes Mommy goes to work. This is the picture I am going to keep in my head the first night I have to go back to work.

And just a note about spelling and typos-- most of you already know I am a terrible speller, and even worse when I am typing so- no need to let me know about all my typos and spelling errors. If there weren't any spelling mistakes how would you know it was me?

fun at home

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave came over the sunday after we got home. One of Stefanies favorite activities is to climb on Uncle Daves shoulders. You can see from these pictures Jean thinks it is fun too!

Fall fun

We had a great weekend with a visit from our friends Kathy and Eliza. Everyone is loving the fall weather. Jena loves to be outside. She will take me by the hand and pull me to the stroller by the front door. She can still throw quite an impressive temper tentrum if I hadn't planned on going outside at that time.
I've also posted some pictures of Stefanie at her pumpkin picking class trip today. She has happy to have Mommy all to herself while Lena was at school.

if you can't beat'em...join'em!

I've given in to the pressure and started this blog so I can share updates and pictures of my two girls. After all my china travel buddies had started to blog I felt like I had no choice! i hope you all enjoy the updates and photos.