Adoption 11: Megan (Jasmine) Summer Vacation

Hi Amanda,

 

WOW, the new Starfish House is awesome.  It will be such a wonderful place for all of the kids.  The courtyard in the middle area will be such a safe area for the kids to play.  Since we are not able to come over and help with the renovations, would we like to make a donation to help.  Is there something on the website to flag for this purpose?  Congratulations also on the Starfish 5 year anniversary milestone, it's so wonderful that you and the nannies have been able to help so many children.

 

Here are some pictures from our summer vacation to Pigeon Forge Tennessee and the Smokey Mountains.  We went on vacation with my parents.  The girls had a blast.  We had a pool but in so we've been enjoying our hot summer swimming.  Carly & Megan both love swimming and now Megan will even put her face in the water.  They started swimming lessons this past week and they seem to enjoy it.

 

Megan started preschool a couple of weeks ago.  She likes to practice writing the alphabet and writes her name pretty good. She is getting really excited about her upcoming 4th Birthday.  We are going out of town for a long weekend over her birthday with our friends and travel mates.  Megan just loves her buddy Lukas that was adopted with her.   I'll send some pictures after her big day and our little mini-vacation.  Take care and talk to you soon. 

Leslie,  Ken, Carly & Megan

Anliya (Jasmine) Adoption 33

Dear Amanda,

It has been nearly three months since we met at the Civil Affairs office and Anliya (Jasmine) was placed in our arms.  That was a hard day for all of us...but especially for her.  Thank goodness for bubbles and M&M's.  However, the scared and grief stricken little girl that we met on adoption day has blossomed into such a spunky, joyful, and charismatic little girl.

Anliya (Jasmine) is doing fantastic.  She is a joy to us and is such a happy and playful little girl.  She wakes up with a smile on her face and laughs and plays all day long.  She adores her big sister, Jada, and is constantly trying to imitate her.  Jada has been a tremendous help in Anliya's transition to our family.  Anliya looks up to her and Jada takes her role as big sister very seriously.  And as I told you in my first update, Anliya attached herself to my husband Roger right from the start.  She still runs to greet him with a big smile when he comes home from work everyday.  They are great buddies.

Anliya is talking up a storm.  Even though there are many sounds that she cannot make until her palate is repaired, we can still understand much of what she says.  Her most used word right now is "Barney" (the name of the big purple dinosaur on her favorite tv show).  She has also learned to use sign language to help her communicate her basic needs.  She has learned the signs for eat, drink, more, bath, brush teeth, sleep and several others.  She is very good at communicating her needs.  She points and babbles and then if that doesn't work she takes us by the hand and leads us over to whatever it is that she wants.  Most of the time we can figure it out just fine.

Our house sits on four acres of land with a lot of room to run and play.  Anliya's favorite thing is to go outside.  She loves riding in her sister's pink Barbie car and swinging/sliding on the playground.  She also loves our pool.  This summer she would often go and get her swimsuit and point to the back door, letting us know she wanted to go swimming.   Last weekend we took the girls to the Pumpkin Patch.  Anliya's favorite part was getting to ride a pony.  They also had hayrides, face-painting, a corn maze, pumpkin painting and a magic show.  She got to do it all, and she had a ball.

On November 2nd we will travel to St. Louis for Anliya's palate surgery.  I'm anxious for her to have the surgery so she can begin to catch up on her speech skills, but I'm sad that she has to go through the pain that comes along with such an invasive procedure.  Say a little prayer for her that the surgery goes well and she has a quick recovery.

Please tell Mrs. Cao and Anliya's other caretakers that she is doing great and adjusting well to our family.  I know it must have been hard for her to say goodbye to this precious little girl.  Let her know that Anliya is safe and happy.  We appreciate the love and nurturing your staff gave to Anliya.  She is who she is today because of the excellent care she received at Starfish.

I will try to send another update after she has had her palate surgery.


With Thanks,

Roger, Lisa, Jada and Anliya

News from Bryan (now TIM) in Sweden

Ash clouds and happines

Our trip to China became a dramatic story with cancelled flights and an ash cloud who tried to stop us to travel to China and fetch our boy. Despite the volcano in Island we came home from China in the beginning of May as planned. We have a lot of memories from China, especially we remember that Amanda in all ways made sure that our boy had everything he needed for the new life in Sweden.

Our life is very much changed after Tim came to us. Our two cats sometimes think “send him away”. But soon they will also realize that Tim will become something good in their life.

We are very grateful to Starfish who arranged a very good operation (lip/cleft) for our Tim. Our doctors here in Sweden say that it has been made in a terrific way and doesn’t need any improvements.

Every day involves progress for Tim and he discovers new things all the time. Some of them that we want to tell about are:

He has become good at walking and can now walk some kilometres in the mountains.

He is already good in football.

He can eat with the spoon and fork all by him self and nowadays also drink from a normal cup.

He sleeps the hole nights (12 h)

He talks a lot and sometimes some Swedish words.

He is seldom ill and has seldom colds.

He is stubborn.

He has a best friend called Malte but maybe he misses his friend now living in Denmark.

It is all a big adventure and every day are different from the others and we hope that all of you that has become a child from Starfish sometimes thinks about the little foster home.

Regards from Tim (now Kristian) in Denmark, Adoption 28

Hi Amanda

I just want to tell you that I am still doing good!! 

For every day that’s gone since I left China, I get more and more personality, and I “talk” all day long!! Sometimes I almost drive my mum and dad “crazy”♥ I ask all the time; what is this and what is that, and every day I learn and remember something new! I now know the colors red, yellow, green and blue. I have learned to use a pot, even though I also still use diapers, because I don’t always remember to tell my mum, when I have to pee ….

In August I went to the hospital for examination for my cleft palate surgery. They found out that I have a “MRSA” bacteria. It is a staphylococcus, and they won’t do the surgery until it is gone, because if I get an infection the penicillin won’t do any good. So every day my mum and dad have to hot wash all our clothes, underwear, towels and bedclothes. My mum also have to clean every day and I have to have my nose greased 6 times a day whit some special cream. We have been through 2 periods of 5 days and I still have the bacteria, so in these days we go through period no. 3!! My doctor thinks that’s the reason why my lip wouldn’t heal when I got the surgery in China …… ??

August 29^th I was baptized Kristian Balling. I had a great day with my closest family (32 people) and I got a lot of great presents. For example I got a wooden play house. I simply love to play in it, and I have all my outdoor toys in there, so they don’t get wet (it is raining a lot here in Denmark).

Today it is exactly 5 months since I met my parents for the first time. My mum printed out the Starfish logo and made a big copy for the wall in my room, and every night I say goodnight to Starfish♥

My mum and dad have started the approval course, for me to have a little sister or little brother from China. We all hope that we can have another Starfish baby. THAT WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY WONDERFULL!! But we have to wait for a long time, to see what’s happening.

I hope you are all still doing good in Xian, and hopefully you have found someone to help building/renovation the new Starfish house. It looks like a nice place!!

 Have a nice autumn!

Love ♥ from Kristian (Tim), and his mum and dad

A sweet video of Jack

Adoption 37: Lucas/Bai Lang to Holland

It is not often I walk out with just one baby from the orphanage.  One August 13th I did, and Lucas came home with me.  Lucas had a horrible skin condition and bladder extrophy which means that the bladder is exposed and there is a hole under the belly button.  I knew some doctors that could do the surgery and a few days Lucas was at the hospital.  When he went he was somewhat thin and when he came back Hong Li had fattened him up a quiet a bit.  We hardly recognised him.  At that time Hong Li had called him Bai Lang, his Chinese name and it stuck.  We very seldom called him Lucas again after that.  It was strange and when he was adopted I understood why.  His parents chose the name Bai Lang for him.  So after the adoption there was no new name to get used to.

During the same that Bai Lang was with his we constantly battled with his skin.  At one time Bai Lang had a heart shape spot on his face.  We smiled about that a lot. If you look carefully you can see the heart right under his right eye in the picture where he is wearing red pajamas and hugging Hong Li.  Bai Lang was always a boy and you could see that in the way he played. When he started walking he demolished things like a bulldozer. Since he was adopted none of the babies knock at my door much anymore.  If there was one way to judge how much he thought of me then you had to count the amount of times that he came to my bedroom/office.  He was in my room more than ten times a day towards the end.  He sometimes would ask for chocolates and most of the time he would tell me what happened.  He had very good Chinese for a three and a half years old.  He was also very compassionate with the other kids and would often help when some one was crying.  He loved giving hugs and kisses.  Hosea, Callum and Bai Lang were as fast friends and often hung out together. Hosea and Bai Lang got adopted close togther and we are now waiting for Callum's family to come and get him.

On the other side of the world a mom and a dad waited for five years for him.  I find it so sad that they could have been together so much sooner.  We were sent a picture album and in it I could see some names and I knew that Bai Lang would go to Holland.  Our fourth baby in the Netherlands!  In the pictures it looked like Bai Lang's father had something to do with trucking and Bai Lang was so exited with all the trucks and cars.

It was sad to see him go but I was so happy with his parents and the obvious love they already had for him.  We received the adoption notice this last week from the Netherlands and they included some pictures from Starfish.  I hope that the family will write some updates from time to time.

Life, love and laughter,
Amanda

Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number:  20-4682916
Xian China

At Starfish, we have taken care of 118 children to date, arranged more than 100 surgeries and had 46 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US, Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and in China.  Our latest 8 adoptions took place recently and now we have a second baby in Sweden and a third in Spain and a fifth in Holland.  We also have six more babies in the US.  We currently have 43 babies under the age of 3 and three foster homes our count is dropping as we prepare to move to a new facility. 

www.thestarfishfosterhome.org
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
http://chinesestarfishcleft.blogspot.com
Email: throwingstarfish0913@gmail.com
Cell: 86.1348.812.4847