It is clear to see…

Yep, clear to see that…

Jayne is the perfect match for the Y. crew!

 

Jayne is doing just awesome this week!  She is sleeping (almost 12 hours last night), eating (she grazes all day, but at just over 30 pounds we think she can use the calories) and having a blast playing with the other kids and just living a normal day in the life of our circus.

And with that being said, I am tickled pink to say that the journey to Jayne is done, but if you wish, you can continue to follow our kiddos on

http://handfulofyokoms.blogspot.com/

The journey was great, and no words can describe how lucky and blessed we feel to call Jayne ours!

It’s good to be home!

Music to my ears!

Mark:  What did you tell your teachers about your new sister? “I told them that Jayne is wild and crazy!”   Mark also is a little worried that the squirrels will eat the bird seed from the bird feeder that he made at school today, “But wait, ha, the squirrels went west for the winter, so they won’t eat my bird seed.”

Caleb: “Jayne is super high energy.”  Well, if that isn’t painting the kettle black!  Jayne and the boys ran from the toy room to the living room literally chasing each other for over an hour after supper…laughing the whole time, then they would do a group hug and repeat!

Brynn: “Mommy, where’s Jayne?”  Ummmm, sitting right next to you at the dinner table?!*  The question was obviously habit by this point of the day.  Brynn also handed in her preschool registration for next fall today…this registration may push the teacher into early retirement!  Unfortunately, Brynn did not understand that she was not actually starting preschool today!  It is going to be a long wait :)

Luke: “It is not because The Travel Book is boring!”  Luke spoke this disclaimer when Jayne fell asleep while Caleb and Luke read to her at bedtime from this book.  The jury is still out, but I think the book may have been a snoozer :) 

Of note, Jayne is sleeping with her new purse (Thanks Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zube), her new heart necklace on (Thanks Gramma and Grandpa Berseth) and Bumpa’s old cell phone!

The chit chat of our house is music to my ears!

Jayne is AWSOME

 

We made it home!  It is a LLLLOOOONNNNGGGG trip!

Jayne did well on the 12 hour flight from Guangzhou.  We believe the plane was brought out of retirement just for our flight.  It was one hour late in taking off due to “mechanical issues”…always reassuring before you fly half way across the world!  And when we got into the plane everything was falling apart from the seats to the TVs which had shows on them for about 30 minutes of the flight.  The seats were also smaller and the rows more narrow then most airplanes heading to Fargo!  Uff.  The other fun thing about the flight was the announcement from the captain stating that we were expecting “moderate to severe turbulence”, and his prediction was correct!  Jayne did well on the long flight, slept about half of it, but one could not claim that she did great.  Side note: I also cannot claim that ba ba and ma ma did great!

Once in LA, Jayne got her US Citizen stamp…YAHOO!

Through immigration, through customs, to our hotel, to bed by 9 pm…up at midnight, not surprisingly.  Jayne was kind enough to watch movies and go back to bed.  Ma ma was lucky enough to experience a horrid migraine headache followed by viewing the LA porcelain in our room!  Honest to Pete…I don’t care to see the porcelain in my own home as much as I have seen on this trip!  We all went back to sleep from about 3-5:30 am.

Jayne earned her wings today!  She was a super happy girl all day and napped on both flights!  Our only scare was the Fargo weather…they warned us before we left Denver that we may have to land in Grand Forks!  Crisis averted…we landed in Fargo shortly after 5 pm and were greeted by Papa and Caleb.  Caleb was smiling from ear to ear, and one high five later, Jayne and him were friends!

 

When we got home, Jayne was greeted by Luke (Tom Brady’s number one fan and the reason why he did not meet us at the airport), Mark, Brynn, Cousin Brody, Cousin Kate, Gramma June, Auntie Melissa, Uncle Bob and Ben (the dog).  Shortly after arrival, Bumpa and Gamma came over to say “Hi” too!

High fives for all and everyone passed Jayne’s test of approval EXCEPT for Ben.  NO WORRIES, within an hour Jayne moved Ben from the bottom of her list to the TOP of her list, and she now appears to be super obsessed with him!

 

 

Supper for 7 was served (Thanks Gramma June, the chili was sooooooooooooo tasty), and as predicted Jayne gave into peer pressure and cleared her plate, I mean, bowl.  Playing, playing, playing and showing Jayne everything around the house followed.  

 

Then tub time for 3…Mark, Brynn and Jayne.  They had a blast after we removed the toy snakes that scared Jayne!  After Mark left the tub, the girls kept tubbing.  They were laughing, washing each others hair, and squirting each other with tub toys.  It was very adorable!

 

Movie and popcorn in ma ma and ba ba’s bed next.

Then bedtime, and all are sound asleep in their own beds (for now…ha!)

What a great day!  The 4 old Yokom kids are loving their Jayne, and Jayne is loving them right back…the house functioned tonight as if Jayne has always been home with us!  And this ba ba and ma ma couldn’t be happier.

To sum up the day, when I was tucking Luke into bed tonight, I saw on the calendar we had prepared for him to keep track of when we were coming home that he had wrote,

“Jayne is AWSOME”

And this ma ma and ba ba could not agree more…Jayne is AWESOME AWSOME, and so are the rest of our handful!

Hidden Treasure

Yep, just around the corner from our hotel, down a very long flight of stairs, thru a super scary tunnel with no English signage, up a very long flight of stairs, across a road of sorts, and around a gated entrance was a huge park with a carnival in it! What a hidden treasure!
Jayne had a blast riding a train, a carousel, a stuffed cow of sorts, cars and a Shark Tales themed water ride!

The hidden carnival treasure was proceeded by playing at an outdoor play gym on the 4th floor of our hotel, and followed with a walk to the other park near our hotel where all of the awesome Chinese New Year decorations were lit up and moving.

So naturally Jayne just had a MAJOR meltdown due to combustion...Note to self, Jayne has no self regulator and she can get too tired!

And after today we have our departure information in one hand, and our Jayne Yokom passport and visa in the other hand!

We leave on a direct flight from Guangzhou to LA tomorrow night (Saturday) at 9 pm. Our departure time is Saturday at 7 am Fargo time. We arrive in LA at 5pm on Saturday (yep, kind of like the movie Ground Hog's Day...we will live and relive Saturday 1/21)! We will stay over in LA on Saturday night (without internet), and on Sunday 1/22 we will leave LA at 8:30 am. LA to Denver and Denver to Fargo a little after 4 pm!

So the next time we will blog, our handful will all be under the same roof! Two big days of travel, but we are ready! We are ready to make our favorite 4 pack turn into our favorite 5 pack!

Lucky are we to have a handful of kids for lovin'! And thankful we will always be for our two hidden treasures from China!

Drum roll please…

INTRODUCING the newest US citizen, Jayne Li Min Strike a Pose Yokom!!!! Do you think they realize that they let a real wild woman in?!*

Jayne had a GREAT day! She was super silly, super funny and just full of joy from start to finish!

Jayne spent the day dancing, singing, and pretending to fall asleep while walking, during a shoulder ride from ba ba, in the elevator and basically everywhere we went. Jayne was super loud, super friendly, loving, crinkling her nose at this and that, and she toasted everything she drank today with whatever ma ma and ba ba were drinking.

Jayne's diet today consisted of yogurt, noodles, dumplings and ice cream...we are hoping peer pressure at the Yokom dinner table will convince her to broaden her diet cuz little does she know, the Yokom kitchen is NOT a restaurant. We serve take it or leave it every meal :)

2 more sleeps in China...our flying clothes are already set out and ready to put on!

       

                                           

Date at the zoo!

Jayne was 5 going on 14 today. She loved ma ma and ba ba when no one else was around, but when Grace or Maggie (our reps) or Sandra (the 9 year old girl being adopted) were around, Jayne pretended she did not know ma ma and ba ba!

The pictures from the zoo obviously confirm this (and we have about 25 more of the same look)!

So ba ba and ma ma considered their walk around the zoo, enjoying the elephants, rhinos, hippos, tigers, monkeys and pandas WITHOUT our child as a date...why not!

After the zoo, we had a quick lunch before going back to the clinic to get Jayne's PPD read, we were 1 mm away from needing the chest xray! Ba ba was so nervous that Jayne's reaction to the tuberculin would lead to a chest xray which would lead to a need to extend his "vacation" 6 months while Jayne received treatment that he could not even watch the PPD being read. I don't know what ba ba was worried about, I told him me and the other kids would send him care packages often and we would wire him some money to make it through. We can joke now that Jayne's reaction was 9 mm instead of 10 mm :)

After the clinic visit, we bought a couple more dvd's in mandarin, and for the first time today in Grace's presence Jayne acknowledged that we existed! Grace asked Jayne in mandarin if she knew who Shrek was. Jayne said, "It's mine!" So even Grace got a taste of the teenage Jayne!

Our teenager is now splashing in the tub like a 5 year old, and her teenager like performance today has signed her up for an early bedtime...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

PS: Happy, Happy birthday Auntie Sarah!

  

  

Grab yourself a dumpling, you’re not yourself!

When Jayne eats, she is fabulous; when Jayne chooses to skip a meal, she is rather difficult!

What Jayne does not realize is that this is not our first rodeo, and Caleb has the exact same issue!  You will often hear at our house, "Caleb, grab yourself a Snickers, you're not yourself."  AKA Caleb you are hungry, get something to eat!
 
Jayne chose to skip breakfast so she was difficult all during breakfast, skype with the kids and our outing to a local park (no pics of the park which is decorated awesome for Chinese New Years because we forgot our camera SD card in the hotel...bummer...but we will go back).  After she had a lunch of dumplings and noodles, everything turned right around in Jayne's world!  PS: we fed her the same menu for supper :)
 
Park outing and group pictures were on the agenda today.  Big surprise that Jayne insisted on being next to Jacob during the pictures!  We also ate all three meals with Jacob today.  Jayne is very attentive to Jacob at meal times...feeding him, wiping his mouth, grabbing his dropped chopstick off of the floor...Jacob's ma ma says he will not receive this same treatment from his two older sisters at home!  
 
Off to the zoo tomorrow, IF Jayne ever gets out of the tub...she is a tubbing machine...very splashy, very bubbly, dancing, singing and counting (we are up to 5 in English!).
 
5 more sleeps til we are home sweet home!  We have one, two, three, four reasons we are super excited to come home!