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!

Little Miss Popular

Jayne woke up fun loving today and stayed that way the whole day!! YAHOO to no gloomy moments!

Jayne has befriended our entire CCAI travel group...parents, travel companions and kids alike. She darn near waves her arm off whenever she sees any of her new "friends", and she shouts out, "HELLO" at the top of her lungs. She enjoyed being popular all day!

First stop of the day, the dreaded medical exam. She passed with a clean bill of health. Her hearing, A+ cuz she could here the toy keyboard the "doctor" pounded on. Her vision, A+ cuz she could tilt her hand to the left, right, up or down according to the pictures the "nurse" was pointing at (side note, Chris was squinting during this exam and concluded he better get his eyes checked when we get home). Jayne also is not color blind (sorry Luke, you may be the only Yokom kid not seeing the green/browns). 15 kg, 104 cm...tall and skinny!Doctor exam...took me longer to undress Jayne than to get the actual exam done. PPD...Jayne was bribed with candy for this part of the medical exam, so it went well PLUS she was able to show all of her new friends from our CCAI group her "ouchie" the rest of the day...she enjoyed the sympathy from all.

        

Glad to have the "exam" off of our list. We then took a taxi to the pearl market where Jayne got two pairs of pearl earrings just like mei mei's. Then we took a taxi back to Shamian Island for lunch at Lucy's...for Brynn's adoption we stayed on Shamian Island and ate many meals at Lucy's. Brynn ate congee almost every meal...Jayne had french fries to dip today :)

After lunch, we shopped. I hit all of my favorite spots, and all of my favorite little workers are still here selling the same treasures! LOVED IT!

Most claimed to remember us...I fell for it...ba ba thinks ma ma is extremely gullible.

Getting a taxi back to the China Hotel was a good 25 minute effort! Jayne found it hilarious and imitated ba ba waving his arm off at taxi drivers and whistling. Don't ask ba ba who actually was able to reel a cab in :)

PS: Jayne is in love, as noted by the picture, with Jacob! She SQUEALS with excitement when she sees him! It is very adorable!

Rocky start, Great finish

Jayne slept the night in her own bed...YAHOO!  She had previously been sleeping with her foster mom and then with ma ma and ba ba in the only bed in our room in Nanchang.

Unfortunately, despite this milestone, Jayne woke up a little off again today...not eating and wishing the new "aunties" of our group would solely pay attention to her and not the other 9 families and their children!  Jayne disliked ba ba all morning, tolerated ma ma off and on and was just wishing anyone who speaks mandarin would be her friend...poor sweet pea.
 
In the rain, we toured the Buddhist Temple and then the Old Chen House...Jayne was not impressed with either.  And ba ba and ma ma decided the 90 plus degree sticky heat for these tours with Brynn's adoption was more pleasant than the cold rain today!

 
On the bus ride from the temple to the Chen House, Jayne announced that she needed to go to the bathroom.  "Just a minute, Just a minute" ma ma said...we rushed off the bus, and Jayne instantly pulled down her pants to relieve herself! "No, no, no!" ma ma said while pulling Jayne's pants back UP...ma ma running, Jayne running and continuing to pull down her pants...ma ma sprinting, Jayne sprinting and pulling down her pants...ma ma setting a world record while carrying a 5 year old child yelling that she needed to go to the bathroom a good 800 meter dash, and we FINALLY found the bathroom in the farthest corner of the Old Chen House...ahhhhhhhhhh!
 
Last stop of the outing, the Guangdong art and craft shopping center.  Jayne and ba ba played with all of the other kids with the stash of toys Jayne brought along, and her frown turned upside down into a smile from that point on!  Jayne and ba ba played, and ma ma bought a jade necklace for Jayne's wedding day and a dress for her baptism...success!
 
This afternoon ma ma wrapped up our 9 month paper chase...the last day of paperwork should be a celebration, right??!!** But I always leave thinking, "Huh, months and months of paperwork, waiting for paperwork, tracking paperwork, notarizing paperwork, following checklists to complete paperwork...and POOF it is over!"  Shouldn't I celebrate...what am I worried I am going to be bored now that I don't have paperwork to do...Ha!  I have at least 5 reasons to think I won't miss the paperwork!
 
While ma ma did paperwork, ba ba and Jayne napped together, played soccer, did piggyback rides and just had fun horsing around!!
 
For supper, ma ma and ba ba wanted to have Papa John's pizza and Jayne is not the hugest fan of pizza so we got her some noodles...included is a picture of the VERY IMPRESSIVE Jayne noodle slurp (I wish I could include the audio with this SSssssslllllluUUUrrrRRRRPPPPpppppp cuz it is quite something)!  In between slurps, Jayne dances and poses...she really is a HOOT!
 
PS boys: Jayne picked and ate a pickled chicken leg for breakfast!  Better google how to make those!   Also, do we know anybody WITH chickens for sale???

:( and :) Day!

We made it to Guangzhou...ahhhhhhhh...feels like home with a Starbucks to the left and a McDonalds to the right as we pulled into the China Motel!!

Jayne was confused and not herself a good portion of today. We saw this change after we said good bye to her "auntie", our rep in Nanchang, Evelyn.

Jayne was a good flier. She read the safety brochure for a long while (if there would have been a need for a water landing or if there would have been a loss of cabin pressure, Jayne was ready)! Jayne also took a short nap while we were flying.

Jayne did not eat well for breakfast or lunch either. So by the time we got to the hotel, we had a confused, sad, tired AND hungry child!

We all laid down for a nap at 2:30 and three hours later we woke up, ordered a BIG dumpling for Miss Jayne from room service AND Jayne WAS BACK...she is back to her fun loving, busy body self!!! YAHOO!!

A few Thank Yous...

--Our Fargo kiddos are doing soooooooo great...thanks Papa and Gramma!

--Our blog designer is doing soooooooo great....thanks Auntie Melissa!

--Anyone think Jayne looks soooooo great in her new fashions???....thanks Maren Sauvageau for all of the GREAT hand-me-downs!

Good bye Nanchang, Here we come Guangzhou!

Such a bitter sweet day...the last day in the province of Jiangxi which our newest love has spent the last almost 6 years, yet one day closer to getting home with our 4 other loves!

Today we got Jayne's passport. Our guide told us that they expect passports to take 15 days from the Jiangxi province after the new year soooooooo we just made it in the old 5 day turn-around time frame! Uff da!

We spent a lot of the day playing outside...blowing bubbles, playing soccer, holding hands and walking in the brisk air. Per the pictures, you can see that I finally convinced Jayne to wear her hat...Whoo, Whoo knew a hat could look so cute, huh?!*

I am happy to report that I was able to function WITHOUT my sidekick, aka the bed today!! YAHOO! And ba ba was happy to have his sidekick back to help entertain Miss Jayne!

We did find a new restaurant today. A Chinese restaurant on the 5th floor of our hotel called the Fortune House. We had 5 waitresses at all times helping us as they "worked on their English"...this on top of the approximately 8 spectator employees was a little overbearing, but the food was SO good that we ate both lunch and supper there! We finally found dumplings...Jayne was pumped...and let's just say her chopsticks got a work out today as she found both lunch and supper as tasty as ma ma and ba ba did.

Off to Guangzhou tomorrow, we are pretty sure Jayne is going to like getting her wings!

 

Accessorize!

 

I think it may be true...accessories can make or break your "look"!

I, unfortunately, accessorized with the king sized bed in our hotel room for at least 6 hours this afternoon/evening. I will take the bed as an accessory over the toilet any day! When I managed to get out of bed this evening, Chris said, "If you pass on, I am going to continue on with the adoption because I feel this is what you would want!" Jayne was so kind...she napped a while with me, and she would check in on me here and there to kiss my hand or rub my cheek. Poor thing thinks she got a dud for a mom :)

Ba ba accessorized with a Walmart stop...soccer ball, coloring books, markers, crayons, coloring books, books, bubbles, skittles (don't worry kids he bought your stash too), batteries for Jayne's camera, a scissors, pencil sharpener and his best accessory was headphones for the MP3 player he brought from home. Ba ba and his newest friend were busy with these accessories a majority of the day! Boys, ba ba thinks you better all brush up on your soccer skills cuz Jayne has game!

Jayne accessorized with the gift shop at the Nanchang Pavilion that we toured this morning. Jayne got a watch and the rest of the day she thought it was "two". She also got a bracelet with her given name "min" on it...the bracelet also has a cat and a bell on it...styling!! The pavilion was very nice, but cold...no heat...brrrrrr! We also saw a show telling, in mandarin, about the history of the pavilion. The show was complete with bells (Papa you would not have been impressed) and a song (each HIGH note was hit and it was amazing that we left with our ear drums in tact!). The other accessory Jayne wore all day were her new headphones...she has been dancing to Kid Bopz all day...California Girls and Hit Me With Your Best Shot! You can tell by the photos, that she accessorized all the way up til bedtime. She added to her PJs her poof vest, shoes and her MP3 player with headphones...she is quite the girl!!

Our notarized documents came today...Jayne's passport tomorrow...each a step closer to us accessorizing with the rest of our crew!

  

Ni hao...from the country side to the porcelain

It has been an eye opening day in China!

Our day started with a field trip to the country. We visited a village where our guide told us and showed us about life in rural China. Jiangxi is known for farming, mainly rice, and for porcelain. It was an eye opening outing, and the community was a wee bit different than our North Fargo community! It was a pleasant surprise that none of the numerous stray dogs seemed interested in us and that Jayne did not have to use the public out house! At the end of the field trip and the entrance to the community a lady was deep frying a donut of sorts. Our guide bought us two to "enjoy"...ba ba was daring enough to try one bite despite his tendency to get food poisoning, ma ma politely passed and Jayne chowed down!

When we got back to the hotel, the pictures from the cameras we had mailed to Jayne had been developed. To sum up the pictures..."introverted" Jayne was striking a BIG pose in almost every photo!

We also sent our laundry to be done...ba ba is running low on his work pants...AKA wind pants!

Room service for lunch...ma ma decided on an order of french fries. They were fabulous. Jayne was full from her "donuts", and ba ba had pizza.

Then we decided to try the swimming pool. Jayne was unsure about the swimming pool so ba ba got in to show her how fun it is to swim. Note the swim cap was NOT optional, and ba ba thought why not go with the gold swim cap...Olympic Gold as ba ba called it...and with his Gold cap on ba ba channeled his inner Michael Phelps. Ma ma laughed so hard and ba ba's pool performance was good enough to convince Jayne to try the pool. Jayne didn't love it, but she tried it two times. The service at the pool was excellent! About 6 employees and only "Michael" and Jayne swimming. An employee brought the swimmers their towels and another employee instantly replaced the towels from the stash. Our swimmers were also delivered some warm water to drink after their big swim.

Shortly after we returned to the room, I started to feel flushed. Assuming I was tired from my 4 am wake time, I laid down. It wasn't long, and I was seeing porcelain. I am not sure this is the kind of porcelain that the Jiangxi province is known for, but I am sure I was hoping to NEVER see this kind of China porcelain as closely as I did this afternoon!

The only thing good about my flu of sorts is that it forced Jayne to play with ba ba. Up until this point she has liked ba ba, but preferred ma ma. A couple of hours with ba ba as her only option for a friend has showed Jayne that her ba ba is super fun! That being said, it is 7:30 pm and Jayne's HIGH energy level has wore ba ba out...a pretty impressive feat, so we are off to bed.