First Thanksgiving

Since Halloween, we have hit the six month mark! Still can't believe Longji has actually been with us for this long. This has been a fantastic week of bonding with Longji and we have truly spent some quality time together. We spent our first Thanksgiving with John's parents yesterday and we will spend tomorrow with my parents and family. Today we decorated the house and set up our first Christmas tree with Longji. I let him pick out some new ornaments (he picked blue) and we got out some older ornaments as well. John and I generally get a couple of ornaments every year being school teachers. Longji was so excited about decorating! Christmas music was playing and he hopped around the house singing "jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the bells." I tried to correct him, but he said "jingle all the way doesn't make sense." I really need to get him singing on video. We don't usually decorate this early, but this Christmas is a little extra special and we really wanted to take it all in with Longji. Now he has to wait three weeks for the celebration of baby Jesus and of course Santa's visit. We have our elf, Thomas, whom Longji named today, watching over the house. He will report to Santa nightly about Longji's behavior and any requests Longji has. This is a new tradition and I would recommend it for anyone with young children. You can find the book and elf at Barnes and Noble...The Elf on the Shelf. More pictures to come hopefully on Sunday from our second Thanksgiving dinner.

More shots, pumpkin carving, Halloween and Marble Falls

First, Longji had a fantastic pumpkin carving experience and a great follow up with his first Halloween. John and I actually went back and forth about participating in Halloween and we finally decided to let him in on the trick-or-treating experience. We carved our pumpkin last Friday and then Longji was able to wear his costume to Chinese School on Sunday. All of the students actually took a picture with their costumes on in front of the school. They were so cute. There was actually a hallway decorated in the Star Wars theme so we took pictures with Lonji in front of the wall.








We left school and headed over to John's parent's house. This was Longji's first official trick-or-treat experience. Jordyn stayed with us that evening and she decided to dress up and escort Longji door to door. She dressed up as Russel from the movie Up and she asked John to be Mr. Frederickson. I haven't actually seen the movie, but John and Jordyn knew what they were doing.


We then headed over to my parent's house where we ate dinner, chili dogs, and met up with some friends of ours and their girls. We had a great time watching Longji. First, he was trying to hand over his bucket because he didn't want to carry it and then he moved on to the light saber. We were laughing all night. This is typical Longji behavior. He never wants to carry his lunch box or backpack at school. He walked around without complaint, followed all of our rules and he had a fantastic time.

Unfortunately, the next day we had to take him back for three more shots. I absolutely hate doing this. He gets so stressed out and it is an all out horrible experience from the moment we walk into the doctor's office.


We had an uneventful week at school, but we did lose tooth #2 On Friday night. The tooth fairy generously left $2.00.He was very brave. Saturday we met my brother and sister-in-law and my parents in Marble Falls for the day. Longji went fishing with the boys and he did great. He loves to fish with Baba. He caught five fish, but Jordyn showed off her skills and caught the biggest fish of the day. Me...nothing. We barbecued that evening and headed home.




We are nearing six months with our little man and I still can't believe it has only been six months. It feels like he has been with us for six years. I cannot wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He has no idea what is in store.

Spelling tests

Longji has scored a 100 on his last two spelling tests! Way to go little man!! We are so proud of him. Even though he is only tested on half of the words he is still doing fantastic! And if you ask me, his handwriting is pretty good too. I will post some pumpkin carving pictures later once I extract them from the flip video. Looking forward to our first costume event...I will have to keep everyone in suspense as to what he picked out for a costume!

Chinese School Picnic

Today was the Chinese School Picnic and we had a fantastic time! Longji loved it! We picked up my niece, Avry, and headed to the park this morning. Jordyn was able to go with us too. Both sets of grandparents also came so we had a big crowd. I am going to post a bunch of pictures and hopefully I can get a cute little video uploaded of Longji singing some kind of Chinese song on the microphone. We are definitely looking forward to the Asian Festival this next year. We are enjoying the time with Longji where we are learning and experiencing his culture together.

Baby in the belly...again

First, let me start by saying that I truly believe I have one of the cutest, most intelligent little boys on the planet. The other night at dinner, Longji made everyone at the table almost cry and laugh at the same time. Jordyn was over for dinner and as he was stalling to avoid pork chop consumption, he began to tell me that he wants me to eat him so he can be a baby in my belly and sleep for a while. I know it does sound a little strange, but I think I know where he is going with this...every once in a while he brings up a "baby in the belly" topic. Sometimes it leads to the China belly discussion we have had once or twice. I think he is really very happy here with us and I think he really wants to make sure he stays and in his mind becoming my "baby" makes things more concrete. I hope that makes sense to all of you. So of course this conversation brought tears to my eyes and then he went on to talk about staying short and not growing big. Why we asked? Longji said, "so I can stay little and play with all my toys." I think he really enjoys his room, his things and his family because we are all he wants to do things with and if he had a choice he would never leave the house.

Our appointment with Mara, our social worker, went really well on Tuesday. She is very pleased with his progress and it was a pleasure to have him meet her. She has played such an important role in bringing us together and I think she was just as pleased to meet him and witness how well he fits our family.

Today we watched my niece, Avry, play soccer. Longji loves her and he likes to sit and eat sunflower seeds and yell at her during the game. Afterwards, we headed to La Vernia to visit my 99 year old great grandmother...yes, I said 99!. I have another great grandmother who is 104 and lives in New York. The women in my family live for a very long time. Anyway, we headed to La Vernia to see her and take a five generation photo. She was so cute and she had many questions about Longji. She seemed very proud of us and was very pleased to meet him.

Tomorrow is the Chinese school picnic and with the weather behaving so well I am really looking forward to a nice day at the park. I hope all of the kids have a fantastic time and I am really hoping Longji will have the opportunity to talk in Mandarin with his teachers and possibly some of the older students. We keep telling our parents how graceful he sounds, but they still have not had the opportunity to hear it for themselves.

Pumpkin Patch

We visited our first pumpkin patch with Longji today. He was so delighted, he was adorable. He helped us pick out a good size pumpkin and then we let him pick out a smaller pumpkin and some stickers to put on it. He was so excited and we had a great time.




Later today I have to pick out and print some family photos for our social worker. She is coming by on Tuesday for our 6 month post-adoption visit. She is going to be so amazed at how much English this little man can speak in such a short amount of time. He continues to amaze us every day with how well he is transitioning.

John and I spent a little time together this morning seeing a movie, Like Dandelion Dust. Yeah, I cried through the whole thing. The average person would probably not be as impacted, but after our journey of adoption, the movie was very difficult to sit through...quietly that is. Very emotional film.

Adam Longji Update

Adam Longji is doing so well! We still can't believe he has only been with us for less than five months. It feels like he has been a part of our family for much longer. It has been a while since I posted last...sorry. We have been terribly busy with school (it's football season), but Longji has been adjusting well to Chinese school on the weekends. He counted to 30 in Mandarin today for his grandparents. He still is very hesitant to speak in Mandarin in front of John and me, but he is speaking at Chinese school to his teacher which is what we wanted. He has since had two visits to the doctor for immunizations, three each time. He gets so stressed out and I always feel terrible about it. He goes back on November 1st for another set of three. We do treat him to the toy section at Walmart and a nice Chinese dinner when we have these appointments. It doesn't take the pain away, but I think it eases it a little. Attached are pictures of Jordyn and her friend, Angela, with Longji before their first homecoming dance at the high school. John had a football game so Longji and I were in charge of getting the girls to the dance. They looked so pretty and Longji was loving the attention from the girls. The other pictures are us just being silly with some stickers and John and Longji playing football in the front yard. He has come a long way since he first came home. He refused to step on to the grass and now he runs around on it without complaining. Our Chinese school picnic is coming up so I will try to post pictures as soon as we take them. Still can't believe the holidays are right around the corner. This will definitely be a season to celebrate and remember.