MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS!!

One of my favorite blogs, Ni Hao Y'all is doing a great GiveAway!30 days of free giveaways for Christmas!!Gotta love it!

http://www.dianjiangkids.org/

Here is the link to Dianjiang's Gracie's Room website. All donations (100%) go to either Foster Care in Diajiang or to Gracie's Room in XinXiang. You choose which you would like to donate to.

When we travel to visit the orphanages, we personally pay for all of our expenses. I used all my Aeroplan points for the flights and thankfully it's cheap to eat in China!

This way 100% of all donations go to caring for children. We help with medical tests, nannies salaries, toys, clothing etc..

The Director has told me that winter is now upon them, and they are finding that the children need extra blankets and warmer clothing.

Imagine, sitting beside a broken window, with the cold winter air on your hands and back. Not being able to move out the the cold.

Please consider making a donation this Christmas, warmth would be a wonderful present.

Thank you

Krista Dolan

Director Gracie's Room First Hugs Program

www.dianjiangkids.org

Sponsor a child in our Gracie's Room program

YOU can make a difference in the life of a child!!

My March 2010 visit to Gracie's Room in XinXang China

I've posted this video for a mom whose daughter is presently in Gracie's Room and she is in the video!

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say which baby, but she is the cutest baby in the video!!

Ohh.. they are all pretty cute, and they all have my heart in the palm of thier hands!

Please keep all these children in your thoughts and prayers! There are 7 more children that need sponsors to stay in Gracie's Room, please consider sponsoring a child!

250$us will sponsor a child for a full year, and you will receive quarterly medical reports with photos.

One of my favorite blogs, Ni Hao Y'all is doing a great GiveAway!30 days of free giveaways for Christmas!! Gotta love it!
I love her blog, and I love that she raises money for special needs children in China..(clubbed feet) and y'all know how special that is to my heart.I wish I could get the same sponsorship commitment that she has with Orphans Wish, for Gracie's Room First Hugs Program!!
I'll keep chipping away at it, every little bit counts to those beautiful children.

BOO!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO Y'ALL!!

Man, we were completely unprepared for Halloween this year!!

I have no idea why, but it just seemed to sneak up on us.

I managed to take some quick pics of the kids before they ran off in separate directions..

Power Ranger Lily! She was so excited that I found a pink costume!

Isabelle... oh Isabelle.. The night before she went to a friend's Halloween party dressed up as a person caught in a wind storm, her hair was blown back, we had wires in her scarf and dress that held them straight back, she had an inverted umbrella and leaves stuck in her hair! It was a fantastic costume! Then another friend called last minute Halloween night, saying she didn't have a costume to wear, so Isabelle gave her the wind swept costume and in 30mins we threw together this Rubiks Cube costume!

of course I didn't manage to get any pics of the wind swept costume as I thought she'd be wearing it again .. ooh well..

but to add to this, she went trick or treating with this same friend, in her neighbourhood, and she ended up getting almost NO CANDY!! Even Lily and Hanlin got twice as much as she did!!

Abigail got dressed as Mother Nature with flowers and greenry in her hair, butterflies on her face, and shoulders and vines all alround her dress and legs. BUT, went out trick or treating with friends and got ready there so I have no pics of her either.... sigh...
Here is Hanlin! My Transformer!! Seconds after this picture, he fell backwards, jumped and ran around ready to go! What a riot. It was soo cold out last night, I put on thier winter coats under the costumes. Man, I had them stuffed in those outfits that they looked like little muscle men! Hillarious!

As he laid his head on his pillow last night he said "this is the best trick or treating day EVER!!"

Then 2 hours later woke up with a wicked bloody nose!

We finally have an appt with the ENT tomorrow!! YEAH

Hopefully we'll get some answers on his hearing loss.

GASP!!!GASP!!!!

BREATHE..... BREATHE.....

MY BRAND SPAKING NEW 5 BURNER DOUBLE OVEN GAS STOVE IS BEING INSTALLED RIGHT NOW!!!!!

I'VE SAVED AND CRIED FOR 3 YEARS OVER THIS STOVE....

YIPEEEEEE

I'll post pics soon.........

meanwhile here is a picture just to hold you over...

Another beautiful Fall Day, spent Apple picking

Not sure who had more fun, the dog or the kids! (and by kids I include Frank)

Frank and Hanlin thought it was nice enough for shorts...

I had on 2 pairs of yoga pants and a sweater, obviously we have very different ideas of "warm" weather!

Abigail spotted this "perfect" apple..on the very top of the tree..then set out to try to pick it!

First Hanlin had a try...

Then Isabelle had a try....

Next Abigail tried...good thing we bought our own human ladder!

Then finally and reluctantly mommy tried..

I'm only about 2 inches taller than Abigail... but it was enough to reach it!

ohh that elusive apple..

wait, didn't Eve pick the forbidden apple?

OH OH..

OUR GRACIE'S ROOM FUNDRAISER

WAS A HUGE

SUCCESS!!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED!!

WE HANDED OUT FREE TEA SAMPLES (donated by Adam at Classic Touch) AND TONS OF COOKIES, BROWNIES AND GINGER CAKE...(all baked by me!)

FROM 12 TO 5PM ..

WE RAISED $500.00

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME BY TO SAY HELLO, SHOW SUPPORT AND MAKE DONATIONS!

(oh,and yes, i took the older girls out of school for the afternoon to help me! shhhh)

On this Friday (September 17th), from 12 to 5pm, I am having a fundraiser at Classic Touch in Kings Place Mall in support of The Gracie's Room First Hugs Program in XinXiang Henan.

This is an amazing program, providing one on one care to special needs orphans, and as director I see the benefits of this program for these disadvantaged children.

The goal of the Gracies Room program is to create a time and place when babies get *all* of their needs met. Babies in Gracies Room receive more individualized care and have the chance to develop a significant attachment to a primary caregiver. They spend time on the floor exploring their world and developing their muscles. In short, the babies get the chance to play, laugh, receive physical affection from their special nanny, and feel loved and valued.

The nannies work six days a week, Monday to Saturday, 8 hours daily. Each nanny is assigned three to five babies. She works with these same babies every day from the time they enter the program until they are adopted, enter foster care, or age out of the program.

Please come by and enjoy some Chinese Tea, home baked cookies and experience the spirit of the Chinese Tea Ceremony while listening to traditional Chinese musical instruments being played.

25% of all tea sales will be donated to Gracies Room.

I've hope to see you there!

I've uploaded more Gracies Room information to the Files Section.

Thanks

Krista Dolan

Director Gracie's Room First Hugs Program

www.dianjiangkids.org

Sponsor a child in our Gracie's Room program

YOU can make a difference in the life of a child!!

Summer with cousins

are the best summers ever!

While I was away in PEI.. Frank decided he was "bored" and thought it was a grand idea to renovate our mudroom. Renovate to Frank means "rip apart a room and hope to heck Krista won't notice the missing floor when she comes home"!

Well.. I noticed!!

Actually, he has been meaning to get to this reno for the last 2 years. Our house is old.. real old.. about 130years old.. and we've always lost a lot of heat from this room. The floor had no insulation! It was always so cold in there!

So we've (well he) insulated the floor, adding extra boards etc.. for more support..but the fun news is that:

I GET TO DESIGN A NEW MUDROOM!!

I've decided to make 6 "cubbies" along the back room, floor to ceiling, each one 2 feet wide. Sort of like this except instead of hooks for jackets and coats, we'll have hangers. There is NO way my kids only have 3 coats each no matter what season we're in, and I'll have another shelf for shoes. (There are 4 girls and we do love our shoes!)

So that will take up the full length of the back wall.

Now for the rest of the room. I had a pantry there before, and I used it quite a bit, so I know I still want one, but I also need more kitchen space. So I thought of a "baking centre"!

I can take all my baking supplies, cookie sheets, rolling pins.etc.. and move it into this room.

Something like this:

So I'll have 1.5 walls with cupboards and counter space! We've picked out the hardwood floor for this section and the tile for the area by the door and where the cubbies will be.

There will even be enough space for an island!

We're moving the door and installing 2 new windows that are nice and long! I'll finally be able to see out to the back yard.

We are doing this all ourselves, so this is going to be one looong job.. especially with Frank working out of town everyday! But we'll chip away at it little by little..

Here are some more pics:

Abigail found some newspapers from 1972.. had a good laugh at that! We put the front page of the paper under the floor too. It was all about Hurricane Earl! lol

Hanlin was just dying to help daddy, but we wouldn't let him off this little island. Too many old rusty nails sticking out everywhere! Instead we gave him boards to bang on there.
At least there was some insulation in the some of the walls!!

Ohhh.... gotta love the first day of school!!!

What a bunch of darlings!

The kids made out ok! Abigail didn't have school till yesterday but the 3 others did, and today Lily doesn't go but the other 3 do... sigh... I had to make a flow chart to get all of this straight. Not only did they start on different days, I had meeting with teachers and classes at the same time at different schools on the same day! Lots of running around yesterday!

Today the bus this morning was close to 30mins late and this afternoon it was 45 mins arriving home!

It will all be figured out by Monday I'm sure.

Isabelle had her 11th birthday last night!!

My pictures came out awful, as we had a evening mexican party for her and it was too dark for good pics!!

She had choosen a mexican meal, and we cooked almost all day! We took the menu from The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/06/tequila-lime-chicken-with-all-the-fixins/

We made the whole meal, tortillas, refried beans, pico de gallo.. everything.. YUM!! Even margharittas for everyone.. (booze in the adults of course!)

The only thing not mexcian was her cake, she asked for a cheesecake, and boy was it ever good!

She ate so much cake that she had a belly ache that night!! LOL

So, It's our anniversary tomorrow.. Not sure how many years..but I still know that I love him lots!!

We had a fun day today at the beach, all the kiddos swam in the ocean and played in the sand!

Heck, even I went in for a swim! Holy Land it was cold!

We got in late tonight, 8:30pm, but I had put on Osso Buco in the slow cooker, so we came home to a nice warm juicy stew! I've never tried it in the slow cooker before but it turned out great! whew!

As I was putting the little kids to bed, this was our conversation:

"you know, tomorrow is a special day..

tomorrow is mommy and daddy's AN N-I-V ER-SA RY...!" ( I pronounced it very slowly..)

Can you say this word??" With wide eyes they pronounced very slowly like I did.. ANN I VER SARY" lol

Do you know what an "Ann-i-ver-sary is??

They simultaneously said Nooo... with a mouthful of toothpaste and now completely engrossed in this word...

I said " that is the day that mommy and daddy got married a long long time ago it's called an Ann-i-ver-sary!" "Can you say that word again?? Anniversary??

They both slowly said.. Ann I Ver Sary proudly!

Then I asked them.. "Do you know what happens on our Ann I Ver Sary??

They both replied Nooo????? They were so curious and excited now about this word.

I said " All the little boys and little girls all over the world are very nice and kind and don't whine and fight on thier parents Anniversary!!" "Can you say that word again??"

"let's say it together" "ANNIVERSARY!!"

I said "It's such a special day, this anniversary, that all the children are really nice and kind to their mommy's and daddy's!"

By now, I had them changed into PJ's and climbing into bed.

As I kissed them good night, I thought I better recap. So I asked them..

"so what day is tomorrow?"

they said: Anniversary!!

and what happens on our Anniversary?

they said "All the children in the world are nice and kind to you and daddy!"

SCORE!! Now lets hope they remember this tomorrow!!

of course unless it rains.. then we'll celebrate Tuesday!

I'm hoping to make a nice meal with Duck confit, and pate and goat cheese and champagne with cherries and amaretto and the girls want to hang white lights on the trees and have candles and music but it's calling for thunder showers tomorrow night, so we might have to post pone it for a day..

I don't mind, all I want is a nice quiet day/evening where all the children in the world are nice and kind to me! LOL

On our last day in Quebec, black and grey clouds suddenly rolled in and we had a huge rain and hail storm! It was so cool! The little kids thought it was amazing that ice cubes were falling from the sky! lol

The hail was so big and came down so hard that it dented the hood of our truck!