Gwen's Stage Debut

The Princesses in the Court of the Queen of Hearts

For weeks Seth has been helping with the 5th and 6th grade production of "Alice in Wonderland" as a student director. He has had the opportunity to practice lines with students, work with groups of students on their individual scenes, set up and run sound and lighting cues, apply stage make-up, and do a myriad of other little tasks to help the director. He was also asked to play the guitar for the ending dance. He's had a great time being on the other side of this dramatic production.

Over the last few weeks before the show opened, rehearsals got longer and longer, and so the girls and I often took some food over to Seth to carry him through until the rehearsal ended. The girls loved to sit in the theater and watch the rehearsal, and sometimes would choose that over going to one of Caleb's basketball games (okay, they ALWAYS chose the theater over basketball!), so I would leave them there to hang out while I watched basketball.

One one of these days, Seth was sitting with the faculty director at the soundboard in the back of the theater. She knows our family and LOVES Seth, and also happens to have a Chinese daughter. When we came in that day, she saw Gwen and asked her if she would like to be in the play. Gwen couldn't believe her good fortune! It was especially amazing to her because she knew that her school friend Callie had a part in the play, too.

So this is how we've spent the last couple of evenings, with one more show to go tonight. Gwen's part is quite simple- no lines. :-) All she has to do is sit at the side of the stage with the other Princesses in the Court of the Queen of Hearts watching the Queen's croquet game. But for a girl who has often wished she could "be on the stage," it is a very big deal!

Waiting in the green room with the other members of the cast... here Gwen and her friend Callie play cards with the Duchess and Alice.
Just a little stage make-up... pretty fancy!
Onstage at last...
Dancing with the whole cast onstage with the rest of the cast at the end of the show!

A No Good, Very Bad Day

Gwen got off the bus this afternoon looking quite down in the mouth.

"Mommy, I had a bad day."

She has never said this before, so I was really curious to hear what reason she would give.

I picked her up, and with bottom lip sticking way out, she said, "Teacher said she would give me a star if I spoke Chinese all day, but I forgot."

Ah, the trials of a child who is almost bilingual... maybe if I worked a little harder on my Chinese and practiced my extremely limited Mandarin vocabulary on her more often, it would help.

Poor girl. :-) She can try again for an English-free school day tomorrow.

Found: Tickle Spot!

I love the looks on both Uncle Shann's and Isaac's faces in this photo!

She's Back

My talented amateur photographer sister-in-law, Mindy, has restarted her photo blog. The idea is that she will post one picture a day, taken that day, for 365 consecutive days. She did this several years ago and it was so fun to see her new photo each day. She's already got some great ones on there for this new season of the Photo Dilettante. Click here to check out the latest.

Her Face

Gwen came home from a birthday party yesterday with this face. Later when I was showing Scott this picture I took of her, he said, "Look how beautiful she is! Who's daughter is that?"

It's funny, with an adopted child, you know you can't take any credit for their looks. Of course we really can't control how any of our children look- it's all God's doing- but with an adopted child you can just be overtly in awe of them.

We think this girl is especially cute, don't you? :-) Look what God did!

Giraffe for Aunt Sarah

I am jumping back to some Christmas pictures here. :-)

Madelyn created some art work for several of her aunts and uncles that we had framed (at one of the incredibly inexpensive framing places here in Shanghai) for Christmas gifts for them. She came up with this fun idea for a cute giraffe made of shapes she cut out of different colored paper for Brad and Sarah, knowing that Sarah has always loved giraffes. I love this sequence of pictures that Scott took of the three of them as the gift was opened.

Art-and-Snacks Party

Yesterday afternoon we had a fun gathering in honor of Madelyn's birthday. She had the idea for an art party, and it worked so well! We had two projects to do. The first was painting a ceramic mask and the second was creating a design on a canvas using colored papers that the girls cut into shapes and applied with watered down glue. We had lots of fun snacks set up in the kitchen to munch on in between and during the two projects. Seth made a guest appearance and played the guitar a little for the girls while they sang, and he and Gwen both painted a little with them as well. We gave each girl a paint palette to use when we painted the masks, and then they took those home as their favors.
Here are the results of the artistic afternoon!

Cool Dudes

Seth and Caden had a little fun with hair wax when we were together at Grandpa and Grandma's house. :-)
Going to try to post a few Christmas pictures here and there in the next few days!

10 Years of Madelyn!

Part of our birthday decorations... pictures of Madelyn on the door between the kitchen and dining room.

Posted are the youngest one, taken when she was eight weeks old, toddler pictures, a t-ball shot, her four year old portrait (my grandma said that it was so good, I would never get a better picture of her!), a picture of her at a pirate party with yucky fake teeth in her mouth, one with her American Girl doll, one where she's wearing a dress my great grandmother crocheted for my mother to wear as a toddler, a picture of her serving tea to the dolls arranged around her on her bed, one wearing one of her aunt's wedding veil, and others.

Shootin' a Three

I love this photo! I cannot take credit for taking it; although Scott and I have both tried to get good sports pictures, it seems we often end up with a whole lot of junk. Fortunately, the father of one of the guys on Caleb's team takes excellent photos and emails them to all the players and parents after every game. The guys comb through these photos, looking for new screen savers for their laptops. :-) I'm just happy to have great shots of Caleb in action... who knows, I just might update my screen saver, too.

Golden Birthday!

We celebrated the beginning of Madelyn's birthday weekend with a cake that we shared with our homeschool co-op friends after lunch today. Ten candles on that cake... amazing!

A Few Photos From Christmas in Shanghai

We had our family Christmas celebration here in Shanghai on the Sunday morning before we left for the US on Friday. It's been tricky to make our family Christmas special and meaningful the last few years, when we've been in the process of preparing to leave the country for several weeks. I was really thankful for how it worked out this year, it seemed less rushed to do it almost a full week ahead of time.

Caleb hung out in this scarf from Seth and gloves from his stocking all morning, along with one of his favorite knit hats.
Seth gave good thank-you hugs to all!

Madelyn was super excited about the gift she had picked out for Scott... it was an orange striped tie with matching orange cuff links. Here she can't wait for him to get his first glimpse! If you look closely at Scott's left cheekbone, you'll see the matching yellowish bruise he got playing basketball a few days before.
Gwen watched intently while I opened her gift to me. Remember her Christmas shopping excursion at the 2 RMB store? She gave me not one, but two bead necklaces she bought on that trip. I wore the black one to church last Sunday. :-)
Gwen in her new Uggs... fake, of course!
One of my resolutions this year was to spend less time on the computer... thus my slowness in posting pictures. Maybe I'll have to take fewer pictures as well!

Notes in the New Year

Feel free to skim or skip... this is just a bit of stream of consciousness about the last couple weeks and the coming week!

We're back at home in Shanghai. We've struggled with jet lag in varying degrees all weekend. Tonight at dinner Gwen was whining pleadingly to be put to bed. Madelyn, Seth, and Scott soon followed her. Caleb, on the other hand, being a teenager, has been able to sleep in later in the morning than any of the rest of us, and is currently out playing basketball with a friend, at 9:45 at night, the last night before school starts again for 2010.

I used my wakefulness due to jet lag at 4 a.m. the other morning to my advantage... I got up and undecorated the Christmas tree in the quietness of the house, with only one of our cats for company. I worked for an hour and then went back to bed, feeling pleased with myself for using the time so well. However, the pieces of our artificial tree are still lying in pieces on the living room floor, two days later. Hoping to get it put away soon...

Madelyn is looking forward to her birthday. She will be ten years old on the tenth of January, in the year 2010! Fun. She and I planned several months ago that she could do a mini room-redo for her birthday. I'm hoping it means we get some things sorted and cleaned up; I know she is planning on a new comforter for her bed and hanging long curtains to partition off part of the room. Happily, I think we will be able to do both. I was pleased to find a long tension type shower curtain rod at Carrefour tonight for only 38 RMB that I think we can use to hang the curtains. I got her some lavender-fading-into-white sheers at Walmart in the US that we will hopefully hang up tomorrow.

Although the boys return to school tomorrow, and Madelyn and I will resume school then as well, Gwen has another week off. I'm hoping to get in several phonics lessons with her this week while she is home with me. English phonics is the one thing missing at her school, since they are spoken to in Chinese all day. I've been using the phonics program with her that I used to teach the other three kids to read, but doing it kind of hit or miss. This week will be catch up time. Gwen is hoping to go to the Science and Technology Museum this week, which she loves! Her favorite things to do there are to wander through the extensive animal exhibit, showing real (now stuffed- this fascinates her) animals in their natural habitats, and riding what she calls "the fruit ride". On the fruit ride you sit in a huge strawberry, watermelon or apple, and take a trip into a giant mouth and through the digestive system. You can imagine how it ends. Fortunately the narration throughout the ride is all in Chinese, so we don't get the full effect, but I imagine Gwen gets a lot more of it than I do.

Our time in Chicago and Cleveland was wonderful. What a treat it is to be with those whom we love at Christmas! There was a Man Hike through the winter woods for the boys and two of their uncles, sleepovers for the girls at Aunt Jenna's and Pa and Nannie's houses, a walk through the woods lit with Christmas light displays, and baby boy cousins who have grown much bigger than they were in the summer. There was a Cavs game with seats that offered an amazing view of Lebron; Avatar, Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and Princess and the Frog movie outings, and dinner for all at Bubba's BBQ. There were new blue glasses for Madelyn and new school pants for the boys. There were games of Guesstures, Scene-It Sports, Loaded Questions, and Malarky. There were lots of cookies and many cups of coffee. There were several nativity finger puppet shows, one much better than the other according to Caden. There were nieces singing in church on Christmas Eve and salmon for supper afterwards. There were little girls in pink coats passing out sandwiches. There was a birthday treasure hunt for Seth, leading him inside and out in search of the thirteen clues that led to the location of his gift. There was a dirt pudding birthday cake, complete with sour gummy worms. There was packing and packing and packing, and good-bye hugs and prayers and leaving for the airport while it was still dark.

And now we're here and regular life begins again. The weather is warmer here than it was in the Midwest~ today we flew a kite and threw the football around under a pale blue sky and warm winter sunshine. We also sorted through clothes in various closets and filled bags to give away. We went to church at 3 pm like we always do, and then out to dinner at Element Fresh, one of our favorite spots just a short walk from church. After dinner I walked to Carrefour and bought the curtain rod along with other odds and ends, took a taxi home and found most of my family sleeping. I've fiddled around tonight with various small tasks, and gotten school stuff ready for tomorrow.

Caleb has come home now from basketball, iced his bloodied lip, and gone to bed. I think I will go there now too.

Sledding, and a whole lot more

Last week before Christmas we were able to snatch some precious time with the Stevensons. We see these dear friends so rarely... whatever time we can spend together is a gift. Rebecca is the wordsmith among us, so if you'd like to read her description of our eight hours together, click here. For my part, I'll say that it was so great to do again what we always do when we're together... play, eat, and talk~ about jobs and kids and parenting and movies and God... and everything else we can squeeze into our too infrequent visits.

The playing this visit took the form of a sledding venture that was enjoyed by us all!








Our crew together... how did we end up with all these big kids? We're just four college friends who laughed and talked into the night and dreamed of what it would be like to grow up some day... look what happened!
We love you, friends.

Happy 13th!

I took the annual photo of Seth in his stocking at home before we left Shanghai... but yesterday was his actual birthday, so I must post it now. Thirteen years ago yesterday, one hour old Seth was wheeled into my room at North Fulton Hospital tucked inside this stocking with only his little round head peeking out the top. Thirteen years later, he can still get both feet into it, but it only comes up to his knees. My Christmas boy!

Home For Christmas

This is meeting time again. Home is the magnet. The winter land roars and hums with the eager speed of return journeys. The dark is noisy and bright with late night arrivals- doors thrown open, running shadows on snow, open arms, kisses, voices and laughter, laughter at everything and nothing. Inarticulate, giddying and confused are those original minutes of being back again. The very familiarity of everything acts like shock. Contentment has to be drawn in slowly, steadyingly, in deep breaths- there is so much of it. We rely on home not to change, and it does not, wherefore we give thanks. Again Christmas: abiding point of return. Set apart by its mystery and magic, the season seems in a way to stand outside time. All that is dear, that is lasting, renews its hold on us: we are home again...

From Home For Christmas by Elizabeth Bowen, 1899-1973

Slugs

There are five tenth grade boys hanging out with the PS3 and 2K10 (a basketball Playstation game, for the uninitiated). They have been in roughly the same position for the last five hours. Madelyn and I have taken food in to them at various points, apparently aiding their long period of relative inactivity. But they haven't been quiet. Oh no, quite the contrary. They're very much into their game, alternately shouting and jeering at one another's virtual basketball skills.

Finals ended today. Christmas vacation starts tomorrow. I guess I'll allow my son and his friends this indulgence for once.

Chirstmas Baking

Can you read the only English on this bag of brown sugar? It says, "A woman in childbirth brown sugar". I thought for sure it must be another one of the many hilarious mistranslations we've seen, but when I asked my Mandarin teacher about it, and she read the Chinese characters, she said that this brown sugar must have extra minerals that make it healthier for pregnant women.

Really? I have to say I'm skeptical.

On a side note, I used the brown sugar to make gingersnaps last week, and it worked just fine.

A Little Family Magic

Guest posting by Seth

Hi, my name is Seth Liptak. In school, and at home - just fooling around - I've learned a lot about making movies and special effects. This is a short video I made while babysitting my sisters, Gwen and Madelyn. What I did is really quite simple, and I bet you will be able to figure it out. My intent isn't to fool you, just to amuse you.

It is amazing how easy it is to do these kinds of things on macbooks. Now, for old people (or PC users) like the people who are probably reading this, it might seem that these type of effects would take great skill and many hours to create, but believe it or not, this took me only a few minutes.

Now also, for most of the people who are reading this, I'm also going to be visiting you this Christmas. I would be glad to show any of you exactly how I made the video, I'm sure you will understand it, and maybe even want to convert from PC to mac! Uncle Justin and Aunt Mary, I know you guys have a mac. As a matter of fact the first time I EVER used, or even saw a mac was a day about four years ago after we had gone to the Ohio State vs. North Western football game. Afterward we went back to Mary and Justin's. They had a mac. That was my first time.

The next year we moved to Shanghai. I started school at an international school, a mac school. In every class 5th and 6th grade class room there are 9 iMac computers. Everyone in grades 7 and up have their own macbook computer. So as you can see I have been using macs pretty much every school day for the last 3 years. Making movies is a large fraction of the projects we've done on computers.

Well, my mac story is over, hope you liked the video.

Gotcha Day 2009

December 12... Gotcha Day!

Can't believe it's been four years since this little girl in a puffy pink corduroy outfit, squeaky panda shoes, and a fish shaped hair clip walked into our lives. What a different life we would be leading if it hadn't been GWEN!

We had a a low-key day today as Gwen is a bit under the weather, with a hefty cough and intermittent fever. We did manage to enjoy her life book (mostly completed now but not quite) and have this fun beauty shop session. I had never put curlers in her hair, so she thought that was a big deal. While we were at it, she painted her toenails. :-)

A Boy in a Bowtie

A shot from Seth's Christmas choir concert last week... I just loved the bowtie! The music was pretty good, too. :-)

Curls

Yesterday at church Gwen's Sunday school class got to sing "Away in a Manger" on the stage in front of the whole church. The kids were dressed as various parts of the nativity, and she got to be an angel, complete with feathery wings and a gold tinsel halo. I curled her hair for the occassion, something I don't do very often. Unfortunatley we weren't able to get any good pictures during the service, but Scott did snap these couple at home before we left for church. She was SO excited about her curled hair! She liked the look so much that she asked for me to curl it before school this morning, too. :-)

Christmas Shopping

When Caleb and Seth were preschoolers, I took them to a "Christmas shopping for kids" shop that was set up in a nice department store downtown. They were each assigned a helper who was dressed like an elf who would take them around to the tables of items, help them make selections, wrap and label their gifts with them, and handle the purchasing of their items with the money we had given them. It was a great thing for them, to feel like they had done their own shopping and had surprises for their family. It was all a very neat and tidy process.

Yesterday afternoon I took Gwen to the 2 RMB store in Yuyuan to do her Christmas shopping. Kind of the Chinese version of the dollar store, but even cheaper. No neat and tidy process here. It's an open booth, so it's quite chilly. No specially selected items for children to choose from, but rather lots of junk to sort through to find anything resembling a treasure. Lots of people in bulky coats pushing their way through the small shop. But Gwen was in her element when she realized she was going to get to actually choose these gifts herself. Quickly she was boldly making choices for her cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, siblings and for Daddy. She changed her mind a couple of times, but had everything decided in the space of about 15 minutes. She proudly marched out of the store with her two plastic bags clutched in her arms. After we got out out onto the sidewalk and I congratulated her for her great shopping, she was nearly bursting with joy. Seth took her back in to choose something for me, and she was so tickled to have a secret from me, too.

When we got into the car, I called Scott to let him know we were heading home. Gwen had to get on the phone to tell about her shopping experience. She wanted to tease Scott about what she got him, so she said, " I got you a potty, Daddy." Peals of laughter followed this statement, and then she said, "No, I got you a bracelet!" More laughter... then, because secrets are so hard to keep, she said, "I didn't get you a ruler, though!" She had gotten him a measuring tape, which she called a ruler. Just couldn't keep from almost telling, silly girl!

This morning Gwen is chomping at the bit to get her gifts wrapped, so after our scrambled eggs we're going to have a wrapping session of the treasures from the 2 RMB store.

I love the excitement she has about the gifts she is going to give. :-)

Large Leaves

The streets outside our compound are lined with trees that are now dropping these giant leaves! Seems like we should be using them to make hats or clothing, or something!