Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Spring Back

We have had a lot of fun adventures the past oh, month or so, that I have not captured in the blog-- in an effort to catch-up-- here we go and it IS going to be sloppy.

The girls have spent many a morning picking lovely bouquets of dandelions-- they LUV all the pretty yellow flowers in our yard.



The opening of one of our favorite Playgrounds!




Care Bears Final event for the 2010/2011 School Year-- a Field Day with lots of fun activities.

I volunteered to run one of the day's events so DH was in charge of the girls and taking pictures-- so not too many pictures were taken. ;-)

There are more pictures from this day at the end of this post that I hi-jacked from a friend's blog.
Josie and Clara Rose and their China Care Playmate, Miss Isabell.

Playing golf at one of the event stations.

After the Care Bears Field Day a few families gathered at a nearby playground for a dinner picnic.
The playground is pretty cool. There are lots of rope-themed structures to climb on.
It looks like a big spider web.

Clara Rose became very upset when one of the older girls told her she was too little to climb up and across the rope bridget.

She sure did prove them wrong!


We've squeezed in some light gardening, when we can, between the various rain storms.


More trips to the zoo-- this time with friends.


Big Grace, Little Grace, Josie, Liliana, and Clara Rose.

No more China care playgroups + nicer weather = more cook-outs/play dates with friends.

The girls really enjoy having their friends over to play, eat dinner, and enjoy some ice-cream cones while watching a fun cartoon.

Clara Rose, Claire, Carly, Josie, and Angeline

Simple things in life like veggie chips in the sun. . .

Practicing gymnatics-like moves on the swingset


And--- the picts I hijacked from the China Cares Field Day (thanks Michelle!)
Starting with Clara Rose moving left, little Grace, Angeline, playing a game with their China Cares Playmates. They had to use a sponge to fill buckets with water.

Miss Isabell (the girls' playmate), the 'gurls,' and Wim playing a relay with spoons and marchmellows.
.

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Friday, May 27, 2011

We're Playing Hooky!!!!

Today I played hooky with the gurls and we all enjoyed a fun (SUNNY!) morning at a new park (to us).

It is a super cool place with lots of animals that we can feed. A friend had told me about this place so I knew to bring carrots and apples for the gurls to feed them.


There were goats, a donkey, pigs . . .


Several fawns!! The gurls loved feeding them!



While at one playground. . . 

Through the trees we spotted this interesting looking structure and investigated . . .


Whoa!! What a slide! 


Oh YEAH! That is Josie and Clara Rose up there getting ready to slide down!

 This was nothing for my barefooted beauties
!
A sandy play area-- Captain Josie ready to sail!

Yet another big playground! 

ROAR! What a Good Time!

NO better way to end a fun morning of play than with a picnic lunch!
Bon Apetite!
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Friday, May 20, 2011

First Annual All Girls Allowed Dinner


First Annual All Girls Allowed Dinner
Celebrating 1 year of bringing life, value and dignity to girls and mothers in China.
When:      Friday, June 17, 2011 from 7:00pm to 10:00pm 
Where:     Millennium Bostonian Hotel at 26 North St. Boston, MA  02109
Cost:         $100 per ticket - All proceeds support lifesaving programs in China!
Wear:       Dress to celebrate!


It has been an amazing first year for AGA! We've rescued 550 girls from gendercide through the AGA Baby Shower Gift Program; 25 abandoned girls are receiving an education through Orphan Scholarships; 1 trafficked child and 2 trafficked brides have been reunited with their families, and several forced abortion cases have been exposed and brought to light.

The first annual All Girls Allowed Dinner will showcase the programs started this year in China that are already having dramatic results.  Strides are being made towards ending gendercide in rural villages where occurrences of infant killings and abandonment are most severe.

The evening will bring you into the world of the families being supported and the lives changed.  Join us to meet "Little Bean" a 4-year-old who was reunited with her family by All Girls Allowed anti-trafficking coalition and meet "Li" who bravely sought refuge with All Girls Allowed to give birth to her baby girl without the support of her family.  These and more powerful stories will give you hope for women and girls in China.

 100% of proceeds support programs to end gendercide and alleviate the impact of the One-Child Policy.

Sponsorship checks may be mailed to All Girls Allowed at 101 Huntington Avenue, Suite 2205, Boston, MA 02199.  Please include "AGA DINNER" on the memo line.

Join us for a special message from AGA Founder Chai Ling and be the first to see the release of our new video.  

You Can Register at:

Sponsorship checks may be mailed to All Girls Allowed at 101 Huntington Avenue, Suite 2205, Boston, MA 02199.  Please include "AGA DINNER" on the memo line.

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Friday, May 13, 2011

We're Lucky!

I often talk with the ‘gurls’ about their adoptions. They each have their own adoption storybook that I made for them. Complete with pictures of them in their orphanage or foster home before they were adopted and some blank pages representing that there is part of their story that we do not know.


This past week Josie asked me how we adopted her. In her very wise 4-1/2 year old way, it was clear that she was asking how Wim and I ended up specifically adopting her.

Josie: “How did you and Daddy adopt me and Clara Rose from China?”

Me: “Mommy and Daddy wrote a letter to China telling them we would like to adopt a child who did not have a mommy and daddy that were able to take care of them. We had to write a lot of words explaining how we would take care of a child and show that we were capable of taking care of a child.”

Josie: “like feeding me and putting me to bed?”

Me: “Yes.”

Me: “Daddy and I sent this letter to China. The people in China who take care of adoptions said we could adopt a baby. This is how all parents who adopt from China ask to adopt. Our letter was sent to a big room in China with all the letters from the other parents.”

Me: “In China, your Ayi (Chinese word used for the Nannies) and people at your orphanage wrote a letter about you and that you needed a mommy and daddy who would be able to take care of you. This letter asked the people in Charge in China to find a family for you. This is letter was sent to a big room in China along with letters about other children in China who did not have a mommy or daddy to take care of them.”

Josie: “Like your office where you work?”

Me: “yes.”

Me: “In this office there are people who match the letters from parents who want to adopt a child to letters about children who need a mommy and a daddy. The people who were matching pulled our letter the same time they pulled your letter from the orphanage and that is how we were matched to adopt you.”

Josie: “Wow! You and Daddy got really lucky!’

Me: “Yeah, I don’t know how we got so lucky, but we sure did.”
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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

China's One Child Policy

I'm not really sure what to title this post. I figure the morning is a good time to post it-- the bitter taste of coffee mixes well with the taste of bile in my mouth.

IMO, we can try to talk about this in any terms we want, but this screams government sanctioned, government approved, child trafficking.

I cannot imagine the pain of a tortured heart these parents will carry for the rest of their life.

http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2011-05/653266.html
Over the last 10 years, family-planning "enforcers" in Shaoyang have seized at least 20 children from Longhui county, who were born outside their parents' birth quota, and dispatched them to a local children welfare center, according to media reports.
“The welfare center then named all the seized children "Shao" and listed them as orphans available for $3,000 adoption. Some now live in the US, the Netherlands and Poland and have never met with their Chinese parents since adoption, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a report by Caixin Century Magazine.”
. . . . .
Their explanation for the action was that either the child had been illegally adopted or the parents had breached the national one-child policy and could not afford a fine.
Some victims were actually a family's first child, the report said.
. . . .
"They mistook my daughter for being illegal when my wife and I were working in Shenzhen," Yang Libing, a local migrant worker, told the magazine, adding that their 7-year-old child has been found living in the US.
The child-snatching phenomenon climaxed in about 2005, the Beijing-based magazine reported, and some welfare centers even worked with human traffickers to obtain children and reclassify them as orphans for "export."
The magazine said that for every child sent to a welfare center, the family-planning office could receive 1,000 yuan ($154) or more from the welfare center.
Their explanation for the action was that either the child had been illegally adopted or the parents had breached the national one-child policy and could not afford a fine.
Some victims were actually a family's first child, the report said.
. . . .
Lu Jiehua, a sociologist with Peking University, told the Global Times that the difficulties of enforcing the one-child policy might have forced the officials to resort to extreme measures.
"They are under extreme pressure as all their job evaluations are related to the effectiveness of reducing the number of children," Lu said. "Their job is difficult, but that is no excuse for trafficking children, which is absolutely illegal."
Other analysts called for more adoption regulations to prevent a profit chain in which family-planning offices snatched babies and welfare centers repackaged them into "products" for export.
. . . .
Some of the welfare centers even required employees to look for children that could be seized, the Caixin Century Magazine said, citing local news reports.
Two years ago, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported similar cases in Zhenyuan county, Guizhou Province, where local welfare centers bought children for 3,000 yuan and sold them to adoptive foreigners for $3,000 each.
. . . .
More than 13 million people in the country have no hukou, or household registration, and most had been born in violation of the national family planning policy, according to Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics.
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Sunday, May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day Everyone! I hope a great day was had by all my wonderful Mom friends and family!

We had a low key but fun Mother's Day.


I strted the day with some yummy chocolate coffee on the lawn with my two sunshine girls, singing
Happy Mother's Day.

Soon the morning entertainment began--

Josie asked Clara Rose to take a picture of us-- she got most of us in it. 

Clara Rose gathered bunches of dandelions and decorated our little lawn table. 



My two acrobats, the swinging duals. . . . 

showing off their amazing skills!

After the morning entertainment we headed off to a local nursery and picked out some pretty flowers for our yard.

The girls picked a lovely hanging basket dedicated to thier first moms in China. Josie suggested they pick one that had two different flowers in the same basket just like her and Clara Rose have a different mom in China.

Pretty amazing for a 4-1/2 year old!!

My  big sweetie pie filling the big flower box with rocks and soil.
 Happy Mother's Day balloons from the girls.
This picture was suppose to be a little later, but I am too tired to edit this.

Me and the girls with our pretty flower box.
We planted four different kinds of flowers in and cannot wait to watch it grow!



Next was the afternoon entertainment-- tricycle yard racing!
 The Champion!


Clara Rose running around trying to catch up!

 We even had a feral cat in the yard which really added to the day, but never fear,
our ever ferocious, fearless, Golden Retriever, Phoebe was near!
I was relieved the cat ran off, because I wasn't too sure Phoebe would have been able to handle it.
She's more of a lover than anything else.

The ending entertainment-- two sweet little mommies taking care of their babies. 

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