Emily and Engineering Camp

Emily attended Race into Engineering camp at a local college last week. There were about 50 middle school students from area schools attending. She was on a team with three of her friends from school, all members of her school's basketball team.

They learned about physics and engineering, did experiments, and made CO2 race cars.

Em and Evie on the floor on race day, the race track is right over Em's head, behind the checkered flags.






Em pointing to her car on the race track. She raced against her friend, Sarah. Sarah won by just a little bit, but Em's team got 3rd out of 11 teams!






The poster Em's team made, and their cars. (Em's is the blue and orange one!)









Em getting her certificate at the end of camp:

Evie and the Bad Bees

We discovered this week that our Evie is allergic to bee stings. She got stung on the top of her head on June 20. She said it hurt, but we didn't see a big reaction. 

 

A few days later, on June 24, we were sitting outside on the swing when Evie was stung again, on her hand. Her hand immediately began to swell, and was still very swollen the next day. We took her in to see the nurse practitioner at our doctor's office. The nurse was very concerned and ended up giving us a prescription for an epipen junior, and directions for giving Evie claritin and benadryl if she gets stung again. She said that some kids grow out of allergies to bees, but it is more likely that each subsequent sting will produce a worse reaction.

 

We went to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription, and Richard, Emily and I all got trained to use it. The pharmacist and the techs were wonderful, and answered any questions we could think of. I now carry the epipens, claritin, and benadryl in my purse at all times, and we will have a set for Evie's school to have on hand.

 

We are trying to avoid having Evie go outside for very long since we are still having a bee problem. We destroyed the nest, but they are still hanging around. Richard got stung tonight while mowing the lawn! Evie was very worried about her Yaya, and gave him lots of kisses and brought him the special Hello Kitty icepack to put on his ouchie.

 

We are hopeful that we won't have to find out what happens if Evie is stung a third time.

 

Evie's trip to the Surgeon today

We had our yearly appointment with Dr. P today. Evie did so well, she even talked to him a little, and willingly opened her mouth so that he could look inside. The nurses were enchanted with her, and gave her a Garfield band-aid, two stickers, a Hershey's kiss. She also got to eat lunch out (chicken nuggets, applesauce, juice, and mama's fries), so it ended up being a pretty good day for her!

Dr. P gave us good news and bad news. The good news is that Evie seems to be doing very well, and he doesn't think that she will need the p-flap surgery for another couple years, at least. It is our hope that she will catch up enough in the speech department that she will not need it at all. (We were expecting him to want to schedule the p-flap surgery at this appointment.)

The bad news is that her jaw isn't growing correctly. Dr. P explained that when she is a teenager, she will have to have several years of braces (we expected that already). Then, she will have to have surgery to basically break the upper and lower jaw bones, and reset them in the correct positions. This will be a major surgery, and he will not combine it with any of the other procedures that we are expecting Evie to need. (So, being the kind of mama I am, I am already worrying about this surgery that is at least 10 years off...)

He also said that she might need some baby teeth pulled, in order for the adult teeth to be able to come in correctly.

We have our Log In Date!

We just found out our Log In Date! It was 5/8/09, so we have officially been waiting slightly over a month for our next step, the Letter of Acceptance.

current stats:
DTC 4/23/09
LOI 5/4/09
LID 5/8/09
PA 5/15/09

Update on Andy

We got an update on Andy this morning. I was hoping for new pictures, too, but we didn't get any.

If the measurements are correct, he is short and solid! He is in the 75th percentile for weight on the Chinese growth chart, but not quite on the chart for height. (He is waaaay off the bottom of the American height chart!). At 14 months, he is 22 pounds and 26 inches tall.

This is what the orphanage had to say about him: "He can stand and walk with support. He is outgoing. He likes moving around quickly when sitting in his walker. He will cry loudly when he is upset or hungry."

I read the update to Evie, and she is worried about Andy, because the report says that Andy cries, and she doesn't want him to cry in China. After I tucked her in bed tonight, we snuggled under the covers for a few minutes to talk. She said, "Mama, I miss my Andy. I am going to be the bestest big sister ever. I might even share Muh". (Muh is her special stuffed Bunny friend.)