New Photos of Our Girls!!!

We just received some new photos of our daughters - they are below. We sent a care package to China with a few Sesame Street stuffed animals and a few outfits, not knowing if they would make it to the girls. We were very pleased that the girls are enjoying their Big Bird and Grover and their outfits (see below), as well as some family photos and other stuff we sent them. Please enjoy, won't you? We also received our travel dates today and have almost decided on names. Come back later for more updates!

Plaid Baby

Pink Baby

Plaid Baby (left) and Pink Baby (right)

Plaid Baby (left) and Pink Baby (right)

Pink Baby

Plaid Baby

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!

Kim's Baby Shower

In April D;a;lskjdf, Jenny, and the rest of our sisters (and sisters-in-law) threw Kim a baby shower in St. Louis. It was extremely well-planned and well-executed, and was held at a great location on The Hill in St. Louis.

When the planning for the shower began, Kim's sisters did their typical routine (by the way, the section below is not intended to be insulting to the wonderful and charming women in Kim's family):

Jenny: Let's throw a shower for Kim.
Julie: Good idea. When should we have it?
Pam: Whatever works for you guys. Where should it be?
Jenny: I agree with Pam.
Pam: Thanks, Jenny. You bring light into the lives of everyone you encounter.
Jenny: (Whimper)
Julie: Great - I am glad we got that figured out. Should we get her a cake?
Kim's Mom: I don't like cake. So yes, definitely get some cake.
Pam: Great - this is really coming together.
Julie: I am so glad we have made these tough decisions about the shower. Mom, you really helped clarify what we were all feeling.
Jenny: Yes, and Julie ever since you met Gary you seem like you are the happiest person in the world. I am so thrilled for you!
Julie: Wow, you really know how to make me feel loved. (Whimper)
Pam: (Whimper) So what are we doing for Easter?
Kim's Mom: Well, we could have it at my house, or we could go to Pam's. Based on that, I will see you all at Jenny's.
Jenny: What type of food should we have?
Julie: Whatever works for you guys.
Pam: I agree with Julie.
Julie: (Whimper)
Kim's Mom: I don't like chicken. So no chicken. On the other hand, we could serve chicken.
Jenny: Good point, Mom. Pam, do you have any coupons?
Kim's Mom: I think Bud wants a sandwich.
Pam: Matt Damon!

Meanwhile, D;;lasjkd took advantage of her German ancestry and scared the, uh, stuffing out of everyone, and everything ultimately came together.

We are of course very appreciative that everyone came and shared their excitement with us. Celeste (our sister-in-law/Kim's brother Scott's wife) put together a '100 Good Wishes Quilt' (a tradition in China - link) with contributions from our family and friends. This is so wonderful and will mean a lot to our girls.

After the shower, a group of us went to my Uncle Ron's and he and Judy (my 'Mom') finally ended their decades-long feud over the divorce of my parents back in 1970.

In addition to attending my first (and certainly my last) baby shower ever, I also enjoyed delicious Imo's pizza twice and Steak 'N Shake once, and drank plenty of clean, crisp, refreshing Budweiser (a scuttle of suds) with my Uncle Ron. The weekend was amazingly memorable and we are very grateful to all who attended, all of the gifts for our little girls, and all the good fun.

Below please enjoy watching Kim walk into the baby shower - please check the video link above for more fascinating video fun.

CRIKEY!!!

TWINS!!!

On Friday, April 6th, our agency called us to tell us that we have been referred TWINS!! Our nephew Jake (nickname: Jake) was in town and he and Kim had just left the Museum of Natural History. Kim and I were on the phone together (I was at work selling banking software, but I don't want to talk about it too much because it is really glamorous and exciting and I don't want to make you jealous) and in the middle of our conversation Kim's call waiting lit up.

The number had a 425 area code (Seattle, home of Niles Crane) and Kim screamed "Is the 425 area code from Seattle, home of Niles Crane?" I said yes (Wow! This is already quite dull).

Anyway, the woman at our agency, Elizabeth Rose, conferenced us both in and said the following: "Well, I have some good news, and in fact it's even BETTER news. The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs has referred TWINS to you." The rest is pretty much a blur, although we did stay coherent long enough for her to tell us that their names are Ling Cha Qiong (Pink Baby) and Ling Cha Yao (Plaid Baby) and they are in town of Shangrao in the Southeastern China province of Jiangxi. We couldn't be more thrilled.

My first thought was "Woo Hoo!!!" My second thought was "How will I pay for college?" Kim's first thought was "I should sit down right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the Museum of Natural History."

After we both caught our breath and realized how cool (and frightening) this would be, we organized a conference call with all of our family.

We had to text/email/call everyone to make sure they got the call-in details, and then we held the call at 6:30 PM.

We figured everyone knew the subject of the conference call, but no one knew that we were getting TWINS. We tried to come up with something clever --
Kim: "Hey Mike, what are you doing in 17 years?"
Mike: "Paying for college for our TWINS!"
or
Kim: "Hey Mike, what do we have in common with the parents of Mary Kate and Ashley Olson?"
Mike: "We are billionaires?"
Kim: "No, we are going to be parents of TWINS."
Mike: "Cool. Can we also be billionaires? (laughs heartily)"

But then we figured we would go for the direct approach - an introduction --
Kim: "We are happy to introduce you all to our daughter Ling, Cha Yao".
After a proper pause -
Mike: "And our OTHER daughter Ling, Cha Qiong."

There were a lot of questions from our family about the girls about travel details and other topics, most of which we couldn't answer. The conference call was one of the highlights of our life, and we were so pleased that everyone got to share the moment and tell us how happy they were for us. No one promised to pay for their college, though, so it wasn't entirely a success.

That night Gene and Stacee came over with their son "Julian", as did Laura and DeYan (who bought us a book called 'The Art of Raising Twins' - quite appropriate).

The rest of the evening was a blur and we started realizing that we were going to be parents of TWINS! Crikey!!! I mean - Woo Hoo!!!!

Endless Bureaucracy

I was going to write a bit about the adoption process and the non-stop paperwork involved, but as I was writing it I was boring myself silly. So I figured I would just summarize it as follows:

• We started in January of 2005
• We had to do a lot of paperwork
• It took a long time
• We had fingerprints taken about 100 times (and had to get them 'updated', even though decades of forensic science has shown that fingerprints don't actually expire)
  
• We have been in the official waiting process since October 2005
  

See - boring. If you want an exciting story, I will tell you about the time I got choked at the Barnes and Noble.

Kim and Mike Decide to Adopt

(The Story You Won't Hear From the Media)

In 1993 I moved to New Jersey from Des Moines (French for "The Moines"). I moved to a leafy town called Summit, New Jersey , where I lived with a chatty chemist and a very funny woman named Katie (who looks like Kate Winslet).

I drove a Hyundai, worked at a soul-less corporation, and had my spleen explode while I was driving through the Holland Tunnel. It sounds more glamorous than it was, but sure, you could say I was living the dream.

One of my friends from BoringCorp (in the interests of anonymity we will call her 'Julie') told me on many occasions that I should meet her sister, the lovely and talented Kim. Julie was convinced that Kim and I were soul mates. Apparently Kim was a 'difficult' child, as was I, and Julie was sure that we would instantly fall in love. I thought that sounded like a fine idea, except I lived in leafy Summit, New Jersey and Julie's sister Kim lived in far off St. Louis.

As fate would have it, Julie and a few of her friends were going to Chicago for a New Year's party and invited me along (the party was dreadful, by the way). Kim was also in Chicago and we met that weekend. Not wanting to miss my chance, I talked to her for over 3 minutes before deciding that she was clearly out of my league.

About a month later, I was invited to a wedding in St. Louis and needed a date. I called Kim and asked her to go with me, and she agreed. It was clear from the moment that she saw me that Kim was attracted to my Niles Crane-like forehead and my strapping 145-pound frame (I had surgery a couple of months before and was still a bit thin).

We dated long-distance for a year and she eventually moved to Hoboken, just across the river from New York. Ten months later she agreed to marry me, and in May 1996 we got married in the Cayman Islands. I am of course very lucky - she could have done much better.

Prior to dating me, Kim's previous boyfriends included a dude with a small head, a long-haired photographer, an old lawyer, and Fenton, Missouri-based furniture king Brook Dubman. So actually, while I am very lucky to be with her, she is pretty lucky that she ended up with me as well.

Shortly after we got married we moved into New York City. I spent much of my free time perfecting my puppetry techniques and Kim avidly followed the NHRA Nitro-Fuel Funny Car Drag Racing circuit, so we didn't know if we would really have time to raise children.

However, we agreed early in our marriage that when we were ready, we wanted to adopt a baby. My Uncle Ron adopted a girl (the darling Amy) around the time that Kim and I started dating, and we had always sort of knew that we would adopt. But as I said, we weren't in any hurry.

We spent the first several years of our marriage enjoying New York and traveling the world. We scaled a glacier in New Zealand, climbed a big mountain in Oregon, and canoed the mighty Big Sugar river in Pineville, Missouri (that's the Mayor and his brother, left).

In late 2003 (not to bring you down, but the story must be told) our great friend Carney died suddenly from bacterial meningitis, and a few months later my dad (famed crimefighter Lee Roy) died after a short but brutal battle with lung cancer.

By this time Kim had been been teaching Sunday School (at 'Church') and became very close with a wonderful girl named DeYan (that's her being nutty, left). DeYan was born in China and is delightful, even though she is the only kid in the world who doesn't think I am hilarious.

It's weird, but the deaths of Carney and my Dad got us talking more and more about becoming parents, and Kim's relationship with DeYan made us look more closely at adopting a baby girl from China.

In the latter part of 2004, we made the decision that we would definitely start the process to adopt a girl from China. In January 2005, we jumped right into the adoption process - we thought we would have a baby in a year. We were off by quite a bit.

Stay tuned for more details of the process, including fascinating tales of paperwork, bureaucracy, and endless fingerprinting (I have radial loops- Kim has tented arches, which everyone agrees is pretty weird).