This is a picture of 5 of our babies. L to R: Daniel, Karson, Libby, Mai Ya, Mr. Wu.

Daniel left with his new parents a few days after this photo was taken.

Karson was not happy about this situation at all. He is crying in all the pictures we took like this!

The two girls don't seem to mind it a bit, and Mr. Wu makes it obvious what he thinks about the whole thing!

They take a group photo like this every few weeks I think. I'll try and get a new one up soon of all the babies.

Tonight is going fairly well. I only have 2 hrs and 15 minutes until I can sleep. I've kept up on the feedings, which is a miracle. Libby woke up twice but I can't be mad at her cuz she's been sick. Mr. Pan wouldn't eat at his second feeding. Shame on him.

I miss the day shift though. For many reasons but right now mostly because I miss playing with the babies. I miss Henry the most. He is such a sweet baby and soooo cute!!!! That is him in the picture. And "cute as a button" is right! He can go from crying to laughing in 3 seconds.

I have a feeling I'll be happy to go home in December but I will miss these faces and personalities. They have become "my babies".

Night shift again... it's going better so far but it's still only 1:45am. I prayed about it today and asked God to help the babies sleep well and that Baby Zung would not drive me insane like he did last night. So far I've only had 3 awake at one time.

This is a picture of my baby girl Libby. She's spoiled rotten and doesn't care! They say I'm partial to her and that I always pick her up when she cries. She loves to be held, just to get the attention.

Jessica is back and my world feels a little better because of it. It was just weird being here alone. Oh and she brought me Peanut M&M's which were awesome! And she bought spaghetti noodles which we cooked tonight and mixed in our American Prego spaghetti sauce! Mmm, good!

It's Sunday back home and everyone is at church or just getting out. I miss church.

Jessica left this morning to spend today, and part of Sunday in Taipei with a friend. It feels not right without her. I know she reads this blog so I wanted to make sure she knows that I miss her and am VERY VERY VERY thankful she is here on this trip with me. I could not do it without her.

I am on night shift again tonight. I think we're gonna try to make this permanent, as long as I can train my body to sleep during the day. If my room were dark I could do it no problem, but it has a huge uncovered window and I do not sleep well in the light. We'll just see what happens.

I tried seaweed soup today. It was... ok. I would eat it if I had nothing else to eat and hadn't eaten for about 3 days. Other than that... I'll stick with the rice and chicken.

It's not even 11pm and I am tired.

Today...
I am going through it one minute at a time. Literally. It's good though. We've been here two weeks, settling into a routine that by December will be very familiar.

Lunch today was fried rice. Mmmm, yummy! I love it! I'd eat it everyday! They also had tiny fried whole fish but I passed on those. I'm not sure I'll be able to make myself eat whole seafood. I don't like seafood at all, especially when it's looking at me! In Mexico they fried these really big whole fish for one meal too. One of the boys was making his talk to me while I was trying to eat. Lovely!

I took a 30 minute bike ride by myself today. Around the lake twice and then just random roads. I loved it. Gave me a chance to clear my head (or try to) and enjoy some fresh (even if it was very warm) air. I think I'll make it a daily occurence regardless of the weather.

Today, I am going crazy. one less person here to help watch the babies... one sick 11 month old, one sick 1 month old, the rest are crying and fussy...
it was the same yesterday. I had to put one of them down and leave the other room cuz i was so frustrated.
Please, please, please let it get better!

My babies are starting to tighten their grip on my heart. Sometimes during the day when they are being bad, I could just... I don't really know, leave maybe? But then at night when I'm having a conversation with Karson about how if he doesn't drink his bottle than he's going to bed hungry, or holding Mai Ya and rocking her, or telling Libby how beautiful she is...I get sad thinking about leaving them. And jealous of the adoptive families. I'm glad they are going to loving homes, but I almost hate hearing about the families just cuz I don't want to give my babies.

God is God TO ME. Not just to the church, or to my pastor, or to my friends. He is MY God. And he is my portion.

September 6,2009-Sunday-9:25pm
This won't be very long. I'm extremely tired. Jessica and I are trying to stay awake later tonight so we'll stop waking up at 4 in the morning. There is a stupid rooster that crows at like 3 something and sometimes he stops after awhile, sometimes he just keeps going. This morning he just kept crowing and crowing. I suppose I'll get used to him soon.

It's strange to me that when I wake up that early I'm wide awake. Back home, no matter what time I woke up, I could almost always go back to sleep. But here it's like impossible. It's annoying really.

I don't think I'll much of anything interesting to say everyday, since I do the same thing all day long. But for those of you that would like to hear about the babies... I'll let you know the cute stuff they do.
I have my favorite now. Mai Ya. And I also learned that when you're putting a Chinese name into English, it doesn't really matter how you spell it as long as it sounds out right. So her name has been spelled Mai Ya, Mei Ya, and even Mai Ja. Her American name (she's been named by her prospective adoptive parents already) is Emma. A cute name but I'll still probably call her Mai Ya as long as I'm here. She's about 6 weeks old, fairly light skinned, and likes to be rocked. Her favorite is to be laid in your lap while you're sitting down. With her head at your knees and her feet at your waist. She will fall asleep everytime. I like doing that with her cuz then I can hold another baby in my arms and it doesn't wake her up.
She will cry like she's gonna die if you don't give her a bottle, and then only drink half of it.
Today she fell asleep before naptime and we could not get her to wake up. We'd tickle her, pick her up and move her around, make noise... as soon as we stopped she'd fall right back asleep. It was kinda funny actually.
I don't know why she's my favorite. There are others cuter than her. Maybe cuz she's the youngest one besides James. But James has already been claimed by Jessica and no one dares take him away from her.
Anyway, for whatever reason, she's mine and she's the one I'll be the saddest about leaving.

This afternoon Jess and I took Daniel, Karson and Libby for a walk down to the lake. They have a park type area by it and there were a lot of people out there just hanging out. Feeding the ducks, riding bikes... There was a guy singing and playing guitar for money too. He was singing in Chinese but after we got there he sang a song in English! The only lineI heard was"Your sitting, waiting for your favorite song to come on the radio"... didn't know the song but it was cool!
EVERYONE stares as us! I think they think the babies are ours and they're wondering how two white girls ended up with 3 brown babies! Some of them try and talk to us but that never gets very far.
We stopped at one of the little stores and bought an "ice cream cone". It's more like a slush in a cone. Very good!!!! We're gonna try all the flavors while we're here, today's was strawberry.
It was just a lot of fun; pushing babies in a stroller, eating ice cream, listening to music in the park, surrounded by gorgeous scenery. I felt at home. Everything was ok. I haven't felt completely ok since coming here due to some different stuff. I've kinda missed home and people and some of the situations here have been awkward or even downright frustrating. Things I have no control over. So, it was nice to have that moment of sanity and "ok-ness".

Jessica almost bought Taiwan beer, because we can't read the labels on anything:)

Tomorrow Daniel's parents come in. They'll stay for a week before they take him home. I'm kind of sad but it's a good thing. We just wish someone would take our problems babies (Henry or Libby) instead of sweet Daniel.

But we get another baby tomorrow too. A 3 month old. He is his mothers 3rd child. She gave her first one up for adoption and he know lives in Joplin Missouri. The second she kept but it's now being raised by someone else in the village, and now she's giving up this one. She's in prison right now and apparently just isn't a good mother.
We're supposed to get a newborn here soon as well. I'm excited about that one!

I will try and get some pictures up soon.

September 5, 2009- 7:29pm

I believe I'm going to just write my Taiwan updates in here instead of emails. It will be easier for me... I think. We'll see how it goes.

I'm getting ready to go to bed. I've been up since before 4am. Babies, babies and more babies. Well, just 9 of them but... ALL DAY LONG! I was ready to strangle a few this afternoon, I was seriously so exhausted and all I wanted to do was lay down and close my eyes. And I couldn't.

I will adjust. I have to. Or else I will go crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids here but... I cannot imagine how parents of multiples do it.

And in case you get confused. Taipei, Taiwan is 13 hrs ahead of central time. So when it's morning in the states... it's night of the same day here.

If there are any questions, please ask. My brain is fried and I don't think of things that people would like to know about.