Life at the Yacullo House

Jake and Ryan's beds

Ryan and Jake playing Mario Kart

Jake dressing up

Jake and his new hair

Well, from the pictures you can almost guess what they are about. The first picture is of the kids' room. From what we guess is an orphanage habit, Jake is amazing at making his bed. So Ryan seeing how his bed looked decided to make her bed too, and from the pictures you can guess how that turned out. The other pictures are of our new life with Jacob. Jake's hair is a bit different because he let us put gel in it to style it ( he is living with five girls). Jake put so much it got a bit gross. Well anyway it was cute while it lasted.

Chinese New Year and Valentines Day

Jakey!!!!

Valentines Day

Our Chinese Prince and Princess

Valentines Lunch

Chinese New Year fell on the 14th of February, so with a last minute decision we had a Valentine's party at lunch. Some friends of ours, who brought home a daughter from China last year, invited us to a Chinese New Year's party for dinner. Ryan and Jake wore their Chinese pajamas and were the highlight of the night. Anna was at a retreat with our church so she was not able to come until about halfway through the party.

Casey

Pictures from China

Hello everyone,

We know it has been a long time but things have been pretty busy at our house. This will be the first of three coming posts. After a long while we are finally getting around to posting China pics. Well, since we have already told what we did in China we feel we should show what we did. Hope you enjoy these pictures!!!

Casey

Taking off to Tokyo.

The Great Wall...Amazing!!

A stop at the Olympic Village...The Bird's Nest...Sooo Cool!!

Gotcha Day Shirts

Exploring Chongqing

Official Adoption Day

Mei Mei and Jake

Kung Fu Jake

Jake. Sword. Enough said.

Our new best friend, Jack!!

At Guangzhou with the Whites

Saturday at IKEA

We spent a (mostly) great day at IKEA with all 5 kids. Jake and Ryan loved the face painting. They were so unbelievably adorable. We hated to give them a bath for church on Sunday. After much back and forth Jake finally settled on Spiderman instead of the Heart Princess.

Getting on with Life/ Mom is Taking Over

Anna returned to Tech week...Music Man cast
Anna takes Ryan and cousin Isabel backstage
The girls challenging Jake to eat an orange in under a minute....59 secs
Grandma Re and Papa Bill come to meet Jake and see Music Man
Ryan and Jake out for a drive

Well, Sammy and Casey have decided they do not want to be bloggers anymore so they asked me to take over. We are home and some normalcy is coming back. However, we brought Jake home to a house without a kitchen as it was ripped out while we were gone and is in the process of being remodeled. We are still waiting. Jake came home and jumped into his family with both feet. He was so genuinely excited with each new discovery...his own bed...his own set of drawers...a shoe shelf etc. He is so appreciative of everything.

Anna came home to the middle of Tech week for Music Man. She did a great job as a Pick-a-Little-Lady. She had a great time but was exhausted with two term papers and 10 hour days at Music Man. Sammy and Casey were such a huge help with Ryan and Jake.

Ryan was very hesitant to return to preschool but she is getting back in the swing of things. She is doing great with a new big brother. I love to see the two of them playing together. At bedtime I looked all over the house only to find them in the basement playing Barbies together.

After much prayer and many conversations with my friend the neighborhood Kindergarten teacher we decided to put Jake in her class. This was hard for me but it seems to be great for him. He has loved all three days and he comes out of school just beaming. He is such a curious and smart boy we really think he needed the challenge. He seems to be making friends and blending in well.

Jake is adjusting well to his new life well. He is such a sweet and happy boy. We feel so blessed to have him in our family. We had no idea what to expect and it is definitely not all sunshine and roses with him (nor will it always be for years to come) but he adds something to our family we were clearly missing but did not realize.

We're Home!!!!

Hello Everybody!

We are really sorry about not posting... we forgot to say this but no blogging sites are allowed in China. China was amazing and we all had a great time. Jake is a happy energetic 5 year old who loves to try to say English words. Our trip started at 8:00 in the morning on Christmas Eve when our flight took off for Seattle. From Seattle we flew to Tokyo, and then on to Beijing. We got to our hotel at 12:01 in the morning on the 26th. In Beijing we spent a day sightseeing at the Great Wall and Summer Palace. The next day we toured the Olympic Village before driving to the airport. At the airport we flew to Chongqing, and had barely an hour before going down to the lobby where Jacob was waiting for us. He seemed very quiet at first but then as we stayed down longer he grew more and more used to us and grew more and more energetic. When we got to the room he immediately started jumping around the room and pretty much going crazy. Our family spent the next few days in our room and exploring Chongqing, the biggest city in China. We had met another family who spoke fluent Chinese, and was adopting a eight year old girl named Sophie. So the last night in Chongqing we went out to dinner together and Jake and Sophie seemed to like each other. Then it was time to leave Chongqing to fly to Guangzhou. Jake was very excited and scared for his first airplane ride and was very anxious to get on the plane. After a short plane ride we arrived in Guangzhou and met the other babies and one of the new families. When our bus came we drove to our hotel, The Asia International, and had a few hours to settle down and unpack before going down to our group dinner. The dinner was good and we celebrated little baby Ava's 1st birthday. We went to Shamien Island the next day for a physical and 6 shots! Poor Jake!! The entire time he got them he was yelling "be gentle, be gentle!" We went back to the island the next day for shopping and lunch at Lucy's! We did a lot of sight seeing over the next few days and made friends with one of the guys who ran a shop on Shamien Island, Jack! We visited an outdoor exercise park one day!! It was awesome! On Thursday, the 7th, We drove to Hong Kong for the night. We flew out early the next morning to Tokyo. Then on to Detroit from Tokyo. We were finally home!! It was so cool to see the sign that said welcome to America! The VandenBrinks had decorated our house with streamers and a sign that said 'Welcome Home Yacullo Family' in Chinese! It took us all a while to get over our jet lag. Jake has transitioned into his new life very nicely. He is such a sweetie but he also loves to tease his sisters. Every morning he makes his own bed perfectly and it has got Ryan doing the same. (minus perfectly.) He is going to start kindergarten at Moorsbridge next month and we are hoping that will improve his English. We all love him so much and hope he will soon love us just as much back. We will post pictures soon!



With Love,
Sammy
and
Casey