Dumplings, Three: Sporting a Smile!!!

I just had to nab this delightful photo of Annika off my little sister's web site! If you haven't heard how she is doing lately, you need to hop on over to Reena's blog and read the latest!

A Little Bit About Our Family
Here in the mid-West
(of the United States):

Grant (age 48) teaches Graphic Design at Southwest Baptist University. He is also an avid Bluegrass musician.

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Monica (age 48) works three days a week as a home health nurse through an agency that covers seven counties in our rural part of the Ozarks.

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Darcy (age 15) is a sophomore. (She was home-schooled through seventh grade, but now attends public school, where she also flourishes!) She is our family member who LIVES on facebook!

She is born leader, quick witted, high spirited, and independent! She has an overly developed sense of mischief, is adventurous and has always had a mind of her own! She is a gifted singer and enjoys playing the mandolin. She was born in JiangXi province of China and came home to us when she was 8 1/2 months old.

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Doug (age 12) is a sixth grade student. Though he is the "middle child" he was the last to join our family. He came home to us when he was six years old. He was born in Taiwan.

He is a happy-go-lucky fellow stuck between two very bossy sisters (one older, one younger)!

Injuries in infancy have left him a legacy of challenges with learning, memory, impulse control and language...throw on top of that that he had to start over with an entirely new language just six years ago and you can see the mountain he has had to climb.

Doug is an easy-going child with a heart of gold. He has an incredibly generous spirit and forgiving nature....and he dearly loves to laugh. All of our children have overly high energy levels and poor volume controls...but he beats his sisters out on both counts.

Doug has an in-born sense of direction. Many a time, he has rescued his mother from getting lost! And Doug has an amazing memory for FACES. He never forgets a face and will instantly recognize them even in totally different contexts. He is extremely intuitive. He can read emotions with uncanny ease, no matter how good you are at hiding them. He is an extremely compassionate/empathetic child. Doug has aspirations of becoming a Super Hero...and all superheroes count heavily in importance in his day to day life!

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Rayna (age 8) is in the third grade. She was born in AnHui province of China and came home to us when she was 9 months old. She is our melodramatic child.

Nothing is ever middle of the road with Rayna. This child LIVES the extremes and would never be caught dead in the middle! She broadcasts every nuance of her changing emotions so clearly that you could "read" her from a football field away! Fortunately, for us, her mood the overwhelming majority of the time is pure Joy and Happiness.

Her goal is to be 15 instead of 8, and to that end she strives ceaselessly! She learned to ride her bike at an early age without anyone running alongside to teach her. At three, she independently managed her own horse with confidence as we spent three days trekking through the mountains of Canada.

She is a child overflowing with confidence and the in-born belief that she will excel at whatever she decides to do. She has never been a child to hesitate at anything, and it shows even in her misuse of the English language...as she continually throws words into her conversation that she has no clue as to what they really mean or makes up words that don't really exist, but probably should!

She takes great pride in bossing her older brother around. I remember when he first came to us at the age of six, speaking only Chinese...Rayna (then 2 1/2) quickly latched on to enough Chinese to emphatically scold him! (Fortunately, Doug does not seem to mind too much having two sisters that boss him. He loves them both!)

Rayna is a lover of nature. She is the champion of every bug or furry creature that ever walked the earth. Unfortunately for them, at least when she was younger(!), she was bent on "saving" each and every last one of them. She would pick up crawdad or walking stick or snake or baby bunny and insist she must be allowed to take it home. When Iwould tell her absolutely not, she would genuinely be reduced to pure grief over the fact that she had to ABANDON the creature that so desperately NEEDED her love and care. This child had so many meltdowns into unimaginable depths of sobbing or wails of anguish that I had long ago learned to ignore all auditory cues! If she was pouring blood, I take notice, otherwise I didn't bother! (And, though she could be wailing in utter despondency one moment, she, usually, was overflowing with happiness the next moment. Her storms were memorable, but fleeting!) Nowadays, she is more akin to a 13 year old in an 8 year old body with her mood swings.

Rayna is a total cuddle-bug...and her gift has always been her utter love of people. Even as a baby, she genuinely loved and enthusiastically reached out to each and every soul she met. She has always had a way of making each person feel like they are the most important person around.

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Then we have our four dogs:
Shanachie--former stray--been with us 14 years, came to us already several years old.

She seems to have some lab and shepherd in her. She has always been the brains of the pack and the leader (dogwise!), but nowadays her advanced age is really catching up to her. She is Rayna's favorite and Grant's favorite.

(Shanachie passed away December 22, 2008.)

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Gloria--plucked from the litter of a stray--been with us 11 years. She thinks she is a teacup poodle and does not understand why no one wants a 100 pound dog in their lap!

She is sweet, but dumb as a box of rocks! She once tried to fit in then-4-year-old Rayna's carseat WITH Rayna...positioning her enormous, furry self, right into Rayna's lap. That made Rayna LIVID, and I'm not sure she has forgiven the dog, yet! Gloria looks for all the world like a Newfoundland if you don't count her ears! She is ALL teddy-bear...the most snuggly dog we have ever had. There isn't a disagreeable bone in her body. She is Darcy's favorite...and frustrates me (Monica) more than any of the other dogs ever have (she is just so passively STUBBORN!).

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Rivendell--former stray, dumped as a pup along with a litter-mate--been with us five and a half years (we found another home for the panda-bear marked litter-mate).

She seems to be mostly border collie. She's our stealth dog...moves like lightening, low to the ground! Herding is in her blood! She makes such strong EYE contact that it often unnerves people!

People, upon first meeting her, often remark either that she has "beautiful eyes" or "spooky eyes". Rivie is "my" dog, but her one fault (severe car sickness) prevents her from being my daily side-kick as I run errands.

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Ransom--registered German Shepherd--plucked from the first litter of my best friend's dog--has been with us 2 years now. She was the trouble maker in the litter! My friend, Lisa, still refers to her as "your scroungy ole coyote". (Lisa gave me first pick out of the litter and later she picked the most beautiful, most loving and most eager to please pup from the litter to keep, herself. Lisa has never been able to understand why I wanted Ransom over any of the others. But, maybe it was because of all the pups, Ransom truly was the most wolf-like. She had an independent, self-sufficient, loner streak about her that I couldn't resist.) Super quick to LEARN but not so eager to OBEY! She is a one-family dog...aloof with those outside of the family. She is a very courageous dog and extremely loyal. She is Doug's favorite...because she looks like a police dog and she weathers his inadvertant rough handling with unending patience.

Ransom has become my side-kick when the kids are in school and Grant is at work. She is my furry companion as I run errands here and there.

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Quick disclaimer: Grant thinks ONE dog is quite enough for us to have at any one time. And, though he likes our dogs, he is not the dog person I am and would not want to be inadvertantly mistaken as such!

And, even though I list this dog or that dog as this or that person's favorite, really they are all the favorite. Even though Gloria, the immovable mass, has the ability to stymie me over all the others, I have to admit that when she is not being passively resistant, she is the most well-mannered, wonderful to be around dog ever...and she just grows on me more by the day in her own quiet, unrelentingly calm, slow, placid way. Still, I like to go on about how annoying Gloria is just to rankle Darcy and Lisa, her hard-core defenders!...besides, being labeled as the "most annoying one" spices up her image!

We enjoy seeing who visits! So far we have been privileged to receive visits from: