Merry Christmas from the Beairds

Hope all our friends and family have a joyous Christmas season this year.

Please take a moment to watch this little video with photos from the last couple of years.

 

 

 

Paper Chase

We had a whole lot of fun trying to get a "Family Photo" for our adoption paperwork. It is so had getting kids to hold still and make a nice face. It is even harder with little kids like Lian.
So we are still deep in the paper chase trying to get all of our documents in order so we can be matched with another child from China. We are not going to specify sex (boy or girl), whatever the Lord provides. We are also going to look at the same list of special needs we looked at previously, so we really do not know what we will get yet. Just like having a birth child, only it takes a year, and the hospital is 14 hours away. Oh, yea, that's right, since we already have one special needs child, the waiting time for a second is relatively short. From start of paperwork to retuning home could be as little as a year.
If you would like to help us, please buy a T-shirt.  Later I will post a link to Lifesong for Orphans, where you can give a tax-deductable donation.

Yuntai Garden

The photo used as a background on our Blog is from the Yuntai Garden.  It lies at the north entry of Baiyun Mountain, with a total area of 120,000 sq. meters. Being the largest garden of its kind in China, Yuntai Garden is heralded as "the Pearl of the Flower City of Guangzhou". The structure and layout of the garden is unique and special, with the Colorful River, the Roman Column, and the Earth Stone Carving, as well as over 200 kinds of rare Chinese and foreign flowers there. Yuntai Garden is indeed a modern place of interest with beautiful scenery.

Dedication Photo

 Lian was dedicated at Olathe Bible Church on Feb 20, 2011.  We had planned several prior to that but the surgery schedule kept messing it up. We aer very lucky to have Lian in our lives, and look forward to brining him up with the help of our Lord and the church.
Photos taken by Joe Blincoe at Olathe Bible Church. He is a wonderful photographer and we really appreciate his work.
Thanks Joe

It has been an amazing journey thus far.

Here are some more photos from the dedication:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28844051@N05/sets/72157626336715381/

Lian

Wow, it has been a long time since we have posted to this blog. But thought I should give it a quick update. Not that most of you have not kept up on FaceBook but hey, some may not. We have been home with Lian 6 months this Sept 4th. Wow, only 6 months and my how he has changed. When we first met him in China, we were thinking some skills were 3months along and others 6 months. He could not walk, could not feed himself, had no fine motor skill to even pick up cheerios. Once he could pick them up, it took a couple of months for him to figure out how to get them in his mouth.

But now he is running, trying to jump, playing ball. He has one Thomas the Train ball that he loves. It is just the right size for him to pick up with one hand which he started doing this week.

We have two surgeries under our belts. Two should have been all he needed at this point but because his two front teeth stuck out so far the surgeon had to add a surgery just to correct that. But today he looks great. He is starting to explore his lips, and has been trying to blow, but not quite yet. By the way, our surgeon is fantastic. He cares so much about lian that he calls once in a while to check on him.

Next surgery is November 4 when he will repair the palate. Not too excited about that one but it has to be done. Some day, Lian will get to read al of this. Someday he will know just how much God loves him.
I will try to keep more regular updates on this but for now I will sign off.

You can see a ton of photos from China, home, and family stuff at our Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28844051@N05/sets/72157623350478471/

Jesse and Christina's Wedding

If you would like to see photos of the wedding, check them out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28844051@N05/
The weather was great and we had a lot of family fun at a waterslide park and Boondocks. My favorite part was soaking Christina's parents in the powered intertubes with water squirting guns on them. There is just no way to better get to know the in-laws then when you are soaking them without mercy in a pool. Oh yea, it was a real nice wedding too. Martin had a lot of fun also, although his birthday (July 27th) was obscured by the rehearsal. But he got a cool gift, a radar gun for measuring the speed of a baseball. Interestingly, if you point it at cars with radar detectors they sure slow down a lot. So for fun we take it out at night and point it at cars we are following to see if they slow down.

Summer Vacation

This photo was the big secret from the vacation. We took it while in Keystone but wanted to save it for our Christmas cards. So here it is, in color. We had a lot of fun taking it. Funny, we ran into a lot of family while in Keystone, so it was a bit harder keeping it a secret. When we got back, someone said infront of my mom, "so how did the old time photos go?", and we had to quickly change the subject. If you click on the phtot you can see a larger photo. Then, notice the feet, since they don't have boots or shoes for everyone to wear, they just hide your feet with props. OOps, Jesse's foot is peeking out there, nice clean socks.