Meaning of a Name

Wan (1st above; her last name; all children at her orphange have this name): means ten thousand, or a great number

Jin (2nd above; her first name): means tapestry, embroidery work or brocade; or brilliant and beautiful; or glorious

Pei (3rd above; her middle name): look of a flowing gown

Pei, at least the character used for the Pei in JinPei's name, required a lot of Internet searching compared to the Wan and Jin. Here is the website I found Wan and Jin at. I did find it interesting that PeiJin, explained in the Jin definition I found, means "an abundance of brillance and beauty" but again, I don't know if the Pei is the same Pei that is in JinPei's name since there are several characters for Pei.

So out of curiosity, I used this website, http://www.babynamesworld.com/, to see what the other kids' names meant (except for Brynn's Chinese name, which I looked up based on the Chinese characters on the site above).

Some names had more than one meaning so I picked the one I liked best but it is clear I did not use name meanings to name my children... maybe Price will become a geologist one day...

Nyah = Purpose

Kate = Pure

Caleb = Faithful/Loyal

Douglas = Black Water

Price = Prize

Allen = Rock

Evan = God is Gracious

Ronald = Ruler with Counsel

Brynn = Hill

Kellie = Bright-headed

Fu = Good Fortune

Man = Graceful

Lu = Road

Jin Pei's S Family Name

In our family, we have two naming “rules” that we have followed. First each child has been named after someone else in the family. So Caleb shares his dad’s middle name, Brynn’s legal first name is Brynn Kellie and Kellie is my mom’s name, the name Price and Price’s middle name come from Doug’s grandfather, and Evan’s middle name is both my father’s and my brother’s first name. So we looked through the family tree and Doug wanted to use one of my names.

The other “rule” is one that just happened and now that the kids realize it, they want to keep it up. Each one of us has a different first letter… makes for easy labeling because we never have to write out the entire name… just a P, E, B, K, D, or C! We were really considering a couple names that would have repeated a letter and when we mentioned this to the child who would have had to share, well, we got a firm head shake!

I also wanted to include JinPei’s Chinese name in her name as well. With Brynn, since all her names had meaning (we just liked the name Brynn but that counts), I didn’t want a name to get lost in the shuffle as a second middle name so that is why her first name is actually two (so she hears them on the first days of school before she can say differently) and then her middle initial will be the one for her Chinese name. So now JinPei will have two first names as well, even though we will likely call her by just the first one.

So… our new daughter’s name is…

Nyah Kate Jinpei

Nyah came from an original list of about 12 names that fit the "rules" that I made up from looking at lists on the web. Then Doug and I both ranked them separately and ended up tossing the top two around for a while. I was still waivering a bit but today on the way home from preschool Brynn was singing a song with just one line repeated over and over - "I call my sister Nyah" - so now, Nyah Kate Jinpei it is!

Kate

Finally...

After 48 days, we finally received are Pre-Approval from China and so here are the pictures of our new daughter and sister, Wan Jin Pei:

Gotta love that haircut!! Hopefully our final paperwork will be headed to China soon... just waiting on US immigration to give us the clearance to adopt.

Pass the Vegetables Please!

We are in the middle of our “paperchase” of what seems like thousands of documents and even though we were just doing a home study update this time, the agency we are using for our placement seems to require a zillion times more documents than we had to gather for Brynn’s (maybe I just have selective memory or it is just harder with 4 kids). So right now we are buried in piles of paperwork trying to figure out who gets what.

Next on our plate is that everyone in our house has to get a TB test, except for Brynn who thankfully meets the “excused if under four” criteria. What a relief that is because she has been poked and prodded more times in the past 18 months than she can stand trying to get her immunizations to date and to test her for illnesses and at her last doctor’s visit for a blood draw and shot I saw a reaction that truly scared me as four of us tried to restrain her. I am wondering if it is out of line to request anesthesia for her for future injections…maybe for her and me, but that is another story.

Back to the TB tests… so yesterday morning Doug and I made a plan to take the kids separately since Price and Evan are, as expected, not happy. I tried to explain to Evan that sometimes we need to get shots to make sure we stay healthy. Okay, I know that is a fib in this particular case but the option is for him to hold a grudge, and he will, against his innocent new sister. Evan came immediately back with, “Can’t I just eat a carrot?”

Our LOI had made it to the CCAA!

Our Letter of Intent arrived at the China Center for Adoption Affairs today. Wouldn't it be a great Christmas present if they mailed our PA back this week... okay, even next week??? One can dream I suppose!

Where we are...

Our LOI (letter of intent) was sent to China on the 19th so now we wait hopefully just a few weeks for Pre-Approval. It could be 2 months or more though... it is amazing how much more unpredictable adopting from China is now compared to just two years ago.

We are just waiting for Social Services to report that our background check came out okay and then our homestudy should be done and the rest of our dossier documents should be ready to go by mid-January so hopefully, if USCIS is speedy, the day we receive PA our dossier can head overseas.

We did get JinPei's finding ad. the other day. I'll post more on that on a later date when I can post pictures.

Kate

Meet JinPei!

Wow! What a quick turn of events! We petitioned for a child off of Harrah's newest list last week knowing that they take petitions from all interested families and then a committee selects the family. We figured it might work out but that it also might not.

Well tonight, at 5:04pm we received the phone call that we are Wan Jin Pei's family! She is a cutie! Wait until you see the hairstyle! Unfortunately, you really do have to wait a few weeks until we have Pre-approval from China but I promise to post within minutes of that happening!

She was born on March 13, 2007 and is at the Social Welfare Institute of Wanzai County in the Jiangxi province... the same province her sister Brynn is from. The paperwork states she is in the orphange but in her growth report it says "She could tell family members through her eyes and their voices" and from what I have read in the past 4 hours, many children from this orphanage are in foster care. Guess we will find out later. The paperwork also says she has 24 teeth which I don't think many 4 month olds (her age at the time) have!

We are excited. Now we need to tell the grandparents and her future siblings. At least the latter group has an idea this was a possibility after our homestudy visit last week!

Kate