China to push ban

Ahhh, a great decision by China to ban smoking in public places. i do remember how shocked i was that everywhere we went in the hotel in Beijing there was cigarette smoke. that included the lobby, the restaurant, non-smoking rooms and even the elevators. Even with non-smoking signs posted they still did so in our hotel. Some of the stats below are a bit staggering to even wrap your brain around, 300 million smokers in China, wow!

BEIJING – Chinese health authorities are renewing a push to ban smoking in indoor public places, adding more venues like hotels and restaurants as of May 1, though still excluding many workplaces.

The guidelines given on the Health Ministry's website are the latest effort to curb tobacco use in the country with the world's largest number of smokers and where experts say huge revenues from the state-owned tobacco monopoly hinders anti-smoking measures.

Smoking, which is linked to the deaths of at least 1 million people in China every year, is one of the greatest health threats the country faces, government statistics show. Nearly 30 percent of adults in China smoke, about 300 million people — a number roughly equal to the entire U.S. population.

The guidelines released this week are part of the Health Ministry's regulations on health management in public places — a set of rules that also covers areas including ventilation, use of disinfectants, air quality and pest control.

The older regulations listed venues such as movie theaters, concert halls, libraries and shopping malls in which smoking was prohibited. The new list adds hotels, restaurants, cafes, bars, hair and beauty salons and other places.

The new regulations call for no-smoking signs to be put up in public places, and require owners or managers of venues considered public places to allocate staff to persuade smokers to give up the habit.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110324/ap_on_he_me/as_china_smoking

Happy Birthday!

My girls turn one today. Can't believe they have been with us for only 8 weeks and how much they have changed and grown. We have been so blessed to be able to experience so many "firsts" with them; rolling over, crawling, so close to walking, teething, talking, new foods, new experiences, a new family and their first birthday.

Happy Birthday Paige and Phoebe!

4mo










1yr

Miss Phoebe







4mo

















10 mo

















12mo

Miss Paige

4mo
















10mo

1yr

Day in the Park

We went to a local park to take some family photos yesterday. it was a beautiful day, cool and breezy and the sun was shining. Here are a few of them.

the girls are growing and changing and look so different from the pictures from china. they are now crawling and trying to pull themselves up to stand. they are trying to get into everything! Nate loves his sisters so much. Here is what he has to say about each...

Paige: "she is cute"

Phoebe: "she's pretty"

The girls turn 1 tomorrow. We have no plans for a party this year, we are still bonding with them and the excitment and noise and people would be too much. Maybe next year we will have a big party. Happy Birthday Paige and Phoebe!

Hats

the girls are getting used to wearing hats when we go out, however if they can get their finger wrapped around the hat they are wearing they will do everything in their power to get it off. they even try to help each other take off their hats. go teamwork!

Phoebe

Paige

Happy

it's been nearly 3 weeks without a camera and it's been tough. it feels like so many awesome moments and photo ops have been passing me by. i got a new camera this week and i am loving it. it's a step up from the last one, a cannon rebel, and it is great. i have been going picture crazy and getting used to using it. so far so good. here are a few pictures i have taken this week of the girls.




phoebe on left

paige on left

paige on left

Party of Five

we had our first dinner out at a restaurant, can you say party of 5! thankfully it was a "faster" food restaurant, bost0n market. this store has a total of 3 high chairs and we needed 2, could have actually used 3 (no booster seats either). Two of them were being used when we arrived. Uggh, that will be a new requirement when looking for places to eat out. Plenty of highchairs!

We survived! all 3 kids were fed, we had just one small meltdown that was nipped before it turned into something big and mommy and daddy actually got something to eat too. We did get one more highchair and the girls did well eating out with all the distractions (people starring and coming over to talk to us about the girls) that come with it.

We piled them all in the car and went home. We had a successful first dinner out.

Change

While we were in China at the con$olate office we were told some startling statistics. The one that stood out the most to me was that 67% of adoptions from China were now SN (special needs). That was higher than i had thought.

That means that if they are doing around 3,000 adoptions in one year (2005 total was 7,900 and 2009 had 3,000), only about 1,000 are going to be NSN (non-special needs). Wow, that means that only about 100 babies each month are being matched with families.

With attrition (those dropping out due to frustration, finding another program and adopting elsewhere or just no longer meet the requirements) the numbers are going down but i would estimate there are probably 12,000-18,000 families still waiting. Now, we don't really know exactly how many are waiting, we are not told those numbers but we can estimate and speculate; this was a big part of my life for the last 5 years, haha.

I don't really know what to say about the program, so many are angry and think China should stop taking applications for the NSN program, others think the NSN program will come to an end. Others are upset that those in charge should be more upfront with what the future holds and stop the torture of waiting if it is just not going to happen. Obviously you can do the math, with even just 10,000 people waiting, the wait would be around 10 years. We waited nearly 5 years, so 7-10 years is very realistic. There has been so much change in the program since we signed up to adopt, it is not the same program.

It is a long and difficult wait, we found peace and grew in our faith. One scripture that i found so much strength from was:

"But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, be patient! For it will surely take place. It will not be late by a single day." Habakkuk 2:3