Easter Again!!

Becky here...I seem to have no time at all for posting or reading or anything....wonder why!! Anyway I wanted to share a few of my favorite Easter photo's and thoughts. First what a wonderful time of year. I love springtime. In Texas you can almost count on a very cold spell sometime close to Easter. This year we had rain a few days before and then it cooled off. My prayers were answered. I prayed for sunshine and not too cold with no rain for Grandma's big Egg Hunt, which by the way is a tradition from the time our older daughters were first hunting eggs and we just will not talk about how long ago that was...right girls!!

Of course all the focus is on the egg hunt and Easter baskets and such but in our family being together at church is our most favorite family tradition. This year was a wonderful year. All three of our older daughters and their husbands and children were with us at church. I'm not sure if I have shared this before but the first time I was able to be close enough to Hope to whisper in her ear I told her that Jesus loved her and that I came halfway around the world to tell her that and to be her Mom. That was always my plan...I wanted to learn that phrase in Chinese but soon found out I was not cut out to speak Chinese. I am so thankful for the gift of salvation that we celebrate each year at Easter.

Now on to the pictures. Anyone who has tried to take Miss Hope Marie's picture knows what a daunting task that is...for each time you see her looking at the camera there are approximately 10 pictures of her not looking at the camera. Thanks to Misty and Ronnie we were able to capture a wonderful group of photos to remember Hope's first Easter.

My favorite photo of Hope modified with a little photoshop fun...


Hope just after finding her cute basket in the tall grass outside on this chilly Easter morning. After church...notice the beautiful pearl bracelet. We bought it for her in China for her dedication but decided to let her wear it on this special occasion first. We are planned to have her dedicated sometime next month.

These shots were taken by Ronnie and Misty in Hope's room while I was cooking. They had a lot of fun and got some really cute pictures... Hope loves to get in her little toddler bed and pretend she likes to sleep there!! She has a big girl bed but we recently bought this at a garage sale and put it up in her room too. We thought she would be big enough for a regular bed but we got surprised...She is so tiny!!
Now I would not have allowed her to have that ring pop in her beautiful Easter dress but Dad and Misty seemed to think it was just fine!!
We found this cute little table and chairs at TJ Max. I thought it was just for kiddos to sit on while mom was shopping but Bethany said "Hey Mom this is for sale" I just hope that Hope does not get the idea that everytime she likes something we will load it up and bring it home like we did this day.
Cute purse huh...TJ Max again!!

Beautiful Sunnie Kay...growing up so fast!!!

She had a beautiful white bow in her hair in church but managed to get rid of it before pictures.
Bradley Ben and Sunnie at their Nanny's after church.

I wanted to post a couple of pictures of Misty's family and of Bethany and Jeff but that will have to wait. I cannot find the file on this computer that I put them in...and no time to search right now.....

Hope's First Pony Tails

Pony Tails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope's Easter

Hope went to church Easter Sunday in a new dress that Huey and Mary from our Sunday School class gave her. She was a bit sleepy because she got up earlier than usual but stayed awake by jumping from one big sister to the other all morning long. She found an Easter basket in the back yard before church so she was prepared for the egg hunt at Grandma's in the afternoon. More pictures of Hope and her cousins, neices, and nephews will be posted on the Wolfhill blog.

http://www.theviewfromwolfhill.blogspot.com/

After church we managed to get pictures of Wade, Misty, Caleb, and Tyler, plus Hope.

A Day in the Life

Last Thursday Hope visited her Aunt Doris and all the ladies at her office. Hope was in rare form interacting with and entertaining the entire group. Hope was sporting her new pink hooded pantsuit that Julie gave her. Later she lounged around the house in her pink pajamas from Robbie. The puppy is a gift from Kathy and he sings and howls "I Can't Stop Loving You" while dancing. Hope has found that he will bite your finger if you stick it in his mouth while he is singing, so she exercises extreme care. The baby doll who apparently has lost its clothing giggles and says "I love you!" when her tummy is pressed. Hope mimics the way the doll says it almost perfectly.

Evel Kneivel and Her Sisters

After the Party

Hope went to the playground and swung with Dad. Back home she surveyed all the gifts, used her new cellphone( hope she's not calling China), and relaxed in her Dora chair, and then in Dad's chair. By the way, we are going to post some photos of our trip to China on the Wolfhill blog. We will save this space for mostly Hope pictures.

Kith and Kin

Lily Mei, the daughter of Ben and Carla was at the party also. She is from Jiangxi province in China and came home with Ben, Carla, and big sister Marlie last November. She also has a big brother, Luke, who I can't seem to find a picture of from the party. Lily seems a little curious about Hope, but Hope acts just as shy of Lily as she does nearly all children around her age.

The little beauty in the top photo is Hope's cousin-once-removed, Lexington, and her mom, Amy, Hope's cousin.

Pictures From Hope's Party

For Me?

More Pictures of the Party

Surrounded by Love

Here is a picture of our little Hope with her cousin Hope who she is named after. We all love you cousin Hope...so many memories and more good times to come. We pray that Hope Marie has the same love for life, family, and God that Shawna Hope has.

Carmen and Hope

Misty Doris and Bethany

My sister Doris and her husband Rick...Thank you for everything! We love you both.

Our wonderful daughters, Misty, Carmen, and Bethany along with wonderful sister Doris, her husband Rick, and their daughter Sarah staged a special party for Hope last Sunday. It was a welcome to Texas, America party for Hope and a “Meet Hope” party for our extended family and as many friends as we could get the word out to. They worked really hard and were completely successful in providing a memorable celebration of Hope becoming an American citizen and part of this great family circle.

We will be posting pictures for several days coming up, but there is a problem at Blogger at this moment. Also we are trying to get pictures to post of the shower given by Linda, Dwain, and Julie and the Living Word Sunday School class from our church. Hope has received an abundance of toys and clothing from these events plus so many individual gifts and cards.

I was thinking about it Sunday night after the party, how Hope must feel, going from a being a love starved orphan to being the center of attention, literally surrounded by an overflowing abundance of love. Isn’t that a pretty good picture of what happens when someone accepts Christ and becomes an adopted child of our Heavenly Father and part of His family?

Our Pastor quoted Christian author Max Lucado a couple of Sundays ago, “ If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.” As Christians we should rejoice that we are no longer orphans.

Ronnie

Sleepy Head

This is one of my favorite times of the day. She looks like a little angel lying there asleep, and when she is waking up she is so cute. The first month that she was home she always woke up whimpering or crying. Now she wakes up more peacefully, but oh yeah, after a few minutes the little angel has transformed as the picture on top shows.

Ronnie

And Your God Shall Be My God

Hope is an expert imitator. I walk in the kitchen and sigh, and I hear an echoing sigh right behind me. I put my hands on my hips and say, “ Now what do we need to do next”? I look down and Hope has her hands on her hips just like I do.
We sit down at the bar to eat and she bows her head waiting for me to give thanks. If I don’t start immediately she cuts her eyes up toward me and pats me on the arm. She says amen just before I am finished almost every time.

All of this and more she has learned in just over a six weeks. Of course she doesn’t know the why of any of these things she is just imitating. It makes me aware of how careful I need to be in what I say and how I live. Her understanding of our faith and why we do what we do, pray, go to church, etc. will come later.

Our blog is read by people all over the world. We know that those readers represent many different religious or even non-religious beliefs. We hope that all will continue to read our account of Hope becoming part of our family. Our intent is not to preach, just to share. There may be some who fear that Hope will have religion forced on her, and that she will lose her cultural and spiritual roots. It is true that she will lose touch with the spiritual beliefs that she might have had in China, but we could no more force faith in Christ upon her than we could capture the wind.

That is the beauty of the true Christian message. It is a belief of the spirit and the heart. Our lives will be an example to Hope and she can imitate, but there will come a time when she questions who she is, who we are, and what is true. She will go to church with us, she will hear the singing, the preaching, and it will influence her, but not convince her. Only God’s Spirit can do that. Of course that is our heart’s desire, that she would experience this peace, joy, and hope that we have, but deep down in her heart it will be her choice.

Ruth 1:16….where you go I will go, and where you live I will live, your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Ronnie

Next Christmas

In the fall of 2006 I bought Becky a CD by Third Day entitled Christmas Offerings. The singer for the group was awaiting a China adoption and wrote a song about it, I Wish You a Merry Christmas. Becky played it continually. When in the fall of 2007 I asked why she wasn't playing the CD, she said it made her too sad. We got our referral in Dec. 2007, so next year will be Hope's first Christmas at home. We know firsthand how cold a Christmas in the orphanage was.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcPBA9-wyZE

Ronnie

Miracle from Misty

The top picture is Hope's first bath, in the sink at the hotel in Hefei. She didn't like it very well and cried aloud and spared not before it was over. The middle picture is after the battle, I mean bath. We tried several different methods in the ensuing weeks but it was always an ordeal to bathe her. Last week Misty took on the challenge in earnest and spent some extended time getting her to play around the bath tub and eventually in it. Sunnie helped out by getting in the tub first and demonstrating how to have fun bathing. After about the third day Hope was having fun in the bath. I couldn't believe my eyes when Misty poured water over her head and Hope smiled and laughed, very proud of herself. We are so thankful for the help of Misty, Carmen, and Bethany in all they do for their beloved little sister. Her neice Sunnie helps out a lot too, but opted to not be in the bath tub photo.

This I Know

Do you remember when I was telling about the trip home from China and Hope’s trip to the ER in San Francisco, when I said that I made a flying trip from the hospital back to the hotel to pack our bags and searched the room hurriedly, afraid that I would leave something behind? Well, sure enough I did, but we didn’t know it until we had been home almost two weeks.

When we got home we were so exhausted and so involved tending to Hope that we were still looking for small items for two weeks. Everything was scattered. There were some little souvenirs that I bought for the grandkids that I had given up on, and one evening Becky found them. There was one item though that we couldn’t locate and as time went on we realized that most likely it was lost.

It is a little stuffed lamb with windup music to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me”. Becky had bought it for the “little China girl” way back about the time of our approval for adoption. We considered putting it in the “care package” but it was a bit too large. We took it to China with us and it was one of the first toys that Hope played with. She loved to stand beside the bed and wind it up and then press her Mimi mascot’s (2008 Olympics) tummy and get it talking. When she was going to sleep we would wind it two or three times and she was usually out.

As we talked about where it might be, I recalled that I had unpacked it for Hope in the hotel in San Francisco about an hour before we took her to the hospital. I could not remember putting it back in the luggage, but thought surely I would have seen it when I searched the hotel room. We were really sad to think that it was lost. I suggested that Becky call the hotel and ask, just on the long shot that it was there and someone had found it and turned it in.

The next day Becky called me at work and said guess what is on its way home from San Francisco? All it took was a phone call and a credit card number to pay for the shipping. It is a small thing, but once more during our trip, we had been pleasantly surprised by the kindness of strangers in the USA and in China.

Ronnie