Christmas Eve

Heath and Audrey dressed for bed !Sunnie got a make up kit for Christmas and she tried it out on Hope who has decided she loves make-up.  (I think it can wait about ten years…)    What a blessed family we are…despite the loss of our precious Wade we are blessed.  Our faith and the faithfulness of our Lord has helped us heal and given us the strength to face this first Christmas without him.  It was not easy especially for Misty and the boys, we all struggled some but the joy of celebrating the birth of Jesus was even more precious this year. 
We spent Christmas Eve with our family and attended Christmas Eve service at our Church. 

Christmas Sunday

The last Sunday before Christmas has always been a special day in our family.  When the older girls were young our church always had a Christmas Play or program of some sort on the Sunday prior to Christmas.  Our family always attends church together if at all possible.  Here are a few pictures…you will notice that one little girl not very cooperative when it ca me to the photo shoot in their pretty dresses but she is just so cute….that makes up for her antics

 

Can you tell they were enjoying the day!!Beautiful girls     The candy cane was our secret weapon…she would only  pose with it in her mouth though.

They really love each other and it shows in these two pictures

Audrey was just full of fun…she smiled but was always doing silly things…we really love this baby girl!!  

   Hope Marie I think red is your color!!

Referral Day Memories

Three years ago today was referral day. It is hard to describe the emotions when you are about to down load a photo of a child that you have never seen but which will be your child just as surely as if you were in a hospital delivery room after nine months of pregnancy. We had been pregnant for three years and nine months. We didn't sleep too well the night before. We waited that morning for the call and finally the phone rang. Our agency rep greeted us and began telling us who our daughter was, her Chinese name, place of birth, age, weight, health, etc. I was being very business like, taking notes, asking questions and then the rep said that she was emailing a photo. She asked if we saw the attachment, we said yes and the picture started to fill the screeen slowly from  the top of her head and down. Her forehead seemed like it went on forever. Then I saw her eyes and once again I was a choked up Dad, trying not cry like a baby.

Thankful…

I’m fixin’ to get busy with all the cooking and just wanted to take a moment to say how Thankful I am for our family.  I am so blessed to be mom to four wonderful daughters.  Sweet little Hope has changed so much over the past almost three years now and has blessed our entire family with her love and laughter, I love you Hopie.  Misty, Carmen, and Bethany…you will never know how much I love you and how very proud I am to be your mom, you are all women who love the Lord and it shows in the way you mother your children.  I am thankful for John and Jeff and miss Wade terribly during the holiday season…but to know that he is celebrating with his Heavenly Father this year takes away  a little of the sadness.  Our grandchildren are a priceless treasure …

And Ronnie…I love you and am so thankful to be blessed with such a wonderful Christian man to share my life with….

I am BLESSED…

 

This picture is of our entire family except Heath but he is waiting patiently to join this bunch in mom’s tummy so I really feel like this is a complete family picture….

Halloween

It was a BLAST.   We really had fun.  Friday night was Halloween on the square where Hope, Audrey and Heath were of course the cutest little Bumble Bee, Lady Bug, and Monkey ever!!  Saturday we spent the day at the Dallas Arboretum and although they were not dressed up they did “Trick or Treat”… it was so very beautiful.  If you have never been please go…that’s all I can say…just GO! Sunday night found us at the First Baptist Church Festival.   We really got the best out of this years holiday.  The only thing missing was the traditional Wolfhill wiener roast and hayride we will just have to remedy that soon!

I plan to do another post with lots of pictures from the Arboretum but here is one cute one.  They really enjoyed the day…really really enjoyed it and so did we.    

Texas Tither

Sat. morning Hope asked me to help her count her money. She arranged the quarters in groups of four, pointing out that one was a Texas quarter. After counting all the money Mom reminded her that she needed to take out 2 quarters to pay her tithe to the Lord on the 5 dollars that Aunt Vicki gave her last week. Hope said, "OK, but I'm not giving Him my Texas quarter."

Ready and Waiting…

 

All that is needed is one little beautiful Chinese American girl to make the cutest bumble bee EVER!!!!!!

“Halloween On The Square”  here we come….look out you might get stung by all the cuteness…I hear a rumor that you might also see the cutest little ladybug on the planet tonight and a tiny monkey who will just tickle your socks off!!! 

Fun On The Farm

Hope, Tyler, and the moon. A girl’s gotta have fun!     

 

I may be a little short but I can sure climb up on this big tractor!

Hope loving Dad’s new (used) toy…     I know that I just bored you with all these tractor pictures but Hope was just getting all into this photo shoot…she kept saying “Hey mom, take one of me backing up or take one with me driving”.  I was laughing so hard I could not hold the camera still…just to explain all the blurry pics.

Becky   

Awards!

Recently Hope’s school hosted the awards assembly for the first six weeks.  We are so very proud of Hope.  She got several awards the one we are so tickled about is Citizen of the six weeks for Kindergarten.  Good job Hope!!   This is the only picture I will post because I want to be careful about the other kiddos privacy. 

My how time flies…

 

Becky

Sunday Snapshot

Pretty In Pink…

Sunday Snapshot

It was just a little bit cool this morning as we were getting ready for church and so I was finally able to let Hope wear this cute little (cheap) dress I found on sale at Belk’s back in the summer.  She loves green and just had to take the backpack she loves and the two greens are just awful perfect (according to Hopie) together. 
…and in the backpack, well that is a post for another day.  It is filled with snacks…she is afraid she might get hungry… a bit sad…and yes we are working on that.

Becky

I’m Adjusting….Sort of

Hope still loves school.  This mamma is so very happy about that.  She is learning so very much.  I am learning too…I am learning that our daughter is amazing.  She has an ability to adapt to new situations when she is prepared for them ahead of time.  She still struggles with the unexpected, so do I.  Ronnie recently said that he believes that some things about her life in the orphanage surface and cause her to accept things that she is unable to change.  Believe me though she is a thinker and will consider all options before she accepts.  I love that about her.  For instance if it is time for bed she wants to be assured about her morning.  Is it a school day? What will she wear?  I am so thankful for her.  How I wish I could have been her mom when she was a young baby, but I realize that all the situations of her life and people in her life  have help to make her who she is.  I am blessed to be a part of that.  This precious relationship between Sunnie Kay and Hope tops it all.  She love you too Sunnie….

Becky

Student Of The Week

We are so very proud of Hope.  Not only did she start school without any problem…she was also named “Student of the Week” for her class.   Yeah!!

She is really doing great.  Each night she has “homework” and we can see such progress already.  She is reading little books and has learned so many other new things.  The school system is great and the elementary program just cannot be beat.  Can you nominate a school for some type of award?  I’ll have to Google that! 

Congratulations Hopie !!!!!!!!!!!!

Week Two…And She Still Loves School

This has been emotionally exhausting for me.  Hope is doing great.  I on the other hand am doing  just ok.  I have prayed for her to be content, happy, independent, a good student and a good citizen.   Well my prayers have been answered and our sweet Hope is all that and more.  I suppose the hard part for me has been that two years and eight months is not the usual time a mom has with her babies before they go off to Kindergarten.  It seems like just yesterday we boarded that flight to China and brought home this precious gift from God.  Our family has been so very wonderful over the past couple of years and Hope has really packed five years of growing up an American Girl successfully into that time frame.  I was emotional when our older girls started school too.   So one thing I know is, she will continue to be just fine and my emotions will soon fade to a wonderful enjoyment of this new phase of growing up. 

 

I am so very thankful to be Hope’s mom.  I want the best for her and know that she is in a wonderful classroom environment with a couple of great teachers and she is so very smart.  I know that the stimulation of her mind by trained professionals will produce awesome results. 

But….still….I miss my baby!

 

Our School GirlWe are so very very proud of you Hopie Marie!

 

By the way has anyone noticed the white arm band?  Want to know what is it and what it is for? 

Hope loves to snuggle with me in the rocking chair and smell the freshness of my T-shirts.   That arm band is made from one of my softest shirts and smells just like mom…she also carries a kiss on her hands  that she can rub on her cheek at anytime she needs to be near me…may sound silly to some but it works for our Hope.

January 14, 2008 in a very cold town called  Hefei in Anhui province in China an orphanage nanny walk a scared three year old Huai, Dong Tan over to us and as soon as I felt it was safe to touch her without scaring her I kissed her tiny little hand…she loved it then and still does today.  Then I whispered into her ear the words  I had planned to say to her for over two years.  “Jesus loves you and He sent me halfway around the world to be your Mommy forever”…I think this is the first time I have shared this but I think it is time…

A word to anyone who is reading this and is considering adoption.

“If you know that God has touched your heart with a desire to adopt…just do it…He will walk with you every step of the way.”

Hope Always Amazes Us

(You really should click on the song at the right below and listen while you read this post)

Thank you everyone who has been praying with us.  Once again our Heavenly Father has heard and answered our prayers.

 

She did it!  Hope started school yesterday and it was amazing.  We planned earlier after much discussion that I should NOT be the one to take her to school on that first day. Carmen and Sunnie came over and Hope rode to school with them.  Hope has never stayed with anyone else but me, Ronnie, Misty, Carmen, Bethany, and Grandma (just a couple of times while Ronnie went out to the barn).  It is not that we have tried to shelter her or limit her potential but we all just felt right about not leaving her.  I believe that her experiences at Church helped so very much.  I used to go to Sunday School and sit in her class with her but we felt she was ready to go alone and just told her she could either go to her class or she could go with me to my class where she would be sitting quietly and listening.  She chose to go to her class and I secretly knew she would.  Miss Kathy her teacher is wonderful and always walks Hope over to my class.   Small steps and helping her build confidence in lots of other ways helped to make yesterday’s big event in a little girl’s life go so smoothly.  I’m sure there are other adoptive parents who would think that we should have put her in day care or some other program to help her with her separation anxiety but you know we did what we felt was best for our Hope with her unique personality.  It worked…She loves school.Ready to go! SMILING A little bit nervous as she was heading to the car. She decided again to be very Brave! Lunch was a success!

Hope is so blessed to have Carmen working at the school she attends and her very best friend  in the world her niece Sunnie Kay as a mentor. 

Ms Sherry and Ms J.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!  THIS IS HOW SHE LOOKED AT THE END OF THE DAY!Bethany brought cupcakes to celebrate the big dayThe whole family came over for supper..   And she topped off the day with a swim with BFF Sunnie Kay.

We love you Hopie Marie and are so very very proud of you.

Mom