Big Boy Day Update

We did get to have our special day together this week!  My mom was SO nice to keep the girls the entire day for me!! Thanks mom :)  I woke the boys up whispering to them that I wanted to spend the whole day with them doing something special before they have to go back to school next week.  They mumbled around, then I said the magic words...SIX FLAGS!!  Needless to say they were up in a flash.

We arrived at opening at 10am and didn't leave until 9:30pm.  We had a wonderful day!!  My BFF joined us for the day which made it all around a perfect day.  We had a blast letting all the kids ride everything (I even rode the Batman and Superman for the first time for me) over and over again.  It really was a fabulous day spent with the kids and friends.  I think we made some great memories for everyone. 

Never the Same

"...orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names.

They are easier to ignore before you see their faces.

It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them

in your arms.

But once you do, everything changes."

Radical,

by David Platt

Adoption Gathering this Saturday

We get to host a summer time fun Adoption Option gathering this Saturday.  I always love getting together with families that love adoption!  Be sure to join the group and get all the details to come out to my house this Saturday afternoon for an afternoon of fun and food.  So if you are in the Atlanta area, please plan to join us. Oh and we LOVE to have families come out who are still in the "considering adoption" mode as well.  So if you haven't adopted yet and are just thinking about it, you are certainly welcome to come over and ask 100 questions!!  Come on...I would love to meet you :)

Big Boy Day Tomorrow

Hard to believe that my "baby boys" are going to be in 5th and 2nd grade next week!  I am planning a BIG surprise for them tomorrow.  I can't wait to see the look on their faces tomorrow when I announce to them where we are spending the day together.  How blessed I am that I get to be their mommy :)

Monkey See, Monkey Do

One thing Sheila loves about our little Faith is that she loves to dance!  Nothing more fun than having a 3 year copy your every dance move, one step at a time.  Needless to say we were all cracking up watching these 2 on a rainy evening at the campground.  I am sure our fellow campers enjoyed the show too :)

Shake that booty girl!!

New Look

My little princess decided to "go for it" and had her ears pierced at the mall.  She didn't even cry, not one tear!!  She chose adorable pink princess flowers.  Shelby is truly beautiful inside and out :)

Flying High

All the boys went up parasailing while we were in Myrtle Beach last week.  As you can see, they had a blast!

Boo...Hiss

Apparently play time ends tomorrow morning.  Back to work and the real world :(
I will post some pics from our fabulous vacation week we just spent at the beach, hopefully soon.

Times are Changing

I just read a great post about the current orphanage status in China right now.  Read the full post here , I have copied some of the post below:

The BEST adult session at the Chinese Heritage Camp was the talk by Amy Eldridge of Love Without Boundaries. She spoke about the changing face of Chinese adoption and about the current challenges of orphan care in China. It was emotional, informative, and fascinating. I'll try to report it all, but I hope others who were there will add anything I missed. Amy spoke for almost 2 hours, so I don't think I could possibly remember it all!


Amy first talked about the immense changes in China adoption in the past 10 years. The landscape has changed considerably from the days when Chinese orphanages were filled with healthy infant girls who had been abandoned because of the government's one child policy and the social preference for boys. Now, the orphanages are filled with special needs kids, many critically ill. She reported that 98% of newly abandoned children in China have serious medical needs, which explains why 60% of adoptions in 2010 were special needs adoption.

Why the significant change? First, she said, there has been a growth in more modern attitudes about girls. It is really only in the rural areas that the social preference for boys remains. Ten years ago, 85% of the Chinese population lived in rural areas. Now, only 50% are rural, 50% urban. With that urbanization has come more education, the internet, and the like, which has led to more modern attitudes. Second, there has been growth in the availability of ultrasound technology. Now, anyone who is pregnant can know the child's sex. Anyone who carries a girl to term does so knowingly and with every intention of parenting her. Those who want a boy instead will have an abortion. Third, domestic adoption in China is growing rapidly. That's caused in part by the public interest in adoption after all the news reporting about the orphans of the Sichuan earthquake. And another factor is the increased rate of infertility in China. One government agency estimates that as many as 40 million couples in China are infertile. Infertility is skyrocketing because of increased premarital sex without much sex education, causing increased rates of STDs and frequent abortions that might be less than sterile and because of environmental toxins and pollution. Domestic adoption is preferred by orphanage directors, because domestic adopters pay higher fees than international adopters. In Guangzhou, domestic adopters pay fees of $15,000 to the orphanage; in Hefei, the fee is $7,000 for domestic adopters. Most adoptions are handled on the county or provincial level, even though the CCAA now has a national office of domestic adoption. Orphanages just don't send the files of healthy infants for international adoption when they can place the child domestically.

So, for these three reasons, there are fewer and fewer healthy infant girls available for international adoption. And there has been skyrocketing abandonment of special needs children...
 
You can finish the article here., and read Amy's actual comments about the post in the comments section at the bottom of the post. Very informative!

The Call

Exactly 2 years ago today, we got THE CALL for our little Miss Wu ChunZhen!! I remember the day well since it was my birthday :) Aisha called me that morning with God's special birthday present for me.

As I look back at her referral papers, I am not really sure if I even read them thoroughly-LOL. Words like " blue like skin" and "acute non-heart function" were all over her medical files. She had not had heart surgery at the time of her referral, so I was looking at a file of a little one year old baby girl with unrepaired large VSD, medium size ASD, and of course a PDA thrown in for good measure. I do remember hearing the phrase from Dr. Jenista, “She may not be alive by the time you get to her in China.” Now remember I had just lost Malia who did indeed not make it home to us from China. Bottom line was her file was scary, very scary.

Obviously I needed to hear from God about this little girl as we reviewed her file. It was my birthday, and her birthday was the very NEXT day. She would be turning a year old. God made it very clear to me that she was my girl. I had prayed and prayed about what to do after we lost Malia, and I heard very clearly to have faith. Keep the FAITH and that God would give me another baby to hold one day. How much clearer could it be…God was “giving” me my present on my birthday, and was “giving” this baby girl her family on her birthday (it took a day to send in your LOI, so it was to be sent to China on HER birthday the next day). But me oh my, he was testing my faith with those scary medical terms!

I really don’t even remember being scared, just being secure in knowing that this little girl was my gift from God no matter what her medical issues were. It was truly a leap of faith for us though. I couldn’t think of a more God given name for her…FAITH  :)  Oh how lucky we are to have faith in our God, and Faith as our daughter!

Austin Attack

How do you play with your teenager cousin that is of course too cool to "play" with a bunch of youngins ?!?!

Well you just pile a bunch of stuff on him and jump to your heart's content :)

Purpose and Life

On my knees before God again...

why??

Because with all of my heart I believe that

Poverty of Purpose is far worse than Poverty of purse.

God made me for a purpose...He has a special plan for my life..for my family.

I am blessed to live life in a country where I have two refrigerators full of food,

where I have heat and running water all year long,

indoor plumbing,

3 toilets that work quite nicely,

a overflowing pantry of food for coming weeks and months,

electricity,

clean drinking water,

medicine for when I am sick,

access to a doctor,

3 vehicles,

a job,

I am able to go to church and worship the Father I love with abandon,

I have many changes of clothes,

never mind a washer and a dryer that can run day and night to clean all the clothes we have acquired.

Did I mention that also I have a family that loves me.

That my children have two parents who not only love and adore them, but love each other.

Do you know that there are 147 million children that don't have any of this. Maybe even more than the estimated 147 million, that wear the label orphan, who are longing for a family to call their own.

Do you know that God asks us to care for them. (James 1:27)

For some of us He calls us to adoption??

This is why my Knight and I are on our knees again. Why we are praying and asking God to guide our steps. We know we have more room in our hearts and in our lives to add another to our fold. The world doesn't understand this longing in my heart to fulfill God's purposes, but they didn't understand Jesus when He came either.

God has a plan for my life, it includes adoption,

it is part of my purpose in this short life I have on earth.

I have to confess that this was written by Kimmie, but it was definitely heartfelt by ME!