It is hard to believe that 5 years have gone by since we received our referral for our sweet baby girl. She looked so sad and we wanted to board the next plane to China. We feel so very blessed that God chose this precious girl to be our daughter. She is a ray of sunshine every single day. We love you Anna!
This may not seem all that exciting, but we did have snow flurries last week. I am always ready for spring far before it is ready to come to us! I know it has to be here when my pear tree starts to flower!
But, it is also the season for dirty, wet, muddy dogs.........
.....and tadpoles. We always put some in a jar, but never quite succeed in keeping them intil they start swimming around. We have done our research this year and are ready....we'll let you know. My little kids call them "tadapolts" How bad is it that we don't correct them because we think it is so cute? Eventually they figure it out.....kind of sad when that happens..JPG)
Boys (and girls at this house) just love frogs. Just as long as they remember to wash their hands before dinner!
And, last but not least, I love when spring finally gets here because I LOVE to mow the lawn...and I LOVE my lawn mower! We mow a few acres and this sweet machine makes it pure pleasure!
One year ago today we got the call we'd been waiting for...our referral of our sweet son! As you can imagine, our hearts just melted when we saw his precious face for the first time. We were so excited to find out that there were families traveling to Ethiopia from our adoption agency that very weekend. They graciously said they would love on our son and tell us all about him. I can't imagine a sweeter gift than that for a mother's heart that just instantly longs to be with her child. Jill and Apryl, you will always be a part of our adoption story because of the blessing you gave to us from Ethiopia!
This is our precious boy now. What a crazy amount of joy he has brought to our lives. We love you, Elijah!
That said.....we ran to town today and this is what my middle son ended up wearing. This was AFTER I sent him back inside to actually get shoes on. I do have a mudroom and a shoe rack. They are told, over and over "if you put your shoes away when you come home, you would be able to find them when it is time to go somewhere". Obviously #1-they do not listen and #2 this get up is perfectly fine to a 7 year old boy.
Every year we try to get together with all the young-ish cousins to decorate Easter eggs. This year, because of sickness and other things, it ended up being just us. My mom came to join the fun (chaos) and was so nice that she boiled all the eggs and brought all sorts of fun things to decorate with.
With 6 kids, each getting 6 eggs to color, that's a lot of egg salad next week! I have to make a map for myself when we hide them - that's a lot of eggs to find and so not fun if we miss one...
This is J today - such a ray of sunshine!
Three years age today we received our referral for our little boy from China. It is hard to believe three years have gone by since we first laid eyes on this picture. We were expecting referrals to come in to our agency in mid to late April and were so surprised to hear from our family coordinater in early April. She shared all of the info she had (name, age, where from) and told us we could pray about whether to request the rest of the info. We had been praying for our son for months - we didn't need any other info to know he was the one God had chosen for our family. What a precious gift! There is no way to explain the feelings as you wait to see a picture of your son, having no idea at all what he will look like, be like, etc. It is thrilling to say the least. This is Shi Wen Bo at 18 months old living in the NW part of China. At the time, we could not imagine surviving the wait to go pick him up. We traveled to Urumqui in Xinjiang Province, China in August, 2006.
We love you so much sweet J. and can't imagine life without you in it!
