Where has the time gone?

June 21 marked 5 years since we first held our sweet Lianna Audrey Wu (Anna) in our arms. What a journey she has taken us on. We are so thankful to God that He has allowed us to be her parents.

This is our first moment with Anna. There were 10 families in our group and we were waiting in a room at the Civil Affairs office in in Nanning, Guangxi Province, China. We could here the babies crying down the hall and there are no words to describe the feelings of those moments. Then, the door opened and the nannies filed in with all the babies in matching orange outfits. Then, it was not only the babies crying...They started calling names and, oh what a feeling. I remember just whispering over and over in her ear that it was going to be ok. She fell asleep on the bus ride to the hotel and woke up subdued but quiet.
This is what we saw by bedtime and for the remainder of the trip. She has such a sunny disposition to this day!

Home almost a year....

Home 2 years with a new brother from China....

Home three years.....

Home four years....kind of a diva by this time...

Loving her little bros....

Home 5 years.....the time has flown by and our little Anna Banana has been such a blessing to us. We love you, Anna!

Get on the Smile Train!

Smile Train is an amazing organization that works in 75 countries with the sole desire to see children receive life changing cleft lip repair surgery. They are very successful as they work to empower local doctors to be able to perform the operations. In the past 10 years, 500,000 children have received surgery at NO cost to them or their families.

Please take 3 minutes to watch the tralier to a documentary made about this organization. It won an Oscar this year and is airing on HBO. The remaining showings are today at 3:15 pm and Wednesday on HBO2 at 9:15 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CamEXQ8x72c

I can't watch or read anything about this subject without tears just dripping off my face. We have a precious son from China with cleft issues and my heart breaks for his first family who had no means to help him and were left with nothing but heart breaking chioces to make for him.

I would encourage everyone to consider giving out of their abundance to change a life FOREVER.

Visit www.smiletrain.org for more information!

visitors and artwork

We "babysat" for my parent's new puppy for the past week while they were away. The girls were in heaven and were so good about taking care of her all by themselves. Isn't she sweet? Unfortunately, we also found some unwanted visitors this week. Luke was in the bathroom and called to me, "Mom, you gotta come see this awesome thing." When you are 7, tons of things qualify as "awesome" so I took my time going to see this great cause for excitement. (particularly because of his location) AHHHHH...the return of the carpenter ants. It was really kind of cool watching them work, eating at the beam in our bathroom until I thought about the fact that they were EATING AT THE BEAM IN OUR BATHROOM! We had them in the kitchen ceiling this winter. We live at the edge of the woods and they found a warm place to winter. Now I have visions of all the secret places they could be lurking..."Hard to locate" according to the pest control guy. Great.

After I put Joey's pictures up awhile back, Tom and Luke each wanted me to post one of theirs. This is Tom's tree. The picture doesn't do it justice - he is very much a detail person and loves to draw. He passed my skill level years ago. He is a very high energy kid and I love that he can sit and draw for great lengths of time and really works at improving.

And this picture is Luke to a T. He is 7, loves to keep me on my toes regarding what he might say or do at any given time. Notice, if you will, the middle one is picking his nose. The one on the right is also picking the middle one's nose. The one on the left is holding some sort of chain that is attached to the middle one's nose. And, if I may direct your attention to the bottom of the picture. The plants growing are(1)a nose bush (2) a glasses bush (3) a unibrow bush and (4) a moustache bush. The unibrow seems to be a key in most of his artwork. Ah, my Lukey!

Just One Of Those Days

*2 puppies spayed yesterday
*lack of bladder and bowel control carries over to today...x2
*said pups not getting along
*gates up around the house to keep them apart
*6 kids moving said gates to get around
*puppies where they aren't supposed to be
*puppies pooping and peeing some more
*crying toddler
*spilled milk
*and on and on and on...

Is it truly only 10 am?

Back again....

I have been gone from blog world for a long time. We have been working on finishing our homeschool year and getting all the needed paperwork in place for next year. Then, we can enjoy summer without thinking about any of it!!!


I have to share Joey's picture he drew last night. In case you can't tell, it is a portrait of me. He was so funny. He came and showed it to me and I told him I loved it. He asked me if I wanted to keep it, so of course I said yes. He then proceeded to tell me I had to buy it. He's 4 - what in the world?


I do have to point out that it is the first picture I've seen him draw with a body (note picture below - no body - also me - trust me, those of you who do not know me - I do not have a unibrow, even if he ALWAYS draws me with one!)

I absolutely love to see the creativity in my kids when they draw. I truly cherish the things they give me!

Has it really been 5 years?

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!

We had no idea, 5 years ago, of the journey we had started on, but adoption has taken us down one of the most beautiful roads there is to travel!

Joey's observation

Joey and I were getting ready to wake Elijah up from his nap. Eli has a cold and was breathing through his mouth resulting in chapped lips. Joey was quite concerned, telling me, "Look Mom, Eli's lips are getting old."