Twin Update

Not too much to update but here's an email from "B" (aka, mama):

Hello Everyone, And, "J", Thank- you!! I think this is maybe your friend, "A", came by this morning with antibacterial liquid soap and and handwipes and protein bars! It is exactly what we needed! After having been violently ill myself I just didn't have the energy to go shopping. ANd who knows if they even sell such things in GZ??? But now we are stocked. As for Judy...I know why we all call her THE AMAZING JUDY!!! We have almost run her into the ground and I hope she survives our stay in China. She is awesome! We also had an American doctor come by early this morning offering to help. He has just adopted a precious little girl over here. He went with us to the PICU "to help us prepare for the trip home and to see how we will care for and feed the girls on the flight as well as advise us on long term care." He was satisfied with the PICU and care they were being given for now. He was of great help. We did try to explain his presence of advising for the flight home and long term care as to not step on the toes of the doctors here. We are comfortable with their care for now but we still need to hire a pediatric doctor for the flight home.Thanks for any advice and all well wishes and prayers. ~"B"

Please continue to pray!!

Please, please continue to pray for the family I shared about earlier this week. They are still in China and twins are not getting better!! Here is an update from their mama:

After several miserable and scary nights in a "regular" hospital room with "E", which we were lucky to even get, "E"was moved up to the PICU. Although her health did decline, we feel more comfortable with the care given in the PICU rather than the care we were giving her in the "regular" room. So "M" and "E" are both in PICU. "M" is off the ventialtor but "E" may have to be put on it. This means that we only get to see the girls for a few minutes a day. Thank for all your concern and good thoughts!!! If anyone knows of a pediatric doctor to hire for the flight home, let me know...for when of if that happens.~"B"
PS. And today they said this a rare pneumonia. ???

We're all okay

I've received a couple of emails from out-of-state friends regarding the earthquake today. The epicenter was about five miles northeast of Yorba Linda...we live right next to YL. It was a 5.4 which is a really good, medium size quake....strong enough to cause things to fall off of shelves and walls.

For my youngest, this was their first earthquake. I was in Wal-Mart with all 5 kiddos when the ground started to roll and I started to pull the kids into me as I waited to see if the quake was going to get bigger or not. It definitely got bigger and people started screaming and running through the story...NOT a good idea! Things were flying off the shelves. We happened to be in the candle aisle...not the best place to be during an earthquake. There was glass breaking all around us. I kept looking around and tried to scoot us back into a safer spot. You just never know how long they will last or how strong they will get. Once everything settled down, a sweet lady came running down the aisle to check on us. She said she remembered passing us in the store earlier and all she could think of was finding us and making sure we were okay.

My precious 'I' was terrified. I couldn't get him to stop crying :( He cried the whole way home and hasn't left daddy's side since (praise the Lord daddy was working from home today). The girls didn't seem too bothered by it. I am soooo proud of my older 2. Everything happened so fast but big brother was on the ball. He grabbed 'I' and held him and kept asking if the babies were okay. Mommy was a little shaken but more out of fear of 'how am I going to keep all my babies safe'. I've lived in So. Cal. my whole life so I'm pretty use to earthquake's and have no problem staying calm. But the realization that I only had two arms and 5 kiddos worried me!! We had an awesome saftey talk when we got home so I think that has helped to calm everyone.

Love ya guys!!

We live within all the red dots :)

Please Pray!!

I'm calling on all prayer warriors. Please pray for one of our agency families. They are in China right now. B and M received their precious TWIN girls a week ago and they are very, very sick. Both babies are now in the hospital and one is in ICU. One has severe viral pneumonia and the other has viral bronchitis. Please pray for healing, saftey, and strength for the girls! Also, pray for strength and wisdom for mama and baba. They obviously can't come home until the girls are better so pray for this aspect, too.

Sweet Gotcha moment!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY "I"

Today is my baby boy's 5th birthday. The big 5!!!! He informed us that NOW he was a big boy...before he was still a baby.

I'll never forget the day he came home. He was 11 precious weeks old. We drove down the street and saw his amazing birthmother, "N" holding him outside in the front yard. I lost it...I couldn't believe that was our baby boy waiting for us. "N" was sooooo brave and so strong as she placed him into our arms. She loves him so much!! We had a beautiful time with "N" and her family. As we all cried and hugged, we packed our little man up and gave lots of kisses 'good-bye'. Our hearts were so broken and so full of joy at the same time. Talk about a difficult time. We were so excited about our new son but so broken for the mama that wasn't able to parent him. We are so blessed to have "N' in our lives...we share letters and pictures but even more beautifully...we get to visit with her. God has grown our relationship in such an amazing way and we love her so much.

Our little...I mean BIG man is the absolute joy of our lives. His smile and laugh can light up the whole room. He is one of the most gentle, loving boys I know. He is so full of life and I love watching life through his eyes. We love you baby boy (you will ALWAYS be my baby)...we are so proud of who you are...we can't imagine our lives without you...you are one of the greatest blessings and gifts in our lives!

Summer Fun!!

It seems like forever since I've posted. We've been super bbbuusssyy! Here's a little bit of what we've been up to!

The girls in a fashion show at our agency summer reunion.

!!!Twice the fun!!!

Best buddies....T and K

T getting ready to race at Dromo One.

Yummy noodles in China Town.

Modeling our dresses made by mommy's friend Cheri.

"Open Up"

S's new silly face..."Hhhuuuu"

"Enjoy each and EVERY day"

As my young, sweet friend struggles with breast cancer, she says this second round of chemo has been very hard. Her precious words to us are, "Enjoy each and every day!"

So, my wonderful friends...enjoy your days...enjoy your health, enjoy your precious babies (even when they've just thrown a dozen eggs across the kitchen...and YES, that has happened before), enjoy the gift of your spouse, enjoy the sweet days that the Lord has given you here and use them for HIS glory!!

LOVE YA!!!! And please, please be praying for Sharon and her family...she has a wonderful husband and two beautiful girls (both adopted from Russia).

Gotcha 1 year ago Baby!!

As I type this post, tears of so many feelings are flowing right now. What an UNBELIEVABLE journey it has been to our precious C and I am totally blown away that 1 year ago today, our amazing miracle baby was placed in our arms FOREVER!!!!!! I look at her sweet sleeping face and think 'why Lord...why did you choose us...why did you entrust her with us...we did not deserve her...we did not deserve all the beautiful favor you showed to us in moving the mountains to bring her home'. We are so overwhelmed by the gift of her and are so excited to be celebrating one year with her home.

Just for some fun reading, I posted part of our journal from that amazing day.

(Stacy) It's 5am in the morning and I can't sleep :) I was so tired last night; I thought I'd for sure sleep well. We are 4 hours away from meeting our precious daughter that we've waited so long for. That just totally blows my mind. I am very nervous, excited, and tearful (with joy) about what is about to transpire. Today will be a very long day of paperwork etc. but I believe we will be allowed a short quiet time back at our hotel room sometime today. I promise we will post pics. asap!!! Daddy keep your phone near by, we will be text messaging you once we have her and hopefully sending a picture via Paul's phone...I'm thinking sometime around 9:30/10. (6:30/7pm your time) THE TIME HAS FINALLY COME...our baby is miles away from us...oh, sweet C your mommy and daddy finally here!!!!!

(Paul) We have her! Everything went well, C is healthy and happy. We'll post more later. A lot more paperwork to do.

(Stacy) What an unbelievably amazing day!!! We left our hotel at 8:30am and headed to the Civil Affairs office...this is where we were to receive C . As we approached the gate we could hear a baby crying but had no idea if it was C . We saw two babies and we couldn't tell if either were C . Then another nanny was holding a crying baby and our guide was talking very fast to everyone in the room and then she kept say Pan Dan Feng and started tape recording this crying baby. The second we realized what was going on, I lost it...there was our precious baby. They immediately handed her to me and she cried for about a minute and then rested her head on my shoulder and was quiet. The nannies were so excited to see her rest quietly on my shoulder…they kept saying 'mama' (we found out later from our friends that C had been screaming non-stop from the moment she walked through the door). We spent about 10minutes holding her and then we had to move to another room to begin the paperwork. We were so, so excited to see that our friends (Lisa & Adam) were in the same room. At this point C was still doing well but was very, very nervous. She was holding a package of crackers and wouldn't even let us touch them. If I moved at all, she'd jump and fuss a bit. Paul started to fill out some of the paperwork while I tried to open her crackers. She would nervously fidget with the crackers, spinning them round and round in her hands. C ultimately started to eat them which helped a bit. I then gave her some little keys and handed her off to daddy…she’s a daddy’s girl. She did the same nervous fidget with the toy keys but wasn’t crying. Again, if we moved her at all she’d cry a bit. Ultimately daddy got her to sleep and that helped her relax a lot. She was not showing too much emotion but sat very quietly observing everything that was happening around her.

After about 1.5 hours at the Civil Affairs office we headed off to do more paperwork and ended up at our hotel for about a 2 hour break. The second we walked through our hotel door, our little shy peanut began to smile and giggle and play. She was a totally different child. We had such a precious time playing with her and helping her become somewhat comfortable with us. She LOVED calling the family via webcams and absolutely LOVES Paul’s computer. We have discovered that this quiet little girl is not so quiet, nor shy. She is EXTREMELY busy. I’m positive she has 20 arms. She is unbelievable fast at grabbing things and is very, very smart. She must know how things work. She is super curious about everything. She had her first bath and at first look cried as if to tell us ‘there is no way I’m getting in there’. So, I rolled up my shorts, climbed in the bath tub and stood her in it. She wouldn’t let me sit her down so we gave her a cup and showed her how to dump the water out. Because she is so curious, she grabbed the bowl out of my hands and bent over to get water and do the same thing I did. Needless to say, she ended up sitting in the tub and realized it wasn’t so bad after all.

We ate some lunch and headed of to do more paperwork. Woohoo…there were 3 other families that we’ve connected with through our province yahoo group there, too. So, we had a wonderful time with them. Their babies are so, so precious. We are so blessed to have them during this trip. It truly helps to have other families that understand what each other is going through. C has had 2 sad times today. Not so much a ton of crying but she’ll be playing and stop and get a sad look and cry a little bit. She is allowing both of us to comfort her and will reach for both of us. HUGE, HUGE blessing!!! C seems to like us….we’ll see in the morning when she realizes we are still here J We are still in awe of this little miracle sleeping in the crib right next to our bed. She’s here, she’s really here! Thank you Lord for this amazing privilege…for this precious, precious gift! We stand in complete awe of all that you have done for our family!!

Here is our 'gotcha video' and some pictures from that BEAUTIFUL day. (pause site music)

"Created for a place I've never known...
This is home, now I'm finally where I belong"

I have not listened to this song in a while and I was caught off guard by how emotional it made me. It brought back all the emotions of the wait, the trial, and the precious day she was finally placed in our arms. HOME TO STAY...YOU'LL NEVER BE ALONE!!

Summer adoption program

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/07/06/bolduan.more.summer.miracles.cnn

Sounds interesting but what happens to the one's that don't get adopted? Do these children know they are coming over for the purpose of a 'trail' period. On the other hand, it opens up awareness for families that may have never considered adopting before. It also opens up the possibility for harder to place kiddos to find a family...Hmmmmm....

Here is the link to the organization that has this program... http://www.kidsave.org/ ... I look forward to reading more on their website.

The more I read about this organization, the more I like it :) What an awesome opportunity! Oooohhh, maybe we can bring a group of kiddos to OC. Hmmmmmm... :)

Give it all up?!?!?

"Wow"....all I can say is, "WOW!"
http://hannahslunchbox.com/HL_Site/Welcome.html

Here's the cnn article on this:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/02/hunger.house/index.html

How is the Lord calling you to help...or 'give it all up?'

"Lord, what do you want to change in me...what do I need to give up?"