Ling Ling on her way to China!!

In the last update we got of Gemma she told us she loves stuff animals and she would love to have a Panda some day.

My little brother travels the world with a Disney stage show and is heading to China this week. He will be in China through the end of August. The last week of August his show will be in Guangzhou, China!! So we took the opportunity to to give him a package to deliver to Gemma.

Gemma will have the opportunity to actually see his show while he is there!! He getting tickets for her and her foster family to see it and possibly 10 other Journey of Hope kids!! How cool is that??!!

He will give her our package after the show!! I hope he will be able to take some pictures too.

We also sent a little note explaining we will probably not be there until sometime this fall. I hope she understands and knows we are still coming.

We are totally jealous that my little brother gets to see her in person before we do. We were actually hoping to be there at the same time so we could take her to the show but it is not working out that way.

We are 2 weeks into waiting for our LOA, I pray it comes quickly!!!

My little brother

Christmas Day 2009

We had an enjoyable Christmas. My parents drove up from Phoenix this year and my brother was visiting from South American.

The kids are always able to open their stocking first thing Christmas morning and they are able to see their gifts from Santa because he does not wrap them at our house. Keaton was the first one up at 5:00am!!! Yes, you read that right! We go to church Christmas morning, so we got ready for the 9:00am Mass. Once we got home we had our Christmas breakfast then sat down to open gifts.

It was a very light Christmas this year. The kids each got one gift from Santa, little ones got two. Their gift from Mom and Dad was our drive to Disneyland in November! They also had a gift from Papa and Nana (my parents), their Uncle Norm and Uncle Heath and Aunt Julie (my brothers). Papa John and Grandma Lori sent each of the kids a gift too. They had a few gift cards to spend from Great Grandma and a Great Aunt.

I forgot to charge the camera battery so all the pictures are courtesy of my Mom!

Gavin and his DS game from Papa John

Keaton and Ava, with her chair and wooden fruit from Santa

Ava feeding her baby breakfast before church

Keaton and Mommy. He bought this for me from his schools Santa's workshop!

Ava getting a new shirt from Nana and Papa

Ava and Uncle Norm and the Winnie the Pooh book he got her!

Soren and the "Monster Hunter" game Papa John and Grandma Lori got him

Gavin and Power Miner L*gos from Nana and Papa

Keaton and the Wii game he wanted so bad from Papa John and Grandma Lori

Preston and Keaton with a Wii game that Uncle Heath and Aunt Julie bought the whole family to share

**I will be having my first GIVEAWAY on the blog in a couple days!!! Please check back and one lucky comment/person will win. This will be your chance to leave a comment so I can meet all the people that read my blog. I cant wait to share this gift with you! I will give you a hint, I have a hidden talent/hobby that I have never talked about on this blog! :-)

Im back, sort of

Sorry it has been so long.  I took the two little ones and went to visit my parents and little brother.  We stayed for 5 days and the little cousins had a lot of fun playing together for the first time.  It is so fun seeing cousins together playing and it makes me sad how far away we are from each other.  It had been two years since Keaton had seen his cousins and one he never met.   The weather was horrible for Arizona and we had to find indoor things to keep them busy.  We did have one day we were able to go to the Phoenix Zoo but it was still windy and a little cold.

The day we left to come home I started not feeling so well.  By the time we landed I was a mess, fever, chills, sweats, shaking!!  I was so happy to see my hubby and older boys.  Well it has been 9 days and I am still only 65-70% better.  I still cant smell or taste anything, not sleeping well and coughing up a lung all night long!  I seriously cant not remember if I have ever been this sick before.  I have not left the house but to go to the doctor in 9 days.  

Not only have I not blogged but my eyes have been hurting so bad that I have not read any blogs either, maybe a couple but not for any length of time.  I hope my energy will pick up soon and I can start getting some real sleep.  My hubby was awesome today and let me sleep in until 10:30 this morning and then slowing roll out of bed and take a shower and get ready for the day.  I dont like that I cant taste anything and because of that I have not eaten very well and have lost 6 lbs.  The not smelling anything has not been too bad especially when it comes time to change those nasty diapers! ha  We need to start potty training soon. :-)

I tried to get a few pictures of the four little cousins together at the end of our trip.  We lined them up on my Mom's couch.  Not much luck when you have 4 under 5!  

I hope you did not give up on me.  Hopefully I will get back to blogging regularly soon.

Thank You Uncle Norm!!

My cool Uncle sent me this all the way from Italy for Christmas. It is a little big but it will be perfect next fall, he also sent a beautiful wool red coat to go with it.  Great taste and thanks for all our goodies they really mean a lot to us.  Especially the ones from the Vatican.  I will get a picture of the boys in the awesome shirts soon.

That is a stamp on her foot from Gym class, not dirt!

Our little school girl