Updates are what get us through this long wait..........

Adoption is a long grueling process with so many ups and downs and in most cases so many road blocks.  I don't know how to explain it but when you decide to adopt this other force does every thing in its power to stop the process or make you just want to throw in the towel. When all that happens these are a few quotes that I found that help....

"The moment you give up is usually the moment right before miracles happen. Don't give up!!"

and another...

"Everything you want is on the other side of fear!"

This is our third rodeo and it has been the hardest process yet. So many road blocks and so many fears and unknowns. But I know in my heart of hearts this is what we are suppose to be doing. So we press on and listen to God. 

We are 16 months into this third adoption and has seemed like an eternity. Now that we have our match and have a face and information to fall in love with, it seems to be crawling more and more slow. To me the updates you are able to receive is what keeps you pressing on. We have been blessed with a team of missionaries that are serving our daughter orphanage and loving on all the children. We have been able to see a few updated pictures of our baby girl and could not be more happy. She has gotten so big since our first updates that were back in October of 2014. We have been told she has a sweet disposition. She loves to go to the park and splash in the water and play in the sand. She really likes to look in the mirror and make silly faces at herself. She sucks her thumb to go to sleep, has two boys that are her friends, she is potty trained and is afraid of a stuffed frog!! (We will make sure we have no stuffed frogs laying around the house.)

Every update and every piece of information makes us fall more in love with her. We are counting down the days until we are on that plane (well not really on the plane) but until she is in our arms. It will be a joyous day for us and we know a heartbreaking day for her. Being our 3rd adoption we hope we have all the right tools to get her through this emotional process and attachment. We have decided to bring a couple of our other children on this trip too. With our past adoptions it has seemed to help the adopted child to have sibling along. Our oldest daughter still has some Mandarin so she has been practicing and will help us with translation. 

We hope to travel in August if not sooner. 

Now to share a few updated pictures we have received in the last couple of days.

She received our gifts we sent for her 3rd birthday. We were told she loved the Minnie mouse and talking photo album.  The album was a big hit not only with her but with all the nannies and other children as well. 

We are headed back to China!!!

Yes, you read that right. We are headed back to China! Most of you know that already if you follow us on FB.  We were matched with a beautiful baby girl last month May 2015. We were signed with Holt again for a third time and were working on our dossier. Our dossier took over a year to complete, there were so many road blocks this time but we kept pushing forward. 

I'm on the Waiting Child Advocacy FB page and in April 2015 I saw the face of a sweet little girl. Her face caught my attention right away because she looked so much like Ava. I found out she was with America World and sadly found out she was with a partnership of theirs so they could not transfer the file. We thought and prayed about it long and hard for about 2 weeks. At the end of that two weeks we came to the decision that this was our girl and decided to switch agencies. I will admit that it was not an easy decision. We love Holt and loved working with them for Ava and Gemma. I was afraid to tell them we were going to switch but at the same time afraid of another agency - not knowing them and how they tick. Sean called Holt and gave them the news and they were as sweet as could be. Even told us they would leave our application open in case something happened. After working with America World this last month, I'm happy to say we are very pleased and they have been amazing.

We found out after an update that our baby girl has a second special need, Thalassemia. Her blood levels are scary low so we have pushed forward with a medical expedite. She also has repaired Cleft lip and palate. We hope to be traveling the first part of August to bring her home. 

Just a little more info on her. She is from Shaanxi and she will be 3 years old this July. She is 9 months younger than our current youngest, Rowen. So for 3 months out of the year we will have two 3 year olds. We have lots of picture and a video and she seems like a real sweetheart. We are naming her Pepper Philomena. 

We are beyond excited to be adding to our family again. Rowen is so excited to have a roommate soon and someone his age. I pray that they will be best buddies and get along more than fight. ha

On our trip to Ch*na, Gemma, Keaton and Rowen will be traveling with us. Ava is so happy to be staying with her crib mate Hannah in California while we are gone. Her family will take us to the airport and pick us up on our return home. The older boys will be staying home and holding down the fort there. Our sweet doggie Cooper will be staying with Nana and Papa. 

So without further ado here is our sweet Pepper or we think maybe a little spicy too!

We are over the moon in love with this sweet baby that we have not even met yet. 

A visit from Grandma Sherry

A few days after Christmas my Hubby's Mother came to visit.  It had been a couple of years since we had all seen her last.  Rowen was just a few weeks old.  She is from Yakima, WA.  She was on a little road trip for almost 3 weeks visiting all her grandchildren.

I can't remember the last time we had pictures with her.  I think it was before Ava came home.  So I grabbed my camera and we headed out to a local park.

My handsome hubby and his Mom. :)

The sun was just perfect. I loved all the backlighting and the glow of the grasses and trees.  It made for a nice soft, dreamy pictures.

This was a candid I caught as she was leaning on a tree while I was taking pictures of the kids.  This is just a very small portion of all the pictures I took. Many more that need to be edited.

It was a really nice visit. Rowen really enjoyed getting to know his Grandma Sherry. They played lots of puzzles, read books and played legos.  Gemma and Ava enjoyed playing many board games with Grandma too.

I can't believe Christmas break is over and time for school and activities to start up again.  I have enjoyed our lazy days and no where to be.  Have also enjoyed lots of extra time with Daddy as his work load was light.

Here is too a great start of 2014. May we be blessed with good health and a wonderful New Year!

Sorry for the confusion

With this blog makeover I have been going back to the beginning and attaching labels to my posts.  Last night I came across a post from 4 years ago when we were starting the process of adopting Gemma.  I had a post announcing her adoption that never got published.  I thought, that is weird and hit publish thinking it would just stick it according to the date it was written. 

Well to my shock it posted as the most recent post! lol  It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out and delete it.  I guess those of you that have my blog link on your blog, the title still says "Adopting Again"!  I started getting private messages last night asking where the post went and wanting all the details, Haha

We have no plans to adopt again.   We have two old beater cars that we just had to replace finally and a son heading to a private Christian college/film school.  I will never say never though, learned my lesson with that one already. ;)

I will say it got a lot of peoples attention checking out my new blog.  

 Have a Safe and Happy New Year!

This was a beautiful sight Christmas Day

I just love seeing our church decorated like this during Christmas.  Wish I could have captured the grandness of it better but I did not want to go back further and get a bunch a people in the picture and distract from the beauty.

There is a part in the Mass where the sun comes through an upper window and hits Father just right. It makes him glow right during the Consecration.  I plan on bringing my camera next Sunday again and sitting in the front row to capture this. I hope I can even get the smoke from the incense as it rises in the sun rays. I tried to get this shot today but we were not sitting in the front row and I did not want to disturb people during the Mass. I took one picture but did not like the way I had to crop it or frame it. I also metered on Father's face which blew him out and made the rest of the picture too dark. Next week I will meter further down off his face to even the light and adjust my settings better.  Always learning and practicing. 

Have a blessed and safe New Year!

We are live with a new blog makeover!

Merry Christmas to all, from our family to yours!

 Thanks to Blue Lily for our amazing family photos this year!

(Thanks to Rita @ Coffee Shop blogs)

The Art of Making Mud Pies

Summer is here for us already.  It has been gorgeous and in the low 80's for a few weeks now.  The nights still drop down into the 50's.  This is perfect weather in my book minus having an ocean close by. 

We have a section on the side of our house that is suppose to be for growing things, lol.  I dont have a green thumb so the kids have turned it into their mudpie making outdoor kitchen!  Ava enjoys it the most she will play for hours and be covered head to toe and Rowen loves to follow her. She taught him for the first time last week how to make mud pies.

They had a blast together and there came a point when I had to put the camera away so I could help them clean up and get sprayed down before coming back in the house.

I wish I was good at gardening so I could turn this area into some yummy organic food and spices. But honestly I just dont have the time to learn what it takes.

I think we will instead built a chicken coop over here and get a few chickens.  It is the perfect area for them to have free range.  And we benefit from them taking care of all our nasty bugs and spiders we have here in AZ.

Ava totally adores her baby brother. He is half her size yet she still attempts to carry him around. He loves her room and loves to sit at her little table the draw with her.  And Ava loves to mother him.

Rowen is such a blessing to our family, we cant imagine life without him.  He is always so happy and such a joy.  He is so lost when everyone leaves for school and it is just us.  He much prefers the craziness of all the troops being around.

Miss Ava has come a long way.  She is finally sleeping through the night after almost 5 years of having trouble.  We still have bed time issues but we are working with an amazing adoption therapist that I think will help us so much. We are also going to do some testing to pin point so other issues that we have noticed for awhile too.  Ava also receives speech therapy and really enjoys learning how to make the correct sounds.  Mommy has been her family translator for a few years now. 

She enjoys school so much but does struggle in a few areas so we are going back and forth about repeating kindergarten next year. We did it with two of our boys and it was the best decision we ever made.  I would hate to see her continue to struggle in the areas she does all through school and it will only get harder.

Next post I hope to have an update on Miss Gemma.  Just wanted to get some recent pictures to go along with it.