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.

Our Family Has Grown Again!

It has been over 2 years since I have blogged.  I gave up shortly after coming home with Gemma. First things first I had an old dinosaur computer that would take forever to load one picture and I got frustrated not to be able to post pictures when blogging.  Second, about 8 weeks after coming home with Gemma God showed us he was in control again and I found out I was pregnant!  I was so ill the whole pregnancy and did not feel like doing much.  I was also introduced to Facebook at that time and that made it much easier to keep family and friends updated for me.

On November 11th 2011 we welcomed Rowen into the world. Boy #5 and lucky #7.  He is now 16 months and the best baby ever.  He spoiled to death by all his siblings and knows it.

Ava recovered beautiful from her heart surgery and only has to check in once a year! Yay!! She just turned 6 at the end of January and is half way through Kindergarten.  She is still our ball of energy and keeps us all on our toes. Ava enjoys gymnastics and Hip Hop dance every week.

 Gemma has been home over 2 years now and is doing amazing.  She is in 5th grade this year and loves school.  We also continue to do Mandarin classes and she has kept her Chinese.  She does struggle with oral but understands and can write and read Mandarin.  We are trying to find a tutor that can help her more with the oral.  She also loves gymnastics and goes twice a week.  She is a fantastic helper with her little brother Rowen and was very excited when we found out we were expecting.

 Preston turns 18 next month, yikes!!!  He is also a senior this year and graduates in May.  His plan is to stick around next year and work, work, work so he can attend a film school in Northern Arizona.  He still keeps us laughing with his movies and videos and is an awesome big brother.  He has gotten a few gigs doing music videos for some local bands.

 Soren started his first year of High school this year and loves it.  He is our straight A+ student!  He is loving his welding class this year and is very talented in that department.  He enjoys hangin with his friends everyday.  And also an awesome big brother!

 Gavin is in his last year of Junior High.  His is playing the Sax for the third year now and we love going to his concerts.  He is also our Ice Hockey player and spends a lot of time on the ice!  Also an awesome big brother! :)

 Keaton is enjoying 3rd grade this year.  He and Gemma ride their bikes to school every morning.  We still enjoy his wild imagination and artwork.  He started Ice Hockey this winter also and seems to be enjoying it.  He absolutely adores little Rowen and can never get enough of him.

Party of Nine!

 That is it in a nutshell for now.  We also moved to another state to be closer to family when we found out we were pregnant, so this last two years has been crazy!  I hope to do a better job now at blogging, at least better than every 2 years, lol.  Looks like I will need to start with a blog makeover.

Any questions for us, let me know.  I hope to do a more detailed up date of the girls soon.

(I need to figure out the picture thing on here too because these are super blurry. Also these pictures were all taken by a sweet photography friend Jill Candland)

Open Heart Surgery for Ava today!

All is going well in our family and Gemma is still doing awesome!! I need to do an update really bad!

Just wanted to let everyone know Ava went in for Open Heart Surgery this morning at 8:15am Mountain time. She is having her pulmonary valve replaced and her pulmonary artery fixed. They told us it will be a 5-7 hour surgery. We will keep everyone updated, not sure if anyone still even reads this blog anymore. I need to get back to blogging!!

Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts, it means so much to our family!!!

Two months with Gemma!

Okay to began where we left off! Another month with Gemma home.

About a week before Christmas break Gemma started school part time. She has been placed in the 3rd grade and attends a charter school with Gavin and Keaton. She was beyond excited to start and counted down every day! My husband, Ava and I walked her down to her class. Her teacher and classmates where expecting her. They had made a wonderful welcome poster on the door of the class and had pictures from our china trip on it. Everyone in the class had signed it. Her teacher had taken the time to read our entire travel blog to get to know our family and Gemma better!

We continued to walk her in for 2 more days and showed Keaton where her class was so he could have the privilege to make sure she got to her class okay every morning.

School has been going great and she is still very happy and enjoys going every day. She is kind of a rock star and has made many friends quickly. Some of her classmates now argue over who will walk her to her class when the school doors open in the morning. Keaton is kind of bent out of shape because of this.

We had a beautiful Christmas break and the weather was beautiful for our neck of the woods. The kids got lots of outside play and it was not too cold to enjoy it. Gemma has taken a liking to the Razor scooter, jump roping, and hula hoop. She is very good at all of them!

Ava showing Gemma how it is done!

A week before Christmas some great friends of ours came over from California to visit for two weeks. They have family just 30 minutes north of us so we were still close enough to get together many times in that two weeks. They have three amazing kids; Jacob 18, Emily 15 and Hannah 3 1/2. I have talked about this family before on my blog. We met in a very special way last November of 2009. Their daughter Hannah and our Ava were crib mates in China for almost 15 months before being adopted. Our families hit if off and enjoy that we have this special bond with our girls. Ava was beside herself knowing that Hannah was coming to visit. We had them over for dinner one night after they arrived. The girls have so many of the same mannerisms and facial expressions, it just melts my heart seeing them together here on the other side of the world! We have some very touching stories about them in the orphanage that the nannies had shared with our families.

Yes, this is only two families! ha

We got invited over to their extended family's house for a Christmas party the week before Christmas. We only knew our friends but it was still fun nevertheless. I think Gemma really enjoyed being part of a celebration and feeling part of a bigger family. She and the rest of the kids had a great time.

Gavin and Hannah

Keaton digging in

We stayed home this Christmas and did not have any family come this year so it was such a blessing to be able to spend it with great friends.

I have never seen so much excitement from a 9 year old child about Christmas. The amazement and wonder in her eyes was priceless. Christmas eve we took the three little's to see St. Nick. He was in a cute part of old town in a little cabin. It was beautiful and almost 60 degrees, which was wonderful for waiting in line outside. Gemma was not sure what to think of him but he was very kind and we got some great pictures. Ava even drew Santa a picture!

St. Nick and the little's

We have the tradition of opening one present on Christmas eve. We always do this after dinner. I made a yummy roast in the crock pot with potatoes and carrots and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas eve dinner. We had also baked and decorated sugar cookies earlier in the day. The kids all sat at the table for hours working on cookies. They started off very traditional but with 4 boys they got creative with the icing color and the cookies! Everyone enjoyed the gift they opened and off to bed they went early.

And their set

Gemma's first cookie

Christmas cookies

Then the boys got crazy and creative!

We woke the kids up at 6am Christmas morning to see the presents St. Nick had left and then it was time to get ready for church. We are so blessed Gemma came to us knowing the true meaning of Christmas and that it was Jesus' Birthday! After a beautiful Christmas Mass we headed home to snap a quick family pic, change clothes, have a quick breakfast and sit down to pass out the gifts. Gemma was just grinning ear to ear. We opened our presents by taking turns and going from youngest to oldest, one at a time. Gemma caught on very quickly and knew it was her turn when Keaton was done! ha Ava actually understood and enjoyed Christmas much more this year too. The older kids really did a great job at getting excited for the little ones.

Ava got the diaper bag she had been wanting!

Keaton and his "surprise" look

Explaining Gemma's gift card from Papa and Lori to her

Gavin

Soren

Preston

We broke from tradition this year with no family in town and decided we did not want to spend the whole day cooking and preparing dinner and then have all the clean up. We wanted to enjoy each other and the kids and have a very relaxing day. So at 4pm we headed to our favorite Japanese restaurant for an early dinner. It was a hit and we enjoyed bento boxes, sushi, noodles and much more! We came back home to a clean kitchen and enjoyed yummy cookies, fudge, and pies!

We enjoyed a couple more get togethers with our friends from California and it was sad to say good bye. We will see them this June when we head to California for a mini vacation.

The little's getting crazy

Trying to get them to settle for a picture!

Super Ava to the rescue!

During Christmas break we also took the family to see "Tangled". Everyone loved it!! It was Gemma's first movie and she was very excited to have popcorn and watch the movie. This was only the second movie Ava has ever been to and she sat and watched the entire movie, which is big for her. When the movie was over Ava told me she wanted hair like Rapunzel, so cute.

On January 2nd our church had its annual Christmas pageant. The pageant is for all kids five and up in the parish that are interested. Keaton was a shepherd and Gemma was a star angel. She was not quite sure what was going on so we had our friend Linda explain it to her. I think she really enjoyed dressing up, she did a great job and even try to sing the Christmas carols.

Yes, the older kids enjoy photo bombing the pics!

Gemma seems to be fitting in very well. There has not really been any big issues. She and Ava have their moments but it is nothing major. She is very trusting of us. She is doing better in the car and no longer getting sick but Gemma is very much a home body. When we are out and about she always wants to know when we will be home. Her English is slowly coming along but it is still very hard to communicate without a translator. I think school will help in that department. She goes to bed easily and sleeps well every night. Ava is doing much better in the sleeping department too, thank you God!

Gemma continues to talk to her foster brother via QQ a couple times a week. She has also called her foster mother once. Her foster mother was very excited to hear from her and to know she was okay and safe.

The things we have to work on the most are manners and cultural differences but it is coming along. She is a very quick learner with a goofy sense of humor. We have had some funny translation moments and we all just laugh. She continues to speak to her friend Faith every couple of weeks on skype but the conversations are not as long because Faith has picked up English very quickly and does not speak Chinese much anymore. Since Gemma's English is slow coming this makes their skype sessions a little more difficult but I think they still enjoy seeing each other.

Gemma continues to go to Chinese school on Sundays but has been on break over Christmas. We start up again next week. We still meet with our friend Linda every week or so, she is a wonderful Chinese mentor for Gemma. We use this time to tell each other things and ask questions of one another. Linda also makes Chinese food for Gemma every time she see hers. We are very blessed to have Linda as a friend and to be so generous with her time! Gemma calls her Ayi (Auntie).

I still cant believe we have 6 children now, have to pinch myself. Every chair at our table is now filled and now when we have company we have to break out the card table and extra chairs.

Thanks for following along!