Happy Referral Anniversary

One Year Ago, our first glimpse!
Referral Photo
Sage Today



Beautiful Flower from our friend Cassie & Family
Is that really me Mommy?
Sage then and now!

It is crazy. One year already? One year ago we were handed the pictures of our daughter. A day that will forever be etched in my heart. I can remember it so clearly. I remember "the call". I remember getting ready. I remember we were running late! I remember the song on the radio on our drive over that had me sobbing before we were even there. And I remember seeing her face for the first time ever. How I looked at that picture, and I just knew. She was mine. She was the reason we were adopting, because she was waiting for us. She was the reason we walked the wait, every single long day of it. She was so beautifully, perfectly, exactly as I dreamed her to be, mine.. A referral picture is such an amazing thing. It is your lifeline to that child. Even knowing that she might look nothing like that picture(and she did not), I held on to that photo for dear life! As I sat today studying that referral photo, I am just amazed at her! She looked so sad in those photo's, I still think it is hard to tell it is Sage. What a difference a year makes! Today we celebrated with Chinese Food, of course. We talked about that day, one year ago. We had a wonderful surprise of flowers delivered, the one's in the picture. My sweet, sweet secret pal sent those to us. Thanks Cassie!

So one year ago is when the wait in some ways ended, and the journey to Sage offically started. What a year this has been!

Hunan Sisters

Splashin Fun!

Sage & Tatumn
Happy Hunan Spicy Sisters!

Hi Friend!

So very far behind on post's. We were so excited to get to visit with our friends the Crawfords a few weekends back. Stephanie is my friend who makes all the great hairbows. She and I met online during the neverending wait for our daughters. We were able to meet in person a few times, she lives just a few hours away. It was a sweet blessing to find out our girls lived together at Chenzhou, true Hunan "sisters". Though we live just a few hours apart, we have not been able to see each other till recently. Tatumn is the first baby we have seen since China from our group, and what a sweet site! As you can see, getting pictures of 2 babies is not easy, but they were quite the pair together! It did my heart good to see all of the Crawfords. Walking the road of adoption together, watching each other hold those babies for the first time in China, and seeing the girls together now... Our hearts are still smiling!

A new Referral

No, we are not announcing our next child, though one just never knows what you might see when you drop in here someday! ;) One thing we have said over and over is that God has not only allowed us the amazing gift of a child through adoption, but He has been so gracious to also give us SO many new friends to walk "adoption" with. I met Renee way back when we were waiting to finish up our paperwork, she was just starting the long, LONG road to her daughter. She worked with one of my close friends who helped us meet. We encouraged each other and whined to each other alot about the neverending wait. She was LID just a little over 4 months later than us. Well a full year after we recieved our referral(which shows you exactly how slow things are going) she FINALLY got her referral for this beautiful baby girl! Isn't she just darling? Her name is Qian Li Tong and she was born on October 10,2006, so not quite 8 months old. One neat thing is that Renee was thinking she would name her Lili and of course when she saw her name was Li she knew. God is so good at giving us those red thread pictures with our babies. This is just another sweet reminder of God's amazing plan, and the reason we mommies are forced to wait.

Ride Em Cowgirls!
Swimming at the condo, inside pool was much warmer!

Milking a cow at Silver Dollar City

Lainey on the Ladybug

Sage & Klaire Sweet Friends
Karlee, Kassidy, Klaire with our gang

All the kids on stage, isn't that a site!
See our girls in the matching pants?

Sage had fun feeding the animals!
Worn out at Silver Dollar City
Malaine, Kelsey, Alyssa & Makenna

Mark being slimed
Can we join you in there?
The Scary Emu!

We just returned from a weeks vacation, and now we need a vacation from vacation! We started on Memorial Day weekend with a trip to the Lake of the Ozarks. My parents just purchased a new vacation condo there, so we got to go and let the kids break it in for them! It was so nice and relaxing there with nothing to do but stare at the lake and swim, which is the kids very favorite activity. From the lake we traveled to Branson, Missouri. We were going to attend an event put on by the Shanghai Theatre and were able to do more branson fun while there. Some of the highlights.

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  Lamberts Cafe How can you not love a place where it is actually OK to watch food being thrown around, or watching people diving off their seats to catch those rolls?


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  Silver Dollar City-We spent 2 days there. Big Coasters for the big kids, and lots of fun for little ones. We met up with our good friends on one of the days which made it even more fun for all of us. We are quite a site though with 7 children between us, one being a set of twins, and a chinese baby showing off in her squeaky shoes and one pregnant mommy!


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  Got to meet up with a fellow adoptive family, who I had been emailing online for the last 2 years while we waited for our daughters together! It was such a joy to watch the girls play together. Klaire is just 1 month older than Sage and they were just to cute!


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  Did the drive through Exotic Animal Paradise on our way home. FUN! We did this a few years back and decided to go again. You drive through w/ a bag of food, and the animals come right up to your car, stick their heads in and eat out of your hands. We laughed so hard! Except at the emu, which is like an ostrich. You can see in the picture those beady eyes, none of liked those! Even Sage who was not scared of any of it, was not so sure of that! They also have llamas, deer, buffalo, along w/ a variety of other things. Very unique!

The event we went for was put on by the theatre for Families with Children from China. It was SO so nice! We first met at a park and they had traditional chinese games, snacks and playtime on the playground. Then we moved the Theatre where they served a chinese buffet. They had some kids perform chinese songs, played some chinese instruments, traditional dances, showed some films of chinese locations and then they had the acrobat show. I think they said there were 500 tickets sold for the show so that gives you an idea of how many families were there. You can see in the picture of the stage all the kids. We really loved it. It was a very long day, and of course Spicy Girl does not sit much, so it was lots of chasing Sage around, but it was just such a nice thing for them to do for us. The cost was very minimal and the owner of the theatre made a speech thanking us for loving their children from China. They plan to do it every year and we would definitely not miss it. If you live anywhere close to Branson, I hope that you will think about joining in the fun! It really is a wonderful vacation spot, very family friendly. (besides the man at SDC who asked us to find another table at lunch because one of the kids was being to loud for him, can you believe that?)

The kids said today, can't we just stay on vacation forever? Don't I wish!