Childrens Hope Reunion

Ellie, Tatumn, Myer and Sage
Standing w/ Brenda and her family at the zoo
Ellie enjoying a Fitz Root Beer
Saige, Sage, Tatumn and Myer(I messed up the picture, long story)
Had to throw in one w/ those cute toes!
Miss Miracle Myer
Silly Taylor, Tatumns Big Brother
Kiana(saiges sis) Makenna & Baylor(Myers sis)having a slumber party!

Makenna having fun at the picnic Can't catch me!
Spicy Sage
Dalayna in red w/ Malaine, who is not so sure of the mess!
Good bye Tatumn, I will miss you friend



Dinner with Brenda and Ellie
Silly girls having fun!
Chinese smiles all around!

I have been excited about this reunion weekend since we started the adoption! I could not wait for the chance to see babies together, meet up w/ new friends, old friends, I really did think and plan for just months! It was perfect! The only thing that could have made it much sweeter was if we had been able to see more of our Hunan babies there. Which they are all promising me NEXT year they are coming, so I am holding them to that! ;)

We started the weekend w/ dinner at the Spaghetti Factory Downtown. 6 adults, 11 children(and we were missing one). Outnumbered you think? We met w/ the Crawfords and the Massey Family. We were thrilled to see Tatumn and the rest of her family of course! Tatumn was in Chenzhou w/ Sage, so we truly feel these girls have a special bond. Steph and I met online long before we traveled and just clicked through the wait. We were able to share the joy of receiving our girls together. They live in Kansas City, so not far from us at all. Seeing Myer was just amazing. If you remember, I had this post asking for prayer after we came home from China. I can't even explain all the emotions of being able to spend time w/ her this weekend, so I will save that for it's own post. We were SO thankful that they came in and that we had the chance to get to know her and her beautiful family better. We ended the evening w/ swimming at their hotel. You know the hotel loved us!

Friday we were up early to head over to the St Louis Zoo. There I was able to meet my dear online friend Brenda for the first time ever! Brenda and I had been emailing since we started the process and we are both big on emails so we naturally started a great email friendship! We had hoped to travel to China together, and thought we might, but we did not make her group, she went the month ahead of us. Her Ellie is probably about as busy as Sage! Isn't she sweet? She came from the same area of China that my cousins' daughter came from which is very special to us. It was so great to meet their family and spend time w/ them. The Crawfords and The Masseys were also at the zoo. From there we headed over to Fitz for lunch. You know what a site we are w/ our gazillion children between all of us!

Dinner that night was our house. We were joined by another set of friends who we had also hoped to travel w/ but they went the month before us also. Their daughter is named Kiara Saige, and is just a doll. Makenna was very excited to spend time w/ Kiana. She was thrilled that Baylor and Kiana both stayed the night w/ her. Lots of giggles going on for sure!

Saturday was the picnic. As you can see from the pictures, tons of fun. They had the pools filled w/ packing peanuts, which turned into snow. BIG mess, but the kids loved it. Especially the Crawford boys who were dumping bucketfuls on us as we entered the room! ;) CHI does a wonderful job w/ their picnic. Babaloo was there, who was so silly. And just giving us time to be w/ all the families who have all walked the same road. We had to say goodbye at the picnic to the Crawfords and Massey's, but we hope that we will see them again very soon.

Sunday we were able to go to dinner w/ Brenda and her family which was great. Ellie and Sage were a riot together. So very sweet! 2 busy girls! It was a great finish to a perfect weekend. We ate here which is a fun place.

What is amazing about any of these events with the families, is just sitting back and knowing how awesome our God is. You look at each little Chinese girl, and you know that God had His hand in the making of that family. No one else in that room could be my daughter. He chose Tatumns mommy, Sage for us, Kiara Saiges mommy, Ellies mommy, Myers mommy & Dalayna's mommy for a reason. He knew long ago, that they would each join their family's. He knew long ago that He would bring US together to be friends, and more than that, to be family. Because once you have adopted, you become one big family! These are my girls, they come from the land of my daughter. And their parents walked the road I walked to get them home. They hold such a special place in our family.

Such sweet memories, we already look forward to next years reunion!

(side note on the messed up picture.. I downloaded the pictures, and "thought" I had saved them, but I did not. I deleted them off my card and when I went to transfer the pictures to the blog, GONE! Thankfully Mark was able to purchase software to recover them, but for some reason some of them came back like that one, half gone. I am trying not to be upset, I still got alot, and it is better than getting none, which is what we thought we were getting! Next time though, I will leave the downloading to Mark!)

I prayed for this child.....

Our Chinese Prayer Come True!
Our Pastor
All the babies being dedicated and our church support
Spicy Smiles!
Sage & Adley

I prayed for this child and the Lord has given what I asked of Him. For her whole life she will be given to the Lord.... 1 Samuel 1 : 27-28

On Fathers Day, we had Sage dedicated. Typically our church holds a dedication service, you say yes I want to be in it and you get up there and repeat what they tell you to repeat. This year was different. They asked us to fill out an "application", and that just really made me do some soul searching about baby dedication. Of course w/ all our children we have believed they are a true gift from God. Before Makenna I was convinced we might not have children, and so I have no doubt, they are a gift. We dedicated each of them and we believed they were His. But this time it was just different. I am sure filling out an application was the start. The questions were things such as: Why do you want to dedicate your child? What do pray for your child? What is your plan to raise them to know Christ? What are your dreams for for your child, especially their walk with Christ? and what scriptures are special to you for your child.

It just made me start thinking. We know we are blessed beyond words to parent 4 children. Some think we are crazy, it is a bunch of kids! But oh we are so thankful for this craziness! We also know that these children, are ours for now. But in the end, they are the Fathers. We are simply being granted the privilege to teach them and train them to love Him. I think Sage is such a testimony of that. For SO many months we waited, and we waited, and we waited. I did not like waiting. I still look back at that wait and cringe. It is then God whispers, remember? She is MINE! She was mine and I held her and I decided when she would be in your arms. And when he whispers that, I have these panic moments. Because as i pray for Sage and I wonder about her walk with Christ, my prayer always is that she will love Him and follow Him. And sometimes I want to add, but only if it means to follow Him here with me! Yet I know that if she follows Him back to China, if that is where He takes her someday, it will be OK. She was His from the beginning and she will always be safe in His love.

So this baby dedication was just a little more different, a little more thought provoking, very sweet. One very special part is that Sage was dedicated with her cousin Adley. We know they are going to be best buddies!

Late Fathers Day Pictures

Mark and his Dad
My Grandpa and my Dad

I am getting farther and farther behind, so look for more posts this week. I did not want to miss posting these photos from fathers day. These 4 men play such key roles in my life. My grandpa is my only living grandparent, my mothers father. Mark and I are blessed beyond words to have parents and grandparents who have given to us a Godly heritage. They love the Lord and have instilled in us a love for Him as well. We are thankful for that, and for the opportunity to carry on that legacy with our own children.

Of course I am also thankful for my husband. If you know him, you know he is an amazing father as well as husband. So many things I love about him, so here is our family's top 10 of why we think he is GREAT!

1. 
   He does not consider it a "job" to help with the kids. I never have to worry about leaving him with 4 kids on his own. I know he won't even complain. In fact, if I am leaving on an overnight, I think he enjoys making sure the kids have extra fun!




2. He lets me sleep in. He gets up w/ our early birds and feeds them breakfast.




3. He totally does equal share with anything to do w/ kids.




4. He is very patient, obviously, he puts up w/ me and is able to work from home full time w/ a house full of chaos!





5. If I come up w/ a crazy idea, even when he disagrees(which is normally) he is willing to be wrong and listen to God's answer.




6. When I was pregnant he would drive and get me coke icee's every day and go through the drive through of burger king for pickles because I needed them!




7. He helps with laundry, is the offical floor mopper, bath giver and hamster cage cleaner!
8. I truley believe he would rather be with his family than anywhere else.
9. He is a human calculator and I stink at math!
10. He Loves the Lord.

Coming Next: Sage's Dedication, 4th of July, and Our Childrens Hope Reunion!!

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.

• 
  
  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?


• 
  
  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!


• 
  
  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!


• 
  
  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!

Kindergarten Graduation & Last Day of School

18 months old

Today Sage is 18 months old and we have held her 9 months. So she has been with us as long as she was in China. I will save words for another day.

Pictures Finally

Got my hair cut again this week!

Sweet Smiles The chaos of the kids room!

4 Little Monkeys sleeping in a bed...

Our camera is fixed and so we had fun taking pictures tonight! I was so kindly reminded this week that people are sick of reading the 17 months post! Even Mark commented I needed to update, this coming from the man who reads the blog, never! And here we are, almost at the 18 month post, can you believe it? I can't. But I will save those words for next week.

Kids are counting down the days till summer vacation. 4 1/2 days left! We are busy trying to rearrange rooms here. Not just rearrange, but redecorate, take down a loft bed to move it into another room, try to paint over red, and the bright colors you see above(w/ probably even brighter colors, Makenna gets to choose, since she is getting booted from her room for the sake of Sage needing the quietest area) Mark thinks we should just leave Sawyer sleeping in a pink room and Sage sleeping in the room w/ the wallpaper torn half down. Men! ;) Enjoy the pictures and I promise a good update soon!

17 Months

Falling behind on my updates, life is so crazy! And this will be a short one, promise a big one for next month. As you can see, it is very hard to catch Sage looking at the camera this month. About 90% of our pictures, she is looking down, or anywhere but me! And my camera is fast, she is faster. Always, ALWAYS moving. Speaking of cameras, our lens is broke, AGAIN! This time not our fault, just jammed up. But not a lot of pictures of everything we have going on. Quick Sage stuff:

• Did I mention busy? She moves, and moves and has no fear at all. Isn't it fun to climb up on the bed and throw yourself off and then laugh and laugh? Or to go under in the bathtub and come up laughing, over and over? Or to just run, and run and run, no matter where we are? Spicy Girl? you bet!
• I am hoping not, but we have had a few signs of temper tantrums. I am trying to pretend that is not happening, but I am pretty sure when I had to drag her out of church last night kicking and screaming because I took a crayon away she was coloring a pew w/, it was a tantrum. Sigh..
• She LOVES to eat. I guess all that moving, you have to store up your energy! She eats anything and everything. Sad to say, but she can eat a cheeseburger and fries from McDonalds. Malaine doesn't even eat that much! She can also drink soda from a straw, I really should not admit that should I? But the straw thing is new for her.
• Has added lots more words and repeats so much of what we say. her favorite is to shake her hand and say no, when she knows she is doing a no no!
• She loves to play shy, but she just is not at all. She hides her face when someone talks to her, but give her a second and she is singing or talking to you. And if you have something that looks neat, a cellphone, keys, they will soon be hers!
• She loves music. Loud and fast!That might go along w/ the energy thing! she dances and sings, way to cute!
• her favorite song is the Itsy Bitsy Spider and she can do all the hand motions to that. Also loves to sing Jesus Loves me and when we say He is Strong, she puts her arms up in the air and makes the funniest face! She knows Jesus is strong for sure!
• Not sleeping again. This seems to be about every other post we go through this. Wakes almost every night, wide awake for hours. Tired, we are very tired.

Next month will be her doctor check up. Praise the Lord, but we have not seen the dr in a few weeks now! This has been a full month and I am bummed I don't have pictures of more things. I helped to host a MOPS retreat w/ about 35 ladies overnight, Makenna & I went on an overnight school field trip to Turkey Hill Bible Ranch Camp, which was much more fun than I expected, I am just not the camping type, Easter, the kids sang in a school program, a church program, Cardinal game, and I turned 32 this month! We are counting down the days to summer vacation for sure! (I think, 4 kids home, I may be counting down the days till school starts!) We are heading on our first weekend getaway as a family of 6 this weekend, so hope to post after that!

McDonalds Help?

Malaine is trying to collect all the Madame Alexander Dolls of Wizard the Oz that are at McDonalds. We have them all except the Wicked Witch of the West. That is the one with the green face. We have been to McDonalds countless times, and I think even Grammy is burned out from so many Happy Meals as she has tried to find this last doll. We have tried to win her on ebay, but we don't want to pay alot! So, if you by chance, have an extra doll, can we have it? Malaine would be so happy! (and this is not such a good picture, she finally got her hair cut off since this, and it looks so cute now!)