Thank you my friend!

Thank you Jen for giving me a wonderful new look for this Christmas season. Jen I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Jen is a mom-mom to 3 adorable kiddos and her youngest, Ben was Max's big buddy in the orphanage. Jen is very talented and good at every thing she does! Not only does she design blogs but she also has her own online store here. She designed an adorable t-shirt for Vivi that said Guangdong Cutie....it is precious! Check out Jen's blog here, she will keep you in stitches. Go here to see some of her custom blog designs, she can design anything you want and you will love it!

Jen's BEAUTIFUL babies!

We Are Family...A Light Bulb Moment!

(this photo doesn't have anything to do with this post but I had to share her big beautiful smile and mini piggy tails :-)

KiKi (my sister Kristi) she was talking to you on the phone.

Last night when we tucked Vivi Jo and Max in the bed, Max fell right asleep and Vivi...well Vivi doesn't go right to sleep because Lil Miss "ball of energy" is afraid she might miss something...LOL...EXACTLY like I use to be...OKAY, to be truthful, I still am :-). She would yell out, MAMA...MAMA...BABA...BABA. I would check on her occasionally, and would tell her, "wo ai ni, xiao bao bei (I love you my little treasure)."...and to go to sleep. It wasn't long and she yelled out something in Chinese letting me know she needed to go to the bathroom. I can't tell you what she says but I know exactly what it means when she says it. So I go in and take her to potty. I picked her up and was carrying her back to bed. Instantly, it was like a light went off and the reality that we are now her family suddenly hit her. She put both her hands on my checks to make sure I got what she was about to say.... she said, "Mama, uh Baba, uh JieJie (older sister - Britney), uh GeGe (older brother Mark and Hayden - I think she thinks they are the same person...she has never seen them together), uh DiDi (younger brother Max), uh Hua Hua (Vivi Jo). She repeated this over and over and over, Mama, uh Baba, uh JieJie, uh GeGe, uh DiDi, uh Hua Hua, patting herself on her chest. She got more and more excited each time she named us all and was grinning from ear to ear. I was holding her and we were face to face, her precious hands left my face and she was holding out her little hands with the palms turned upward, her arms and hands were moving up and down like she was trying to make me understand. I was saying YES...YES...that is GOOD, that is GOOD! She was so EXCITED and then she grabbed my face with her hands again and gave me about 5 or 6 kisses in a row. It just clicked and she just realized and excepted that we are all a family and she was THRILLED about it! What a moment...a moment that I thought was just another trip to the potty, ended up being a break through moment for our precious daughter, a moment I will NEVER forget! Thank you, God!

We Are Home!

The King of Rock .....

and the Queen Bee.....

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are home. We are finally over jet lag and are back in business! Miss Vivian and Max are both loving life and are adjusting so well! I finally sent in a We're Home post on our travel website click here to check it out. We are so glad to be home and I wanted to say again how much we appreciated all of your comments and emails and mostly your prayers while we were in China. I'm so glad to be blogging again. I love you guys!

We would love for you to follow along as we travel to China,

click HERE and it will take you to our travel website.

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We leave early Friday morning, November 7th and return November 20th. We would love for you to sign our guestbook as often as you like, there is a link to the Guestbook inside our travel website. You cannot imagine how special it is when we hear from you, it is very comforting when you are so far away.

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Please keep up in your prayers!

What a Gift!

Four days before we leave for China and look what we are so blessed to receive. Vivi Jo ART! Yes, Miss Vivian herself colored these pages and created a colorful masterpiece, special for her Baba and Mama. These were scanned, we received them through email. On Gotcha Day we will receive the originals. We already printed them out, they will be framed and hanging in a special place in our home before we leave for China and we will replace the copies with the originals after we get back. What a TREASURE! Oh baby girl, it won't be long now!

Look closely and you can see the eyes, nose and mouth. We think it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I think we may have an artist on our hands.

Mr. Busy Strikes Again!

Max will eat pretty much anything, we had pimento cheese in the refrigerator, it would be a quick and easy lunch so I fixed him a 1/2 of a sandwich to try, he had never eaten pimento cheese before today. He took one bite and said "mmmm, dis e gooooood!". So I thought okay, while he eats, I'll go in the other room and get a few things ready for our trip. A little time passes as I was getting things together, I realized he was really quiet and he had not come in the room where I was at. I thought, surely he didn't fall asleep....Oh I should have known better...I walked in the kitchen and I saw how MUCH he LOVED his pimento cheese sandwich. He decided he would just make himself another one or two or five...his little cheeks were stuffed full! It is much more fun making it yourself you know!