Lovin' The Plan

Catching up with Ashlyn

2010-12-13T05:30:00.001-06:00

Ashlyn is a Senior.

Let that sit a minute.

She is a Senior in High School.

She is looking at colleges.

Colleges are looking at her.

I am looking at locks and chains for her bedroom door.

Just kidding.

Kind of.

I am in utter disbelief that this child of mine that I've begged to stay little forever is very much indeed growing up. But I am in awe of how she has grown in the last 6 months. She is growing into a beautiful young woman. She is a compassionate, kind and crazy person who can speak her mind against you and still have you liking her.

She is completing her final year of high school and finishing up her high school athletic career. She is considering trying to play volleyball for colleges, contemplating trying out for a few.

She is thoroughly loving her final year in school with her friends. They are such a fun bunch of kids and I have loved watching them grow up together. They have won our local Fall Festival every year except one. They are so goofy and funny and able to laugh at themselves. I cannot imagine them not being together. This year Ashlyn was retiring queen and she got to crown one of her best friends, RayVen, as the new queen. Trivial in the grand scheme of things? Yes. But I still got a little misty....

I am so proud of the example Ashlyn is setting for her little sisters. And she has made it pretty easy on her parents too. So far.

She has such a sweet faith in Jesus. She just knows that He loves her and has a plan for her. I am sure she will have a lot of struggles and challenges as she embarks on this next season of life and tries to find her place in this big crazy world.

But I've got to tell you.....

I just cannot wait to watch.

So.......what's new?

2010-12-11T09:03:00.000-06:00

So, as you can see, I've been working on a new blog design with Nikki at Blogs for a Cause.

She is seriously talented and a joy to work with. If you need a little spruce-up (and who doesn't from time to time) head on over to her site and see all her gorgeous designs. If she can clean up the mess that I made of my own blog than she can do just about anything.

And she's running a special right now on a Christmas look and a another design to be applied after the holidays for one low price.

I'm tellin' ya, she knows her stuff. And such a huge heart for God and the orphan!

Now I just need to clean up my side-bars......

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I want to give an update on each of the girls, as much for my documentation as well as for you. I'll begin with Abbey since she has changed the most.

So the Woods family has settled in nicely to life with another teenager in the house. Abbey has meshed into our lives and hearts so perfectly that you know only our gracious Father could have written this story. Not that it has always been easy, but we have always known that she was born to be our daughter.

Abbey spent her summer adjusting and learning all about her new home. The transition went much smoother that we anticipated. We prepared for the worst, and hoped for the best and I think we got through the first few months pretty easily. There was the unavoidable awkwardness and hesitation. But playing together helped. We rode four-wheelers, went to ball games, and went swimming in the pool. Basically we just took it easy and melted into a family.

(playing ninja)

Abbey is now in the 8th grade at school. She is attending regular classes with the other 8th graders except for last hour, when she meets for one-on-one tutoring to make sure she is doing well and getting all her assignments. She is graded in the ESOL program, which means that she is not responsible for getting everything perfectly correct. But she is responsible to participate and cooperate and learn the English that is associated with each subject. As she is tested, we moniter her progress and as long as she is progressing steadily, we will keep her in this program until she tests at a proficient level.

(First day of school)

It is unreal how much she has grown in the last 6 months. She talks all the time now and we can understand her almost always. She has such a good time at school and school activities. She has such a nice humor about herself, which helps when we can just laugh at what we are trying to figure out. She has friends here and still has her friends from China. She loves talking to them on the phone and it has been such a blessing to watch her freinds follow her into America. These Luoyang kids are amazing!

Abbey still misses China from time to time. I think that is normal and healthy for her to be able to express, but it is still hard to hear. I think I just want her to love it here so much that it is hard to think about her wishing for there. She was talking about something in China the other day and said, "I want to go there!" I was really in a sad mood that day anyway, so I asked her if she really wanted to go there. She replied an excited, "yes!". I said, "Do you want to go there to stay or visit?" She told me, "No no no! My home is here! I just want to see it then come back here." Oh my heart!

She celebrated her 14th birthday on Sept 4th. This was a day that was to be a celebration of her being with her forever family and not losing her hope of a famiy's love. However, Wayne's dad died unexpectedly at 12:04am on that day and so her birthday celebration had to be postponed for awhile. We were not even able to do gifts on that day. We did run to a store and grab a quick cake to give her that evening at Wayne's parent's house, but it was just a sad day. Abbey was her usual sweet compliant self, but I know that it must have bothered her. She had only met her grandfather about 4 times so she wasn't close to him. It was really difficult.

We did celebrate at a later date:

Abbey is a beautiful girl on the inside and out. I am sure that we still have a long way to go in our journey of getting to know her. But I also know that it is a journey that God called us to take. I hurt to think of some of the things that she has endured in her life and I am not sure I can handle hearing about it from her. But I will, when she's ready. God will show us what she needs and we will faithfully be that for her.

And to answer the question: Yes.

Even knowing how hard it's been and knowing that more hardships are to come.....

I would adopt Abbey again in a heartbeat.

Help Please

2010-11-11T13:59:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone!

Life is finally slowing down a wee bit and I am really missing blogging!

I would really like to get a blog makeover done. I have piddled around with it a bit, as I am sure you can tell.

So who did y'all get to tweek up your pages?

Hmmmmmmmmmmm?

2010-06-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your emails of concern and I am sorry if we worried anyone. We really are doing just fine. But we are super busy until the end of this month with sports camps and youth camps so my blogging will be sporadic at best.

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Abbey is doing super. It really is much easier than I expected. That's not to say that there are no challenges, because there are, they are just very managable. For example, I feel like I must watch her as closely as a little one because she is just so curious about things. You just never know when she is gonna stick her hand down the garbage disposal to try to figure it out. Things like that. But she is very content and happy. She just has this look of joy on her face most of the time. Language is still an issue, as expected. But she does well using her translator or my jibbigo app on my iphone. Her eating is getting better. She is very willing to try anything, but she just doesn't really like a big variety of foods. She loves potatos (and potato chips) and strawberry anything. She really liked the spaghetti I made the other night. We are working on her starting to just get up and get her something if she is hungry, instead of waiting until one of us eat. I have watched her just wait for one of us to go to the kitchen and fix a snack and then realize that she was hungry. I want her to feel free to fix her own snack at any time. But we will get there eventually.

She had the oppurtunity to watch Ashlyn and Sarah play volleyball Monday night. She was pretty impressed but said that she was not gonna get out there and play. We shall see.....

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My sweet Ashlyn had a birthday on the 3rd. I can't believe that she is 17! It seems like yesterday that she was a baby in my arms and now she is a young woman. One word to describe Ash is EASY. She has been the easiest of all my kids. She just goes with the flow and doesn't let things get to her. She is a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders. She loves God and wants to obey him and gets irritated when people don't take his word seriously. She is hilarious and makes everything fun. We absolutely love this girl to peices! I do not even want to think about her going off to college. But as all the college brocheres in my mailbox say, that time is approaching.

I am not much on big organized parties, but I love impromptu get togethers. We just called up a few friends that were not busy and threw some steaks and hotdogs on the grill and celebrated Ashlyn's day. Sydney picked out a cake for her, which her and Lauren (my brother's daughter) then smeared in each other's faces.

Abbey has told us that she wants to learn to play the guitar, so our friend Greg gave her a little impromptu lesson. He said she had a real good grasp on music and would have the guitar down in no time. (There's no pics of Sarah because she was sweet enough to take these pics for me!)

OK that's all I have time for now. I have to drive my two college age youth helpers to a training at Jeff City so they can work as small group leaders at our upcoming Super Summer camp! Driving 5 hours round trip today and tomorrow. ~sigh~

Crazy Big Family

2010-06-01T21:14:00.000-05:00

Yep that's what Abbey is calling us. I think she has figured out that life will not be boring in our house. Our family laughs a lot and at times is just plain nuts. But we are not boring.

Abbey is settling in well and I think is doing great. She still has some moments that I think she may be sad or feel left out of the fast moving conversation, but they are not very often. She has contacted several friends back in Luoyang using QQ. She has also contacted several Luoyang friends who are already here in the States. Tonight during our grandson's t-ball game we were able to call Macy from the KC area. She has been home since August-ish. Her mom, Lori, and I have formed a friendship through our adoptions and she is a sweet freind to me. We called her during the game and Abbey and Macy were able to talk for a good long time. It was also hilarious for us to watch people walk by and hear Abbey speaking Chinese. They would whip their heads around with this crazy look on their faces. HeeHee. Here are a few pics I managed to take before Abbey turned around to face the other way. Typical teenager.

And here are a few more pics I took tonight. I looked at my camera and I had not taken one pic since returning from China. Shame on me!

These are only of Bryce because Jayden would not get his picture taken. I"ll have to get him next time. But look how tough Bryce looks without his front tooth! Grrrrrrrr!

Ashlyn and Sarah are in volleyball camp this week, it is pretty quiet around here during the day. But tomorrow Abbey, Sydney, and I will go to town. Abbey's glasses are ready and we will get to pick them up. And yes I will get pictures for y'all.

Home

2010-05-27T04:31:00.000-05:00

Yes we are home.

I know that I kind of dropped off there. But we are having a terrible time with jet lag. Terrible. I do not remember it ever being this bad. However we never made that trip both ways with a 3 year old. She is just not adjusting. Right now it is 3am and she is up and ready for the day. The only progress we have made in her adjustment is moving her up to getting up at 3 instead of 1am. And those of you with bigger families know that the rest of the kids still need you, even though another child is draining you.

So here Sydney and I sat.

Ashlyn is doing great. I think she was back on MO time by Monday! Freaky child.

Sarah is having a bit more trouble. She cannot hardly stay awake all day still, which is Sydney's problem too. We have tried everything to get Syd awake during the day, but about 2-3pm she just crashes. We have tried everyting from taking a ride on the four wheeler to chasing butterflies to get her to stay awake. But she just drifts in and out of sleep for about 6 hours during the day. Grrrrrr.

Abbey is doing wonderful. She is such a sweet girl with such a positive spirit. She is not timid about joining in on what we are doing but is not overbearing either. She does very well speaking to all the new people she meets. I think this is her best area of English, just casual conversational polite phrases. She is adjusting well to the time change also. We took her shopping Tuesday to get her some shorts and I told her how many pair we were gonna buy her when we first got there. She looked and looked with her brow deeply furrowed. It was kind of sad because I know that she was thinking that none of this looks like what she is used to. But she did come out with 5 pair to try on and we bought her two of them. She is a size 1! Little bitty thing! But I was happy that she could fit in to the juniors sizes. I was afraid she would have to go to the little girls section and not be able to find anything old enough for her.

We have had several visitors, but nothing overwhelming. We have two boys that are friends of the girls stop by and they chatted with Abbey alot. She did very well with them. They used the translator to communicate what they could not. Ashlyn noticed that Abbey would put what she wanted to say into the translator and then let it translate it into English, then read it and say it herself. I thought that was a very good thing. She is a very smart girl.

She gets up every morning and makes her bed, which I love teasing my other two teenagers about. She helps with dishes when we all do them and yesterday just went in and started washing them on her own. Nice.

Today we have eye exams for Abbey and Sarah. I don't remember if I mentioned it on here that we discovered in China that Abbey usually wears glasses but she left them at the orphanage for the other kids to use. She has also complained of a headache several times, so we think that may be related. Please pray for us at her exam at 1:00. Sarah is due too, so we figured that if Sarah went first and Abbey watched that maybe it would help her understand what is going on. Hopefully we can communicate well enough to get a good diagnosis on her eyes.

Overall, it could not be going better. I prepared for the worst, and it is not anything like that. I know we are still in the early stages of this, but I am so relieved that she is doing so well. God is so good to us. There is no doubt that she was created to be here as my daughter. Oh what wonderful plans he has for us.

Trust Him, friends. He knows what He is doing.

More hotel pics

2010-05-20T21:29:00.001-05:00

Pictures around our hotel

2010-05-20T21:27:00.001-05:00

Last day in Guangzhou

2010-05-20T21:25:00.001-05:00

Today is the last day here in Guangzhou!! Can you hear the joyous laughter radiating from us!! We have loved our time here but are soooooooo ready to head home. We will spend today packing (it will take a while, trust me) and gathering last minute items. Our guide will bring us Abbey's passport and immigration papers at 4:00 this evening and then we are done! We leave the hotel at 5:30am Saturday morning (4:30pm Friday in MO) and we will land in St. Louis at 7:45pm Saturday night, which will put us arriving at our home about midnight Saturday. It will be a 31 hour trip toal. ~sigh~

I asked Abbey if she is ready to go home and she said yes. I am not sure that she understands just how long it will take us to get there and all the switching and waiting involved. I plan on getting the translator out this afternoon and trying to get her up to speed on the plan. Her cold had gotten quite a bit better but then we started running low on meds and started giving her 1/2 doses to get her through. Now she is starting to get the cough back again. I guess we will be heading to WalMart on the way home. ~heehee~

I don't think I mentioned that we met another familly here. We shared a guide with them while here in GZ. They were a good Christian family that we really enjoyed spending time with. They left on Wednesday and we have missed them ever since. I will post a pic of Preston and Stephanie and sweet Miranda today.

Posting pics has proven to be somewhat difficult so I plan on trying to post several bunches of them throughout the day today.

Long Days

2010-05-19T21:18:00.001-05:00

Ashlyn is awesome!!!!!!

As we are waiting for final paperwork to process, we are utterly bored. Yesterday it rained all day long, which put us hanging out in the room for much of the day. We were able to rent a dvd player from the front desk which helped to pass the time. But since Abbey cannot understand the English movies and we cannot understand the Chinese, it kind of made it difficult. She spent alot of the day on QQ chatting with her friends. That's ok though, because I believe that is good for her. We want her to know that her past is welcome in our family. She will not be expected to leave it all behind, instead we want to blend it into our life.

Today we go to the American Consulate for an oath swearing ceremony then they give us her immigration papers. This is the sacred brown envelope that cannot be damaged or tampered with in any way. We will guard it with our lives! These papers allow her to become a US citizen when she physically enters America. It will be a joyful time, but also a little sad to think that she will no longer be a Chinese citizen.

Tomorrow we get her final required item, her Visa. It should be issued at 4:00 then we are free to leave! We will leave the hotel 5:30am Saturday morning to catch a 7:30 flight to Shainghai (sp?). It is only a 2 hours flight and then our flight to Chicago doesn't leave until 4pm. It will be a long day in the airport with Sydney and then a long 13 hour flight to Chicago. Hopefully she will sleep through at least some of it.

I will try to post pics later today. We are headed out to meet our guide soon.

We are almost outta here!

More Swim Pics

2010-05-18T05:31:00.001-05:00

Abbey's First Swim

2010-05-18T05:27:00.001-05:00

As we wait on the endless paperwork to be completed here in Guangzhou, we are learning all kinds of new things about our newest daughter. For example, we have learned that Abbey has never gone swimming. And since this hotel has an awesome pool, we just had to rectify this. But first, we had to convince her to get into a swimsuit. This was no easy feat. Finally we convinced her that she really could come out of the bathroom like this. And with swimsuit, t-shirt, and shorts firmly in place, we headed to the pool. We walked out onto the pool deck with her grinning and squeeking. Not sure if she was delighted or terrified or a combination of both. We spent about 30 minutes there before we managed to get our sweet girl into the water. She really did like it, although she didn't let go of the edge for a second. We are pretty sure that she concluded that her new family was nuts when Wayne, Ashlyn, and Sarah began dunking each other.

When we asked today if she would like to go swimming again, we received a definate nooooooooo.

HeeHee.

Park Pics

2010-05-17T06:42:00.001-05:00

Boat Ride

2010-05-17T06:27:00.001-05:00

Medical exam

2010-05-17T03:16:00.001-05:00

When God promised us he would not leave us. He meant it.

We had Abbey's medical exam today. She had to have her tb test read. If it was determined positive, then we would have to have a chest xray which would not only be more money, but it would be questionable because of her cold/deep cough. In the US the two xrays could be easily distinquished, but we are definately not in the US. If the xray is not clear than we would have to change our departure date and we could be here for a while longer while we straighten it out. We looked at it yesterday and even took pictures of it and sent it to other adoptive parents to get some comparisons. It pretty much was red swollen and very sore. She didn;t even want us to touch it. We all just knew that it was positive. I was not a bit worried about her actually having tb. Anyone who has been vaccinated for it or been exposed to it will test positive for the rest of their life. We rallied some prayer warriors from around the US and some more here in China and went to bed thinking about her red swollen arm.

And guess what.

We got up this morning and her arm is fine. Just a little bit pink and not hardly sore at all. Oh yeah, negative tb test! WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO! And we had the sweetest female doctor in the world doing Abbey's exam!

How great is our God!

I shouldn't have even been surprised. Look at all he has done for this sweet girl so far.......

Another day closer to home....

2010-05-17T03:00:00.001-05:00

It's is early Monday morning here in GZ as Sydney decided to get up at 4:45am. Her poor little time clock will never be the same again. But we are up and watching Garfield and drawing ladybugs. Mommy may have to join her for her nap this afternoon though.

Yesterday we kind took it easy in the morning. We ate breakfast here at the hotel. They have a huge breakfast buffet and the best coffee! Abbey giggled when I got excited over the coffee. And on my 5th cup, she was helping me pour in my creamer. She might as well get used to me needing my coffee. It is the best part of waking up, after all.

After breakfast we headed back up to the room for awhile. We actually have several English channels here which is helping. Our guide in ZZ said that after the Olympics came to China that alot of western culture stayed with them. I can tell a huge difference in the hair styles and clothing in just the last two years since we were here. When we returned to the room after breakfast, the result show of American Idol was on! We were so excited! We had looked up online who went home this week, but now we definately won't this week. We got to see it about 12 hours after you all do, so don't tell us! Funny thing, there were several of the jokes, one in particular made by Ellen after Mike and Casey sang, that the Chinese government edited out. We only knew about it because one of Ashlyn's friend told her. But when we watched it here, they skipped over it.

After American Idol, we headed to the Starbucks right acrossed the street. Can you see a pattern. We bought coffees and sweets. Abbey tried her first caramel latte. She did not like it at all but it was worth the money just to see the face she made. So cute. Sarah was able to get her hazelnut vanilla frappe, so she was a happy, happy girl. Ash had what she labeled "the best bluebarry muffin in the world" and I loved a hazelnut latte! Yum!

Next we met our guide for some sightseeing. We all loaded on a bus (full size this time, thank goodness) and headed off to a local park. And wouldn't you know t, just when I started to relax a little bit about the crazy driving, we were in a little accident, A taxi cab cut us off and we bumped him. It wasn't tramatic or anything, but it was still funny. I knew it had to happen eventually! The girls all jumped up and grabbed their cameras! Too funny.

We eventually made it to the park and walked around a lake in the massively humid GZ heat. We had only went about 1/4 of the way around it and we were drenched in sweat. The temperature is only in the mid 80's but the heat index is 105-110. HOT!! But it was worth every drop of sweat just to see some grass and trees. It felt a little more like home to just be surrounded with some nature! When we got to the end of the lake, they had paddle boats for rent! Well you know we just had to! Abbey was not gonna get in. No way, no how! Wayne finally convinced her and she loved it. We raced each other around the lake. Ashlyn and I won, (hey I paddled a little) and then we headed back.

We finished up some adoption paperwork and then went to dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was one of the better meals we have had here. Wayne's stomach has settled down, and he is feeling better. Not 100% yet, but much better. Then we had our guide take us to a grocery store for some food for our room. We've pretty much depleted all that I brought. The grocery store was on the fourth floor of a shopping mall. So we walk past the Chanel. Tommy, and Levi department, then go get our food, and walk back out through the mall. Odd.

That about wraps up our day. Today is the medical exam and tb test results. We need prayer for this as it has been quite tramatic for some of the kids in the past. I am pretty sure we will need to get an xray for Abbey's tb test, just like Sydney. So please pray us through.

Finally in Guangzhou

2010-05-15T07:15:00.001-05:00

What a roller coaster! We left Zhengzhou at 7:00 yesterday morning to tour Luoyang. Louyang is where Abbey has been living before becoming a Woods. We made the 3 hour drive in a teenie tiny van. Sydney looked at it and said, "No big momma van". We dodged bikes, scooters, construction, goats and cattle on the way, but we made it safely.

First we went to Maria's Big House of Hope. We were so excited to tour this facility. This healing home was built by Steven Curtis Chapman's adoption advocating agency, Shoahannah's Hope. It is a home for orphan's who need medical attention for a variety of issues and are unable to receive help here in China. The Chinese medical system is very behind the US's and is still filled with teas and herbs and that type of thing. So this home brings skilled surgeons to treat children with cleft palate and other conditions. We got to tour all the floors except the operating floor. We got to hold the sweet little cleft babies. I wanted to put a few in my bag and bring them home with me so badly!!!! There were twin girls there, both cleft babies. They were so precious! I seriously would have brought them home with us if they would have let me. I'm just sayin'!! Our guide had never toured this place before and she said she was so impressed by the love and care given to the children there. She even talked to them and asked if she could come and volunteer there because she could tell that it was a place that the children were truly loved!

One of the best parts about touring Maria's was that Abbey got to see an old friend. Michael Melsi met us there. Michael is a sweet sweet guy with a heart for orphans. He spent several years living with and teaching English to the kids of Luoyang. He also has witnessed to them while living in the Louyang SWI. He sent us many pictures of our Abbey and we will be forever grateful to him for that. I was so tickled to meet him! It was so precious to see her run to him and give him a big old hug!

We then left and went to Abbey's orphanage. ~sigh~ You need to understand that there is a dignity that I want to preserve for my new daughter. For that reson I will not publicly post alot of what we saw there. But I do want to tell the other waiting Luoyang parents that we saw many of your sweet children and I will be emailing you pictures and stories in the next few days as time allows. It was so sweet to meet Abbey's friends and to give them gifts and Starbursts.

We then headed to Abbey's favorite restaurant, KFC, where she ordered for us and showed us where the sinks were to wash up. It was pretty cool to let her show us around. I know that she is gonna be the one to be in an odd place in a few days, so this was a nice chance to let her be the one at ease.

We then drove another 3 hours to Zhengzhou airport for a quick 2 hour flight to Guangzhou. Or so we thought. We had decided earlier in the day to go ahead and just check everything instead of carrying on a few things. We knew that it was gonna be such a long emotional day and we wanted to have a simple flight and get to Guangzhou and relax. It was also Abbey's first flight ever and we want to keep it simple in that sense too. Also flying on a Chinese airline is a litte difficult because the anouncements are in Chinese and then very broken and heavily accented English. So we taxied out to the runway.......and sat for 2 hours. There was bad weather in Guangzhou and so our take off was delayed. Finally we took off and headed south.......only to be told that we could not land due to weather. We circled for a long time then we headed somewhere else. We had no idea where we were headed and could not get anyone to communicate with. Abbey was trying but she really didn't understand what was going on either. I finally got it communicated to her that this was not a normal flight and things were not happening like they normally would. She was so relieved at that because she was not so much enjoying all the drama and turbulence. We landed 6 hours after take-off, but we had no idea where we were. We quickly called our guide and made a stewardess come and talk to our guide and tell her where we were. Our guide said that we just needed to go with the airline to wherever they were taking us and try to get some rest. Uh, ok. So we were herded onto a bus and took off into the night......and rode for 45 minutes before finally stopping at a hotel. By the time we got into our rooms, it was 2:30 in the morning. We were supposed to fly out of Zhengzhou at 6:30 and arrive in Guangzhou at 8:30. We finally figured out that we were in Guilin in the Guangxi province. We were told to be at breakfast at 7am and they would try to figure everything else out by then. But this was Saturday morning and we were supposed to be starting Abbey's medical appointments. If we couldn't make it for them then we would be looking at rescheduling flights for all 6 of us and maybe having to stay here longer. Can you hear the tears starting to fall?

We arrived the next morning to breakfast and were told to get on the bus at 10 to head back to the airport. We ended us flying out at 11:30 and landing in Guangzhou at 12:30. Our guide met us and took us straight to the medical office for Abbey's TB test. We got it today and we will do her other medical exams on Monday when they read it. This way we will not lose any time and will not have to change any of our dates. Prayer request #1: Abbey must test negative for TB. If her test is positive then we will have to get a chest xray to prove that her lungs are clear before we can bring her home. The problem is that she has a cold with a pretty bad cough. I think her chest is conjested and it makes me a bit nervous. She got her test today and it is a bit red right now. We don't have to get it read until Monday, so please pray with us about it.

We are so exhausted. We had just almost gotten over the jet lag from the trip over and now it feels like we are starting all over. We are all ready for bed and it is only 7:45 (which will also explain the typos and spelling errors) When we finally got to our hotel our guide offered to just bring us pizza in the room. It was from pizza hut and tasted like heaven. We all ate until we were stuffed, except Wayne. Prayer request #2: Wayne has a tendency to eat anything. However that is not so good when you are in China. Hence, he has spent a good part of the last 18 hours becoming friendly with Chinese toilets. He is feeling better but is still a bit queasy. He had the worst color today, he was totally yellow. I seriously could have panicked over it. Please pray that he is better by morning and that he will no longer eat things he cannot identify!

I will soon post some of the things that Abbey is enjoying and discovering, but for now I am spent. I will attach pics to follow.

2010-05-13T08:11:00.001-05:00

Today was another busy day of dodging scooters and bicycles. Abbey just giggles when I get all panicky in the middle of the road. But it is seriously like a human form of frogger!

We finished up Abbey's adoption on the Chinese side. She is no longer a citizen of China and is our daughter in the eyes of the Chinese government. We were presented our certificate of adoption by the Civil Affairs office. It is pretty cool to see Abbey and Sydney's certificate side by side. God is so good to us. Far, far more so than we deserve.

After the official business was over, we went shopping for a few things that Abbey needed. We were with our guide this time, so things were alot easier. But at times I would turn around and there would be about 20 Chinese people standing behind us and staring at us. It is a bit unnerving, especially for Sarah who really wants to tell them to go away. Ashlyn pretty much just blows them off, but Sarah keeps saying, "What are they looking at? Seriously, we are buying books! Big flippin' deal!" Of course when she is acting like an elephant in front of the statue, it doesn't help.

We finished today off with a traditional Chinese dinner where Wayne and Abbey had a eating competition with chopsticks. Guess who won? She giggled at Wayne a lot today. He is pretty cute! :P

Sydney is starting to adjust to the time difference finally. She went down last night at 6 and slept until 4 this morning. But tonight she made it all the way until 8!

We have to have our bags packed and be ready to leave at 7:15 in the morning so I had better get going. We love you all and miss you very much!

More pics

2010-05-12T03:25:00.000-05:00

We have her!

2010-05-12T03:20:00.001-05:00

Let me introduce you to the bravest person I have ever met, our new daughter! I do not know if I could ever do what she has done. Or do it with as much grace, dignity or excitement that she has.

We met our guide this morning at 10:10 and headed to the civil affairs office. When we pulled in we parked beside a van and all of a sudden there she was! She hopped out and came to me with her arms opened for a hug. I said "Hi! How are you?" and she answered "I am OK thank you" in very good English. I turned towards Wayne and said "This is...." and I wasn't sure how to finish. But she jumped right in and said "Dad" and hugged his neck too. Then we introduced the girls and she hugged both big girls and was not shy at all. She helped Sydney out of the van and up the stairs. It was really cute.

We went in to the civil affairs office and proceeded to do all the necessary paperwork. She just seemed so happy and excited. She behaved like she has been looking forward to this day forever. There was joy all over her. I was surprised and I guess I just didn't expect that. But I should have, after all that God has done for us this far! Oh me of little faith. And yes, I know that this is purely a honeymoon phase, and we will face more emotions in the next few days, but I am really enjoying this right now.

After the adoption business, we went for lunch. Our guide told us that she loved KFC which we already knew, so we headed there. The girls were soooooo ready for some American food. And what do you know, but Abbey will fit right in with our family when it comes to eating fried chicken! During dinner, our guide told us that she had some business to take care of and pointed out the way to WalMart and then back to the hotel. And off she went. Now I do have to confess that I was a bit surprised and alot nervous that we may never see our hotel again. But with the help of Abbey and our iphone translator app, we made it to WalMart. (I know, I know, even in China my family heads to WalMart!) We were able to get a few items of clothing there and some other things for Abbey. She was able to tell us whether she liked certain clothes or not. We even had a good laugh over the clothes that Wayne picked out! He's so cute!

We then proceeded to head back towards the hotel. This included crossing the street about 5 times. Praise the Lord that the Chinese have finally started some kind of pedestrian crosswalk system. Although the bikes and scooters are right in the middle of the pedestrians, which translates to us being honked at by about 25 bikes or scooters at each crossing. I need to get me one of those obnoxious bullhorns and when someone honks at me, I can just let loose with a big AHOOOOOOOGA! :P I think I shall invent an app for that. Needless to say we did make it back to our blessed hotel.

Abbey has spent the last 30 minutes drawing pictures for Sydney and is now painting Sydney's nails. She is so stinkin' cute!

2010-05-11T04:39:00.001-05:00

We are now in Zhengzhou and settled somewhat into the Holiday Inn here. We are utterly exhausted. Jet lag hit us all abour 3:30. Ashlyn and Sarah are sound asleep. Wayne is drifting in and out. I just woke up from an hour nap. Sydney fell asleep right before take off at 1:00 and slept through the entire flight and the ride to the hotel. We have tried everything to get her up to no avail. She is sound asleep! And she has been for 4 hours! We really need sleep tonight and not another 3:00am wake up, but it's not looking so good.

We were met be our guide Sarah at the airport and she is a really nice girl! Very helpful and can speak English very clearlly. She brought us to the hotel and they had our two rooms on two separate floors! They said if we wanted that we could have two rooms close together but they would be smoking rooms. Our Sarah has asthma and so that was unacceptable. Our guide handled it well and got us two rooms side by side that are non-smoking, well at least as non-smoking as there is in China. It seems as if the scent of cigaretttes is everywhere, although I'm sure that's just us because we are never around it. We are supposed to meet our guide in the lobby in 25 minutes to go eat dinner. She is taking us to a noodle place. Hmmmmm. That is if I can wake anyone up.

We are to meet Abbey at 10:30 in the morning. That will be 9:30pm Tuesday night at home. I have so much to gather and do before morning but my mind is just so stinkin' fuzzy! Wayne is supposed to be trying to wake up the girls and I see he is back asleep, so I had better go see what I can rouse...........

2010-05-10T19:37:00.001-05:00

We made it to Beijing safe and sound. We are tired but releived to to off the long flight. Sydney did wonderful on all the flights. She wasn't a bit afraid of take off or landing. She just loved it. We are doing well. Even though Sydney had been up since 3am.

We are leaving now to head to Zhengzhou. I will try to update from there tonight.

We get Abbey tomorrow.

Prayers please.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T05:00:00.001-05:00

Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west.

Isaiah 43:5

2010-05-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

Give and it will be given to you.

A good measure, pressed down,

shaken together and running over,

will be pured into your lap.

Luke 6:38a

Thank you Gift of Adoption Fund for awarding us a $3500 grant!!!

The Lord will guide you always;

he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11

His love never ceases to amaze me. Every little thing is just falling into place. We feel like we are just along for the ride, not at all driving or leading. It is very humbling and invigorating at the same time.

We will leave home tomorrow evening and stay in St. Louis. We have to be at the airport at 5:30am Sunday morning to check in for our flights. We will fly out of Lambert at 8:00am Sunday and land in Beijing at 9:40pm on Monday China time (which is 8:30am Monday morning in Missouri).

Just 42 hours left..........

So God

2010-05-05T08:12:00.001-05:00

How appropiate that God prompted me to put John Waller's song on my blog long ago.

I'm waiting on you Lord.

That's where I've been since Saturday.

Waiting.

Being still......

and knowing that He is indeed God.

We were $6000 away from being able to leave for China. The people that we used to be would have high-tailed it to a bank or a credit card and secured the debt that we needed to meet our goal. But God has changed us. He told my sweet husband Saturday night that we had not gotten ourselves this far. He had brought us to this point. So why would we want to take over now?

So we waitied.

We faced many questions from our well-meaning family and friends.

"What's the back-up plan?"

"What are you gonna do?"

"Only one of you should go."

"You should leave the girls home."

"You shouldn't have booked those tickets."

"What's plan B?"

And we also got some not-so-well-meaning comments from one of our chat groups when the topic of fundraising came up.

"Your needs are not more important than others."

"If you can't afford to adopt, you shouldn't have started this."

"You have no right to tie up a child's file then not be able to go get her."

"If you can't afford to adopt, you shouldn't."

"If you can't afford to go get her than you should just leave her there in her own country with her own parents."

You can bet I clarified that WE ARE HER PARENTS and I am no longer a member of that group.

All of this while we waited on the Lord.

Meanwhile things slowly started happening.

Sweet bloggy friends made very generous donations. Thank you my friends. You melt my heart.

We heard from the GoA grant that we were being recommended for funding a grant. We gave them the asked for updates (we still needed $6000 at that time!) and we should hear something in the next week or so.

My mom and dad gatherd up all of their spare change and gave it to us to roll. Holy cow! They had a lot. Like over $400 worth. Can you just hear the story of the loaves and fishes?

Our in China travel came back $2500 under what we expected. That is so God. We got the estimations from our agency just Saturday! So God.

We sat here this morning, only 4 days later, and only about $2000 away from our goal. And we think we know where we can get about half of that. So so God.

We will update our Chip In button today and also end it Friday so we can transfer funds before we leave.

If God is prompting you to give, give. If not, he's got another plan to provide and we love you anyway!

And to top is all off we got some new pics of Abbey from some other parents who are adopting from Luoyang. She is in the background of several......

She looks so good. She also looks older. The last pictures we have of her are from Lori's visit to Luoyang to get Macy.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength.

1 Chronicles 29:11-12

Can't you just hear the truth ringing from this Scripture. God gave me this during my morning quiet time this morning. We do not live under society's kindom. We don't live according to the logic of humans. We live for God only. We serve God only. We obey God only. I love the safety in that. The safety in knowing that I am not in control and I sooooooo don't want to be. Everything is His. Our selves. Our children. Our futures. Our security. Our confidence. And yes even our finances.

...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6

See! Scripture tells us that he will not leave us dangling. I have spent so much of my life thinking that he is able to do great things, but I would probably do something to mess it up. That is a lie that Satan has used to keep me down. It is not the truth. We are not that powerful. That is pride talking there. He will not give up on us and he will not leave us. He will finish what he started. My life has been planned out from day one and he will see me through until I take my last breath.

Oh how I praise his name!

2010-05-01T07:48:00.001-05:00

Well the good news is that we finally got flights booked. We flay out on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 9th, and return Saturday, May 22.

But........

Due to the lack of travel done in the latter part of March because of a Trade Fair in Guangzhou, there is a shortage of available flights now. Which doesn't make a lot of sense considering there is a World Fair going on now.

All of that means that we paid way more for flights than we expected.

Way more.

Waaaaaaay more.

Like $3000 more.

But let me tell you who God is to me. He is the lifter of my head. I left the computer and went and jumped in the shower so disheartened. We were getting so close to the goal only to see the goal line moved. I come back in and see a message on one of our Yahoo groups asking if anyone is doing any fundraising. Literally asking where she could give money away to. And she gave us $50!! Only in adoption. Only with God. He was not surprised or deflated. He was not disheartened. He knows what the end will hold and he will get us there.

Bottom line: we need $6000 in 8 days.

If you've been wanting to donate and just haven't, please do now. I will be editing our chip in button with our new dates and needs.

Please spread the word about our need on your blogs and Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Please spread the word about our need to others at your church tomorrow. Write down our blog site and give it out to our body of believers.

Please pray for us.

Please pray for Abbey.

And then just sit back and hold on.

And watch my Jesus come through.

The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:24

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Genesis 28:15

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

John 14:18

Tentative Travel Dates

2010-04-29T07:20:00.000-05:00

Ok so we have some tentative travel dates, but nothing confirmed. We are requesting a CA (US Consulate appt) of May 18th or 19th or 25th. Our caseworker said that we usually get the first or second requested dates and either one of those would mean the following itenerary.

Fly out probably Sunday, May 9th (Mother's Day!)

Arrive in Zhengshou Tuesday, May 11th

Get Abbey Wednesday, May 12th

Fly to Guangzhou Friday, May 14th

Medicals Saturday, May 13th

TB test read Monday, May 17th

CA Tuesday, May 18th

Oath Wednesday, May 19th

Visa, Thursday May 20th

Can leave after 8pm on Thursday, May 20th

We should get confirmed dates either today or tomorrow.

That puts us leaving a week from Sunday! That is quick! It is a bit surreal right now. I feel like I should be freaking out or something, but I really am not. I do have a ton of stuff to do before I can say I am ready to go. But I am not as overwhelmed as last time. The big girls are excited, but sad to miss some of their end of the year activities.

But since I have lived the last few weeks hanging by the phone, today I must go get some groceries!

2010-04-28T14:46:00.000-05:00

Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.

Isaiah 43:5

Workin' at the Carwash

2010-04-28T05:00:00.002-05:00

Oh yeah, with help like this, who would ever need to pay good money at a car wash?!?!?

I'm just saying!

Prom

2010-04-26T12:16:00.000-05:00

This weekend was Ashlyn's prom.

We spent the day Saturday primping, polishing, curling, and laughing. I have fixed her hair for all of her big events and I wondered if she would want me to do it again. She did and I had a blast doing it.

It was raining all day that day and only cleared up as we were driving to meet up with her friends for pictures. But as only God can do, a bright rainbow appeared followed by brilliant sunshine, perfect for pictures!

First we had to stop by my grandma's and show her Ashlyn's dress. Grandma told Ashlyn she looked beautiful.

Nana bought Sydney a "prom dress" too. She thougth she was hot stuff!

Ash and her friend forever, RayVen.

When did they grow up?

I must have blinked.

Does she love her big sister or what?

So stinkin cute!

Ashlyn and Me

Ashlyn and her date, Evan. He is a sweet buddy to Ashlyn and a real good kid!

I was happy they went togother. They are alot alike.

Brooke, Cody, Ashlyn, Evan, RayVen, and Shawn.

Good friends!

She had a good time and it kept me very busy during the latter part of the week. Busyness is a good thing as we still wait patiently (~ahem~) for TA.

Four weeks today of the 3-5 week estimated wait.

But who's counting?

Our update did contain new measurements. It stated that she was 5'1" and weighed 110 lbs. If anyone has a daughter about that size and can give me a guess as to what size clothing she will wear, I would really appreciate it. Of course, you always should take this kind of info with a grain of salt, as proven by her updated foot length. Apparently our new daughter has sprouted feet that are 38 cm long, which is about 15 inches.

Shouldn't be too long now until we can go get ole Bigfoot!

2010-04-21T13:32:00.002-05:00

No TA yet.

But we did get an update.

Without new pictures.

~sigh~

I will let you know what the update does contain when she emails it to me.......

4 Minutes!

2010-04-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

So yesterday Ashlyn needed to go try on her prom dress after alterations. I got a very uncooperative Sydney ready and finally got out the door at 2:38. I know this because I looked at the van clock as I was pulling out of the driveway and thought about how late I was. We had a lovely afternoon picking up her dress, finding shoes, and getting her & Sarah's nails done. We returned home just in time to watch American Idol (MamaSox you rock!) on DVR and head to bed.

This morning I realized that I had not checked the caller ID from yesterday, you know, just in case.

Yup.

Heidi, our case worker, called at 2:42.

I missed it by 4 minutes.

And in our rural area we do not get cell service until we get about 15 miles away.

Hmmmmmmm.

She didn't leave a message......what did she want.........was it our TA...........was it our update...........my mind is whirling! And to top it off, she is going to be out of the office from today until Monday. And I know that it was her because the number that showed was her desk number.........

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

With the time zone difference, their office doesn't open until 11:00 our time.

At 11:01, I will be on the phone.........................

2010-04-20T07:48:00.001-05:00

No news yet on TA.

It is getting increasingly difficult to focus on anything else.

But it is so cool to watch God weave this story together.

Humbling.

We are just hanging on while God moves.

You will see the chip in total amount lower as we receive donations that we receive through other means.

For example:

I stopped yesterday to just run a normal errand. When the owner of the business saw me, she gasped and said, "Oh, you're here! God has had you on my mind! I have been praying for you! I have to give you something!" She then gave me a $500 donation towards our adoption.

I have heard similar stories from other families who have stepped out in faith to complete an adoption. But I guess I just didn't believe that it would happen for me.

Oh how I praise Him!

Let's Go Cardinals!

2010-04-18T19:30:00.000-05:00

Oh yes what a game!

Yesterday my parents treated us to a Cardinal baseball game!!

The girls were sooooo excited. We love the Cardinals and watch them regularly. We discussed which game to get tickets to and decided on yesterday because it was a 3:00 game. We didn't want to have to get up early and take off for a noon game and we didn't want to be out too late for a 7:00 game, so this was perfect.

Well so much for plans.

The game went 20, yes 20, innings.

It lasted 6 hours and 53 minutes.

And we lost 2-1.

And we froze!

Oh well.

We had a blast!

And the cool part was that after the game, all kids could come out on the field and run the bases!

Oh how I wanted to be a kid!

Sydney's first Cardinals Game!

Sydney trying to sneak away from Daddy.

My parents

Me and my mommy!

Sarah texting, of course!

You know it's cold when I will readily put sock on with my flipflops!

Here we go!

And they're off! Ashlyn and Sydney running the bases of Busch Stadium. So stinkin' cool!

My dad has some more pics on his camera that I will post when I get them.

2010-04-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

Guess where I am?

Update

2010-04-13T07:18:00.000-05:00

What a weekend.

To say we were encouraged is a massive understatement. We had such a good turnout for our fundraiser! We sold so much stuff and also served a ton of bar-b-que. I loved seeing everyone and getting to talk with them about our adoption. I know that there were a few seeds planted and I pray that God will use my efforts to encourage another family to bring a child home.

Ten minutes before the service, my friend, Greg, who was leading the service, asked me to say a few words. I am the communicator in the family, not Wayne. He just gets all tongue tied. So I got to speak a little, unplanned.

~gulp~

At the end of the day, we had raised over $2200!!!!!!!

Thank you Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!!

For a little community like this one, that is staggering! We also have received some donations in the last couple of days. I will try to figure out how to add those figures into the chip-in total. I may just have to make a whole new one, I'm not sure. If you know anything about it, let me know.

Also, our agency buddy, Kerry got her TA yesterday. We have the same dates up to this point. I never thought I would say this, but we need a few more weeks!

It's only been 2 weeks since Article 5!

We need a little more time!

~breathe~

Tomorrow

2010-04-09T05:13:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is our big....

ADOPTION FUNDRAISER!!!

At Black River Baptist Church

Yard Sale 1:00-6:00pm

Silent Basket Auction 1:00-5:45pm

Bar-B-Que 1:00-6:00pm

Gospel Singing 6:00pm

If you live near me, please come out and support us!

If not, then please please please

cover us with your prayers.

We covet your prayers more than anything else!

We are 11 days into our wait for TA (expected in 3-5 weeks)!

It won't be long now......

Another season...

2010-04-08T05:55:00.002-05:00

Sarah is finishing up her Jr. High Volleyball season today with our conference tourney. I wish I could say it has been a wonderful season, but in reality, it hasn't. She is a good player with a soft heart. This season has been hard on her sweet heart. Alot of drama and just plain meanness went on this season. And that's all I am gonna say about it.

You are a good little setter, #8. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. I am very proud of you and the way you conducted yourself throughout this season.

I love you!

Easter Pics!

2010-04-07T07:54:00.000-05:00

Yes I am a little late in posting these, but you should be used to that by now. :)

Wayne really wasn't mad, but the sun was brutal!

This is little Faith who came home from Korea about the same time as Sydney came home from China.

Good friends.

One more try for a family pic.

And of course we had to hunt eggs!

Thank you for dying for me, Jesus. I don't deserve your love, but I will forever be grateful for it.

What's In a Name? Everything!

2010-04-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

Since Sydney is at my mom's house "helping" her in her flower garden, I thought I would take advantage of this blessed silence and share with you one of the ways that God confirmed our adoption of Abbey.

We began this journey to Abbey/YeHong on March 18th, 2008. It was the second day we had Sydney and we were back at the Civil Affairs office for our interview. The hot and stuffy room was full of other new families. I noticed Wayne watching the other families closely. This was not odd because he loves just setting and watching people. I don't get it, but he does. Anyway, I noticed him watching a certain family. The parents were probably in their late 40's or early 50's and they had a new daughter of about 10 years old. They had obviously just gotten her, because they were waiting to be interviewed as well. They had given this sweet girl a simple digital camera. She was taking pictures of everything in sight including herself and her new parents. Then she would show the pictures to them and just smile the biggest and sweetest smile imaginable. Wayne leaned over to me and said, "Look over there. One of these days, we are gonna come back and adopt one of the older children like that." He said it so matter of factly that I remember getting chills. And I lovingly looked him straight in the eye and said, "Absolutely not!"

Oh can you just hear God giggle......

Fast forward to summer of 09. We definately had the adoption bug again. I could not stop looking at photo listings and just yearning to bring another child home. However I was not looking at the older children. I was just too afraid, for whatever reason, to think about adopting an older child. But as time moved on and God worked, I kept meeting these incredible families that adopted 13 year olds. I just loved thier stories and how I could just see God all over them. It wasn't long until we were matched with a beautiful 13 year old girl from Luoyang named YeHong. When we saw her video, my heart just melted. It is very difficult to explain, but she was just mine.

We begin the paperwork, and about two months into it, I begin to get very afraid. I began to question everything we were doing. I was afraid it would be too hard. We had told several people, and the reactions were not all that possitive. You know the look, raised eyebrows, high pitched voices saying "Oh really. That's nice." I was doing a bit of a downward spiral and feeling like I had jumped in way over my head.

At the same time, we were also struggling to come up with a name. It is very diffucult to name a 13 year old. Alot of names seemed too baby-ish. Some of the other Luoyang families had gotten an English name in thier referral file. But Yehong's file did not have an English name in it anywhere. So we began tossing around names for her. We have a Sarah and Sydney and so we thought another "A" name to go with Ashlyn would be cute. We thought of Alex, which the whole family pretty much liked. I liked the name, but for some reason, it just did not settle well with me. I brought up Abbey. But everyone was pretty set on Alex. We considered Allie for awhile. Then back to Alex. All the while I just kept saying, "I just think she should be Abbey. I don't know why, it just seems right."

In the mean time, I email Michael. He is a man who served in Louyang orphanage for a long time and he had posted some pics of YeHong on his web page. I just wanted to thank him for that and for loving the LouYang kids like he did. As a final thought, at the end of the email I asked him if he knew whether or not Yehong Had an English name. When he emailed me back, of course, the first thing he told me was, "Yes, she had an Englesh name, it is Abbey." Let me tell you, the Holy Spirit rained on me at that moment and just confirmed from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet that this was my daughter. I ran to Wayne jumping up and down and yelling "Her name is Abbey! Her name is Abbey!" We were just in awe.

You see, when God calls you to do something, it is personal. He will give you what you need, when you need it. It may not be on your time table. He may not give you the 10 step plan, outlined and numbered. But he will give you what you need, when you need it, and in a way that is personal to you.

That's who he is.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19

The Lord will guide you always: he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen you frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11

2010-03-31T08:30:00.000-05:00

Thank you all that have reached out to our family. It is not easy asking for help. I absolutely love helping others and seriously get kind of excited when they share a need with me, because then I know what I can do to help. I have had to have some serious talks with myself in order to put our need out there. God's word tells me "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." I don't know about you, but I need his grace every single day, so I need to prepare my heart to be a place to receive it.

I know he will provide the means to go get Abbey. I absolutely know it. I have several "God moments" from when we were beginning this journey to her that just confirmed to me that we were on his path. We have several options still open. We are seriously hoping to get our tax refund before we travel. We have a fundraiser planned at our church on April 10th. We will have a yard sale (several people have made some very generous large donations) and bar-b-que in the afternoon, and a gospel singing that night. Our church family has been so generous to us during this adoption. I truly think that they are seeing that God's heart is for the orphan and realizing that it is not only a "good" thing to do, it is an OBEDIENT thing to do. And just look at this sweet face!

Takes my breath away.....Thank you Lord for the honor and priviledge of being her mom!

We also have applied for many grants. I really feel strongly about the Gift of Adoption one. They give preference to lower income families (uhhhhh that would definately be us!) and harder to place children (have you met a 13 year old lately? jk) I have also had several of you contact me with some fund raising ideas. Keep them coming, we love the help. I may try to do some sort of give away on the blog, I am just not sure how yet.

Yesterday we received word from out agency that our Article 5 was picked up and delivered to the CC@@! That means that we only have one step left- TA (travel approval, which gives us permission to enter their country to adopt Abbey). Our case worker said to expect that in 3-5 weeks. Can I get an amen! It is both a blessing and a little fear-provoking that things are moving along. The timing is truly being orchestrated by God and I do not have any control over it. In the past, I would be miserable with that fact. I would need to be in control in order to have peace. But now, I have a peace about not being in control. I just finished teaching an adult Bible study class where we did the Crazy Love study. It was the second time through it for me, but the first time teaching it. I think the biggest thing I received from it this time is that I cannot even imagine what God can do in my life if I will truly let go of my plans and control. Simple thought, but not so simple to apply. But, oh the peace that I have. Wayne even mentioned yesterday that I was not freaking out on this adoption like I was in the last one, and I have more reasons to freak out in this one. I just am resting and waiting.

We are expecting an update on Abbey soon. Hopefully with updated height/weight and photos! I will be sure to post them as soon as I get them!

Crazy!

2010-03-25T17:02:00.001-05:00

I know that I have been somewhat quiet lately.

And there are reasons for that.

Some I will share with you and some I won't.

What I will share with you is this. It has been a loooooong winter.

You see, we own a constuction company and we live in a small midwest town. I think sometimes it takes a while for things to trickle down to us. For instance, the way we dress is probably a little bit behind the latest fashion trends, even though I know very little about that. In the same way, I think the hard economic conditions have just now reached us. We are just now starting to pick up work for the season. And it's nearly APRIL! As a result, we have had to dip deeply into our savings just to get by these last few months.

Why am I telling you this? Because of Abbey. Our beautiful 13 year old daughter waiting on the other side of the world for us. And we need to go get her. Problem is: we don't have the money to go. As a matter of fact, we are about $7900 short of having the money to go. GULP!

I know that God's heart is for the orphan. I know that he is in this. I know that he led us here. But while we are standing at the bottom of this mountain looking up, it looks HUGE. We need nearly $8000 in 6 weeks! GULP! GULP! GULP!

But God....

I have been getting extremely anxious about this. We have been faithful tithers for years and God has always provided. I am trying to remain positive and surround myself with others who "get it". I was coming home from church Tuesday night, (we are in revival at Black River Baptist Church!) and we were talking about a fundraiser that we are trying to plan. And I told Wayne that I think I was gonna email Linny & Dwight and ask them to flood the gates of heaven with prayer for us. I just love this family and I have learned soooooo much from them. I just needed some encouragement and I knew that I could get it from Linny. Well, busyness persued, and it is now it's Thursday. I sat down to email her, but first I check her blog..... well you just gotta go read it for yourself!

If you have encouragement or questions, please contact me at crosseyedmama@gmail.com or

Wayne & Leah Woods

8226 Hwy J

Black MO 63625

Spring!

2010-03-20T05:00:00.001-05:00

We are so lovin' this warm weather!

And the only thing better than playing barefoot on the slide is......

....is getting your big sister to slide with you!

Creative

2010-03-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

So I am cleaning the kitchen up yesterday and Sydney comes up behind me and me with a piece of toilet paper about 18 inches long. She wants me to tie it around her stomach.

OK, there you go, and she takes off like lightning.

A few minutes later, I realize she is being really quiet.

I call for her.

And here she comes.....

She cracks me up!!!

And speaking of crack, you should've seen the view from the rear!!!

Update

2010-03-18T05:00:00.001-05:00

Things are moving right along in our journey to Abbey.

Our paperwork has been cabled to Guangzhou and we received our NVC letter,

which was also forwarded to Guangzhou.

So now we wait on our Article 5 to be issued. Our agency says that this will happen on Monday March 29th. Then we wait for our TA, which should about 3 weeks later, somewhere around the April 19th. Then we go!

Holy cow!

I have got to get busy.....

Family Day

2010-03-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

Today marks 2 years that Sydney has been in our family. I must admit I am a bit weepy about it. Looking back at these pictures makes me sad for how small and under-developed she was. She was so tiny! Now we understand how she really was a 22 month old infant. But we were quite unprepared for that at the time. I am not sure one can ever be prepared for something like that. She was so malnurished. She could barely walk. She had never had solid food and when we tried to feed her, she would just move the food around in her mouth and give it back to us. She literally did not know how to eat. She had very thin hair and no muscle tone whatsoever. She hid her face with her hands for a long time and just could not look at us. It was utterly heart breaking.

She has made so much progress, and yet has so far to go. She still cannot sleep through the night without waking 1-3 times yelling for me. She does it in a way that seems like she doubts that I will come. She has that fear still. We still cannot leave her with a sitter without it triggering fits, tantrums, and sleeplessness for several weeks afterwards. She needs ALOT of one on one attention, and if she doesn't get it, we get fits, tantrums, and slepplessness. At almost four years old now, I would classify her as a 2 year old.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely. In a heartbeat.

I would not go back and change a thing. She is my daughter, through and through. I love her with every fiber of my being. She has stretched me to lengths that I did not think possible. And she has made me into someone that I could not have been without her.

Thank you, God, for this beautiful gift of adoption. Thank you for creating this child to be born on the other side of the world in order to journey all the way to my arms. I will forever be in awe of your love for us.

Chirp Chirp

2010-03-01T09:28:00.001-06:00

We received our I-800 approval on Friday!

WoooooooooooooooHoooooooooooooooo!

We should be sent to the NVC office on Tuesday.

Moving right along for sure.......

which means.......

let the nesting begin!

Oh doesn't this just scream SPRING!

I just have this huge urge to purge, scrub, organize, repaint, shampoo, air out, and basically

CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN!

And the thing is, I cannot remember being this behind in my housework. Now I will be the first one to admit, I am NOT the best housekeeper. My mom is the queen of clean. It is unhuman how clean her house stays. It always has been and I have absolutely no idea how she does this.

We have been on the run so much that only the bare minimum has been attempted around here, and it shows.

A friend of mine, Patty, mentioned on her blog, after her 13 year old daughter from Luoyang came home, it made her look at how her family lives and does things in a whole new light. When we adopt little ones, we are the normal they know. When we adopt older kids, they come with many preconceived notions on how things are supposed to be done. They have their own version of normal.

I cannot imagine what Abbey would think if she saw my house this morning.

I seriously have to get my butt in gear and catch up around here.

And I know just who is gonna pitch in.

Oh yeah! With help like this, we can do ANYTHING!

If you don't hear from me in a while, it means that retaliation for posting above pictures has occured. Please send backup.

2010-02-25T09:20:00.004-06:00

Things are slowly returning to normal around here. Well, as normal as it ever was. Sydney is finally starting to sleep again. That alone is enough to make Mommy sing praises. It is amazing what a little sleep will do for this old body. Getting up 5

(did ya hear me -5!)

times a night is a bit rough. Makes me a little bit loopier than normal. She is eating better, although still won't bite off anything. I think she is afraid that it will hurt, more so than it is actually hurting. She is a survivor for sure.

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Tonight marks the last regular season Varsity basketball game for Ashlyn. All that is left is districts, which is played over the course of 7 days at a school 2 1/2 hours away.

Nice.

And get this, the name of the town is Dora. Trying explaining to a over-stressed 3 year old that we are going to Dora, but not her Dora from TV. I can tell you right now that when we walk into Dora's gym and all she sees is another basketball game, she's not gonna be too happy.

And lest you think we are looking at a break in ball games, Sarah's first Jr High volleyball games is March 8!

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We are currently waiting on our I-800 provisional approval for Abbey...

....then NCV cables us to Guanzhou...

....then Article 5 is issued...

....then TA is issued...

....then we can travel.

Estimated travel dates according to agency's average time frame: May 1- June 1.

Estimated travel dates according to R*Q's average time frame: April 28.

With March right around the corner, (where did February go?), it is getting closer at an alarming speed. Our finances are not where we had hoped. We are construction and it is winter, ya know. We have applied for several grants that I am really hoping come through. We are also planning a yard sale to help our finances and to clear out some junk. For the life of me, I cannot figure out where all this STUFF comes from. It seems like I am constantly trying to purge closets. I especially need to work in Sarah's room to get it ready for Abbey to share. Her closet is packed with clothes that are not worn at all. She could furnish an entire sale with her closet alone! But when I look at the calendar, the next available date is April 3rd, which is Easter weekend. Then the 10th is open too. That is a little closer to travel than I would have liked. I will contunue to trust that God will bring us to where we need to be to travel. But I will also confess that I am getting a little nervous. I know I will feel better when we file our '09 taxes, as we expect a refund. I think the stresses of the last few weeks are getting me jumpy, and I need to relax in Jesus.....

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. (Deuteronomy 31:8)

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. (Exodus 14:13a,14)

DO NOT BE AFRAID, FOR I AM WITH YOU; I WILL BRING YOU CHILDREN FROM THE EAST AND GATHER YOU FROM THE WEST.

(Isaiah 43: 5)

Hard

2010-02-23T17:41:00.000-06:00

So Sydney had her surgery to correct the decay on her teeth.

How did it go?

NOT. WELL.

We were supposed to just fill the cavities she had and be done. Simple, right? It turned into me wanting to smack the over-eager-doctor-wanting-to-create-perfection-in-the-mouth-of-a-3-year-old. The first trip the nurse made out to talk to us was to tell us that they had no choice, they had had to extract one of her upper teeth.

Say what?!?!?!?

It went downhill from there.

Syd was supposed to be in surgery for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and at 3 1/2 hours into it, they actually came out and asked us, "Since we cannot get the 2 front upper teeth perfectly white because of all the bleeding, wouldn't you rather us extract them?"

Insert mommy getting hysterical here.

And to top it all off, the doctor pranced out afterwards to give us a lengthy and snotty speech about how children need to have their teeth brushed.

Ahem.

I gently reminded her of Sydney's very malnutritioned condition at 2 years old when we adopted her from China.

Her response? "China?"

She had no recollection whatsoever of Sydney's history, which she herself had told us had contributed to the dental condition.

Needless to say, it was a nightmare from beginning to end. She did briefly warn us that Syd may have some "ulcer-like problems in the corner of her mouth from keeping her mouth open so long". In reality, the instrument they used to hold her mouth open during surgery was too big and since the surgery lasted 2 hours longer than planned, both sides of Sydney's mouth split about 1/4 inch.

Oh I could go on and on.......

Here we are 8 days post-op and this is the first day Sydney has been at all like herself.

She has not slept through the night yet. She is up 3-5 times a night screaming for mommy.

She has asked a thousand times who gave her the boo-boos on her mouth.

She did not go off of pain relievers for the first 6 days.

I had to coat her lips and sides of her mouth with petroleum jelly every 15 minutes or so or she would scream that it hurt.

She could not eat anything with any substance to it at all for the first 5 days, and even now cannot bite anything off (even something as soft as a boiled hotdog).

She could barely open her mouth wide enough to put a spoonful of soup in.

She sat and looked in the mirror and cried over how she looked.

It has been a nightmare. Worse than that, it has been a nightmare that we agreed to put her though. I know that hindsight is 20/20, but right now I am kicking myself that I even agreed to the surgery in the first place. Our regular dentist thought it was borderline whether or not he would even fix it or just leave it alone since they are all baby teeth. Oh how I wish I would have just left it alone.

I know that she had some decay, but this is so much worse.

It feels like we put a cast on a papercut!

Happy Happy

2010-02-14T15:43:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentines Day, Sweetheart!

Happy New Year, Ye Hong!

New Earrings

2010-02-11T11:16:00.002-06:00

I want to thank all of you for purchasing my earrings. I wasn't sure if it would be worth my time, but you all have been so generous! I love the bond that is shared between adoptive parents!

I have been working on some new earring designs. I will post them here and then over on the sidebar.

Item #18

These are uniquely pretty. They are made with stacked variously shaped stones in browns & tans.

Strung on gold wire, they are 1 5/8 inch long and $12.00.

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Item #19

A shorter version of #18.

At 1 1/4 inches, they are also on gold wires and $10.00

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Item #20

On silver wires hangs a bead of black and a shear crackle finish bead.

These hang 1 3/8 inches, and are $12.00.

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Item #21

I really like these. I have one pair strung on copper wire (pictured) and another on gold wire.

The focal bead is a creamy goldish tan with black swirls.

At 1 7/8 inches long, they're really pretty, the picture doesn't do it justice.

They are $12.00

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Item #22

These are made with light pink acrylic beads on silver wires. My daughter really likes these beads!

They hang 1 3/8 inches and are $10.00.

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Item #23

I really like these too! They are made with a very light pink square bead with clear accents.

The square bead has a white swirl in it. They are strung on silver. Really unique and very pretty.

They are 1 5/8 inches long and $12.00.

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Item #24

These are the same shape bead as #22 but in a brighter pink.

Really cute with a silver wire loop at the bottom of the bead. These are 1 5/8 inches and $10.00.

Item #25

I added a clear accent bead to these. They feature the same bright pink bead as #24.

So cute on silver wire.

They hang 1 3/4 inches and are also $10.00.

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Item #26

I LOVE THESE! I just had to keep a pair for myself.

They are strung on gold wires and feature 4 different beads in brown, bronze, and tan.

These go with so many of my outfits.

They hang 2 inches long and are $12.00.

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Item #27

I like these too.

They feature acrylic bronze hearts hanging from bronze wires.

They are 1 1/2 inches and are $10.00.

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I also was able to get more of the tiger striped beads to make some more pairs of #10:

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For details on how to order, see sidebar.

Help us get Abbey home!

Dental Entertainment

2010-02-10T05:00:00.001-06:00

We have all been going to our dental appointments lately and I just had to share with you the view from our dentist's chairs! He has every chair facing big sliding glass doors with an unrailed deck on the outside. Dr. T*ttle has made these little squirrel feeders, and he sets one outside each door and fills them with corn, which squirrels love! Every single appointment I have had, I see several squirrels. They jump from the deck to the trees whch are right up next to the deck.

And the woods are just beautiful! We experienced a terrible storm in our area last year that has really messed up our woods. About every 30 feet is a downed tree. I don't think in our lifetime our woods will ever be pretty again. But our dental office is about 55 miles away and they were unaffected by the storm.

Here is the view from the chair. Sweet!

It almost makes me look forward to going to the dentist.

NOT!

Healthy and Old

2010-02-09T09:25:00.000-06:00

Thank you all for your well wishes. I am feeling much better now and am just patiently waiting to see who falls for it next. Hopefully my coating the house with Lys*l will keep any of the other ones from getting it, but only time will tell.

On Sunday the 7th, I had my 38th birthday. We ususally don't make a huge deal out of birthdays in our family. We just celebrate with each other without a big party or anything like that. Ocasionally one of the girls will ask for a party, and we usually oblige. But most of the time, we all want it to be just us. Call us odd, but it works.

The girls and Wayne did pick me out a cake and decorate it with squirty icing!

And can you believe it, Wayne took one picture. I don't think I have taken one picture of an event ever. I take like 100 so I can weed out the bad ones and keep the better.

Especially if it is pictures of me!!!!

Anyhoo, here you go:

We had attended 2 separate volleyball tourneys that day, Wayne with Ashlyn, and Sydney & I with Sarah.

Talk about a long day. Syd was not felling well and did not want to be in a gym watching volleyball for 9 hours. Wish someone would have told me to go touch up my makeup, but I digress.

As the girls were decorating my cake, Sydney reallllly wanted to help. Somehow she managed to sneak up behind them and add her own special touch to the cake with her peanut M*M's. I wouldn't let them fix it and had to get a shot of it!

I see a future on the F**d Network!!!!

So So Sick

2010-02-04T14:04:00.000-06:00

I spent yesterday cleaning house and organizing my new recipe box. It was a slow and peaceful day until........

I had been emailing back and forth with my case worker, filling out our I800 financial info and whatnot. She said everything looks good and was about to submit it. I was so thrilled. It has only been two days since our LOA and we were already movin' on!

Then she emailed me back, which was odd. We had missed one signature line. She had to have an original signature on the document, so emailing or faxing just wouldn't work. OK we can handle this. I was ready to just head out to our "local" UP$ store, 60 miles away. We decided we had better call first, just to check when final drop off was.

Get ready for it....

We would miss it by 25 minutes.

Oh yeah, I was not happy.

It cannot go out until today, which means it can't get to the ageny 'til Friday.

1 missed signature.

25 minutes.

Cost us 2 days.

After all this, all I wanted was to get to bed.

About 1:00 am I awoke not feeling well at all. I have apparently caught the stomach virus that is going around school. Funny thing is none of the girls have had it yet. I am the first!

Well ain't that just special!

Needless to say, it was a loooooong night with my head in the toilet.

And yes I am a bit grumpy.

LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-02-01T17:30:00.000-06:00

We just got the call!

We got LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After 63 days!

More Earrings

2010-01-31T11:27:00.003-06:00

With services canceled this morning and with all the snow piled up outside, it is the perfect time to grab a hot cup of coffee and make something creative. I finished up some earrings this morning. I will also post them to my side bar, but I wanted to give you a bigger view here.

Sold!

~~Item #10~~

~~These are made with a tan and black tiger stripe glass bead with black accents on gold wires.~~

~~They are 2 inches long and are priced at $12.00.~~

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Item #11

These are made with a tan and black leopard glass bead with black accents on gold wires.

They are 2 inches long and are priced at $12.00.

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Item #12

These are made with a balck/white/gray glass speckled bead with black accents on silver wires.

They are 2 inches long and are priced at $12.00.

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Item #13

These are made with blue and white marble ceramic beads on silver wires.

They are 1 3/4 inches long and are priced at $12.00.

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Item #14

These are made with wooden leopard beads with wooden accents on gold wires.

They are 1 3/4 inches long and are priced at $10.00.

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Item #15

These are made with a balck and white swirled glass bead with clear accents on silver wires.

They are 1 1/4 inches long and are priced at $12.00.

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Sold!

~~Item #16~~

~~These are made with mauve and brown glass beads on gold wires.~~

~~They are 2 inches long and are priced at $12.00.~~

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Item #17

These are made with rainbow marble swirled glass beads with black accents on silver wires.

They are 1 1/2 inches long and are priced at $12.00.

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For details on how to order, see side bar!

Help us bring Abbey HOME!

Snow!

2010-01-30T11:02:00.001-06:00

Yeah, well, remember how I said I wasn't too impressed with the snow accumilation yesterday?

I'm impressed now!

WE HAVE 8 INCHES OF SNOW!!

It has been a long time since it has snowed that much here.

And just look at my poor "Big Mama Van"!!

Wayne is gonna have to dig it out.

Wayne has been feeding the birds on our back deck. He does it for the sole purpose of listening to Sydney get so excited about them. Well, I was the first one up this morning and our tree beside the deck was absolutely packed with birds. I felt so sorry for them. They were just waiting for some food.

So I grabbed a bucket of seeds, put on Waynes boots that were beside the door, and was off to the rescue. One step out into the snow and I realized that perhaps I should have put on taller boots. The snow was deep enough that it went over the tops of the boots and right down inside them. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! I continued on and scattered the seed. I could hear alot of rustling behind me. After I closed the door I turned around and this is what I saw:

It's been about an hour now and they are still at it!

A Few Scattered Thoughts

2010-01-29T17:29:00.000-06:00

Thank you so much to those of you who have helped us out by purchasing some jewelry. The adoption community is an awesome place to be and I would be lost without your wisdom and support. You all "get it" and I love you for it.

I have moved the fundraising info to the side column of the blog and will leave it there for a while and add to it occasionally. If you see something you like, let me know. Also feel free to spread the word about our fundraising efforts.

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Can you say snow? We woke up here this morning in our sleepy little town to a few flurries. I was a bit dissapointed because I had been hearing forecasts of 6-8 inches! However, it hasn't stopped snowing for a second today. Now we have about 4 inches on the ground with no sign of stopping. Today has turned into a cozy snow day. Love it! We have done a mountain of laundry, made Green Chili Cheese Soup and hot rolls, and snuggled up all day.

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Today marks 60 days waiting for that ever elusive LOA. At the beginning of the week, there was a rush of LOAs reported, and I became very hopeful for ours. But, no go. I am really hoping for it before Ch*inese New Year as the CC*A breaks for a week to celebrate. This is the one most variable waiting period for SN adoption. It could arrive in 1 month, 2 months, or 4 months. With Sydney, we waited an agonizing 5 1/2 months. Torturous! I think that is why I have an underlying fear about our wait time. I know that God holds the time of our LOA in his hands and I trust him completly. However I also tend to be a bit of a worrier, but I am working on that.

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I have several appointments set up for this week that will give me a little more to blog about. In all reality, nothing much is going on around here that is blog-worthy.

For now, I will leave you with this promise from our God:

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing....

Psalms 68:5-6a

Here we go......

2010-01-25T20:49:00.002-06:00

Let me begin by saying that I am not now,

never have claimed to be,

and never plan in the future being a professional jewelry maker.

I am a mom.

A mom who is longing to bring her daughter home from China.

I am a creative person.

I love to make things.

I love color and texture and the satisfaction of completing things.

That said, I have been piddling around a bit with jewelry making. It's turning into alot of fun! And for kicks, I thought I would throw a few peices out there to try to contribute to our adoption fund for Abbey. Here's what I have so far:

Item #1

I was feeling like red today, I guess because it's almost Valentine's Day. These are made with a matte dark red and clear beads, strung on silver wires. They are 1 5/8 inches long. I have 3 pairs of these. They are $10.00/pair.

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Item #2

These are a different design with the same shade of matte dark red and "pearlish" beads, strung on silver wires .

I have one pair of these.

They are 1 1/2 inches long and $10.00/pair.

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Item #3

These are matte dark red and silver on silver wire. They are 1 3/4 inches long.

I have one pair of these and they are also $10.00/pair.

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Item #4

These are a little different design with the same matte dark red beads with "pearlish" accents.

They are strung on silver wire and are 1 1/2 inches long.

I have 3 pairs of these and they are $10.00/pair.

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~~Item #5~~

Sold!! Thank you Jean!!!

~~These next ones are made with cream and bronze colored beads on bronze wire.~~

~~They are 1 5/8 inches long. They are $10.00/pair and I have one pair.~~

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~~Item #6~~

Sold!!!!! Thank you Lori!!!

~~I love these! I had to keep a pair of these for myself.~~

~~These are made with ceramic "blue-ish" beads with bronze and cream accents.~~

~~These are strung on bronze wire and hang 1 3/4 inches.~~

~~These are $12.00/pair and I have 1 pair to sell.~~

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Item #7

I really like these too.

They are made with "bluish" ceramic beads with bronze accents on bronze wires.

They are 2 1/4 inches long.

I have one pair of these.

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Item #8

These are made with "bluish" ceramic beads with clear accents on silver wire.

The one pair I have left kind of has a greener turquoise color to it.

They are 1 5/8 inches long and are $12.00/pair.

~~I have two pairs of these, one pair is more blue and the other is more "greenish".~~

~~If you prefer one or the other, let me know.~~

The blue pair is Sold!! Thank you Jean!!

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Item #9

And finally, are a blue bead with a charcoal accent bead on silver wires.

These hang 1 3/4 inches long.

They are $10.00/pair and I have 2 pairs.

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Ok so here is how this will work. If you are interested in buying any of these earrings and helping bring Abbey home, simply send me an email to crosseyedmama@gmail.com specifying which item number you want and your mailing address. The first email I receive will get to purchase. I will then send you an email back telling you to send me payment through paypal. There will be a $2.00 shipping charge added to each order. You can use the paypal button at the right to submit payment. When I receive payment I will ship the earrings to you.

Remember, I am not a professional and these are handmade earrings.

Therefore all sales are final.

Care package!

2010-01-19T10:54:00.000-06:00

We have met a sweet adoptive family who will be traveling to pick up their daughter from Luoy*ng on January 26th. Kathleen volunteered to get a small package to Abbey for us. So stinkin' exciting!

It is amazing what you can fit into a gallon bag and still get it to zip!

These are the pics that I sent her:

So at least she will have some idea what she is in for!

Pray for her.

(and yes, Lori, tell Macy to feel free to post any of these pics)

Promise from the Word

2010-01-12T11:35:00.001-06:00

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:9-11
(emphasis mine)

Hmmmm.....

2010-01-11T09:18:00.000-06:00

So I made Sydney an appointment with a pediatric dental specialist back in October for the first of November. She had visited our regular dentist and, as we knew, had several places of decay. Our dentist said that he would feel better if we took her to this specialist because he was indecisive as to whether to fix them of leave them alone.

As you know in November, WE WON STATE!

We had to rescedule for late November.

Then we came down with the flu.

Reschedule again for mid-December.

Doctor came down with the flu.

Reschedule again for early January.

Doctor sick with virus & fever.

Rescedule again for today.

Doctor just called........1 assistant is in hospital, another one is out sick, and....

get this...

the office manager's house burned last night and they lost everything!

Reschedule again for late January......

I am started to wonder if my entire family should go into hiding on the days leading up to the next appointment......

Care package!

2010-01-09T20:24:00.001-06:00

We are far enough into our wait for Abbey that we can now send her a care package. One thing that is especially important is photos. We have several that are pretty recent, but I wanted some new ones. So after much primping, concealer, and several outfit changes, we ended up with a couple that were passable.

Poor child doesn't know what she's in for.......

Hehe.

Sleddin'

2010-01-08T05:02:00.001-06:00

We were awaken yesterday by a phone call from our oldest grandson, Bryce, wanting to know if we were ready to play in the snow yet.

Um, no.

But eventually we bundled ourselves up with any and everything we could find and braved the frozen tundra!

It was so bitterly cold that,

in reality,

we spent twice as long getting bundled to go outside

then we actually spent playing outside.

Look what we woke up to......

2010-01-07T09:12:00.000-06:00

Snow! And lots of it!

I had to snap a few pics out the window first thing. I hope to get out later today and get some good ones.....

I love a heavy snow.

It just covers everything.

Just like Jesus.

It silences what is beneath.

Just like Jesus.

It brings newness to normalcy.

Just like Jesus.

It brings beauty to the mundane.

Just like Jesus.

It creates a new beginning to the day.

Just. Like. My. Jesus.

Holy Cow

2010-01-06T21:20:00.000-06:00

How can I blink and nearly a month pass by? Good thing when waiting for adoption paperwork to process, bad thing when trying to maintain a blog.

Oh well.

Christmas came and went. I wish I could say it was one of those "most wonderful times of the year", but to be perfectly honest, it is one of the most stressful times for me. And this year, I put alot of effort in order to make it better, and I still spent the weeks afterwards with the blues.

I'm just being honest here. I wish it were different, but there it is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are 38 days into waiting for our LOA, which is our final approval for Abbey. The average wait time is around 80 days. Some get it at 50, others get it at 120. We waited 5 1/2 months for Sdney's. I thought I was gonna loss my ever-lovin' mind. Maybe this time it will balance out and we will be on the short end of the wait!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This past Sunday, we had to give our sweet exchange student back to her parents. Annalina had been staying with some dear friends of ours since August. She flew back to Germany on Sunday and we miss her terribly! She is such a sweetie! God used her visit to reassure me that Abbey can and will be happy here. Anna struggled at first, but then relaxed and meshed into all our lives beautifully. We hate to see her go, but she already has her plane tickets booked for a month long visit in August.

We miss you baby!

Santa Baby!

2009-12-12T05:03:00.001-06:00

Not so much.

Sydney was not a huge fan this year.....

The boys were all prepared with their lists.....

And apparently Ash and RayVen were too...

State Banquet

2009-12-11T05:28:00.003-06:00

This past weekend we had the honor of attending the MSHSAA All State Volleyball Banquet. It was so fun. All the players and their families were invited to Warrensberg to celebrate being named All-State for the 2009 season. First, scrimmage match was played, but only the seniors were allowed to play. It was mainly to help seniors sign with collages, but I still wish our girls could have played. We had 3 of our players named, 2 Juniors and 1 Sophomore. Then we set down to a catered banquet. It was so yummy! Then they had an awards ceremony to give medals and certificate to each player.

It was a sweet day. The girls are haveing a hard time switching to basketball after such an awesome volleybal season. Their hearts just have not been able to engage yet. They even cried the first few practices. But it is getting a little better and it's been a good teaching opportunity about the valley always following the mountaintop.

Ornaments Found

2009-12-10T08:28:00.000-06:00

I found the ornaments I was missing.

Well, technically, they were right there on the tree, but hey, it's my blog!

Anyhoo.

These are the ornaments we bought to commemorate expecting Sarah in '95.

Also, the funeral home who took care of us when we lost Derrick this year held a memorial service for all the families that lost loved ones during the year. They gave Hannah a gold ornament engraved with Derrick's name. They gave other family members these ornaments. One is an angel and the other is a teardrop. I wanted to get something to commemorate his passing, but I didn't know what to get. So this was such a blessing.

Here is the finished tree before Sydney got to it. Now the bottom 2 1/2 feet of it is pretty sad.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas.....

2009-12-04T13:02:00.000-06:00

....at least inside my house.

We got our tree put up. It is a new tree this year. The last one I bought on sale, the day after Christmas the second year we were married. I figured after 16 years of service, I had gotten my $17 worth out of it.

This year I bought a slender pre-lit tree. The girls were, um, less than excited about the tree. They have referred to it as the Charl*e Brown tree.

But we have a very small living room. When Wayne & I designed and built this house, we had 3 girls living at home and sharing Christmas morning with us. This year however, we will have a total of 11 kids and grandkids having Christmas here. Wayne is chomping at the bit to add on an additional living room and turn this room into a big dining room, but I just can't start that yet. We still have alot of money to save and raise to complete Abbey's adoption, so I am a bit leery to tackle a big construction project right now.

Anyhooooooo, on to my tree. I like it. And it fits our tiny space very well. I thought I would share some of our sentimental ornaments with y'all. I get a bit misty looking at some of them and remembering all the things we've done together. I love having that history on our tree.

Here she is in all her skinny glory.

Hey if I can't manage to take off a few inches this year, at least my tree will.

We'll call it circumference envy...

A fellow adoptive mom got me this one to commemorate Sydney's adoption.

Grandchild's first Christmas for Bryce.

Hannah was still living here with him on his first Christmas in '03.

He was such a bundle of giggles!

My brother sent me this one while he fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

We bought this one the first Christmas we were married in 1991.

Why Mickey Mouse?

Because I was all of 19 years old, that's why.

My sweet baby Sarah's first Christmas ornament.

Oh what I wouldn't do to kiss those baby cheeks one more time....

Brandon's first Christmas ornament from 1985.

It is so frayed, but I love it.

Hannah's first Christmas ornament from '84.

She pulled all the letters off of it,

and the hook too,

so we just stab a branch through it!

We bought these in 1992 while I was pregnant with Ashlyn.

We have some for '95 too, when I was pregnant with Sarah, but I just realized they aren't

on the tree.

Hmmmmm????

This is one I had personalized for Sydney's first Christmas home.

I didn't want to get her a baby's first Christmas one because she had spent one

Christmas in China. So I had this one personalized for her.

Ashlyn's first Christmas ornament from '93.

It has a cute Preci*us M*ments figure on the back.

We spent Christmas 2003 in Germany visiting my brother who was stationed there.

We bought this one over there and somehow managed to get home

with it in one piece.

We spent some time at Big Cedar L*dge in Brans*n in '05.

We rented a log cabin and ate until we almost popped!

What I always remember when I see this ornament is that Bryce set our living room carpet

on fire while we were gone. Seriously.

A Cracker Barrell ornament.

I have absolutely no idea why.....

This one is from Summer '05. Wayne had a job to do in VB so we tagged along with him.

We pulled our camper out there instead of renting a room and stayed nearly a month.

It was just Wayne, Ashlyn, Sarah, and I and it was the best summer of our lives.

The girls and I laid at the beach all day and basically did nothing. It was the summer before Sydney came home so I was pretty wrapped up in all the adoption emotions. It was such

an unplanned trip that was totally planned by God. Several times since then when we get crazy busy, one of

us will say, "Don't you have a job at a beach you need to do?"

I love our tree. It is new but it feels familiar too. And the girls are coming around to it.

Now if only Abbey could see it.....

LID

2009-12-01T21:25:00.000-06:00

We received a call from WACAP today stating that we were officially logged in

to the CCAA on November 30! One step closer! Our dates so far:

LOI 7/02/09

PA 8/5/09

DTC 11/18/09

LID 11/30/09

Busy, Busy, Busy

2009-11-28T06:00:00.003-06:00

I am on the run this weekend! Today I am taking the youth group on our annual Christmas shopping trip. We will leave early this morning and probably come home pretty late. Tomorrow, I teach in the morning, then worship, and then we have a performance at another local church. Our youth group will be playing our Christmas bells and performing one of our human videos. I will post pics of all this craziness later!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T21:35:00.000-06:00

The last few days have been filled with family gatherings! We visited with my family first and then Wayne's family. It was good to see everyone together, but I also had a bittersweet feeling because Abbey is missing Thanksgiving. Does she even know that this is Thanksgiving weekend? I highly doubt it. God-willing this will be the last Thanksgiving that she will miss. Here are some random pics from our gatherings:

May Need Backup

2009-11-20T05:00:00.002-06:00

Ever feel like you're losing the battle?

~sigh~

Piddling Around

2009-11-19T05:00:00.005-06:00

I used to scrapbook like a mad woman. I could spend hours cutting and pasting and creating beautiful photo albums. I remember having all my stuff spread out all over the place, and me just happily snipping and glueing away. But the older my big girls have gotten, the busier I have gotten. And that is not even considering the wild Asian tornado in our house now. I can't even remember making a decision to stop scrapbooking. It just kind of happened. I do remember messing around a little bit with digital scrapping before I quit. I really liked it. My family really liked how I could work on it during the day and they still had a dining room table to eat on! I have been reading and studying how to tweak up some of our family photos. Nothing major, just a little brightening and smoothing. With my creative juices flowing, I decided to plant them onto a sheet together, and well, here is the results:

In both layouts, the top pic is the original. In the closeup, I was trying to even out my complexion and hide a few ~~wrinkles~~ character lines. I didn't quite get the results that I've seen from others, but you gotta work with what ya have. In the bottom one, I was basically trying to lighten it all up. But I think I got a little yellow-happy. Oh well, it's a work in progress and I really had a good time piddling around with it.

DTC

2009-11-18T20:47:00.000-06:00

DTC 11-18-09

This means that our dossier, or the packet of papers that represent us to Ch*na, has been sent to Ch*na! We should hear our official LID, log in date, in a few weeks.

Yippee Jesus!!

Honors!

2009-11-18T05:00:00.003-06:00

Guess what?!?

Ashlyn was named 2nd Team All-State!

This is voted on by every coach in the state and is based on players performance all season.

We also had Taylor named 1st Team All-State and RayVen named Honorable Mention!

(Ashlyn serving during Championship game)

(Taylor going up for another KILL!!)

(RayVen serving during the final set of the Championship game)

Way to go girls!!!

Where' s Sydney?

2009-11-16T05:00:00.002-06:00

You just never know what to expect when Sydney gets quiet.....

Although we have made major budget cuts to save for Abbey's adoption, we do still have blankets in the house. I promise!

The Angry Princess

2009-11-14T09:01:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time there was a self-proclaimed Princess of the Woods. She loved to spend hours coloring herself with ink pens. This did not make the Royal Giver of the Bath happy, since said Giver was ~~too old to be bending over scrubbing like a maniac to get the stupid ink off of her~~ worried about the Princess's image. When faced with this difference of opinion, the Princess stormed out of the main quarters and fled to her chambers to find comfort in the solitude of her closet.

The whole kingdom held it's breath as the Princess tried to ~~whine her way into getting her way~~ handle the stress that was pressing down on her.

In her fragile and desperate state, she thought she would close the doors forever.

But then a ray of light surfaced across the plains when the Princess noticed something a few feet away!

Could it really be?

She had to get closer to see if it really was......

A LADYBUG! She couldn't believe it was right by her royal hand!

Her spirits lifted! She felt peaceful.....

The kingdom rejoiced that the drama was over....

.....for now....

My girly tomboy

2009-11-13T05:00:00.001-06:00

Sydney is such a sweet tomboy.

She loves climbing and hiding.

She love bugs and cannot keep her hands off of them.

She let them crawl all over her arms, it just grosses me out.

But she is also a girly girl who loves to dress up. She is always wearing princess dresses and tutus and swimsuits!

At church this past Sunday, she received a makeup/nail polish set as a reward for attendance.

She painted her nails and all the other girls in the youth group too.

She even painted mommy's!

So cute!

A Sweet Side Trip

2009-11-12T05:00:00.003-06:00

While we were at the state tourney, we had a break on Saturday afternoon. We know a family, through our blogs, that recently came home with their sweet daughter from the same orphanage as our Abbey. Well we just could not pass up the oppurtunity to meet up with them! So Lori directed us to a Panera Bread Co where we visited for an hour or so. They are such a cute family. It is amazing how 2 adoptive families can meet up and talk like they have known each other forever. I cannot wait to visit them again, especially after Abbey gets here.

Sydney showing Macy her cup of ladybugs. So gross!

Sydney is still too captivated by her bugs to smile.

Here is a precious picture that Lori sent me a couple months ago after she returned from China. It was taken the day that Macy returned to Louyang to say goodbye to her friends. This is Abbey hugging Macy. Oh if they only had only known.......

~sigh~

2009-11-11T17:20:00.000-06:00

Talk about top of the mountain to down in the valley.

We left Kansas City on top of the world. We had won the state title and could not be happier. We traveled out of downtown KC and stopped to get something to eat. We all felt fine and enjoyed a victory dinner with the team.

Three hours later, Sarah was sick with chills, cough, and congestion. By the next day, her fever went over 103 and we were in the ER. She was diagnosed with Type A flu that had already settled into her lungs forming a nice case of bronchitis. Nice. We got home from the ER and pharmacy at 3am Monday morning. At 3:15am Sydney woke up with a cough and congestion. By 6am her fever hit 103.8! Off the the dr we went with her. Yup, flu. Thankfully our doc prescribed T*miflu for all of us. So hopefully if the rest of us get it, it will be a mild case.

~sigh~