HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well with Christmas over and the New Year about to begin we are getting closer and closer to our travel date. We really had a great Christmas Season. It began with our Classic Christmas Eve service at the church that was a blessing to play in. Son #2 played his Saxophone in a wee bit of a solo...we were so so proud of him. Mom was able to come and see him which was nice. Christmas we had a house full. Eighteen close family friends got together for some Turducken...yum yum good. I got everything I wanted and then some. Just missing my one big present but she'll arrive soon enough. It was great to hear the boys Christmas morning get up as usual and climb on top of Son#2's bed and open thier Christmas socks. I don't care how old they are it really was so sweet to hear them laugh and yack with each other. I tried to slow down the present opening but oh well it lasted for a wee bit. We had our traditional Christmas breakfast that we love except Son #2 informed us this year he hates it so we had the traditional breakfast plus something for him which apparently he didn't like either. Too funny. More for us! Boxing Day four of us went to see "In Pursuit of Happyness". It kind of drained me. Even though it was a good ending well I just felt blah afterwards. We went for more food at a friends house on the evening of the 26th. I worked the 27th, 28th and 29th. It was pretty slack though not much going on. Working towards buying things for our trip. Picked up a car seat today and a goob of other stuff bottles, blankets, clothes way too much to mention. Let's just say it ain't cheap! Fortunately we are blessed an got a good wad of money in Sears Gift Certificates which came in very very handy today. New Years Eve will be quiet at our house. Were not feeling very partyish this year. We are going to get a movie and Chinese food and kick back and just hang with Son #2 because Son #1 is away. He worked most of the holidays and now is away visiting friends. First trip away on his own. He's growing up so fast. Pretty awesome kids though. Emily has got two of the best big brothers she could ever hope or pray for. We are counting down the days and they are flying by now. We have to get our plane tickets reprinted tomorrow. I've already gone once and they restickered them with a sticker written in Gel pen on shiny paper. One big smudge. Now it looks like we printed the tickets with a sharpy. I'm not too comfortable travelling out of the country with those. I'll just have to pray that we get a nicer ticket agent. The last one wasn't having any part of reprinting them. I was told by Aeroplan to insist, obviously they've never dealt with an Air Canada Ticket agent. I'll just have to smile and take my DH with me. Let's see what that gets us. Happy New Year to everyone reading this. Please continue to pray that these next few weeks are productive and that we are organized for this trip that we've only had 2 years to prepare for! Pray for Emily and that God continues to wrap His loving arms around her and that she is not afraid of us when we take her from the orphanage. Until 2007 goodnight!

What A Week!

This post will be a bigger one because I have to fill you in on what has happened this week. Let me start my saying God is AMAZING! It never ceases to amaze me how He has blessed our family. My week started early Monday morning. I have to go back three weeks to tell you about a conversation that I had with Son #1. There is a radio station in town that has a weather guarantee. If the weather guy misses the temperature by more than 3 degrees you have the chance to win a jackpot. Depending on how long he has been right is the amount of the jackpot. I told Son#1 to remind me to send in my name because it has been warm, cold, warm, freezing surely he'd get it wrong soon. I never thought anything more about it until Monday morning when my Son is calling and calling on our home phone. First thing he said was "I forgot to tell you I entered your name in the weather guarantee" second thing was YOU JUST WON! How much? $1575 dollars. How incredible is that. We prayed that Matt and Andrew would be able to travel with us and so far we go their tickets on points and now much of their travelling money will be covered with this win. It is truly such a relief that they can come and we can experience this as a family. That was Monday. Tuesday I received a call from Community service saying that our Notice of Coming had arrived. Yahoo this was our travel approval we had been waiting for which means our travel date shouldn't change again and the boys are definitely able to go. Mike picked up our certificate Tuesday afternoon. It was great to have it in our hands. I woke up Wednesday morning to check my email before work and low and behold there was an update from our adoption facilitator giving us measurements and A PICTURE OF EMILY on December 18th! What an incredible Christmas present from the Lord! She is so cute. Big ole head of hair, beautiful lips (Son #1 says like Angelina Jolie's) and a big hunka bunka. She is growing so well and I just want to hold her and bring her home. I was so glad to have this picture because she isn't the little baby in the picture anymore she's changed her looks so it's good to understand that. Thursday we received confirmation that we will in fact be able to visit her orphanage when we go to China. This hasn't been allowed much and we will actually go inside to see but can't go in the baby rooms. I'm praying that we will have some time to get a picture of her finding place. Things are getting so busy for Christmas. I want to make sure to truly enjoy this Christmas. I'm not going to be sad for Emily because I know she is being looked after and this is the last Christmas that it will be just the four of us and I don't want to wish that away. Our time is coming quickly when we will be leaving. We received our itinerary today which is exciting. Thanks to all of you who have been following this and who have been praying for us. It is so evident that we are covered by your prayers and that God has it all worked out. I am so grateful that we stepped out of our comfort zones on this one. I can't imagine that we almost missed this. We almost said no God not now we're too old. We would have never known the joy that our family is feeling now. Pray for Emily that God will protect her over these next few weeks, please pray that she bonds with us and that the transition from her caretaker to us will go smoothly. Merry Christmas to all of you. May your holidays be filled with friends, fellowship, food, fun and of course the knowledge that God sent His Son as a little baby to live with us, as one of us. How incredible is that! As the time approaches for us to leave I will be password protecting this Blog so that we can post family pictures on it. Not to worry I will let all of you know what it is so you can keep following along however with personal pictures on it I don't want to just open it to the world. I kind of feel bad because I've been following other blogs for a couple of years and they have been awesome but I just don't want to take the chance. I'll email the password to each of you as the time arrives.

I was had again!

Well I was had again! In a good way. After coming back from lunch at work one of the girls asked me if she could speak to me in the boardroom for a minute. When I opened the door...surprize...again. I must be losing it in my old age. That's twice within 2weeks that I was left with my mouth hanging open. I got such lovely things for Emily from the girls at work it really was touching. Here also was the incredible thing. I had in my mind a stroller that I wanted to get, the jogger stroller (don't laugh), it had big old wheels for our country roads and who knows maybe just maybe I might someday want to walk faster than a stroll and low and behold my team bought me the exact stroller I was looking at. How incredible is that. They picked it out for me and put it together and had it all set up and gave me a crash course on how to operate it. Don't laugh it has a hand brake just in case I go too fast. What a hoot. We truly are blessed. Now that Christmas is almost here I'm more focused on getting our tree decorated and presents wrapped and well I still don't have the babies room finished. Good friends helped put the crib together which is still sitting in my diningroom because it won't fit through the bedroom door and my DH has to take it apart again in order to move it. I'll leave it at that. It will get done after turkey season is over cause he's flat out busy making turduckens. We finally got the 12ish foot Christmas tree up we bought. I don't know what I was thinking. I love it but well to decorate we need a couple of big old ladders and a family of boys who would rather eat glass than decorate a tree. I just get the blank stares and loads of excuses but oh they are so going to help me tomorrow put those lights on. DH has been shopping for me for a couple of weeks which is nice cause he usually waits and is actually finished early. Gotta love him. Anyway that's all for now I'm headed upstairs to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" with son #2.

Emily's Finding Ad

Ok so what a cutie patootie.....Emily is number 244. She was the 244th baby to be posted in 2006 in this city. Her ad was posted in the Nanching Farmers Daily right next to the watermelon and the hot peppers! When the babies are found an ad is placed stating that they were found and the particulars and requesting that if anyone wants to claim her otherwise she will be placed for adoption. I'm sure the Mom and Dad must scour the papers just to ensure they are found and in an orphanage. It truly is a blessing to have this because it is the earliest picture that we have of her. She is likely less than a week old here. I have another picture that for some reason I can't get uploaded with all the babies in a spread many of the ones coming home with us are on this sheet. Thought you would find this interesting. I will try and get the other picture to post again next time I'm on.

Message around the world

I thought I would upload this picture to show you the packages we sent off to our babies in China. Not sure if when you click on it if it will enlarge it but you'll see pictures of all of the other babies on the front. $455 ish dollars later we know they received them. I also got something special in the mail on Friday. When children in China are abandoned their pictures are posted in the local paper. It's called a finding ad. Sometimes you can get ahold of them and sometimes not. Well I located this guy on the internet (gotta love technology) who found her ad and I received part of the newspaper with the ad in it and a blow up of the picture as well as a DVD of the orphanage and finding place. This is so special because it is the earliest picture that we would have of her. She's number 244. Sounds so sad but she was the 244th picture posted in 2006 in the Farmer's Weekly. These ads serve two purposes. One to show the parents that the children are found and safe and two that there is an intent to put these children up for adoption and therefore if the parents change their mind they have the opportunity to come forward. I will scan the page and post it later in the week. That's all for now. Thanks again to all of our wonderful wonderful friends who have just blessed us a million times over with your prayers and kind words. Soon very soon she will be home. I am however going to really really cherish these last four weeks with the four of us as that is special as well. Andrew played with our group in church this morning. I was so so proud of him I thought I was going to bust. I realised as I looked at him and at Matt at the back of the auditorium that there is no greater gift that God can give than the gift of children who love the Lord and who love their family. No job can match it, no amount of money can match it, no possession can match it, there is nothing else like it. God is good. "Our cup runneth over"!

Home Sweet Home for Now

I thought I would post a couple of pictures of Emily's orphanage that I got off of another parents website. One is of the orphanage entrance and the other is simply a side shot. If you look on the roof of one of the pictures you can see all the clothes hanging on the line. This place has been Emily's home for the past 13 months. I'll be so glad when she is home in my arms safe and sound in her own bed until then I'll just trust God to snuggle her until we arrive.

Dinners and Showers

Well finally I'm able to sit down in front of my computer and update this. We are still awaiting our TA (travel approval) from China to arrive. So all you folks reading this blog please pray that God's timing prevail and that if it is His will that we will go on the dates our plane tickets are now booked. My DH and I were to meet friends of ours for supper on Friday night then come back to the house to watch a movie on Chinese adoption. We had this planned all week. An hour before we are supposed to go to dinner my DH calls and tells me he has to work. Stinky. I wasn't upset because he was selling a house to people I really wanted to see get a house. He said he'd meet me. He called said he would be late. Called said he would come later. Called and said he'd meet me at home. So I drive home with "the friend" and when I drive down our long long driveway I see one car that belongs to good friends of ours and was excited they popped in to visit. However when pulling in front of the house saw a body running from a van to the house with a gift...the cat was out of the bag! A surprise shower! What a surprise it was. I was completely duped when I walked through the door there was 65 people in my house and only a few cars in the driveway...my dear boys shuttled and parked people all night. I was overwhelmed and here is why. When my two home grown boys were born we had great friends, and we were over the moon. However, even though God was definitely in it we didn't recognize it. With Baby #3 this is different. It isn't better just different. What is better is recognizing God and seeing the tremendous support that our church family has given us is incredible. I sometimes wonder if Emily is feeling the anticipation of her arrival all the way across the world because we can sure feel it here. Poor DH had to try and get the crib together for me...and good thing a dear friend had her DH pitch in to help...once again....because they got it together in 1/2 flat I'm told and I love it. What fantastic gifts we got, what a load of food that was eaten, what a night of laughs, tears and fellowship was had by all. To all of you that were here who are reading this thank you so much for making the night very special for us! Love you all oodles...smooch smooch hug hug. I meant to write in an earlier blog please comment on the blog so I know who is out there...sometimes I wonder if I'm all alone writing to myself!