I'm A Little Late Getting Started on this but Stefanie over at Ni Hao Ya'll is Having a Giveaway of some pretty cool stuff. You can enter very easily and the giveaway lasts 30 days. You don't want to miss out

I am not sure how Lily became so conscientious. She is so conscientious that we sometimes joke about how maybe Lily is really a little old women that never aged. I could give you a million examples of this like when we walk outside to the car and it hasn't rained in weeks and she sees a dark cloud in the distance and runs in to get her umbrella.Or like the time I sneezed in the front seat while driving and a moment later I felt a little hand reach up and touch my shoulder. When I looked she was holding a tissue that she had packed in her pocketbook just in case somebody needed it. Or how she slips a few pieces of candy in her purse to give to her little brothers if we are somewhere boring and having to wait. The list could go on and on. She takes a purse everywhere we go full of things just in case. Today this is what I found:

Camera (just in case the perfect picture opportunity arises)
sunglasses (just in  case the sun is too bright)
Candy (just in case)
Pencil (just in case we need to jot something down)
Hand sanitizer ( Oh she loves to whip this out, when eating out, someone sneezes, etc. Just in case.)
Two notepads (just in case she gets bored and wants to draw)
Brush (just in case someone needs their hair brushed)
lotion ( just in case our hands are dry)
chapstick (just in case our lips are chapped)
Kleenex (just in case someone sneezes)
Band aid (just in case someone gets a boo boo)

She doesn't carry these things around for herself necessarily, she wants to be prepared just in case someone else needs them.She says she wants to be a nurse when she grows up and I think that would be perfect for her but I cannot imagine her pockets at work, they would be bulging with things she might need, just in case.

Wanted to get these pictures up for the grandparents who were unable to see these grand kids dressed up this year. Noah did not participate in festivities this year partly because he was getting over the stomach bug and partly because he was being disciplined. And I cannot believe for the first time ever I did not get a good picture of all the kiddos together. I dressed up as a witch also but of course there is no picture of mom so you'll have to use your imagination.

Today a blogger friend of mine met her son, for the very first time. There story is an amazing story of patience, obedience and love. Go to her site because I am sure she will be posting about this meeting soon and follow her family while they are in China. See first hand how God worked in the hearts of a family to bring home their son.

Please check out my friend Sharon's new blog. She has taken her compassion for orphans and turned it
into a ministry. She is advocating for orphans and spotlighting families who have and are adopting. Our family will soon be spotlighted there for our adoption of Lily.

It is called A Family for Everybody , go check it out and see some of these precious children waiting for a family!

Hopefully today or very soon the new blog design will be up. I'm so excited about it because it is themed with one of my very favorite things!

We received our final Homestudy on Friday WOO HOO! now we are waiting for DSS to approve it and then it moves on to immigration. That process takes several weeks. While we are waiting I am preparing our Dossier. I have just about everything I need for it except 2-3 items so that will be my focus this week! I really hope we will be DTC in December but who knows!

Halloween was a blast this year. The kids had fun carving their pumpkins, going to their cousins house for a party and then our big neighborhood party. Our neighborhood does a great job with the party and has hayrides, a haunted hayride, games, tons of food, pinata and much more. Afterwards we went Trick or Treating and the kids had so much fun because everyone was out at the same time. We had so many great families move into our neighborhood and lots of new kids so we had a blast! I will post a few pics but they aren't very good. My DSLR is in the shop and my click and shoot took a lot of blurry pics.

This past Saturday I went to my first craft fair to sell my ribbons and hairbows. I thought I did very well and sold all my Christmas and Thanksgiving hair clippies! I am going to make some more and try to attend a few more craft shows. Once I make some more I will post them here and probably post them on ETSY! I have raised about $775.00 towards the $5000.00 we are trying to raise for the orphanage donation. YIPPEE!

Last night at the party there was a mom and daughter that was visiting with one of her friends that lives in our neighborhood. She had a three year old from Guangzhou that she adopted 2 years ago. This little girl was just precious! It was so cute because she took a liking to John which is interesting because he was in costume and odd looking. Anyway, she kept going up to him and saying cute things and then she wanted him to pick her up. John's face just lit up when he was holding this little girl and it made me feel so excited about us holding our little girl. I am so glad I don't have a face to put to this wait yet, it would make it unbearable!

And Lastly, if you use your debit card to buy gas and have to move to another pump because it's not working PLEASE do not forget to cancel your transaction! I discovered that the "nice" man trying to help me with the pump that was behind me waiting on diesel actually took advantage of my mistake and helped himself to a tank of gas on me. This is a hard lesson learned for me, don't let it happen to you!

I added a button to the left that will take you to the post regarding the ribbons. We also set up shop on Etsy and recently had our first order there (thanks J.B.!). The ribbons are doing great here at home and we are on our second case. I also started a new project I will share shortly. So far we have raised 11%. I am very excited about that!

Also....

God has called my friend Kim and her family back to China. They are adopting a 13 yr old. They having just
brought home the cutest little girl Cai and are also raising money to go back to China. They are selling Show Hope t-shirts.These shirts are soooo soft and fit great. I bought one a while back for another family adopting their third child. Show Hope is the organization Steven Curtis Chapman started. Go to Kim's site and check out these cool shirts! Help another child home.

Have a Blessed DAY!

I finally decided it was time to redo the blog. I was tired of looking at the oh so out of date pics of the boys and poor little Lily still didn't have a spot. This time we are scrapping the pictures and going with a theme.
If you know me you could take a stab at the theme. It is silly but so me!

Stay tuned.......I have a few posts that I'll wait to post until the new look is ready.

A friend and I were talking and she suggested I list the ribbons on Etsy. If you have never heard of Etsy well you have been missing out! I have found some great things from Etsy over the years. This friend also mentioned how easy it was to set up this Etsy account, she herself has one ya know. But she must not have realized she was talking to the computer illiterate. What probably would have taken a computer savvy person 30 minutes to set up has taken me a few very interrupted hours. My site is very plain because I could not even begin to come up with an actual personalized banner but I did manage to squeeze in a stock one. So check it out! It makes buying the Ribbon easier. Just click on the link below:

This is only half of the beautiful colors that you will get, you  receive 27 colors total in your pack.

While we were in China we started talking about adopting again. We somehow knew this was the plan. Even though our minds were saying are you nuts?? Six kids! The family we traveled with even joked around with us and told us we would be back.

On our very last day  in China we were walking around Shamian Island doing some last minute shopping. Just as we were leaving a store we had been to several times a worker there thrust a small baby rattle into John’s hand as we were leaving and told him this is for when you come back to get her a little sister. We laughed and I wondered would we really do it?

Not long after we got home I was ready to start the process again. John had to work through his doubts and I prayed hard that John would be ready and willing. In my mind I was consumed with adopting again and waited patiently. Well my God has reassured us that we are following his plan for our family and we have started our second adoption from China. We are all so excited and wish we were leaving tomorrow! The children can't wait and ask all the time when are we going to get our little sister?

We will adopt Special Needs again. We will adopt a girl and we plan on her being 3 or younger at the time of adoption. Though we know sometimes Gods plans are not ours!

The biggest difference this time is that we need to raise money for our orphanage fee. For Lily's adoption we were fortunate enough to have the funds available this time is different. We are required to make a donation of $5000.00 to our child's orphanage. This money is used to better the orphanage our daughter was in. They can provide education, medical care and basic needs through this donation. We plan to raise that money. I will have several fund raisers and will be launching our first fundraiser very soon so stay tuned!

We are just in the beginning stages of our Home study and because China has changed their process yet again we will need to be DTC (Dossier to China) to get a referral. So I am hoping to be DTC by end of year! So please join us on our second Journey to China...

I would first like to thank my friend Sharon. If she had not posted about this I would not have learned of this neat little gem. Not long ago she got her hands on a copy of choreganizers and posted about it on her blog. She referred to the Pioneer Woman who also blogged about it and between the two of them I was sold and excited. I ordered mine from Amazon and anxiously awaited for it to arrive. I received it and couldn't wait to  learn how to implement it. I sat down and read the instructions, tore out all the cards and have gotten all my items bought for the store. Tonight I will place cards in the kids charts for the first time. I can't wait to see how it goes. I really need these guys pitching in more around here. You can imagine the mess 5 kids make and some of ya don't even have to imagine.
As for choreganizers they have thought of it all, even including blank cards for me to include my own special chores like massaging mom's feet, scrubbing the dried, spilt Sunny D out of the crevices on the kitchen cabinets and of course my favorite one, breakfast in bed for mommy.
I just love it, how can I not love something that included a chore card for memorizing Bible verses!

Today I received in the mail a application to attend a seminar titled:

Protecting the Aging Brain: Focus on Nutrition and Mind/Body Health

It is from the Institute for Brain Potential. Ok, who referred me?

Is it my dentist or child's orthodontist? The one's who I miss the appointment even with a phone call reminder and it is written in my calendar because I still forgot.

Or the School that has yet to receive the necessary paperwork for my child to start school tomorrow?

Or the friend that I had a lunch date with and forgot?

I got a good laugh out of that brochure today but seriously. It claims I will find out how old my brain is and my Hippocampus. I don't know but I'm guessing about 40 years, right? I also can find out how fast I think (already know that one, sloooooowwwww) and do I have hidden inflammation? Sounds really interesting doesn't it?

Anyway, anyone interested in going? Just kidding. I can think of many other ways I'd like to spend $75 bucks and six hours!

Wo Ai Ni means I Love You. It is chinese and one of the phrases we still use with Lily.
I am not sure if anyone ever told her Wo Ai Ni before we did but I am happy she has someone to tell her everyday now. Wo Ai Ni Mommy is also the name of a documentary that will be on PBS on August 31. In my hometown it airs at 10:30 apparently only on ETVHD. You can check your local listings. You can go to the movies wesite to learn more.....

Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy


The acclaimed "Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy" relates the story of 8-year-old Fang Sui Yong, a Chinese orphan adopted by a Jewish family from Long Island. The transition initially proves difficult, as Sui Yong had grown close to her Chinese foster family.

We are full swing into birthdays at our house. We have all 5 kids birthdays in 3 and 1/2 months with 4 of them being within 6 wks. It is sometimes draining (not only for my mind and energy but also the wallet) but so worth it when I see them so happy and they feel so special on their day. We only allow our kids to have a party every other year to help so this was Sellers year to have a party. He has planned it for weeks and wanted everything to be perfect. In my opinion it was just that. Everything was wonderful up until the last kid went home. Sellers has surrounded himself with some great friends! I will post pictures from the party later but today I just wanted to say Happy Birthday Sellers!! You are loved!

                                                 All dressed up for his first day of 4th grade.


                                                                        I'm cool!

STRIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a poem Sellers wrote about himself last year in school.

S-Star Wars Freak
E-Excellent at Legos
L-Loves Star Wars
L-Loves TV
E-Excellent at being myself
R-Robot Liker
S-Super untidy

Years ago Noah and Sellers used to love to grab a blanket and sit in the space behind my knees when I was laying on the couch. They coined it "the nest". At times they would race to see who got to watch TV in mama's nest. I loved when they would sit in my nest.It's not easy sometimes getting little boys to sit with you a while. I had forgotten about the nest. Noah and Sellers are much too big to fit in my nest now and the littles weren't around then to know about it. But out of nowhere Tuesday night I was laying on the couch and Sellers (who is nearly my size) said he wanted to sit in my nest. So I tried to make as much room as possible for my grown size boy to fit in my nest. We laughed as he got comfy and he settled in for a cuddle in the nest. Mason was standing nearby and quickly wanted his turn in the nest. After Sellers got up Mason cuddled up for his turn in the nest. Shortly after John decided to take everyone to the pool. Mason hopped up and looked at me and said, "mom, I'll be right back, take care of my eggs".

Last night John and I attended orientation at the elementary school three of our kids will be attending. We had to split up so we could make each class and hear the teacher's expectations for the year. I went to Wyatt's eagerly wanting to meet his teacher with this being his first year of school. I walked in the room and sat down. It wasn't long before this thought occurred to me.

Nine years ago I walked into a Kindergarten orientation for the first time for Noah (who turned 13 Saturday btw). I remember sitting there 9 years younger and thinking that some of these parents looked too old to have kindergartners. Well last night I looked around the room and I have officially become one of those parents! These parents looked soooo young and I wondered are they old enough to have kindergartner's? Man, I will be ancient by the time I take the rest of our kiddos!