Sunday, December 30, 2007

Family Foto Session!

How do you get 6 people to all be looking at the camara and smiling pretty at the exact same time, especially when 2 of them are under 3???? The answer is...............

YOU DON'T!!!!!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Healthy girl!




We went to the doctor today because of another pesky sinus infection. He started her on antibiotics again. They weighed her and she was up to 23.6 pounds, that makes 2.2 pounds just since we have been home, less than a month! We also had blood drawn while we were there and her lab values are all pretty much normal now! Her phospherous was still a little elevated but he said we will wait for a month or two and retest her again. If they are still high, he will refer us to a specialist. He is very pleased with her progress. She is now walking everywhere and into everything. She says Hi, kinda like a big breath of air that comes out and she waves and smiles at the same time. She is signing eat, more, bed, and of course no!
Hannah continues to do well with Makenna as well. She loves being a big sister and loves her sometimes until she pulls her over or knocks her down!
TJ is having a great visit home and we sure enjoy him being home. Hannah is glued to him and Makenna has gone to him like she has known him forever. I don't think he will be ready to go back Tuesday, and we won't be ready to send him off either.
Ryan has basketball games tonight and tomorrow. He was listed in the paper as being in the top 10 boys in the county for field goal percentage. We are very proud of him for that. He does love his basketball!! He took Hannah downstairs with him last night to sleep with him! She loves her big brothers!
That's it for now. We are going to take pictures at Ryans game tonight so we can post those tomorrow. I have to work tomorrow, back on my Saturday shift. I hate being gone every Saturday when Scott is home from work and Ryan home from school that day but for now, it is what is needed.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas 2007




What a blessed Christmas we have had this year! To have all 4 of our children home is truly wonderful! We could not ask for more!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Get your kleenex out!

http://www.bringhim homesanta. com/

Get your kleenex out and ready for this one. Please remember all of our service men and women over seas during this time of year. It is so hard to be away from your loved ones.

http://www.bringhimhomesanta.com/index.php?page=video

TJ is home tomorrow!!

This morning, Hannah was laying in bed with me as we had our usual morning snuggle time. She asked if TJ was coming home today. I told her no, he would be here tomorrow morning. She said, "Good, I am so excited to see my big brother TJ!" She doesn't always want to talk to TJ on the phone but now that he is almost here, she is really getting excited. She even asked again as I put her down for a nap when we left to get him! I will post pictures of TJ and his reunion with Hannah and meeting Makenna for the first time tomorrow. We are all very excited. We have sure missed him!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Makenna, before a loving family and after!


4 weeks with Makenna Grace

We received Makenna Grace Bao Xian 4 weeks ago this past Sunday. I have been thinking alot over the last 2 days how her life has changed. She came to us smiling, and ready to play! Scott picked her up first in the conference room and she immediently started smiling. She wanted the cap to her bottle and began throwing it making daddy go fetch it. You can hear in the video that Scott was taking of the babies in the orphanage the cap falling a couple of times. You can also see Makennas hand come down over the lens of the camara as he held her and video taped the baby rooms! She came to either one of us willingly and didn't seem to have a favorite. I am sure her thoughts were these 2 nannys are the best I ever had! I am still not sure that she understands the consept of mommy and daddy but she knows that we are the ones that take care of her and love on her. She will let others hold her sometimes for a minute or so but always wants to come back to mommy and daddy. She knows that daddy plays more and usually has a snack for her! She gets so excited when Scott gets home from work. Both of the girls do. The last few mornings, Hannah has wanted to call Scott at work to tell him good morning.
This morning as I gave the girls their bath, I couldn't help but notice the change in Makenna. When we got her she was so frail, skin and bones with very little muscle. She couldn't walk, couldn't crawl, couldn't set up from a laying position. Today, she walks everywhere, crawls (GI and traditional), and is even going up steps. She is such a happy baby. Her temper tantrums that she was so fond of pitching are very few. She is doing much better with Hannah, not hitting her as much and giving her hugs. Hannah loves her little sister. She told me today that she has a cleft palate just like Makenna! She even opened her mouth to show me!
We have been amazed at how well Makenna's transition has gone. She is allowing us to cut her back on her food finally. This girl eats at least half again what Hannah eats! I am posting 2 pictures, one of her in the tub the day after we received her and one from this morning. What a change!!
We are so blessed to have these two girls in our family. They are truely gifts from God!!

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Can you help an orphan?

I found this You Tube video on another adoption blog and thought it was so good.
When Scott and I started thinking of adoption, we said all the reasons why we didn't WANT to start over. It came down to all of our reasons were very selfish. We could not adopt and enjoy empty nest and take a nice vacation every year, get some new furniture, be able to buy "toys" at will but what would we think of our decision in 14 years. You see, in most countries when an orphan hits the ripe old age of 14, they "age out" of the system. That means that they are released from the orphanage, usually with no money, little or no education, no family or family name. Alot of the girls are forced into prostitution or deplorable living conditions. How would we feel in 14 years of vacations and toys when a child that we COULD have helped was turned out into a society that despised them? We decided that we couldn't live with that so we began the paperwork and a little girl diagnosed with Pulmonary Stenosis named Cen Fu Huo was divinly placed into our family. Hannah has been such a blessing to our family and to many people she comes in contact with. We said from the beginning that we were adopting ONE child and after being home for just a few weeks we knew she needed a sister. We could give one more child a loving home and give Hannah a sister that looked like her and someone that she could relate to for the rest of her life. Enter Fu Bao Xian aka Makenna Grace! She has been such a wonderful child from the day we received her in Fuling. Finally we know now that our family is complete..........is it? Once you visit an orphanage, the faces of those children cry out to you in the night, during your day, while you are driving, you cannot escape them. Those precious little faces that looked up at us from their cribs with eyes asking to be held and rocked, sung to, prayed over, tickled, and loved unconditionally. What else can we do? So many children in the world need homes, how many of us could give just one child a home and a forever family? Is adoption for everyone? No, of course not, but we believe that everyone has a job to do, some are called to give these children families, some are called to give financially, and some are called to pray continually. Please pray about your roll in helping these children. The UN guesses there to be 143,000,000 orphans in the world. Everyday it is estimated another 5,760 children become orphans, staggering numbers. We praise God daily for blessing us with a second family! Was it in our life plan? NO! Would we change it for the world? NO!

Friday, December 14, 2007

The things kids say and do

One thing we have found out about Makenna is she needs 12 hours of sleep at night! Which sounds wonderful until you have something to do or visitors the night before and she doesn't get to bed until 10 or so! It is almost lunch time before she ever gets up! I have been going up and waking her up in the mornings. Night before she only slept for 10 hours and then she took a 3 hour nap! She rarely takes a nap longer than an hour when she gets a good night sleep. This morning I told Hannah that it was time to go wake Makenna up and she was so excited. This is coming from the little girl that asked yesterday if Makenna could go back to China! More on that later.... We went upstairs and went in the room. Hannah ran in and gently yelled "good morning Makenna" to which a startled eyed little girl woke up in a fog! Hannah wanted in the crib with her and gave her the biggest hug. She told Makenna "I love your eyelashes and your cleft palate"! Too cute for words. Oh did I mention that this morning after Makenna morning bottle, she had peed through her PJ's so I decide to strip her down and put her straight in the bath. I left for for 2 minutes to run the bath water and come right back out to get her. In that short amount of time she had proceeded to poop on the floor and was holding the prized marbles with a big grin on her face when I came through the gate! GROSS! Anyway, about yesterday... Yesterday was the first day that I started watching my nephew Tyler who is 6 months old and at least 20 pounds! He is a very sweet baby and I enjoy having him. Well, he is HANNAH'S Tyler Michael and no one elses, even his mom has to fight some evenings to take him home. Heaven forbid anyone come over to visit and even look at him, they will get yelled at by Hannah that he is HER Tyler Michael. Well, as you can guess where this is going as soon as Makenna looked at Tyler Hannah went into a jealous rage. She was pushing Makenna away and hitting her to get away. She said that Tyler was only hers and not Makenna's cousin. On top of it all, Makenna decided that Tyler was a huge threat to her and was very naughty with him. I could not leave the room because I couldn't trust her. She pulled his hair, pinched his belly, tried to sit on him.... It was quite the battle. When I was sitting on the floor giving Tyler his bottle she kept trying to pull him off my lap. Oh my, what a day. I went through almost a whole 2 liter of Diet Coke yesterday, thank goodness my wonderful husband splurged and bought me some! I could not have made it through the day without it! On top of it all I even got a very good supper fixed that included 2 veggies, chicken breast, rolls, and even dessert! (Scott made the brownies after supper) My step dad came in to meet Makenna for dinner. We looked at pictures and watched video of our trip and had a very nice visit. After he left and the kids were in bed, I finally got the suitcase from Indiana unpacked and put away and the last suitcase from China! It just had stuff in it that we don't use or summery clothes that we obviously don't need this time of year in it and I had just put off cleaning it out.
On an exciting note, TJ gets home one week from yesterday! We are so excited to see him. I know Hannah has been talking about seeing TJ. She will not speak to him on the phone but will talk to him on the webcam. The other day she was refusing to talk to him on the phone and he told her that if she didn't talk to him he was not buying her a Christmas present. So, she agreed, took the phone, said Hello, and handed the phone back to me! Oh, she is a smart one!
We are headed to Ryan's basketball game tonight. It will be my first game of the year. We were in China for his first couple of games, then there was 2 at least an hour away, to far to take the girls, and last weekend we were on our way to Indiana. I am looking forward to watching him play. I know he is excited to show Makenna off to his friends. I'll post a few pics from the last couple of days then post some of Ryans game (if we are able to manage 2 toddlers and a camara)

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Orphans from Fuling




Scott put the pictures of the babies still at Makenna's orphanage to music in this YouTube video. I hope you enjoy it. When you listen to the words, it will bring tears to your eyes. It is hard to imagine how many children need families, not just in China but all over the world. Our prayer is that Hannah and Makenna would encourage another family to bring a child home. We can only adopt and help 2 but hopefully our two will result in others adopting. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about adoption, I'd love to help!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Christmas at the Cabin 2007




We had our second annual Christmas at the cabin this past weekend. We had a wonderful time. The girls enjoyed themselves too! Hannah told me when we were going to bed Saturday night that she was sooo happy that she had lots of cousins!! Pretty cute. Makenna did pretty well for only being home from China 10 days and then being uprooted again. She is pretty easy going and just goes with the flow. As long as she sees mommy or daddy she is fine. She started pulling herself up to furniture this weekend and walking. She has come so far in the 3 weeks that we have had her. We had fun with the gift game. Scott ended up with a nice home made fleece Colts blanket and I ended up with a CD clock radio. We needed a clock in the girls room and I play a Cd at night while they sleep so it will be perfect! We had lots of food, too much, but it was good. I went 30 some hours with no Diet Coke so those of you that know me, knows what a struggle that was!
Hannah's favorite thing I think was decorating cookies!! She would dip the paint brush in the icing then lick it off. She ate sprinkles right out of the can, good thing grandma was helping her and not mommy!! Oh the benefits of being a grandparent....!
Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Merry CHRISTMAS!

Just wanted to tell everyone Merry Christmas. We have so much to be thankful for this Christmas season. God has so richly blessed our family. He has saw fit to add a new life to our family this year! We are so excited that TJ will be home in 2 weeks for a couple of weeks. We have missed him so much and I think he is ready to come "home" to crash and relax. Ryan is in the middle of basketball season so it will be nice for TJ to get to a couple of his games. I know Ryan has missed his big brother being gone....although they used to fight ALL the time, they are finally becoming friends again.
Makenna is doing great. She continues to eat like a linebacker! She has sure gained weight since we had her. Some of her labs came back not so good and we are going to moniter for for the next month and try to get good foods in her and see how her body responds. She has been sleeping 10-12 hours a night! That is always wonderful.
Hannah has been a wonderful big sister. She has shown very little jealousy with Makenna. Makenna is far more jealous of Hannah! Hannah has been acting out more, doens't listen to what you tell her. We are nipping that in the bud. She is finally sleeping in her room! Anyone who has been following her journey knows that she has been in our room since the day we brought her home! She and Makenna are sharing a newly decorated room upstairs. It is a small battle most naps and nights but I refuse to give in at this point so I win every night! She slept upstairs for grandma and grandpa the whole time we were in China so she can keep it up!
That's about it. I will post some pictures later of our last days in China and also since we have been home.
We praise God the Father for His grace and mercy on our family and for blessing us with 4 of the most wonderful children in the world!
God Bless and have a Merry Christmas!