John's First Christmas Play

Bailey is sick with a virus.  Her temp was 103.5 this morning at 5:30.  Needless to say she and I weren't able to attend or participate in our church's Christmas play and party last night since she has been sick since Saturday.

So, we missed Brinley singing her sweet little solo of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Sad that I missed that. She has practiced so much!  I also missed John's debut in th church's Christmas play.  With only our children and two teen girls in our church the pickins' are slim for kids to fill the roles.   That is why John was a sheep, an angel, a king and Joseph in the play.  Marty took little snippets of his parts in the play and put them together in this short video.  Please note that John John's role was to just stand there and look cute.    LOL  

Brinley is singing while John is on stage as a sheep.  You can barely hear her.

Voting

Marty and I voted today.  :)   Glad to live in a place where we have the opportunity to vote.

Please pray

My dear friend Stefani said it best,
"On Monday, October 29, 2012, wee gentle Hai Ou was adopted by his eager and relieved mother. He came with a fever combined with flu like symptoms and continued to weaken until he suddenly suffered a seizure. He was rushed to the hospital where he ultimately finished his earthly journey, leaving his new family with a profound hole in their hearts that will never be filled. His grieving mother sh

ares that "he was perfect". Hai Ou had a repaired heart condition but it was a virus that ended his life.

Hai Ou, we honor your little life. Your adorable little smile touched so many and they will miss you. Even in death, your smile will touch others and there will be much weeping over your passing and over your mother's loss. We weep for your foster family and for each person who loved you and for those who wished they could have loved you.

I was here
I lived, I loved
I was here
I left my mark so everyone could know
I was here
I just want them to know
That I gave my all, did my best
Brought someone to hapiness
Left this world a little better just because
I was here

Please take a minute and look into his eyes and honor his much too short life. Also take a minute to send out your comforting thoughts to his heartbroken mother as she walks this utterly devastating road without her much awaited son.

The ravages of a Chinese winter are just beginning and we dread the trails the children will endure as they await spring."

Imagine the excitement of finally meeting him and holding him just like we did with our John John, our Bailey and our Brinley! Sadly, this sweet baby boy passed away last night after just two brief days with his mama. I know I talk a lot about adoption here but adoption is not the only way to help these children.

Children die every day from the bitter cold and lack of food. Winter is not a time of fun and Santa for these children. The days are long and cold and the nights are even colder. I will be starting a project to help more children and I hope that when you look at the adorable photos of our adopted children you will realize that they, too, could have died as infants if someone just like you hadn't cared enough to help. ♥

Bad Blogger

I have been just terrible about keeping this blog up.  It is so easy to post photos and news to Facebook where most of my friends can see it.  But I tend to forget that this blog is here and needs to be updated for the memories.  So, here goes a BIG catch up post!  (No particular order so hang on for a bumpy ride!)

 John John celebrated his very first birthday with us in July!  He had a great time and LOVED everything Spiderman!!!

We have made several trips to St. Louis to have John's vertical talus repaired.  He's worn these casts like a champ and has never complained the first time.  At first he did ask frequently if he could go "schwinning".  He has his last cast removed next Monday!  HOORAY!!!

Before his first surgery.

Sweet Baby.....we are so blessed to be his parents!

Second trip to the OR....one more to go!

Oh yeah....and he's broken 2 of his 4 casts!  

Notice the duct tape on the one below?  

We celebrated Father's Day!

This is a photo of my favorite people in the ENTIRE WORLD!!!   

I am so proud of each of them for their own reasons.

KEITH GRADUATED! (More on this in another post!)

We found out John is really a super hero!  :)

To be continued!!!

We've also had a lot of time on the road between here and St. Louis.  We visited some of my family while we were there one time.  We celebrated Bailey's gotcha day and we've celebrated Brinley's birthday.  We had a sweet little friend visit us for 11 days.  Lots more photos to come!  I'll have to upload them from my camera!  :)

This post says it all!

Click HERE to read the story.

Bailey turns 8!

Can't believe our Bailey Shay is now EIGHT years old!  She, on the other hand, is very..VERY excited to be 8.  Especially right now since she and Brinley are the same age for a few months.

Party at the pond was on the agenda with our dear friends!  I usually take a lot more photos but I decided to really enjoy the day and talk more than taking a thousand photos.  So I only took 999.  ;)

John John loved hanging out with Sophie!

Fulton caught a nice one!

The party theme was "Spy Kids" and Marty had games planned that were awesome!  The kids loved climbing the rope ladder and doing the obstacle course.  They did some target practice shooting balloons with a BB gun.  But you know what the biggest hit of the party was??  A totally unexpected, unplanned, old-fashioned JUMP ROPE!!!   We didn't even plan on having it at the party!  Brinley and Bailey were playing with it while we set up everything earlier in the day and it was left on the picnic table.

We found out that one of our mamas was on a jump rope team in school. (Go Jennifer!)  We also found out that one of our mamas can still jump with the best of them (Go Kim!)  and that no one else could keep up with Kelly and her double-time jumping!  We also learned that the birthday girl's daddy could jump too....sort of! 

Yep.....a rope and a bunch of girls and you've got a recipe for a jump rope marathon!!!

Just a note for our family's future reference when we look back at these photos.  Where was Brinley???  She was too busy running around playing with her BFFN Ethan.  

She told us last week that Ethan is her "best friend for now".    ;)  

Just ignore the toys everywhere...

John John loves, loves, LOVES to dance!  This week when Dancing With the Stars was on he started dancing all over the living room and his daddy caught it on video with his phone.  Please just step over the toys all over the floor.  I don't pretend to have one of those houses that looks like a museum.  ;)   Just keepin' it real!

A surprise visit...

Anyone who knows me well knows that my absolute favorite band is Kutless and that my favorite song is "What Faith Can Do".   I heard them perform that song live the night before we had to give our adoption agency a definite answer about whether or not we wanted to adopt John Wesley. When I heard that song that night I was pretty much flat on my face saying "God, I have faith and I know you can move mountains to help us bring this little boy home."  The next day my sweet (reluctant) hubby said "I can't think of a single reason not to say yes."    THAT'S WHAT FAITH CAN DO!

I am a member of the WMHK music team. Every couple of weeks I get a survey in my email and I click on the songs I like the most that week.  Not a big deal and never expected any pay back for taking a few minutes to do this.  Well, I got a big surprise a couple of weeks ago.  It was an emailed invitation from WMHK to a private acoustic concert by KUTLESS.  I was so stinkin' excited, y'all!!!

My hubby and I went and we had a great time.  There were less than 100 people at this show and we were blessed to be two of them!

  Here is a clip of them singing "What Faith Can Do" that night.  You can even see me at the beginning of it.  That's me on the left at the very beginning.  Glad no one but Jon Micah could see my face because I was crying through the entire song.  "I've seen miracles, just happen.....that's what faith can do."


After the show we were able to meet them and talk to them.  I told them about why this song meant so much to me and showed them a photo of John Wesley they oooohed and aaaaahed over his cuteness.  Got photos, hugs and handshakes. Very nice people who are truly passionate about reaching the world for Christ.

Here are a couple of other clips from that night.  Jon Micah tells an interesting story in one of them.



Thank you, WMHK and thank you, Kutless..........and thank you, Lord for this blessing and our little John Wesley!

Bad blogger....and strawberries!

Yes, it is true.  I am a bad, bad blogger.  Facebook just makes it so easy to share photos and news but I really want to do better with my blogging.  I even have some posts I've started since we have been home from China with John John but I haven't finished them.  I'll just have to do some catching up.

Yesterday we went strawberry pickin'!  Oh my word but John John had a BLAST picking! The only way we could explain to him which ones to pick was to tell him the white ones were "nassie!".  We thought that would solve it.  He doesn't want anything to do with anything he thinks is "nasty".

  He was picking pretty good until he decided to pick the nassie ones to get them out of the field!  LOL  He is such a trip!

The place we go to is owned by cousins.  It is quite a drive to get there but we always love seeing them.  John John fell asleep and had some wild hair when we arrived.  He didn't seem to mind.

I can't tell you how much I missed having "Boss" along with us.  He loves picking strawberries with us....and eating his way up and down the rows.  Miss him so much!!! (Alzheimers....you stink!!!)

John loves to stick with Brice if he is with us.  He loves "Bricey-uh"!

The feeling is mutual.  Brice thinks having a little brother is pretty cool!

Bailey picked a full basket this year!  She's growing up so fast!

Cousin Todd promised everyone a surprise after we finished picking.  He fixed everyone a strawberry slushie and they were YUMMY!!!

  This is what happens when you sit down in a strawberry field.  The End.  ;)