Great News!

A Child’s Right has been given a generous donation that will allow them to put a water filtration system into every orphanage in China. Last year they were given access to all orphanages, and this year they have the funding to make it happen.
You can read all about it at The Huffington Post.
You can see the orphanages on a map at A Child’s Right.

Wens orphanage is listed as 'funded'. God bless the generous giver.

And to take a look at their upcoming trips all over the world, go here.

Clean water should be a right, not a luxury.

We truly take for granted how extremely blessed we are in the United States.

With Sympathy...

My great friend Sherri lost her father last night after much suffering. She has been in Texas with him since before Christmas. She still has a long road ahead of her.

Your family is in my prayers....

Jack Rocks!

I told you we went to Acquire the Fire this last weekend and just like any other event you may go to, they sell Tshirts, hoodies, books, CD's, necklaces, scarves, bags, etc....
On Friday, I spotted this really adorable bag. I don't really need a bag, and for me, it's too big for a purse. But it was so cute! Well, Friday we talked about needs vs. wants. This adorable little bag fell into the 'want' pile for me.
I kept seeing this little bag all day on Saturday and kept commenting on how cute it was and how I thought it would be a cute little diaper bag for Jia. Yes, I know that Jia turned 3 in January. But most likely she will still be in diapers and there's just 'stuff' we'll need to carry around for a while! But I didn't give in a buy it.
So it's about 9:30 PM Saturday night and we're waiting to leave. People are making their last minute bathroom stops before we get on the bus and we are literally fixin' to leave KC. Well, I couldn't find Jacen. I was afraid he'd gone on to the bus. So Jack wondered off, I figured to look around for him. Well, turns out Jacen was right where he should've been, with the group. He was just tired and not making any noise!
So Jack comes back and stands next to me and we're on ready to go. I keep bouncing back and forth in my head, should I go get the bag? Should I not? Do I really need it? Will there be any left? Will I regret it if I don't? Will I never see anything as cute as this bag and always be sorry? Well, I voiced my thoughts and asked Jack "Do you think we should just go 'look' at the bag before we go?" Jack said "This bag?" and held up the bag he had just bought for me when I thought he was looking for Jacen.
All the girls were Ohhhhing and Ahhhhing over how sweet he was! He really played that right! No, all sarcasm aside, it was entirely sweet and I truly appreciated it! It was so kind of him to go buy it for me and surprise me with it rather than discouraging me from getting it or even giving me the money to go get it myself. I was really touched! It will always be Jia's bag that daddy bought for her at ATF!

Isn't it cute?

The inside is red polka dots to match my blog!

We are beyond thrilled to finally introduce you all to our daughter! We've known it's a sure thing since October, but our agency wanted us to get to a certain point with our paperwork before sharing pictures and information.
Her name is Gang Qiu Wen and she is in Maoming City, Guangdong Pr.... a beach baby! Her birthday is January 7th, 2006. So she just turned 3!
Gang is her surname and it means Harbor/HongKong. If you look at the location on the map, you'll understand. It is the last name of all kids in her orphanage.
Qiu would be her first name and it means Autumn/Harvest. There are many kids in her orphange who share this first name.
Wen is what we would consider her middle name here. It means multi colored clouds. This name has some sort of significance to her specifically or the day she was brought to the orphanage. So this is the name that they most likely address her as.
Since she is most likely called Wen or Wen Wen in the orphanage and we really LIKE that name, we may end up calling her that... there's a theme there... A lot of our early years were all about WIN!!! Then it became all about WHEN???? and from now on it's all about WEN!!!!
We will officially name her Jiana Ellan Qiu Wen Stotts. Jiana means God's Grace and that she is. In the very beginning we looked at Chinese names and found Jia - but I thought it need to be a little more 'flowery' if you will, so I made it Jiana and we'll call her Jia or Wen, depending... Ellan is signifcant, just as the middle name of all 3 of our boys... I'll keep you guessing on that one. And I know the Qiu Wen makes it a mouth full, but her name is the only thing that she has that's really 'hers' and so we're keeping it. No, we won't yell out the full name when she's in trouble. Heck, she'll probably never get in trouble, but it will be on her paperwork. It's there if she wants it down the road.

This is the very first picture we seen of Wen... Her referal picture.

Those are the lips I fell in love with!

These are frozen shots from a video we received of Wen. The video was taken in July of 2008. At the time of this update she weighed 18 pounds and was 28 inches tall.

And this picture is within the last 2 weeks! We requested updated photo's and this is what they emailed us! I was shocked at how much her hair has grown! I hope they don't cut it again! We also got new measurements. She is currently 22 pounds and 31 inches tall. It's good to know that she is growing, but still such a peanut. On the US size charts, her weight puts her in a size 12/18 months and her height in an 18/24 months size. When I got the updated measurements, I went home and went through all the clothes I have bought. It's been 3 years, mind you! I'll have to change her 3 times a day at least to make it through all the little sundresses this summer!

We switched agencies entirely to adopt Wen, so that meant starting from scratch with paperwork and it's taking longer. Our paperwork has been submitted and CCAA has sent word that they have it. They will have to review it and send up an official LOA (letter of acceptance) to sign and then they will send us travel approval. At this point, I've seen LOA's come anywhere from 6 days to over 90. So it's really hard to tell when we'll travel. Our new agency rocks and they are really going to bat for us to speed things up!

More later....

Happy Birthday Dad

My dad turned 67 February 25th. Since my brother is a truck driver, we usually have our celebrations on the weekends. So after church on Sunday, we went to my parents to have lunch with them and my brother, Rob.
Jory took my camera and was snapping pictures. I thought a few (of the thirty+ that he took) were pretty cool. It's fun to see what Jory was seeing and what he wanted to get pictures of. Usually I find my camera full of pictures of our cat, the TV with Spongebob on (lots of those), Jory's toy cars and trucks lined up on his dresser, lots of pictures of his teeth, up his nose, etc...
But here are a few he took today!

This is of my mom's and my brother's arm, with Rob's bowl of vegetable soup.

It just looks artsy to me!

Here's my Dad's legs under the table!

My Dad taking a drink of his iced tea.

And finally one of me!

Like I said, my brother owns and drives his own semi. I've also mentioned in previous posts how terribly he spoils my boys and always has something for them. Well, today was no different. He said he had 'playdough' in his truck for Jacen and Jory. Well, this isn't exactly the kind of 'playdough' I was imagining. It makes 'sounds' if you catch my drift... I said "I have never seen anything like this before" and my dad replied "well, you don't shop at a truckstop". True! 'Nuff said!
Here's a little video of Jory and Uncle Rob, playing with the 'playdough'!!!

ATF 2009

This weekend end, Jack, Jacen and I attended Acquire the Fire at Kemper Arena in KC. This was my 5th AFT event and Jack and Jacen's 2nd. We've also bought our tickets for next year already! Our seats, once again, were the 4th and 5th row from the stage, center section.

You couldn't ask for better seats, but I could've asked for better bands this year! Unhindered led worship again and I think that they're awesome! Friday night we seen Leeland. I really like them as well. We seen them open for Casting Crowns last year. I was excited for Jacen to see Leeland, because the lead singer has that 'skater' look to him.

But Saturday was Everyday Sunday... not too bad, but not my thing. The lead singer was obviously not feeling well and cut their session short. God bless him, he did great and gave it his all, but you could just tell he was miserable. Then Thousand Foot Crutch took the stage. Sorry! Too much head banging. Although the kids like it and that's what ATF is all about, so there you go! I lived! It will be very hard for ATF to beat their 08 event with the 'BEMA' drama and the Newsboys! That was my favorite year of all!

So anyway, we leave our town, about 1 and 1/2 hours from KC. It's calling for 5 inches on snow at home and just a 'dusting' in KC.... As you can tell by the picture, the opposite happened! Not a bit of snow in N MO!