Mei Mei for us!

We are thrilled to introduce you to our new

 daughter/sister!!!

We have chosen the name Jemma, and are still undecided on a middle name.

Jemma currently lives in foster care in Liuzhou, Guangxi China.

She will be 3 in October.

She has the same special need as Jia.

We received our PA for Jemma on May 16th.

Tomorrow is our final visit with our social worker and then it will take her 3-4 weeks to get our homestudy all wrote up.

We have a few other documents to gather and then we will submit our Dossier to China.

It's been a long time since we've done this and I haven't been staying up to date on all the timelines.  I do know there are some extra steps this time around we didn't have to do with Jia.

I refuse to obsess over RQ and just take it one day at a time this go-around!  I feel much more relaxed and able to trust God's timing and provision.  However, I am freaking out a tiny bit about having a 3 year old again!  (she will be 3 before we get her home) 

I love this picture that shows off her chubbiness!  And Jack already has her pegged for being a Tomboy since she's wearing overalls!  Time to pack up all the dresses!

The kids are all excited and ready to have her home!

Momma is to!  :)

MaoGang Reunion 2012

Last weekend we had our 1st MaoGang Reunion! 

14 families were able to meet in Kansas City at the Great Wolf Lodge

 and spend the weekend getting aquainted.

This was such an amazing weekend for our daughters.

It was such a blessing watching them play together and get to know one another.  They all got along so well and seemed to find someone they 'clicked' with!

We kicked off with dinner at the T-Rex Cafe at Legends.

My sweet friend Aimee from NC offered to make scrap book pages of the girls.

She included their referal pictures, a picture of their family and some favorites of each girl.

The page also incuded some fun facts about each girl.

As you can tell, it was a big hit! 

Saturday was crafts at Kaleidescope and the

Hallmark Visitors Center.

Saturday night one of our awesome families hosted a picnic at Wyandotte County Lake.

I dare say this was the highlight of our weekend. 

The location was beautiful. 

The weather was nice.

The kids could run.

This is Jia and Gracie.

Remember when I said all the girls found someone they 'clicked' with?

Well Jia clicked with Gracie!

They were inseperable!

Another awesome mom had matching shirts made for all the girls!

And yes, Jia has one. But you know that would require wearing pants or shorts.  And my girl wasn't to thrilled with that.

I do wish we'd at least slipped it on over her dress for pictures. 

After the group photo's of the girls, we took pictures of each individual family.

Here's is Jia's scrapbook page that Aimee made!

The weekend was just so great.  There just aren't words to explain how it felt to see all of these girls together.  I believe 7 of the families that were at the picnic were the first families from America to adopt from MaoGang!  They all travelled together in 2005!

Some of the little girls would have been in the orphanage the same time Jia was, but none of them seemed to remember.  However, they will all remember eachother from the picnic!

God is good!

March Review

I took Jacen out one afternoon just goofin' off and hunting for some cool things to take pictures of.

This is all we got before it started raining!

We were supposed to be taking pictures of 'things' not him... hence the attire!

But this wall was too cool to pass on!

I take the kids to school every morning and one day as I was taking Jory and Jia, the line was very long, like 4-5 blocks.  I asked Jory why on earth the line wsa so long and he informed me it was the ABC awards that day.  You remember Jia got an award the beginning of the year.

Well, Jory started a pity party saying he will never get an award.  Everyone gets an award but him. And so on....  As the kids file into the gymnasium, they are all looking for their parents.  That way they know they're getting an award.  It was so funny that I managed to remain out of Jory's sight until they called his name.

He was really surprised.  I love the pictures I got of him. He couldn't contain his grin.

In this first picture, he still hadn't seen me and was thinking I wasn't there.  Jia was sitting in the front row with the Kindergarteners and he was smiling at her.  **swoon**  He is such a great brother!

Ah Ha!!  There you are mom!

 

I made Jia a new dress and we were outside taking pictures of it.  It's rare for her to let Daddy pick her up when he's working in the garage and is dirty!

I love this picture of them!  Notice her missing front teeth!

We took pictures out in the street and Jory was coming up the road on his bike.  Lil Miss was a bit put out that he was interfering with her photo shoot.

In typical big brother fashion, he showed her no mercy.

Here's Sassy Pants in the other dress we made that day.

Jia has developed a love of PB&J!  The  J being Granny Mona's homemade raspberry jelly.

She likes making them on her own.  She's growing up way too fast!

My cousin Travis made it back from Florida for a quick visit.

Thanks to his sweet wife Lisa for letting him use their airline credit to see us over his spring break.

Jia really warmed up to him... right as we were fixing to go!  

A fun little cake Jia and I made... Love Pinterest.

Someone was a little anxious!

There's most of March!

We are hitting that busy time of year.

Jory has Baseball practice on Tuesday and Thursdays.

Soccer practice on Wednesdays, then he and Jia go to AWANA'S.

Saturday morning is Soccer games, which thankfully have been rained out so far, allowing Jory to play roller hockey.  He has 2 roller hockey games each Saturday morning for the next 4 weeks.

Soon, Jia will begin her T-Ball practices and then Jory and Jia will have Ballgames.

So.  Life is good and busy!

Something New...

Jory has signed up for a new Roller Hockey league.  They play for 4 weeks.  Here is Jory and one of his best friends.  Love this picture.  They both look so tough!  And they won both of their games on Saturday!

February Wrap-Up

I could tell you all about how busy we are... but let's face it, you're only here for the pictures anyway, right??

Here ya go!  We stopped alongside the road on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's one day to snap these pictures.  I wish Jia didn't have her glasses on with the transition lenses.  But they're still cute!