Dragon Boat Festival

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This weekend we were able to go for the second year to the Dragon Boat Festival.  It is so much fun to be a part of the festivities. We love this opportunity to celebrate a little Asian culture with our girl and a few special China friends. Mae, Amie and Mia. 


Aren't these the cutest little friends holding hands?



I just looked back to see our pictures from last year and I can not believe how much Mae has grown up in a year!




LOA!!!!

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We received these two very beautiful pieces of paper yesterday from China. This means we have LOA - "letters of Acceptance" from China. This is a very big milestone in our process and we are jumping up and down for joy!!! From here things will move fast! We will be in China sometime between November to December. 

Seeing these papers with our children's names next to ours made me very emotional. We are theirs and they are ours. FOREVER!


 



 

Mae's Money

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I use this blog like my scrapbook... I love looking back and seeing all the things we've done and all the ways Mae has grown. Yesterday was, in some a ways, a step to becoming a big girl for Mae. She had gotten a few dollars for her birthday in a card from Grandma and this was the first time Mae was really excited about having her own money. We have a piggie bank for Mae and she wanted to put her money together and count it. She had $13 dollars.

We wanted to take this time to start teaching her to give a part and save a part.  She will give a dollar at church and save a dollar for later, so today she had $11 to spend.

So, we went to Walmart and walked in and asked her where she wanted to go in the store and what she wanted to buy. This child's answer was so precious, it made me cry right there in Walmart. She said she wanted to buy some clothes for Jovie. Gah! how is it that she is so sweet!? Her daddy explained to her that we would buy Jovie and Ian's clothes and that she could find something for herself.

We walked every aisle in the toy section. Mae just really is a great kid that hardly ever asks for anything. She seemed more happy to be walking the store than to really be interested in anything. We started pointing things out to her and she finally got excited about some mega blocks that she could use with her blocks at home to build a castle.

We went home to go build blocks and with a thankful heart to have such an incredible girl. 

Zoo Day

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Wednesday my mom (Nonna) took Mae and me to the zoo.  It was a PERFECT day! School had started back for all the kids in the area so we were so happy to find that there were few others that had our idea to go (: The weather was perfect and we truly had a memorable day. I love our Atlanta Zoo and Mae had a terrific time. Can you guess what Mae's favorite animal was? Was it the elephants that put on a show? the pandas? the gorillas? Nope, nope, and nope.  It was the meerkat... to our surprise; although they are strangely cute. And one of the coolest things was getting to feed the birds while they perched on our little sticks. It was a great way to say goodbye to summer.

Battles and Blessings

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We heard remarkable news yesterday: WE HAVE RAISED ALL OF OUR ADOPTION EXPENSES.

DONE! It is still sinking in. I honestly can not express to you the magnitude of this. It is a weight lifted that I didn't realize was quite so heavy.  I don't know how to begin to thank everyone, but my eyes are filled with tears and my heart wants to burst. We could not have done it without your help. Praise God, but on the heels of this I have come to realize I have so much to learn about God. God has been dealing with my heart.

So, this little revelation may have taken me an embarrassingly long time to reach, but—It is not about me. I think I know what I want and what I need. I was singing on Sunday and the words, "Here I am Lord" and it really hit me... my prayers around our adoption are all centered around me: "Please let our kids come home quickly." This is my heart's desire, but on Sunday I realized how much I am caught up on this, and then it hit me even harder that God is probably saying, "Kristen, this whole thing was my idea!!"

Oh yeah.
This was all God's plan after-all. He had to clue me in on it, and I am only a participant.

Okay, not rocket science, but this should change things, right? This does not change the longing that I have to know my children, but it most certainly does change the perspective. I am (we are) so small. To think and pray only in our little tiny worlds is really narcissistic, don't you think? I have been thinking very small. God's desire is to get these kids home, I do know that... but how much further does his plan reach? Wow, that is a thought.

There's also the matter of trusting. You see, I know that I am out of control... I know that there is NOTHING that I can do to make things speed up, but do I have even an inkling of how big my God is? I recently heard a quote, "There is not one inch of the universe that the Lord Jesus does not say, 'That is mine.'"

Just maybe God's plan is to not only give these two children a momma, but to also build this momma's character.

Okay, so it's not about me, and I have very little vision past my own selfishness. But there's more...

Patience. I'm realizing just because you have no choice in the matter does not give you patience. Patience according to wikipedia is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties.

Yep, I do not have patience. I am trying to handle my "delay" without it affecting me negatively, but I feel like this has been like taming King Kong. And it has been a little destructive, but I am trying to overcome it daily. God gave me a few people to aspire to: Noah waited 120 years and endured ridicule for his promise to come to pass. Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for their child, all the time watching their bodies becoming increasingly older. Joseph waited 13 years in prison before his promise came to pass and he became a position of power in Egypt. So there is a promise to hold tightly, while battling King Kong, "Those that have faith and patience inherit the promises" Hebrews 6:12.

So today I feel honored to know that I am a player in the plan God has had in place... no matter how long the wait is. God just called us to obedience and we have done everything we can. And GOD is so much bigger than I give him credit. He is showing us a glimpse of this today through the generosity of so many people that HE IS IN THIS, with $29,140 raised!!!

Mae's 4th Birthday

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On Friday we got to celebrate at the park. Mae is so fortunate to have some very special friends that love her dearly. All these beautiful smiling children were adopted from China and all of them share a very special friendship.

 Saturday was Mae's birthday!! She woke up ecstatic... this is the first year she really truly understood and remembered from the year before.  For weeks we have counted down the days and it was finally here!! Mae is our little sunshine, she is always so full of joy and most of the time a little silliness too.  These pictures capture her beauty pretty well! She is looking a little more grown up to me  too!
 

We headed to IHOP for our traditional birthday breakfast.  Mae enjoyed chocolate pancakes and then we headed downtown to the Children's Museum. We actually took her here last year for her birthday too but it was such a good time we thought we would go back. This year she was a little older and got more into everything. It was SO MUCH FUN! I was bursting with pride as I watched her go from one activity to the next. She is incredible and all the time I can't believe she is ours!

 
This year we went for a no-fuss birthday... just simple fun with family. I didn't even make her cake, although I had intentions to.  We went to the store and she picked her sunshine cookie cake. How perfect for my little sunshine?! 

 
Mae got special gifts from very special people in her life. Whenever she opens gifts she wants to just play with the first one and forgets all about opening the others. I love this about her. So if you give this girl a tutu she will dance... I feel like this is the missing book in the "if you give a mouse a cookie" series.

Cody and I got her an ubooly. It's an interactive toy that encourages creative play. Ubooly is a stuffed doll that uses an app on the iPhone and interacts with children by asking them questions, playing imaginative games with them, tells jokes, and stories. I think it's one of the coolest little inventions for children. I'm telling you all about it so you can go check it out. (: www.ubooly.com

I can get pretty sappy pretty quickly when it comes to talking about my kids; we are blessed beyond measure. Our darling Mae is so uniquely beautiful and we celebrate her life every day. God gets all the glory for this one!! I can not help but praise him when I see how perfectly he placed this child into our family. She does not share our DNA and I do not get to think back to the day she was born. I don't even know what we were doing on that day, but I was created to be Mae's mom. She was 20 months old when we got her and there are some parts of her story that we may never know, but I hope that she will never doubt the hand of God in her life. She is so completely loved and so many people are a part of her story. I am beyond grateful to all those that have loved our girl, both near and far. There is no doubt that Mae has made an incredible mark on the lives of those that have cared for her. Mae is a very special girl and I am humbled to be her mother.