Summer Anyone??

I think it is safe to say Annslee is ready for summer and the pool to open!!

Come on, is it really not open yet??

Well, guess I'll just stand here and look cute then!

The rest

As promised here are the rest of our Hubei Reunion pictures. We had such a great time spending time together. I took a ton of pics but now wish I'd taken more. Mainly I wish I'd taken more of the adults because I have so few of those...and we totally forgot to get a group shot with everyone. Who am I kidding though...you come to see the kids so here you go!

We did manage a family pic (thanksDebbie)

We went to a great restaurant on Saturday night called The Noodle House.....they weren't really prepared for our crew but luckily had an outside patio with no exit so we let the kids run wild : )

After dinner we came back to the hotel and our room was the "gathering spot" which we love. JiaLi played with Annslee's panda puppet and I think it was just one more thing we got in China that Joe got in trouble about. Michelle kept asking me "where did you get that?" about two necklaces I have and the puppet. I told her "in China" and of course Joe was with us the whole time so she couldn't believe he failed to grab them too...especially the puppet LOL They did spot one at the Zoo but it was considerably higher priced than the $2 we spent in Guangzhou.

On Sunday morning we headed for breakfast and then the park. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to some of our group first.

While waiting for the shuttle the girls goofed off then I started putting one of the girls on my back then I would swing around saying "I thought someone was behind me..where are they?" They thought it was hilarious but then decided I needed to hold two girls while doing it. Man, that got heavy! (notice A on my back in the bottom pic)

The weather was beautiful for the park and they had plenty of energy to burn

Michelle took the bottom right picture of Annslee and Lauren fighting for the swing..it cracks me up!

I want to thank all of you for your sweet comments and emails. Your thoughts and prayers for us are so appreciated. We have heard from our agency but they don't know much for now. They did suggest we change our age range from 0-24 months to 0-36 months and we are doing that. They also want us to be open to either gender so we will see how that works out. Annslee is so excited about a baby sister but all children are a blessing so we are waiting to see what God has planned for us. Keep your prayers coming!

Well, it is official

Well, I really wanted to post more fun pictures of our reunion last weekend (and I will do that) but I do feel like I have to post today's release from the US Embassy about adoptions in Vietnam. I will post a link to the entire release and you feel free to read it to understand better. Here is the part that made my stomach turn and makes me wonder when/if we will bring Malia home ~


Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit
Warning Concerning Adoptions in Vietnam
April 2008
The Department of State continues to urge prospective adoptive parents and adoption service providers not to initiate new adoptions from Vietnam at this time. The 2005 Memorandum of Agreement, required by Vietnamese law to authorize adoptions between the United States and Vietnam, expires on September 1, 2008. In addition, recent field investigations have revealed incidents of serious adoption irregularities, including forged or altered documentation, mothers paid, coerced or tricked into releasing their children, and children offered for adoption without the knowledge or consent of their birth parents.
The United States is strongly committed to processing legitimate intercountry adoptions from Vietnam if possible. Our primary concern is to ensure that the children and families involved in the adoption process are protected from exploitation. The Government of Vietnam shares this concern. Both countries acknowledge that more needs to be done to address deficiencies in the current system.
On April 25, the Government of Vietnam announced that it will allow adoption to be completed in cases where prospective adoptive parents have been matched with a child and received an official referral prior to September 1, 2008. It further stated that in accordance with Vietnamese law, the DIA will suspend the acceptance of new dossiers on July 1, 2008. On September 1, 2008 any dossier that has not received a referral will be closed and returned to the Adoption Service Provider. In view of the processing time required in Vietnam from placement to the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, an adoption process begun now cannot be completed before the current Agreement expires.

Here are the links to both releases:

Warning concerning adoptions in Vietnam

Read this for the full story

Let me first say that I do want adoptions from Vietnam to be ethical. The mere thought of birthparents being tricked, paid off and deceived is appalling. The children and their first families deserve more than that. I do not want to ever question whether our daughter was truly an orphan.

We have waited for almost 18 months already and so the chances of a referral in the next four months doesn't seem very likely to me. We are waiting for some official word from our agency on where they think we stand. I have run through many emotions today and honestly, I don't know where I stand right now. I will keep you all posted of course and please keep us and other families in your prayers. Mostly, pray for the children who will be affected by this. Pray that Annslee has her little sister home soon as she is so excited and we are too.



After this type of post here is a reminder of how I keep smiling even on a day like today ~

We took over the Zoo!!

Our major activity for Saturday was to get to the zoo and see the "real" Pandas (we have the red ones at our Zoo) and so we got up and ate our yummy breakfast buffet. It wasn't quite like the ones in China...no congee!! I will warn you now that this is a very picture heavy post and you may need to enlarge the collages to see better : )

Annslee absolutely loved hanging out with the big girls. Lianne is from Jiangxi and she is so good with the little ones! (Jenna is her little sister)

Of course Joe had to hold both girls for a minute. He was really trying to see who is the heaviest and we think it was a tie : ) Handsome Edward got in the shot too!

We walked in and I think we were quite a sight to see ~ imangine eleven 3 1/2 year olds and their siblings and parents arriving together....yeah, it was FUN!! Oh, and of course they weren't quiet either LOL

We were greeted by a giant Panda!! As Annslee says he was "dressed up" and she flares her hands out like a dress : ) She loved hugging the panda and we did it again on our way out.

Our attempt at a group shot...yeah, not good. There was someone dressed as a warthog nearby and some of the girls were not happy about it (A included) so we have some tears in this one

Annslee loved standing like a flamingo

We made our way to the Pandas!!!
A little background on this pic~ Annslee has this panda puppet that we bought in Guangzhou and she loves it. It "reads" her stories at night, plays with her, etc.... She wanted to bring it to meet a real Panda and she kept saying it would be scared and scream when it saw the big one. Oh, and she was right...the Panda (aka Annslee ) did scream and very loudly!!

The big Panda didn't seem to notice and kept eating his bamboo : )

It's ok baby Panda... I will take care of you!

The Chinese dancers were a hit with the girls as they stood by the stage and at times danced along

For some reason she loved these ladies more than the little girls so she got her picture with them


We had such a great time taking over the Zoo and enjoying being with each other again. I was going to post the rest of Saturday on this post but I already had too many pics so I guess I will just have to post again! LOL

Reunion~ Day 1

We arrived in Atlanta and were lovingly greeted by Patty and Liana. It was so cute because the girls acted like they saw each other all the time : ) Of course Annslee is known for giving big hugs and kisses and she gave plenty this weekend!

*1 Caeli, Annslee & Liana 2 Annslee & Liana 3 Jenise & Annslee 4 Lauren & Annslee

She got Ellen and Lauren in her famous chokehold

The girls were all standing around waiting to go into the pool and I wanted a picture...of course Annslee had to "pose"

*Liana, Caeli, Annslee, Lauren Ellen & Jenna

I had to laugh when I notice she had her hand on her hip and Liana, Lauren and Jenna were copying her LOL

We had fun in the pool that first night!

* 1 Sandy/Ellen & Debbie/Caeli 2 Grandma Ellen w/ baby Joey 3 Jenna 4 Mikayla & Connor


* 1 Ellen, A, & Lauren 2 Edward, Joseph, A, Lauren & Ellen 3 Daddy & A 4 Joe/JiaLi & A/Daddy

We had such a great time catching up with everyone....Zoo pics to come!!! If you want to check out one of their websites you can link up on my sidebar under travelmates : )

Guess who we saw??

We just got home from Atlanta where we spent the weekend with nine of the eleven families we were with the day we met our daughter. Some of them we have seen a few times in the last two and a half years and some of them we haven't seen since we said a teary goodbye in either Guangzhou or Hong Kong in November 2005.

We are exhausted but I promise many photos are coming but here are a couple of "red couch" photos : ) You need to click to enlarge them to see better & we have Lauren & Ellen switched but hey, it was a little crazy!


Our Hubei Honeys (April 2008)

Top~ JiaLi, Annslee, Caeli, Jenna, Molly

Bottom~ Liana, Lauren, Ellen, Mikayla

Top~ JiaLi, Annslee, Caeli, Jenna, Hannah (not at reunion), Molly

Bottom ~ Liana, Ellen,Lauren, Emily (not at reunion), Mikayla

Then of course we had them do a silly face one. It is amazing how much they have changed and how they are actually smiling now in their picture : )

We were sad that two of our Hubei families couldn't make it. We also were blessed that two Jiangxi families were able to make it who were in our "big" China travel group.It was so wonderful seeing everyone again and our next reunion is planned for St. Louis in 2010(we are doing it every other year and in a city a family lives in so they can "host" it) Anyone who has been through this process knows that we are now family with these people and love them and miss them already. Annslee keeps asking about her friends : )

Didn't think I would ever post this

One year ago today our dossier was officially logged in to Vietnam! We had already been waiting 5 months (our 171 came in Nov. 2006) but it was nice to know someone in Vietnam recognized our desire to bring another child home. I never dreamed that I would ever post this long of a wait time. We originally thought we would have our daughter home by Summer 2007 but obviously that hasn't happened. We have continued to wait and PRAY and try to hold out hope. As some of you may know the Vietnam program is continually in turmoil. Right now we are concerned about the MOU (Memo of Understanding) being resigned by Sept. 1 when it expires. Just yesterday someone posted on a group that Vietnam would "continue to issue referrals until June 1st" Now I don't think we will have ours by then but for some reason I am not panicked as this is only one agencies interpretation of what MAY happen. It is funny that the MOU big date being Sept. 1st is reassuring to me. I think it is because we received Annslee's referral on Sept. 1st and that day has been a happy day for our family since. I cannot imagine that it would ever be a day for panic, unhappiness or uncertainty : )

As you know, Annslee is obsessed with her baby sister. She says Malia's name all day long and "tend Malia" is always around. I find myself sometimes wondering if we shouldn't have talked so much about Malia because we are still not close to bringing her home and yeah, there are days I wonder if we ever will. She talks of how Malia is big and not little and therefore will not sleep in the crib but in the big bed with her. We did recently change our requested age to up to 24 months so she may be right! Another funny thing she does is look at the magnets we have on the fridge with their names on them. They are really cute with a stork carrying a baby wrapped in a flag ~ Annslee is quick to point out that Malia has one star and she has five ~ I see some sister competition in our future LOL

I wanted to post an update because so many people ask and I really have nothing to tell them. We are still hopeful that we will bring our daughter/sister home soon and I know that God has a plan for our family so I try to rest in that peace and just enjoy each day.


Who wants to be a big sister??

"I DO!"

"The time may be delayed, the manner may be unexpected, but the answer is sure to come. Not a tear of sacred sorrow, not a breath of holy desire poured out to God will ever be lost; but in God’s own time and way will be wafted back again in clouds of mercy,and fall in showers of blessings on you, and those for whom you pray."
~ Henry Coyle

*Of course we also want to remember the families of those at VT today who had such tragedy last year*

Thank you SB!!

Well Happy TAX Day everyone....thought I'd post something that really is nice : ) We got our sweet gift from our Secret Buddy and love it! The note talked about Annslee and Malia wearing matching PJs and just the thought of that makes me smile. She also sent a lovey for Malia and Annslee liked shaking it and saying "Hi Malia" over and over. Yes, the tornado shelter closet is a favorite place to play these days.

As you can see our SB sent a special surprise for Miss A besides the PJs. She LOVES her Di$ney Princesses!!

The two pics on the left crack me up!!


Thank you so much SB for all our goodies (sorry, we ate the candy before I took the picture)

When we were opening the package she kept saying "Annlee Big Siwa"* and it was sooo sweet. She talks about her sister all the time and "tend Malia"* is with us most of the time. I hope we do bring her home sometime in the near future. The thought of disappointing Annslee is too much to bear!

*translated~ Annslee big sister and pretend Malia

Weekend Wrap Up

We did it!! We had a game on a Saturday!! We have had three games rained out already so this was a pretty big deal! The promise of ice cream kept her on the field. I found out quickly that we aren't the only ones who have to bribe our children to play at nap/lunch time lol



Mama brag moment~ She is fast and good! Seriously, when she is actually playing she has skills and can outrun all of them (she is the youngest and a girl so pretty impressive) She did score the first goal of the game too : ) *enlarge to see more clearly


You must high five daddy after scoring!



Daddy heard the ice cream truck and we rushed to throw clothes on Annslee b/c you know she didn't have any on! The first thing grabbed was a sleeveless dress and so we went with it. She was shivering but I don't know if it was from cold or excitement! (this was about an hour before dinner but hey, who cares?)



She "sang" at church today and this is the only picture I got. About 2 seconds into the song she went and sat in Ms. Pat's lap : )



We also had time to draw and write on the sidewalk. It is kind of hard to see but in the first one I wrote Annslee then she wrote Mia (in blue)



Here she wrote Annslee : )