Sunday Snapshot

Well I am finally back to Sunday Snapshots. Why is it so hard to keep up with??? I mean, Stefanie does it each and every week (even when she was in CHINA for goodness sake) and she has 9 kids!!!!! That's 4 more than me!! Sigh!! Anyway if you want to join in, click here



Now, on to Miss Lizzie May!! Oh my Lizzie, where do I even start with you my love?? Even though our journey to you began long before we saw your picture, I think I will start there because I could write a book on how we came to find you. You, the one who was meant for us from the beginning, the one who was somehow a part of my past while changing part of my future.

The moment I saw your beautiful face on that WC list...



I knew you were our daughter. The one that we had been waiting for and the one that I felt I had known was waiting for us, even when I was a child.

As the months crept by, I begged and pleaded anyone who was traveling to your orphanage for pictures of you. There were so many wonderful families who were more than happy to oblige...






We were told to expect tears on the day that we met you and that you were scared. Scared you were but as scared as you were, you were oh so brave. Your courageousness shown through even on that first day with you.



You never cried that day!! Never cried!!! Later you did, boy did you but never that day. It was almost as if you were saying,"Where have you been?" "I have been waiting for you!" "What took you so long?"

I will never forget the visit to your orphanage a few days later. It was an incredibly difficult but, I think, necessary visit. As we sat on our little bus to leave, I told you to wave bye bye, not really expecting you to say anything because you had been fairly nonverbal up to that point. You, however, shocked everyone by standing up in your seat and saying bye bye while waving and smiling and laughing!!!



You turned a corner at that moment and I knew, at that moment that we were going to be ok.

As soon as we got home, you began your clubfoot casting.



You had 18 casts in all (in the middle of the HOT Southern summer), along with terrible skin issues and 2 different surgeries to separate some of your fingers!! All this on top of leaving everything you had ever known, everything that was familiar and coming home with us, this large, loud and completely crazy family who was completely crazy about you!! You were strong and brave and determined and sweet and LOUD!! You fit right in!!



We had a wonderful, trying, amazing and challenging first year together and I would not change a second of it.

You love your Daddy,




and your doggies



and your brothers,







and, of course your partner in crime, your big sissy!!!





They all think you are pretty cool, too...



You are funny



and sweet



and athletic



and getting so grown up



and independent



You are so very bright



and you love puzzles



and parties



and life




and it shows!!


My sweet Lizzie, you have come so far and you still continue to amaze and delight us. You tell us so often about how you missed us in China and that you cried for us. Well my sweet girl we cried for you and missed you too and are so glad that you are home, with your family!! I thought I would post (again) the video that I made for Lizzie for her first year home. It is a quick peak at our journey to Lizzie and our first year together.




Love you baby girl!!

Ebay Auction Fundraiser

A wonderful "bloggy" friend of mine is having an ebay auction to raise much needed funds to bring their TWO precious little girls home. Hailee and Harper are 2 beautiful little girls in Eastern Europe who have Down Syndrome.

This wonderful family first found their sweet Hailee and committed to bringing her home. They soon thereafter, learned about Hailee's friend Harper who also has DS and couldn't bear the thought of leaving her behind.

They have also adopted 2 gorgeous little girls from China and have 3 very handsome bio boys.

You can check out her blog here and the ebay auction here

I donated 2 really pretty girly dresses here and here

Please go and check it out! It is for such a beautiful cause!!

Upcoming Review of Offi YooDo Large Scale Construction Toy

I am so excited about an upcoming review for a wonderful online store, CSN. They contacted me and asked if I would like to do a review of one of their great items and given our recent financial situation, I thought, "Well, yeah!!" or as my 12 year old would say, "Well, duuu!!!"

I was like a kid in a candy store, because I mean they have EVERYTHING!!! What really caught my eye were their kids beds . All of our kids' beds are hand me downs (which is great) but when the girls came along, I suddenly had dreams of 2 beautiful twin beds paired with all of the gorgeous items that we brought home from China. Sigh!!! We are not in a position right now to buy new beds but I do think CSN has some great items at really reasonable prices.

I mean how cute would this bed be in a little girl's room, plus the extra storage, not to mention the adorable puppy!! I am such a sucker for puppies:) Or how about this tent bed for the boys!!! How cool is that!!

Anyway the toy we picked to review is Offi YooDo Large Scale Construction Toy .



Ok, so I know that it has a funny name but boy does it look cool!! I cannot wait to see what my kids will make with this and how long it will take for them to destroy it!!! Hehe!!

Honestly though CSN has a great listing of special needs toys, all designed to help with OT and PT. Being the Mom of two kids with SID, I was very glad to see that a lot the toys they had would work well for any kind of sensory issues!!

The kids are so excited to be able to do this review and I cannot wait to give you our honest review of this very cool toy. Stay tuned and don't forget to check out their online store at CSN Stores

3 year old reality check

Ever get so wrapped up in your own worries and struggles that you loose faith? Get so bogged down in the worrying part that you loose sight of what is truly important? I got a much needed reality check from my two youngest children the other day. After one of Lizzie's appointments we stopped by CVS to get her medicine. As we were waiting for the pharmacist, my thoughts of possible allergist appointments and Charlie's recent tummy troubles turned to thoughts and worries about money. A worry that has been in my mind for what seems like a very long time now. We have had (like so many others) employment worries that turned into financial worries that seemed to take over our thoughts and don't leave room for much else. It started with having to say "no" to ourselves a lot more (no more date nights, sniff), then to saying "no" to the kids a lot more (ouch), then to not just automatically going out and buying all of the items on your kids' wonderful teachers' wish lists (sigh), to which bill do we pay first and which bill will we be late on this month, to oh no, we are behind a mortgage payment (yikes)!!! The thing that hit me hard this week was knowing that we were having to send our older 2 to an out of town soccer tourney with another wonderful family because we couldn't afford the hotel room. It was so nice of this family to offer this to us. I am just more used to making these offers, not accepting them and I am certainly not used to sending my boys off to play soccer without us!! The point is, I have been focusing on what we don't have, mainly money... until we were leaving the CVS. I saw the fireman out collecting money for the Children's Charity and stopped to put some money in the boot and of course the girls wanted to know what in the world I was doing putting money in a fireman's boot!! I am sure they were thinking that Mom must be cracking from the stress:) Anyway, after a simple explanation about how the firemen were collecting money for children and their families who don't have a lot of money, my little Lizzie very matter of factly said, "You mean like us?" OK, after quickly rethinking my delusion that we were keeping the stress from the kids (ugh), I realized that my 3 year old had once again slapped me back into our reality. When I got my wits about me again, I replied that no, honey, not like us. There are so many families who have so much less than we do and I realized that the talk I give my kids when they are pouting about not having something they want, was the exact talk I should be giving myself. You know the talk. The one that you pull out when nothing else has worked and all your patience is gone! The one that informs your children that there are children in this world who don't have enough to eat or if you are really mad, that there are kids in this world who don't have such loving and wonderful Mommies and Daddys!!! Please tell me that I am not the only Mom who has completely lost their patience and used this "talk" when all else fails!!! However, in the car that day I was reminded of all that we have to be grateful for - so incredibly grateful for!!! I thought about the poor people of Haiti or Chili or the beautiful faces of all those children in Lizzie's orphanage and on all those waiting child lists on all those agency's websites and thought about how grateful I am and how blessed I am. I am grateful for,

him


and him,


and him


and her,


and her,


and of course him,


The absolute love of my life and the best Daddy ever,



I love my house,


but it is just a house and we will be ok, no matter where we live because I have them and they have me and oh my goodness we are blessed. When hubby and I got married, we had each taken the other's ring and had it engraved. We had not told each other what we were engraving and after the ceremony, we realized that we had both engraved the same things on our rings. It was, "My gift from God." This is what I hold on to and what I need to always remember. I have been blessed with so many amazing gifts from God, gifts that no amount of money can buy! Em happen to ask me this week if she could pray. It was the middle of the day and we usually pray with them at bedtime, but I told her that yes, of course, you can pray. I watched as she got on her knees, folded her hands and thanked God for her sister and for making China, cause that is where Lizzie was born! Yeah, I am blessed!!!! Just needed a little 3 year old reality check!!!!

"Hive" you seen her????

Look at my poor sweetie!!!! On Monday morning Lizzie began to break out in hives. It began as a very small patch on her leg and quickly spread. By 5:00 that night she looked miserable and her face and lips were very swollen. I kept her close to me that night and the next morning (aside from being very tired from NO sleep), she was one big, huge, itchy HIVE!!! Even her sweet little feet were covered and it hurt her to walk. She was just miserable and when Lizzie is miserable, everyone is miserable!!! Lizzie has some sensory issues and the itchiness that she was feeling was probably multiplied by about a bazillion or in other words, a lot and Lizzie is not one to suffer in silence! Oh no, I must have heard, "I itchy" about a bazillion times, well a lot anyway:) So off to the doctor we go, and where Lizzie goes, so goes Em. After arriving at the doctor's office, we get checked in and head to the dreaded (dun, dun, dun) "sick" room where all the paranoid, I mean, good Mommas tell their children not to touch anything, including all the really cool toys that we, of course, don't have at home because, well, you know, we don't have ANY cool toys at our house!! That always works well!! Thank goodness for antibacterial gel! Seriously, I should buy stock! Anyway, I digress! So we get settled into the "sick" room only to be called very quickly out of the "sick" room and into one of the tiny rooms in the back where there are NO toys (except of course the cool stool that spins and rolls and is great for flinging children across the room) and of course there are never any sick kids back in those rooms, right????? Riiiiight!!!!

So we sit in this little toy free, germ laden room with NOTHING to do but wait, and wait, and wait, sooooo we have to get a little creative...

Remember the spinning stool????



Lots of ways to have fun with this one!!! Hehe!!



Making videos can be fun too!

Can you tell that this one is at the beginning of our wait...



and this one was at the end!!!!


Just a little stir crazy!!!!

It was 2 days of an Epi shot, prednisone, antihistamines and lots of creative fun!!










We will be at the allergist's office next week. Let's hope he has some cool toys too or at the very least, a great spinning stool!!! Hehe!!!

A plea for help for Lucy

Sweet Lucy needs a family and she needs one fast!! Please help spread the word about Lucy. I know she has been well cared for and I have seen many pictures of her and some video. She is absolutely adorable!! Please keep her in your prayers!

Here is her info:

Some of you may be familiar with little Lucy, the spunky survivor with a very serious heart condition that was on our waiting child list. Well, unfortunately, she is back on the list due to no fault of her own. She desperately needs a family that can commit to her despite the uncertainty of her future. She needs a forever family, no matter how long that forever is....we may need to bring her here on a medical visa if we can't find a dtc family for her, as she needs treatment for her heart condition. There are hospitals in the U.S. willing to help her, but not in China. Lucy is a very bright little girl who is very close to her Chinacare mama. You may notice she also has a limb difference, but this doesn't stop her! For more information and pictures and updates on her, please contact me or see our password protected website.

The email is: marcisk@asiadopt.org
The website is: www.asiadopt.org