More CNY celebration

Last night the girls and I went to Washburn University to the Topeka Chinese Association/Washburn Exchange Students/FCC gathering. It is always so fun to see the University exchange students. They are so beautiful and I find myself looking at them and wondering what our daughters will look like when they are that age. Daddy was under the weather and missed out on some really good food and entertainment. We also had the chance to visit with some of our FCC group that we had not seen for a long time! The kids are growing WAY too fast!



Daddy took a couple of photos of the girls and I before we left. RaeAnne always wants a "funny" photo pose of us which her sisters are not always excited about. Bet you can tell who wasn't excited!



My girls were thirsty and when no one offered to re-fill our water glasses, they all of a sudden became fans of drinking warm water. It is especially fun when it looks like you are drinking tea!



Just before the final entertainment for the evening they had a drawing for prizes that had been donated for the occasion. ZoraLin won a cute Santa ornament, Jordis and Kendalan each won a $25 gift certificate to a new Chinese massage place in town. Guess who thought they lost out on that deal? However, I think Mom and Dad will enjoy the prizes!

Love Without Boundaries

This wonderful organization has helped so many children in China. We have a copy of both the first and second edition of the Love's Journey Books. Our girls are in the second edition. If you are interested in buying a copy of this book for $5. please follow this link; Love Without Boundaries. We so hope that they will create the third edition of this wonderful book.

Favorite poses in our house...

Since everyone received a Nintendo DS, these are some of the favorite positions I find the girls in. No..they don't get to play them all the time..so they do make up for lost time when they can!

Happy Chinese New Year!

We spent a great day celebrating Chinese New Year with a wonderful bunch of families and their children!

Happy Chinese New Year....okay, just a little early!

We got together Sunday with our good friends the Hisle's to have an early Chinese New Year celebration and so the guys could watch the Super Bowl. Sophie always has her house decorated so lovely for the holidays! My girls love to play with Z. J. We started off the evening making dumplings! Now that the girls realize what goes into making dumplings I think they like them even more!

RaeAnne even cooked up a big batch of food!

Then we ate and ate and ate some more.

Then time to work off all that food. While the guys were watching the Super Bowl, the girls made big messes....I mean crafts! Then the real fun began. The girls popped bubble wrap to make the sound of firecrackers going off for New Years!






The girls were having such a great time jumping up and down and making the bubbles snap while their Dad's were downstairs yelling, "Hey, will you be quiet up there!" We always have a fantastic time when we go to our friend's house. Good friends like the Hisle's are hard to find!!

Still working on our dossier.....

I have been neglecting our blog for some time now. I have started a Journey to Me site for Tessa like I did for Kendalan and Jordis Li. When I was in China getting Jordis blogspot was blocked. I really liked using the JTM site and once our adoption was complete, they had a service where we could get a hard back book of our site. Jordis has loved her book!

Anywho, our application was received at the Homeland Security Office on January 27th. We are still waiting for our fingerprint appointment. I have read about many families making an appointment at their local USCIS office and showing up to have fingerprints taken without an official letter. We may just try this! My work schedule and the girls school schedules severely limit us to just be able to drop everything and run when they want us to. And we would like to have them done sooner, rather than later!

I have received almost everything back from the Chinese Consulate that will compile our dossier. I forgot to send in one document, so it is on it's way now. Then we will wait for that all important notice from our Immigration & Naturalization Services.

We are sending Tessa Ji Xing a Chinese New Year cake through Adele Hall. The package will include a translated note for Tessa and her foster family wishing them a "Happy New Year" and a single use camera with the instructions to please take many photos of Tessa, her friends and foster family. We also sent a small backpack through the mail with a Hello Kitty shirt, stuff toy, Sonya Lee doll and a small flip photo album of us. Now we hope that she will get everything we have sent.

Isn't it beautiful???

I am so excited tonight to use our new, remodeled blog! Alexis has been working hard on our blog and it has paid off. Isn't it pretty?!! Alexis is great! She was open to changing things until I thought they looked "right"!

Big news at our house....most of our dossier returned from the Chicago Chinese Consulate today. Each paper that comes back with the notary and authentications that it needs to get to China is another step closer to our girl! Wish we had those pesky fingerprint appointments in hand!!