We have been Selected!!!!

For those of you who have adopted before, you know how expensive it is! We look for any way that we can cut corners to save money that can be put aside for our adoption fund. Many families are forced to take out second, or third, mortgage's to pay for fees or travel related to their adoption.

It is very hard to step out of my box and ask for help. But this is a win-win situation for all involved. Our family has been chosen as a family for the month of November to work with Hip Mom Adoption jewelry.

Start your Christmas shopping early this year! It always feels great to be on top of the holiday shopping. And every item that you purchase from the Adoption Page of the site earns us 30% of that sale!!

So share this with family and friends, send the link to your boyfriend or husband telling him which necklace you would like to have. Direct him to this link Adoption necklaces and don't forget to add our family code when you check out. Our family code is VAN1110

Thanks for helping us. Every little bit helps!

Harvest/Halloween time party

The girls had Halloween parties at school on Thursday. Each came home with a huge bag of candy and goodies and of course, big smiles on their faces! We had a Harvest Party to go to on Saturday. The girls were full of questions. "What is a Harvest Party?" "What are we going to do there?" "When are we going?" "Is it time to go yet?"






Once we arrived at our friend's house all they could think of doing was playing with their friend! I needed a few photos of our whole family together for our post-placement reports coming up. Sophie was great in helping us get that task accomplished. Once the rest of the guests arrived we were off on a hay rack ride! What a beautiful day for one!









After the hayrack ride we arrived back at our friend's house and we had a bonfire! We roasted hot dogs over the fire and enjoyed hot cocoa that was warmed by the fire and for the crowning touch, we made smores! The girls really enjoyed the campfire, roasting their own hot dogs and especially making smores!






The girls also each picked out a Halloween tattoo to have on their faces. It couldn't have been a nicer day for a campfire and party and we all enjoyed it very much!!

A new cat at our house!

RaeAnne was supposed to wear a mask to school today for the school's against drugs week. Because drugs "Mask who you really are!" As a person who knows, it is very hard to wear a mask when you also wear glasses. We made a quick trip into town last night to see if we could find a mask that would work for her. The only thing that we could find was "Iron Man" masks or gory Halloween masks. Well I came up with a plan. Here is what she went to school today as!!



I quickly did a search on the internet last night after the girls had gone to bed to see what I could find about how to paint a tiger face on a child. Then we all overslept this morning so we had to rush around. I think her face came out pretty cute for our first time and not having the right colors to use. In fact, the reaction that our cat had to her face was amazing!

This is our cat looking at RaeAnne's "cat" face



And this is his reaction!!!



So guess who the biggest cat is in our house now!

Mopar cars, hayrack ride and hula hoop fun

Daddy and the girls went to the second annual RPM fall get together this afternoon. They had a chili cook off and lots of good things to eat. The girls then got to take a hayrack ride to another members house where the kids played on the swings and the big kids drooled over old cars! Seems Mom missed this year and last year as I was working. RPM stands for Regional Performance Mopars...big kid toys! It was a beautiful day for it and the girls had a great time.

There were also some nice looking cars there.






And Daddy had his car there too!! (Don't tell him...but his is the best looking car there!)




The girls have also been working on their hula hoops. We watched a segment on the Ellen Degeneres show of a college gal who can dance with a hula hoop. It would be fun to see our girls learn to do this!! They wanted Mom to show them how to hula hoop....unfortunately, seems Mom just doesn't move like she used to. Guess I will have to start practicing along with them!

Hula Hoops and Pumpkins

Tessa has been with us for almost two months now. We had a Mandarin speaking exchange student visit with her last weekend and Tessa told the student that she is still having trouble understanding English and she thinks our school here is hard. I don't doubt that! I would find it very hard to go to a foreign country where no one speaks my language or looks like me and try to learn something! Of course, I am considerably older and my language learning ablilities are absolutely zero! So all in all, we think that she is doing great! She also wants fried eggs for breakfast! Wow! A kid that doesn't want sugar laden cereal...how did we get so lucky?!!

We also found out that Tessa is a hula hoop champion! Anyway, her sisters have named her as such! They counted and she was able to spin the hoop around at least 130 times before she quit. They wanted me to count the revolutions, but I am taking their word on it. We have a new found interest in hula hoops here again now. I had purchased them for the girls a few years back and when no one was successful in doing it correctly, they tried to sit on them and roll them that way. Our round hula hoops became oblong very quickly and soon were in the trash. I think that these are going to stay round!





Today we headed down south to Augusta to the Applejack Pumpkin Patch for a KSAF get together. The girls had a fantastic time doing all the activities they have there. A pillow bounce, big slide, corn maze, petting zoo, tricycles to ride, train, hay rack ride, a chance to use old hand pumps to propel ducks for a duck race, plus many photo ops...just a great place! And for it being the middle of October...well, it was almost 90 degrees today! I actually had my face and arms sunburned!

Happy Jordis Li Day!!

Thanks to a couple of my travel mates, we almost forgot to celebrate our third forever family day with Jordis Li Meng! I just can't believe that it has been three years since this skinny, quiet little girl walked into our lives! She had our hearts since February of 2007 when I first saw that little girl sitting in a sunflower. Any child found sitting in a sunflower belongs in Kansas!!

Anyway, Jordis has blossomed so much even in the past year! She loves to be teased and tries to be a good sport about it even though sometimes she takes it way to seriously! She is a great speller and works very hard on her other subjects too. Besides being a self confessed couch potato, she is also a very loving girl who appreciates the little things that someone does for her.



Jordis Li Meng.....we love you all the way to the moon and back!! XOXO!!

Lantern Festival

We met up with three of the families who we traveled with a few weeks back. Of course, the warm, nice weather we had been having decided to turn in to blustery, cold, rainy, damp weather for the get together. The kids still had a great time. It was so good to see everyone and their children who are all doing pretty good. One little girl when she started seeing all the same people that she had seen in China...well, you could just tell from the look on her face that we were "Messing" with her mind!! She was looking at us and I wish we could have be able to read her mind and figure out what she was thinking!!

The girls colored lanterns and they marched around the park with their lanterns lit with a glow stick. Right after that we packed up to head home and warm up in the car. Brrrrr!!

The girls had fun playing in the park and there was a neat stone climbing wall that Jordis was really excited that she made it to the top!!