Hello EVERYONE!

Now PLEASE don't you all fall over your chairs when you see I have updated the blog! It's taken me a whole year to think of things to say!

Sophie is now 3 1/2 - she likes to tell everyone the "half" part! She is growing like a weed and ever so beautiful. I will post photos later - I have a problem with my printer downloading photos which a large reason why I stopped blogging.

Last year we made 2 trips to Disney World. The first trip was end of August to meet up with another family who's daughter is also from Jiangxi. I was scheduled to travel with them but when my referral was delayed, they ended up traveling about a month before me. The girls hit it off and had a blast! Thanks Kim and Natalie!

Our second trip was more of a birthday celebration. My brother, sister in law and their kids were there for vacation and had a large suite at Animal Kingdom Lodge. My niece's birthday is 6 days before Sophie and we decided to celebrate them together! (Thanks Gilly for letting us intrude on your birthday party!). We had lunch at the Crystal Palace and all the Winnie the Pooh characters came out while the staff sang Happy Birthday to the girls with a Micky birthday cake! The real fun was waiting for them back at the resort. We arranged for Mickey and the gang to come by while we were at the park and they decorated the room and left lots of special birthday gifts for them! They had a blast! Thank you Uncle Paul and Auntie Nancy for letting us intrude on your vacation time!

Sophie talks about going back to "Dinny World" nearly every day and I have hopes we can swing a trip to see some friends in Florida and stay with them so we can sneak a day trip or two to the parks come next Spring!

That's it for the moment. I will post again and get those photos up for you all.

Blessings,

Chinamom and Sophie

Photos

Snug as a bug in a rug!!!!

Go speed racer!

Do you think anyone will recognize me???

Wheeeeeeee!

On a mission - looking for Easter eggs!

I think I got them all.......

Mission accomplished - back to home base!



Check out the Easter morning hairdo Mom gave me - dorky, huh?

Ready to race!

Jimmie Johnson's second greatest fan - Mom is number 1

Mom! Do you think we can get Jimmie Johnson to autograph my cap?

New hatwear for the Rainforest Cafe

Love the elephants at the Rainforest

Just looking good -

Go Patriots! Getting ready for next season on U.S. adoption day

Fire safety girl

First Haircut with Carol!

Oh my - Happy Mother's Day

Dear Family and Friends,

Oh my - I can't believe it's been since February when I last wrote. I have been very neglectful of the blog. I won't promise I'll be very good at keeping it up to date, but will try to do better than once every 2 months!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I am so blessed to have a wonderful Mom to support me and my daughter - Thanks Mom!

I've been extremely busy in the last few months. With the good weather, I have started doing some home improvement projects. Painting, changing out door knobs, changing light fixtures - the little things I can do by myself. I got a wonderful bargain on a granite counter top for the upstairs vanity. I am going to salvage the vanity that was in there rather than buying a new one. I had put a coat of paint on the vanity when I first moved in and it made a world of difference - looks almost brand new. With the granite counter top and sink I think it will look great. I got some tile for both bathrooms at Lowe's - very inexpensive - they had close outs for $.79 a tile and I bought enough for both bathrooms. Now all I need is to sweet talk someone into coming over to help me put them down!

The other project I have put a lot of time into is my work with Love Without Boundaries. I think I told you I was named the program coordinator for their Formula For Any Orphanage fund raising project. Things are picking up and I love it! I wish more people would take advantage of the program - it's a wonderful way to give back to the orphanages that cared for our children while they were in China. I'll be posting more about this later. For now I need to say good night. I want to post a few pictures for you and then it's off to bed.

Blessings to all,

Chinamom and Sophie.

Photos

Crazy Busy

Dear Family and Friends,

Life is crazy busy in our house!

We have finished all of the requirements for follow up with China and for the state! Last Friday was our re-adoption day! It was great!

Sophie ran the show in the courtroom. When they let us into the courtroom, while we were waiting for the judge, Sophie made a bee line to his desk and proceeded to wrap herself up with the flag next to the desk! We have some cute photos of her standing by the flag and the judge bending down to talk to her. He was GREAT! Kept everything informal.

I've been very busy with my volunteer work with Love Without Boundaries. I've been named coordinator for one of the new programs called Formula to Any Orphanage Program. Basically, you can arrange to have a case of baby formula sent to the orphanage of your choice and if you have a child from the orphanage, we will send photos and a personal message to the orphanage. If there are any families interested in this program, you can read more about it at:

http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/nutrition_gen_nutrition_send_formula.cfm

Or if you would like to make a donation to the general fund you can do so via this link:

https://www.causes.com/fb/donations/new?cause_id=51591&fundraiser_id=45098279&m=38d81d22

Anything you can give will be multiplied tenfold once it reaches China.

I'll post pictures separately,

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

Dingxi Social Welfare Institute

Dear Family and Friends,

**********************************************************************
I am THRILLED to report that through the efforts of one of my Yahoo groups, we have been able to get committments of $50/month in support for this orphanage! Only $50/month left to raise! God is so wonderful - I know He will speak to some of you out there to commit to the rest! PRAISE GOD for His faithfulness!
*********************************************************************

I am adding the information below in the hopes that some of you will find it in your hearts to help the orphans in China. Although the situation there is better than it once was, for many of these smaller and poorer orphanages the situation is simply a matter of life and death for these babies.

Think about it: for a TOTAL of $100/month the children of an ENTIRE orphanage will have had their lives improved ten fold! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE.. help these babies. $100! How many times have we spent this amount on things that are so meaningless in life?


****Folks, I am a nutrition coordinator for Love Without Boundaries. One of the SWIs assigned to me is Dingxi. The current report was depressing -the babies are not doing well, in fact two babies died! And the pictures! Oh, these babies need help!

I currently sponsor a child's education but am now also going to support the Dingxi Nutrition program. There are not a lot of adoptions from this orphanage so there's not a Yahoo orphanage group to appeal to so here I am appealing to you.... Was your child adopted from Dingxi? Would you like to help the orhans left in China? Can you spare $10 or $20 a month sponsorship?How about $5 a month? We're trying to find $100 a month sponsorship for this SWI. If 20 of us donate $5 a month, we're there!

If we don't raise this sponsorship LWB will have to remove this SWI from its nutrition program after the July shipment since there is currently too few donations coming for this program - please don't let that happen!

If you cannot at this time pledge a monthly amount, could you do a one time donation? Or do you know someone who might be interested in a sponsorship? Do you know any groups looking for a charity to donate their fundraising to? Any help is most appreciated!!! To donate, you can donate securely on-line at the LWB site:

https://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/Donate.cfm?child_id=0&category=&spanishFlag=false

Choose Nutrition for the Category and in the note please say that the donation is for the Dingxi Nutrition program.

If you have any questions, please let me know! Thank you!!!!! MaryHelen *****


I will be happy to forward any questions you have to MaryHelen.

Thank you for looking at this,

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

Chinese New Year

Dear Family and Friends,

OK! I know now that I'm never going to get caught up on my posting so I just need to get over it and move on!

Let's just do the quick version... Christmas was great - Sophie really got into the opening packages thing but is still more interested in playing with my pots, pans and plastic containers than she is with her toys!

New Year's Day was uneventful since I had to work that day.

We completed our final post placement visit for China! That means no more visits from the social worker - something we are actually quite sad about since she has become such an important part of our lives. We hope to be able to keep in touch from time to time. Sophie will get one more chance to visit with her when we go to court next month to complete the re-adoption process here in the Commonwealth.

OK -that's it for the update - now the current things.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! This is now the Year of the Ox. We have done some decorating and had a fun party here on Saturday. This was originally planned as our Christmas party for friends from church, but had to post pone it when we got those storms in December. I made sweet and sour chicken, fake "chicken fried rice" (made it regular rather than fried), mini egg rolls, pot sticker wontons and we had fortune cookies! Everyone seemed to enjoy it and I hope to continue the tradition annually. I need to look at Oriental Trading for some bargains to plan for next year.

I'll post some new pictures soon.

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

A year ago today...

Dear Family and Friends,

Breaking away from my goal of catching you up with life, I wanted to take a minute to celebrate our first Forever Family Day! It was a year ago today that I met my daughter in China for the first time.

I can't believe it's been a year already. She has grown and developed so much. She is nothing like the little waif I brought home. She is now a bundle of energy who talks up a storm.

We celebrated tonight with my family. We had a great Chinese meal and reminisced about what it was like a year ago. Sophie is such a perfect fit to my family. I am truly blessed to have her with me.

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights." James 1:17

And now, for the weather........

Dear Family and Friends,

As I promised, I am trying to bring everyone up to date on the last month or so, since I was so awful about writing.

December was a very difficult month for those of us in New England. In the early morning hours of Friday the 12th, much of the Northeast was treated to nearly an inch of freezing rain. While most of the time, when we get ice storms, it's only about a quarter of an inch or so that covers the trees. As we came to find out, trees cannot take the pressure of anything over about 1/2 inch of ice. That night was spooky.

My condo complex is really in the woods. That night all you could hear were trees cracking and falling to the ground. We lost power at about 1:30 AM Friday morning. I was very fortunate to get my power back on Sunday afternoon - that's right, it took 3 days to get it back. My sister, who lives a mere 5 miles from me, was without power for a week. They got power back late Thursday the 18th. She and her kids stayed with me while my brother in law tried to keep the house warm with a fire place to keep the water pipes from freezing.

Although it was difficult not having the conveniences of electricity, it was amazing how creative people got in coming up with ways to cook a meal. Those with gas stoves did OK, or if you had a gas grill with a full tank, but others - like me- only had an electric grill. Not much luck when you have no power! I got some chafing dishes and sterno and was able to boil veggies and chicken for dinner one night.

The area was devastated with so many trees and power lines down. They had power crews in from all over the East coast as well as Ohio and Kentucky to help us get back power. A month later, you still see huge trees in yards. This is primarily because we no sooner finished with the clean up from the ice when we were socked with a big snow storm. We got about a foot of snow at my house. This was the first real white Christmas we have had in decades!

Here are some pictures from the storms for you to see...

The tree in the picture on the left missed this house by only about 3-4 feet. The picture on the right shows power lines just dangling....

My back yard with a foot of new snow.....

Well, that's it for the weather.....of course we have had yet another storm last weekend and it looks like a dusting or more for tonight..... OK - I've had enough snow to last me the rest of the winter!

Sigh.

Blessings,

Chinamom and Sophie

Biting the Bullet

Dear Family and Friends,

If you haven't given up on my ever writing on my blog, thanks for hanging in there! There has been so much going on in the last month or so that I don't know where to begin. I had great ideas of sitting down for an afternoon and creating entry after entry to catch everyone up, but it got too overwhelming. So now, I decided to start from the beginning, and work my way up to the New Year, one painful session at a time!!! LOL!

I'll start with Sophie's birthday. She is now officially two years old! We celebrated the event on Thanksgiving Day with an awesome Elmo cake that a friend of mine at work made! She loved it. My parents and my sisters were there with my brother in law and a niece and nephew. She was able to blow out the candles but wasn't particularly interested in eating any of the cake. She has a very selective sweet tooth - something for which I am eternally grateful! (just wish I could be as strong as my daughter when it comes to that stuff!!)






















Around that time, Sophie had her first of three encounters with a certain man who likes to wear a red suit! I wasn't sure how she would do but she wasn't afraid at all and went right up to him. She also loved the elves and I'm convinced she might want to try out for that role one day!

She also had an encounter with The Grinch!

That's all I have time for tonight, I'll try to post more soon.

Blessings,

Chinamom and Sophie

Is anyone still with me out there???

Dear Family and Friends,

I am so dreadfully sorry that I have neglected the blog for the last month - the reality of having moved in September is that I have very little time left over at the end of the day to do much of anything - including spending time on the computer. I would like to say things will improve after the holidays but I don't want to make promises I can't keep! I will do my best, however.

We have been incredibly busy getting ready for the holidays. I have been painting like mad since I am hosting two big events in my new home. I have about 30 people from my church coming on the 19th and am hosting my family on Christmas Eve! There is so much to do and so little time to get it done in. Thankfully one of my aunts and a good friend of mine each gave up a Saturday to help me get some things done and that has helped tremendously.

Sophie had her second birthday the week of Thanksgiving! We celebrated with an Elmo birthday cake at my parents house on Thanksgiving day. She is growing like a weed - we had her two year check up last Friday and she has grown nearly 2 inches since last May!! Her weight is up to 26 whole pounds! Skinny little weed!

She is talking up a storm and is particularly fond of the the moon and the stars (the mun and tars as she likes to say!- we are working on some sounds, especially the s and l sounds - socks and clock both sound the same and I will leave it to your imagination as to what she actually says! - sorry gentlemen! lol!!!)

Sophie made the FRONT page of our local newspaper this week! She was with my sister at a local church fair one Saturday (Mom was home doing some painting without the "help" of my little peanut). Anyway, Soph had just finished kissing Winnie the Pooh when the photographer started clicking photos. She is too cute, my little Sophie.

Speaking of cute - I just love this! When I ask her "Sophie, who's cute?" she answers "Momma cute!" I love it! and no - I didn't teach her to say that - she just came up with it by herself!! Sometimes I ask her just to hear her say it!!! LOL!

I need to run for now. I promise to post new pictures soon - hopefully tomorrow. I'll also fill you in on other Sophie activities as the pictures remind me of how neglectful I have been in keeping you all up to date!

Blessings,

Chinamom and Sophie

More Pictures from Fall

Our referral anniversary is coming up!

Dear Family and Friends,

Can you all believe it's been nearly one year since I got my referral from China? November 16th for me - though the rest of my group did get theirs November 5th. I know now that my Sophie from Xiu Shui would not have been in the group of referrals that came on the 5th, so God was holding my little one back so that her paperwork would match up perfectly with my own paperwork in China.

I am so blessed to have her as my daughter. She fits so perfectly in my family. I am often amazed at how many things she will do or of her physical characteristics and mannerisms that remind me of my biological family members. The way she tilts her head and stares off into space reminds me of my nephew, Ian. The way her thumbs are double jointed and she contorts them into a Z shape is something my niece, Haley, does too! The way she plays with the cuff of her sleeves is something my grandmother, Yvonne, would do, and the way Sophie walks (my little flat footed beauty!), is just like my grandmother, Angelina, used to walk! Yes, just as adoption was God's plan for me, my daughter was God's plan for my family! Thank you, LORD, for making our family complete.

Michelle - got your message - the girls are welcome to come over ANY time they want! You know how much Sophie adores them! Maybe you, Chris and the girls would like to come to dinner???

Kim - hair styles in our house are an issue! Her hair is too thin to do much with and too short in all the wrong places! I wish I could braid it like you do for Natalie! Hair bobs for Sophie are really just extra toys that she doesn't have to carry in her hands! Sooner or later they end up in her bed, the floor, the toy box, her lunch bag, the car seat, the floor of the car.. you get the picture!

Shawn - I do so remember this time last year. For me it was the longest two weeks of my life - those first two weeks in November! But, I do remember with fondness the slumber parties with the Queen - my favorite you tube video is STILL the one with the runway model falling off those ridiculous high healed platform shoes! Just in case you don't remember which one I mean, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36WgNX_--hI

I'll post pictures separately as I can't seem to get the spacing right with what I write and how I post the pictures!!

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

Finally! The Just Pictures Post!