How love changes one little girl....

Gotcha Day. Pictures from this day break my heart. Sydney's eyes look so sad.

Before Chinese New Year Celebration.

Love this smile!

Sydney loves the lake & swimming pool!

1st day of Mothers Day Out.

Sydney Hope--you have blessed our lives!

What we were doing a year ago....

Hard to believe that this time last year we were freezing in Burrjing! These last 12 months have flown by. I have been looking back at pictures of the first few days with Sydney. She does not even look like the same child. Shows you what love can do for a child!

I pray that more people would take that leap of faith and adopt! And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. Matthew 18:5

Freezing! But so excited to finally be in China!

This is my favorite picture that I took in China (obviously not included the ones of Sydney)

Thinking about blowing it up or putting it on a canvas for the house.

Great Wall. Would love to come back here one day.

Awesome!

Merry Christmas

I posted this video in December 2008. Just love this song! And the story behind it.

November Recap

Yup--I'm behind (in so many areas!!). I used to love to blog but it is becoming a chore. Need to fix that. We have become very boring which is fine but I do not have things to post about!!
Our 1 year anniversary with Sydney is coming up! So that should give me something to blog about!

Daddy's girl & Daddy at the Thanksgiving party at school

Pilgrim! Not so thrilled about the hat.

My adorable kids. God has blessed me. Love these kids like crazy!

Sydney's Donut Birthday Party

We celebrated Sydney's birthday at a local donut shop. The kids ate donut holes, decorated their own donuts and then ate more donut cake! And then we sent everyone home on a sugar high!! I think all of the kids had a great time.

Birthday Girl!
Working on holding up 4 fingers!

Decorating the donuts.

Just looking at that donut cake makes me sick to my stomach! Way too much sugar that day!

Sydney Turns 4!

Sydney turned 4 last week! She had several celebrations over a couple of days. This was her first birthday since coming home so we tried to make it extra special. Ashlyn & I brought up cookies to her school class. And then we had her birthday dinner at a local Chinese place. Sydney still does not want to eat Chinese food (except Ramen noodles but do not think that qualifies as Chinese food!!). But I'm hoping that over time she will start to love it as much as she does Mexican food.
Sydney has blessed our family. And we can not imagine our lives without her. We love you Sydney Hope!

I'm sure she is thinking "seriously Mommy-I just woke up"!

Can't get enough of this big smile!

Sydney's birthday present--plasma car. Really great present for this year & years to come!

Barefoot-Vinyard Wedding

Last weekend, we attended the wedding of PJ's cousin, Cole. And our Ashlyn Grace was the flower girl! She was beautiful in her dress (that matched the bride's). I just love weddings & this wedding was just beautiful. Wonderful weather & spending great time with family. Ashlyn just loved dressing up, getting her hair done & hanging out with the big girls. She even rode down the hill on a horse carriage with the bride & ring bearer. Congrats to Cole & Rhandyl Vinyard! Thanks so much for allowing us to be a part of your special weekend!

Flower Girl (aka Ashlyn Grace)

I just love this picture! Love our West Texas scenery.

Ashlyn & Billy--adorable!

Moon Festival

OK--so I've become a huge slacker in the blogging world! Combination of football, three & seven year old girl drama, middle school & being without my laptop are just a few reasons! I'm trying to catch up over the next couple of days. Sorry!
I can't remember if I shared the fact that I email back & forth with both of Sydney's foster families (usually once every 10-14 days!). I feel that we are fortunate to have this communication with Sydney's previous families. I promised them we would celebrate the Moon Festival with our family & send over the pictures. And of course, I did not take enough pictures--bummer!
We went to one of the local Asian markets here in town in search of moon cakes, pearls for the bubble tea & the yummy green veggie things we ate in China. We ended up having a wonderful time with our family! The food & bubble tea were not great :(. Only one of our family members ended up loving the moon cakes & she is pictured below!

Cousins & Friends

1st day of School 2010

We had a great summer! We were blessed to have two wonderful girls come to our house & keep the kids. Thank you so much girls! We miss you & hope that you both love your new schools like crazy. Thank you for being positive role models! With summer ending, school starts! Philip is in the 6th grade this year. 6th graders move up to middle school :(. We were all nervous the days leading up to the 1st day. I can remember taking Philip to kindergarten. (teary, teary, teary!!). Philly had a "good" 1st day. All of his teachers were nice & his friends have the same lunch (which is always a great thing no matter how old you are!).
Ashlyn started 2nd grade. This is our 7th year at our elementary school so it feels like home to us. Ashlyn has a wonderful teacher & great friends in her class. We feel blessed to have our kids go to a public school with Christian teachers & principal. Kinda like private without the cost & uniform. (but sometimes I think a uniform would be great for Ashlyn!)
Our sweet Sydney started Mothers Day Out (MDO) also. She is in the dog room at a church close by. Kinda funny because Sydney was born in the year of the dog! All of us have been talking to Sydney about how awesome & fun school was going to be. She just quietly walked into her classroom & started playing. No tears, no clinging, nothing. (i was kinda expecting tears & wailing but nope) The teachers are super sweet & the classroom is very clean & bright. Sydney was excited to see me but enjoyed her time there.
Hope all of you had or will have a great 1st day of school! I'm glad these last couple of days are over because it is exhausting on me to have all of this change & worry!

Handsome Philip.
Sweet stylin' Ashlyn

Cutie Sydney

Carlsbad Caverns

Wow--it has been awhile since I posted. Thank you for all of your comments from my previous post. I just want every orphan in this world to have a forever family!


Before summer was over, we took a quick weekend trip to Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns are really cool. Cool to look at & very cool temperature wise. Can you say burr in July???!! Philip has been wanting to go for years so he really enjoyed reading all about the caverns & the bats. I would recommend this to any families traveling thru the Carlsbad area. It is a day activity & really cheap. Like $12 to get in! And no fee for parking.

Inside the caverns.

Kids snuggling up during a little break from walking!

PJ & Philip could of stayed there for days!
The girls back out in the heat!

Why can.......

So..these random thoughts have been going around in my head since we came home from China.

Why can people save up for or make sacrifices for:

Granite countertops. Or whatever remodel project they are wanting to do in their home! I really like granite.Beach Vacation. Who doesn't love chillin' on the beach with your loved ones?!

Down Payment for a new home. Cute house!

Sweet ride just like the Real Housewives are drivin' or the teenagers here in my city. The car looks pretty spiffy!

But they can not make sacrifices for this:

I have been around tons of people that say to me--We would love to adopt but: it is just not in our financial plans right now or we would need to this first or that first.

Seriously--there are close to 150 million orphans in this world! Adopt first & then save up for your spiffy new ride!!

So glad that we answered God's calling & made sacrifices to bring Sydney home to her family! Sydney has blessed this family beyond words.

And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. Matthew 18:5

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure & faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Philip Turns 11!

Hard to believe that Philip is 11! We have been celebrating his birthday for almost a week now. Love summer birthdays! God has blessed us with an amazing young man. Love you Philip!

Philip & Ashlyn's 2nd Tri

The big kids competed in their 2nd tri this weekend. They love doing them! It was super hot waiting for the tri to start. Sydney was starting have a 3 year old melt-down before it started :)! Good thing we had the stroller. Kids did great during the tri. I'm thinking they might want to start doing the "real" ones soon. Since the kids start at different times, it was a little difficult to get pictures of them doing all 3 events!

Kids hanging out before the start.
Philip during the run. A little tired!!

Ashlyn was hurting at the end.

Philip @ the end!

Ashers @ the end!

Surprise!

On Tuesday, we received 52 "new" pictures of our Sydney from her life in China. I had made contact with an individual & they thought they might have 12 pictures for us. We would of been excited to see just one new picture of Sydney but 52!! We also learned that Sydney was with 2 foster families not one. And we have contact information for them! And we have several pictures of them with Sydney. We feel so blessed to have these pictures for Sydney.
It was a little different/difficult to see Sydney with "another family". Sounds strange but true. Sydney was very happy in the pictures. And looked like she was close with both foster mom and dad. Now we just need to make contact with the foster families. What to say? What to ask? What not to say?? A bunch of questions we would loved answered. But really I just want them to know that Sydney is really happy, healthy & loved like crazy!
I posted a few pictures of our girl for you guys to see.