Eye Doctor Honor Roll and Some Community Service

Busy week here. Started with re-check for Grace at eye doctor. She has a spot on back of her eye not affecting anything now but they wanted to check it out to ensure it wasn't getting any bigger in 6 months. If no change it is most likely from lack of oxygen for a short period at birth (very possible) or lack of Vitamin D when she was an infant (also very possible, considering she was severely malnutrition as an infant). What we did not want was it to have gotten bigger which would mean there is a problem now with something causing pressure. Her specialist at Wake did not feel the lymphangioma would be doing this because they are not in that area. PRAISE - no change...very small spot....probably never amount to anything!

Grace has just been doing great. She went through about a month spell crying unless I layed with her at night. She has gotten over that and is back to normal going to bed so well! She is going to the Y in the mornings and playing in playhouse while I get to workout. Much needed for mommy. After a couple weeks she went from screaming to excited asking if she can go play. Love it!

Logan had his honor roll ceremony - so proud of him! He worked so hard!

I even got to end the week with a great night out with my accountability group with, dinner, prayer, digging into God's Word and ministering to each other. FABULOUS!

Of course our weekends are full with basketball, baseball and church activities and for many weekends to come SCHOOL PROJECTS -ugggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jonathon is actually helping our youth pastor with a ministry he has serving in the community as part of a Civics project for school. Below you can see him. This weekend he delivered furniture to a needy family. Eye opener for him there. Good stuff!

Chinese New Year Part Two

Dragon parade
More fun with the dragon

Grace loving jumpy house

Logan always had a special connection with Caiya

Grace doing some artwork

Enjoy a few more

Chinese New Year

Daddy's with their daughters
Morgan and Grace (or MoMo as Grace calls her)

Time for celebration

Come on in and celebrate

Grace ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year

We had a great day celebrating Chinese New Year with our local adoption group. We were able to use a room at one of the schools thanks to Aimee who is in our group and a music teacher at the school. Decorations were great, the kids had a jumpy house to jump in with a slide, plenty of room to run around, Chinese crafts, lots of yummy food to eat, and even a dragon walk. Beautiful Chinese music played and nice little goodie bags for the kids with gold chocolate coins, Chinese necklaces and bracelets. We are blessed to have a number of local families who have adopted from China that we can get together periodically for fun times with the kids and to celebrate Chinese holidays. Kids range from 1 - 5. Enjoy the photos

Catch Up and Oh So Special Day!

Well it has been a while since I posted and life of course has been busy. Grab a cup of coffee and catch up with me Guy has celebrated a birthday. Guy and I actually enjoyed a nice date night. Jonathon finished up first semester of his sophomore year in high school and both he and Christian finished exams. So it has been busy with homework and studying around here. We have started a new Saturday night service at church and we are loving that. The service is wonderful and it allows us to do what we all love sleep in and move slow in the morning! Logan is still in the midst of basketball season and Grace loves to go cheer him on. She is the resident team cheerleader for cheer and yells "LoLo" from the bleachers as he runs the court. On top of basketball season; baseball practices have begun as well for both Christian and Logan so yes we are rockin and rollin around here. Grace is also still really enjoying gymnastics and just re-enrolled for another semester of Kindermusik. Jonathon had his 16 year old physical and well yes he is now officially taller and weighs more than his mom. Something crazy about it when your kids outgrow you even though you know it is gonna happen. Grace and I have had a lot of lunch dates with friends who still love seeing her - she brings so much joy! I also started teaching a Bible study called "Search for Significance" for a group of 15 teenage girls. OMG has God been moving there and I stand back in awe of how he uses a broken but willing vessel every time we meet. Nothing special about me, just love the Lord and want to be obedient to the call. It is really about him using that and me staying out of his way so he can embrace these girls that he adores! I am so blessed to be a small part of that. Work is busy. So I told you we were busy! But yeah wouldn't have it any other way!

Of course the highlight was reflecting on a very special day, February 3 - this was the day we got a very special call a year ago from Pam at CCAI and said to me "Dawn I have a file of an adorable little girl that I would like you to look at to see if you would like to be her mommy". Well of course the tears came, nothing could prepare you for that day no matter how long you wait. Our lives today have forever been changed! I am overwhelmed with the amount of love in my heart for our beautiful daughter and shed many a tear this day as I looked at her and watched her and was humbled God chose us. This day is also special because we were matched on my Dad's 62 birthday! And this year it also fell on Chinese New Year so we celebrated doing crafts together and then with Chinese take-out for dinner...sesame chicken, chicken and mixed vegetables, fried rice, lo mein, fried dumplings spring rolls and Chinese donuts. Yummy! And of course she got her red envelope with money!

Enjoy these three photos of our daughter - two at time of match and then now....oh how much she has changed.

Logan Enjoys Some Bball

Logan and Bryson enjoying a little laugh
Logan is on his way - he loves the game!