Sunday, September 25, 2011

What we know about our girl...

Now that we have our LOA, I can tell all the details about our sweet Molly.  She is in the Qingcheng District SWI(social welfare institute) in Qingyuan City.  This is in the Southern most part of China...about a 4 1/2  hour drive to Hong Kong and 1 1/2 hours to Guangzhou.  It has a subtropical climate and an average temperature of 70 degrees, so shouldn't be freezing when we go in December..whew!



Molly's name in China is Qingcheng XiaoYa.  In China, first name is last, and the last name is first.  Because she is in Qingcheng district, that comes first in her name.  I am in contact with one of her caretakers at the orphanage, and she told me that her name means Elegant.  When Xiao menas little, then ya means elegant,....it seems to fit her!  We debated on leaving part of her Chinese name in there, but Jon had promised his grandmother before she died that if we ever had a girl, we would use her name(Marie) as her middle name.  And as for her first name, we both love Molly!  We didn't want her to have a really long name, so we chose not to use it.  I hope we're making the right decision.




Molly has a cleft palate and a repaired cleft lip.  I've gotten some good recommendations for a couple of Dr's who do cleft repairs in the Dallas and Ft Worth area, so I'll call them in the next week or two to set something up.  We will probably do that shortly after she gets home.  I hate to think about her going through more trauma so quickly after she gets here, but the quicker we do it, the better her speech will be.  Good thing I'm a speech therapist....are we a perfect match, or what??:)




I have her care package boxed up and ready to send of tomorrow.  I tried to send it yesterday, but the fed ex girl was a little overwhelmed about sending it and told me that I can't send clothes, toys or a camera....uhhhh, really?? Because that's basically all that's in there!  I think I'm going to try somewhere else tomorrow with better luck, hopefully!


                                                      I couldn't pass up these pj's!!



I'm praying this package gets to her and that they can get some pictures of her!  


In between getting care packages together, we did manage to fit some football games in.  Reed had one and Ben had two back to back.   Luckily they're in the morning, so it's not too hot!  I love watching them play! They've both scored a few touchdowns in the games, which really pumped them up.  Other than Reed's coach being a little too hard core for 1st graders, they are really having a fun time.  It was definitely a good decision to keep them in flag one more year. 

               Reed is 4th from the right.  Not the best pics....I should've gotten closer!


                                  

                                                        Pulling a flag!  Go Ben!!  

After church today, the boys were all looking cute and semi-color coordinated, so I bribed asked them to take a few pics with me:)  I ended up with a few cute ones..





                                                   LOVE ME SOME COCO BOYS! :)

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Molly's Book

My mom made this book on shutterfly for Molly.  It's too cute so I wanted to share! Don't know why it says it's been deleted...just click beneath where it says view larger.



I still can't believe we have our LOA!!!  My heart still feels like it's going to jump out of my chest!  I've been crazy busy trying to get I800 and I864 paperwork and ready to overnight!  Paperwork never ends...but at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel now! I'm waiting on Jon to get home now and sign some of these papers and then I'm off to fed-ex them!   
 Never been so excited to see a fed ex package in my LIFE!

APPROVED!! :))

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Back to Reality!

We made it back from Florida and it was UH-MAZ-ING!!  Pure relaxation with no worries and no decisions to be made...well,... except for beach or pool??   I don't think I've been that relaxed since,...uhmmm...well, I can't remember the last time!  It was a great vaca, and I was excited to see the fam at the airport!  Jon did a super job shuffling the kids to both boy's football games AND keeping his eye on G-man during the game!  NOT an easy task! :)


             We sat like this for 2 days straight!  AHHHHH....

Look at how clear the water is!


View from our room...


                        I took this from the plane.  I think one of the Texas fires!         So sad!


The boys are still liking school, and seem to be making friends.  I met Ben at his school for lunch today, and met some of his new friends and even a girlfriend..WHA?!!  They were flirting and everything! Ooohh, I don't know if mama is ready for all this girl stuff yet!  I'll be meeting Reed for lunch next week.  I've heard all about the kids in his class, so I can't wait to put names with faces.  I love getting to know their friends. 


 Gage is liking his school too,...once he's there!  He turns on the waterworks for me when I drop him, but thankfully the teacher calls me by the time I even get home, telling me he's already stopped crying and is happy as soon as he walks into school.  I'm not against bribing when I need to, so I told him if he doesn't cry when I drop him today, then I'll get him a surprise at wal-mart.  That seemed to do the trick...he did great this today! yay!! :)  

He's still missing his "bwudus" though, so we've been waiting for them when the bus pulls up.  He gets so excited when he sees that yellow bus coming up the street! 




We still love the bus! ALL of us!! :))


Gage before school this am with his LSU jersey on!  Ready for the game tonight!!


Day 50 waiting on the LOA.  The wait is SOOOO hard and getting HARDER!  I'm praying for patience, but goodness, this is way harder than I thought it would be.  There's not a second that goes by that she's not on my mind.  I look at her pictures all the time and wish that she was in my arms.  Oh, my sweet baby girl...you are loved more than you'll ever know!!  We can't wait to show you just how much!!  Hopefully not too much longer!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Gage's 1st day of preschool

Well, the morning went pretty  much as expected....he didn't want to go and complained about going from the moment the boys left for school.  We took some 1st day of school pics with Roux that crack me up!  Those two LOVE each other!!
He started off by himself....

                                And then Roux jumped in!








I"m telling you, they can't get enough of each other!  




After I explained to him why he  couldn't bring his BFF, Roux, to school with him, we packed up and he pretty much whined the whole way there.  We got there a few minutes early and the front door was locked.  After a few minutes of holding him with his head on my shoulder and whining, he stopped and said "maybe 'dey not here, maybe we can just go home"!  Poor baby, he thought he had really lucked out!  Right then, his teacher  opened the door and welcomed him in, and the real crying started.  She tried to console him by asking if he liked play doh.  His quick response was, "no...I don't like ANYTING!"   Anyway, I left him crying, but wasn't worried because he's at a great school with an awesome teacher, so I knew he'd have a great day.  When I picked him up, he was so happy and went on and on about all of his friends, all the activities they did and how he wanted to go back on THurday!  Hopefully he'll still feel the same way in the am! :)


I'm going with a couple of my good friends for a weekend trip to Florida tomorrow....no kids!!  We've been planning this for a couple of years now, and are so excited to have a whole weekend to catch up and relax.  I'm so blessed to have friends to do this kind of girl weekend with AND a husband who let's me and can handle the kids on his own for a few days!  I think it's so good for mom's to have a little girl time every now and then, and then come back refreshed and ready to take on the world! :)  
Relaxation....here we come!! 

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Labor Day Fun!

We had a very low key and relaxing Labor Day weekend. It was so nice to have 3 whole days to hang with the family!  We all watched the LSU game Sat night, from the comfort of our couch!  They played at Cowboy stadium, so we thought about going, but we didn't want to pay the high price tag that came along with it!  So instead of getting all dressed and ready....THIS is how we watched the Tigers win....
                           Even Roux was in on the action..:)   WOOHOO... Geaux Tigers!!!


Yesterday, we went to the Heard museum, where they have animals I've never heard of or seen like this...

I don't know what he's called, but he's in the family of the biggest rodent...ewww!  Gage thought he was SO funny though.  He would get in his watering hole and move his head around.  Gage was laughing so hard saying.."he's dancing in the bathtub"!  


They also have good hiking trails there.
                                              Me and my big boys!



             Everybody ready and excited to take on the trails at the beginning!  Had to carry 2 of them toward  the end!

 Ben posing with his tough new football cut!  It was actually an accident, but Jon and I love it on him!  The guard fell of the clippers when they were cutting it and "balded" him in a huge spot, so they had to go ahead and do all of his hair like that!


               Gage upset about something...but I thought it was a cute pic,.


                                                   Walk like an Egyptian??

LOVE this pic of these 2!

                                         And this is what I get when I try and get them to pose for a pic!

             Gage's 1st day of Mother's Day out starts today!  Don't know       how excited he's going to be about going...wish us luck!! 

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Update!

Jean, the twin's mom, went to visit the orphanage Friday, and she sent me an update with good news!  She said she's very healthy, well cared for, and of course precious...which I already know..:)  She also said that she was not afraid at all!    Thank you God!  She sent pictures that I wish I could share on here, because she's SOOOO stinkin cute..:)  She even got a video that she's going to send me when she has time to download it.  I am so thankful to them for spending time loving on our daughter while they were there.  She said they didn't put her down the whole time they were in the children's ward, and I'm hoping that she understood, in some way, how much love was being sent her way from us!!  
 I know she's going to miss her precious little twin friends.  


Go here to read Jean's blog.    You have to go see how CUTE their twins are! 


We're on Day 38...Please pray that our LOA comes SOON!!  We NEED her in our arms ASAP!!!  


We had another fun Friday night at the Cardinals game!  This was Gage's first time to the game, and he loved it!


Gage and his friend, Ellie, watching the game from the end field.  


And now onto the next important game of the day,..... GEAUUUXX  TIGERS!!!!