Making Homemade Mooncakes. They really turned out not half bad

Making Lanterns and other Crafts

Making Homemade Moon cakes. Go Corrie and Genevieve

Owen and his Asian Choir as he told Kelly. They called North Carolina to sing Happy Birthday to our very special friend Kelly Look at that special little face. How sweet is that. Miss Aubrey, so Big Look at this awesome bunch of gals,. What a great group.

I love these girls so much

Look at those sweet faces. That's Aubrey with Genevieve. She is amazing. She has been home from China for just one year. She was 3 at the time of her adoption and wore a 12M clothes. Very tiny little bird. She also spoke only Mandarin and had minimal gross motor skills. Her Mom has done AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME with her. She is now put on weight and her speech is amazing. I mean amazing. She talks and you can clearly understand what she says. No baby talk. Mom also makes her walk everywhere, no carrying her. This has developed her gross motor by leaps and bounds. She has her enrolled in a 3 day a week preschool and her social skills are awesome. She sits in a restaurant with out needing to climb all over. Can you tell I'm impressed in her progress?

What a great dinner at Grand empire. We love that restaurant.

Lucky Buddha. Look at that Belly

Look at that beautiful crew ready to set the lanterns afloat

What a great Daddy helping us light our precious lanterns to send to China.

As we all let our lanterns go down the river, we say a prayer for their families still in China and all the babies waiting for their forever family

After all that excitement the night would night be right without the best ice cream in the whole world - Bonnie Doons

And this is how they looked on Monday. Both girls in bed sick as all get out. We went to Urgent Care with Abigail about 6 pm. Once she gets a little anything her RAD kicks in and she can't breath. This in turn makes her vomit and she dehydrates at the drop of a hat. Genevieve is on the down slope of being ill. The low grade fever started with her on Sat morning. Anyway back to urgent care.

The girls have both been diagnosed with H1N1. Wow Now we are under quarantine in that end of the house. it's kicking Abigail's butt right now so please say a prayer for us

What a Great Saturday

Our local Library had different characters, authors, musicians, and puppeteers there on Saturday. The girls were on cloud nine with all their favorite characters. But the icing on the cake came at the end of the afternoon. Read On The girls LOVE Martha. With their bags of goodies and their best bud Corrie the day is great.

Who doesn't love Curious George. All time classic favorite

Miss Maisy and 3 wonderful kiddos.

Clifford was definitely a hit. Abigail's preschool teacher last year, loves Clifford so Abigail developed a great love for him.

Where the Wild Things Are - They have not seen it yet nor have we read the story. I know bad mommy, that's a classic.

Here the girls are making Choco. You'll see why.

They did a great job with the craft project.

Here they is the best part of the whole visit to the library. Keiko Kazka reading A Mother for Choco. This book can be recited from memory by Genevieve and myself. This book is so loved in our home, we had to buy a second copy. The first one is being held together with clear duct tape. This book is so loved I created felt characters to go along with the story for her. I have read this book to each one of the girls classrooms every time they get a new teacher. It is the most amazing story of a mother's love for all of her adopted children. It was written in 1989.

Here it is in Japanese

Here it is in Arabic . It is translated into 16 different languages.

Mrs. Kazka autographed both of our copies. She also took a picture of Genevieve and her very loved copy fer HER scrap book. She said it makes her heart sing to see such a loved book by a child.

They are both so beautiful

A day in the Life

I know everything happens for a reason. I also know God placed Genevieve in our family because we ARE her family. These facts alone are what makes it easier for me to get through the days when Genevieve is having one of her "Not Good" days. I will say, they're not as frequent as before but they are still often. I know one day she will learn how to maintain her emotions and behaviors, but for now it's day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute. I now get hugs in the morning, and I Love You's. This is a big step for us. Our next step is to get her to the point where she does not EXPLODE when she is being corrected, not disciplined, just corrected. When I say explode, that could be an understatement on most days. Our other goal is to get her to the point where she can focus a little better and sleep through the night. Miss Princess Genevieve is still walking around at night because she can not sleep and getting up to watch TV. This of course creates a VERY grumpy little girl in the morning because of lack of sleep. All these factors create who she is and how she behaves. I know I'm rambling, but today was not one of our better days. She did not sleep well last night and in turn had a rough day. Especially when she came home. It's as if it takes all she has to get through the day and appear OK so by the time she gets home she needs to just let it all hang out. Everyone around her catches her frustration at the slightest things.

Helping Aunt Barbie

Every Niece should have an Aunt Barbie who has managed the best ice cream parlor in the world for 20 years. Life doesn't get much better than this.

I love this Smile

Labor Day

It's a little late but here are photos from Labor day. Our family and a couple other families got together and went to China Town in Chicago for the day. We had an awesome time. There is a cute park the girls had a blast in. The best time they had was their friend from Ohio. 3 Dressed up Beauties

Can you see the mischief in those 2 faces. Genevieve and her friend Corrie can finish each other's sentences. Wow that can be pretty scary some days.

Daddy having the best time pushing his girls.

Two tuckered out people. That's daddy's girl

Monkey Baby

These fancy Panda dresses came from a dear friend in Florida. Amy always sends us the best things. Thanks so much for good friends

Princess Geneveive

One Day i need to teach Princess Geneveive to use the timer on the Camera. :>)

What a bad blogger I am

Ok,I suddenly realized that I have not blogged in ages. I wasn't sure if that made me a bad person or just a bad blogger. But then it hit me, just a bad blogger. I am so busy being servant, mom, wife, grandma, friend, teacher, leader, volunteer, chauffer, seamstress, and a few other things that blogging is a at the bottom of the list. Here are a few daily my life is consumed with. 1) God's Servant - Serving the Lord when the opportunity arrises with our Community Care Center at Church as well as any other way the call comes in to serve. 2) Thrive Team Leader - This is the position at our church that heads up the education department of our members at our church and finding ways to educate the non members as well. 3) Sunday school teacher - Our group is called the Sunday Exlplorers and range in age 4 - 11 4) PTO Secretary at the girls school 5) Room Mom for Genevieve's class 6) Room Mom for the girls Traditional Chinese Dance Class 7) Costume Designer and sewer for their dance class 8) Mandarin Class on Saturday mornings with the girls 9) Pet Refuge Volunteer - I foster kittens for our local shelter as well as volunteer in the informary on Thursday nights, PETREFUGE.COM. We are a non profit no kill organization. We are also no govt money:>(. 10) Get the girls to all of their extra activities. This sometimes includes getting the grown boys around too. :)) 11) Going to all the Grandkids functions. Football, basketball, soccer and what ever else they have going on. 12) A date with my husband if we can squeeze it in. 13) Making the girls clothes and their American girl doll clothes as well. That also includes all the mending and altering that needs to be done in this house. 14) Taking care of the Inlaws as their health determines. I guess I am kinda of busy. I am going to try harder to keep up with blogging for our friends and family who are not nearby. But if I slack understand I am just doing my job I have been put on this earth to do. BTW say a prayer for me as well somedays I can really use all the prayers I can get when I finally settle in to bed around 11 pm. Thanks for understanding. Julia