Our Prayer for Sophia

Since I finally have updated a few things on my blog, I did not want to erase the prayer we were praying for our Sophia back in August 2010 as we prepared to travel:

Dear Lord, we lift up Sophia Xin Yan to you. We pray that even though she may not even know about You, that Your presence and peace will be upon her. That You will give her an understanding of what is to happen along with the strength and courage to walk through this next step in her life. I pray that You will make Yourself known to her and that her trust in You will bring her the peace to get her through this very difficult change in her life.

In Jesus' saving name we pray - Amen

Gotcha Day 2 Years Ago!

Oh My! It has been a really looooong time since I have posted. Life is so busy and writing is one of my least favorite things to do. So even though I still won't be posting much, I do want to keep track of the "big" days for those of you who know us and for the kids to look back on someday. So Since Sophia's Gotcha Day was last week (Sept 6) I figured I would start with her. Here is the picture of her 2 years ago on the day we first met her:

Here she is on her Gotcha Day 1 Year later:

And here she is this year, Gotcha Day Year 2:

Oh she is turning into such a young lady. She is not my little girl any more.

Highlights for Sophia over the past year and a half are her 7th Birthday:

Her dedication at church:

Getting her new bike:

which she now rides without the training wheels. She was very persistent on learning to ride without training wheel and practically taught herself.

Then there was her first time visiting Disney World. Oh she has been wanting to go there ever since she saw pictures of it.

Then there is the first time she got to go to the beach and see the ocean:

Then this summer we went to Universal Studios.

What an amazing two years it has been. It seems like it was not too long ago when we first met her and had to struggle to communicate to her. But at the same time it seems like she has always been with us. She loves to talk, almost too much. Is learning so much and doing great in school. Has made many friends and is dealing so well with her medical issues. She loves being here and is comfortable enough to let her hair down and test the waters, if you will. She makes mistakes and will lie to "save face" which we are still working on. For those of you who have biological and adopted kids, there are things that your biological kids do that they "get" from you. Whether it is the ability to do math well, the love of reading, loving to be outside all the time... What I think is so great is how God gives you a connection to your adopted child too. For Micah and I it is our love of music. For Sophia and I it is our love to clean and organize. If I ask her to do something like clean out her toy box, Oh she gets so excited. One day I was wondering what she was doing in her room, she had been there a long time. She said "organizing my drawers"! What 7 year old would willing choose to do that? My daugter, that's who!

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY?

What?! It is Micah's 5th birthday already?(Well it was on Monday, I have been late for everything lately). Where has the time gone. It is amazing how big he is getting. He still acts like a two year old at times, going through a "MY WAY ONLY" phase right now but I am hoping that he grows out of it soon. But that smile gets him out of a lot of trouble.

The scratched nose and brused tooth is the result of a nose dive into the sidewalk. That boy is so tough.

I just had to take a moment to say hey to all. I have been completely absent from blogger world for awhile, I don't even check my friends blogs much any more. But I have to say that it is good business that keeps me away. Out of the blue 7 weeks ago, we decided to move and now we are the owners of TWO homes. One we are preparing to move into( hopefully soon) and the other we are trying to keep in perfect order as we showing it to sellers. The best way to keep your house looking "show ready" with 5 kids and a dog...... clean the house while the kids are at school and don't come home until bed time!

Sophia is doing well as we approach almost 8 months with us. We have started physical therapy, which she does not like much. But other than that, she is a very happy little girl. All the kids are excited to move but Sophia was not too happy at first. The new home was vacant when we looked at it and even though she like that she would have her own room, she was not happy that she would not have a bed, or toys or a table to eat at! After some explaining, she was then ok with the new home and very excited. You have to constantly remember their perspective on life from their past. We tend to go on with day to day life as we all get comfortable with our family, but there is always the past that reflects how you see the present.

Blessings to you all!

A Few Milestones

Hello all! It has been awhile but as you can guess, I am kind of busy. Things have been going very well with Sophia's adjustment. She is going to school full time and loves it. She even comes home and continues to practice her writing after her snack. That is probably why she is doing so well. She is getting close to getting up to grade level in her reading, which is amazing since 6 months ago she could not even speak english.

Speaking of 6 months ago. Sunday was 6 months since we first met our Sophia. She has come a long way, it seems like she has been with us so much longer than 6 months.

I have a video of her reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. A few weeks ago she probably did not have half of the words correct but I recorded her this weekend, it was so cute I had to post it.(Sorry I could not figure out how to rotate it an frankly didn't have the time to research it)

Health wise she is doing wonderful. We have her on medication which is really able to help her control going to the bathroom. Her MRI's of her spinal cord are inconclusive so we are just making sure she doesn't get worse with her incontinence and walking. We are now going to try to focus our attention on some physical therapy for her walking.

Another milestone this weekend was on March 5th. Micah has now been WITH us more than he was without us. WOW, it is hard to believe looking at him now that he spent the forst 2.5 years of his life in an orphanage. Oh there are things that come up that are definitely from his life in the orphanage but he has adjusted so well. Here is a picture of him before our court date in September of 2008 and here he is now:

And here are the two little buddies playing. They play together great, when they are not fighting.

Well, that is the quick update for now. Take care all!

Have a Blessed Christmas

Sorry I have not posted in forever. Life as you all know is busy and I have been really trying to focus on the top priorities in my life and the computer and posting on down on the list. But I could not miss this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas!

Things are going very well. Sophia is adjusting well. SHe still has periods of grieving but the last question she asked about China was if she could go back and forth to live in China and then with us. It was hard to explain that that was not an option but I said to Russ that at least she wanted to be with us too!

We have had many medical appointments. The urologist put her on meds to reduce the pressures in her bladder and now we are working on a schedule to Cath her. It was horrible the first time I had to do it but we both are pros at it now. We are trying to figure things out to get her to be dry during the day but it is not going as quickly as I would like. I need to do some more research but with Christmas coming, it has not been a good time for reading. We also had an MRI to check out her back and get a baseline. But unfortunately, the doctor sees a thinning of the spinal cord and thinks there is a build up of fluid that is putting pressure in the spine. So right now we don't know what we have in store for Sophia except for more tests and appointments.

Sophia has been doing wonderful in school and wants to start the ELL program that would allow her to go all day. However with the start of cathing and the new unknowns about her back, we are going to hold off for a little while to see what happens.

We have had a wonderful morning and there is much more for the day so I nust be going. Here are some recent pictures and my gift to you from God's Word:

Come, let us worship and bow down,

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For He is our God,

And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.

Psalm 95: 6-7a

A Little Boy Wants a Family

Isn't he adorable? No we are not adopting him. But I am hoping that there is someone out there who will.

I am advocating for this little who so wants to have a family. He has been in a group home in Beijing. He is 5 years old and was born with meningocele in his lower lumbar. He can run and walk but has incontinence with bowel and bladder so he wears a diaper. That is about the same description we had on Sophia one year ago and now she is home with us and we are so very blessed. His file is with Holt. You can check it out at

http://www.holtinternational.org/cgi/photolisting/display.cgi?ID=B10_28&Index_re=0

I have been in contact with a volunteer at the home, Lisa. He is the last of the children left from when she first arrived 4 years ago and he so wants a family. Can you imagine seeing other kids for the last 4 years finding their families and no family has come for you? His needs are so managable.

If you want to find out more infonformation about him you can contact Holt or my friend Lisa at ajrassi@gmail.com. They have more pictures and are wanting to help in finding his forever family. Please pass on this information to anyone who may be considering adoption and pray that his family finds him soon.

Sophia's First BIrthday with Us!

What a great day we had. Our Sophia is now 6 years old( it took us a little while to convince her that she was turning 6 because in China they are 1 once they are born so in China she would have been 7. But she trusted us that in America she was turning 6 and seemed fine with it). It was so nice to know that even though we missed the first 5 birthdays plus her birth, we will miss no more. Sophia has been counting down to her birthday and has been very excited. She had an idea of what was coming because both Russ and I have celebrated our birthday's since she has been home but they were simple compared to what she was going to have. We had a party on the weekend with my parents, brother and his family. There was cake, ballons, and presents and she did great. The only thing that was too hard for her was the sing 'Happy Birthday". Once we all started singing, she tried to hold a stiff upper lip but started to cry. I think it just reminded her too much of her foster family. So needless to say, no more happy birthday singing.

Thursday was her actual birthday and along with more presents and dinner at a Chinese restaurant, she got her ears pierced. Oh she was soo excited about this. She has been asking me since we were in China and I kept holding her off until her birthday to see if this is really what she wanted. Since she does not have much continence towards pain, I was concerned that once she felt any pain, she would break down cry and pull away, causing more pain. So all day we talked about it and I was up front that it would hurt but only for a little bit. I kept asking her and she still wanted to do it. So later that evening, we all went to the mall and she got her Hello Kitty earing. Aren't they so cute. They fit her to a tee. She did fairly well but the anticipation was what really got her. She had tears rolling down her face and I kept asking her if she wanted to go but NO she wanted those earings. So I held her in my lap and we had two people do it at once( they were great). Once it was over, I think she was surprised that it went so quickly and that the pain was gone.

We then went to a Chinese buffet for dinner. This was she could pick out what she wanted. Once she finds someone who speaks Mandarin she takes the opportunity to catch up on all the talking she can. She talked about how she really likes her new family(yea) but that she worries about her foster family and how they are doing. She tries so much to take care of everyone that I am sure at times she feels guilty( like when we were singing Happy Birthday) about enjoying her new family. I have told her many times that it is ok to miss them and be sad and I know there will always be those feelings, it is just helping her get through them.

We had to tip the waitress a nice tip because Sophia was talking her ear off. They poor girl was being so nice to listen and talk back even though she was trying to keep working the other tables - like I said, our little girl likes to talk, watch out when her english improves. So here are a few pictures to leave you with.