A January Catch Up...

 January is flying by!! Its been a good month though.. here's a little recap as we enter the final week of the month. Remember our little foster girl chen chen? Well some friends of ours are fostering here while she is in HK for some medical updates and we got to see her. She is such a sweetie and has come SOO far in the last couple years.. She is able to use her hands really well and can do many things that the Drs weren't sure about when she first started out.

Max had both Animal day and farmer day this month.. he looked cute for both! I was planning on him being a tiger for animal day, but it had to be a farm animal, so he is an orange barn cat ;o)

 Max and his two best friends playing animals

 Jack's grade had a field trip to ocean park. Jamila and I chaperoned this fun group of boys for the day.

Jack and I at Ocean park

 Bryan ran his marathon this morning. He had awful cramps at mile 23/24 so didn't finish as fast as he wanted, but I'm just glad he finished in one piece!

Bryan went home to nap after and the boys and I went out for lunch!

Sunday night here... ready for another week!

Christmas in the US Part 2: WI

We spent the second week in snow-less, freezing cold WI... We had so much with the Schroeders, despite the fact that one by one we all got sick as the week went on... Some high lights... tons of cousin time, watching the three-two years olds play, snuggling our new niece, lighting the candles on the tree sliding on the frozen creek, pretzel houses, working out with Sarah, playing games, matching cousin Pjs made by Grandma, Fondue, a lunch out with just the siblings and no kids, relaxing afternoons by the fire... and SO much more...

Christmas in the USA Part 1: Iowa

I'm a bit behind on posting these photos.. We had a fantastic time in the US for Christmas... the boys are a dream on the flights these days, jet lag is also not too bad. The time with family is so worth the travel and lack of sleep.. We only had snow for about 48 hrs and it was a soggy wet mess. The boys loved it though. I don't think Max remembered snow, he was only 2 when we last saw it. The boys love spending time with their cousins and we got to spend time with all three of Bryan's sisters which was wonderful! We spent the first week in IA with the Thompsons..

Saying Goodbye..

Today we said goodbye to the girl we thought would be our daughter... It's hard to explain this type of loss. It's not like a child has died, but it kind of feels that way. She will still be alive, living in Europe with her forever family. But, the family of five that we had been planning to have in a few months will not be.

When we first found out in November that something, somewhere had gone terribly wrong with our adoption we were just devastated. {and angry!} It was like I had been dreaming of life with this little girl for more than 6 months and BAM, just like that the dream was over. We knew that China was unpredictable, we knew that things weren't 100% for sure, but everything had been going so well, we had given our hearts fully to this girl. It's very hard to feel so helpless in the situation as well. There is just nothing you can DO. I've experienced loss through miscarriage before... and for me, this has been SO.MUCH.WORSE. Not to minimize the loss of any child, but I already knew what her face looked like... I already knew her spunky personality, we already have smiles, and kisses and memories of her... and now she's gone. We had already carried her in our hearts for 6 months. 

It was good for me to see her one last time. She was here for a medical check up and we know the family taking care of her. It was also super sad to see her again, but I hope for all of us this will help us to move on. It still hurts though. We have been praying with the boys that YiLi will have a wonderful life with her new family and I really do pray that for her. 

She was sleeping today when we saw her. All tired out from a long morning at church. It was still good to see her sweet face and for the boys to get a chance to say good-bye.

We appreciate your prayers as we grieve this loss and also continue to move forward with our adoption dream. I'll write more on this later, but we have switched agencies since this all happened and continue to cling to our passion to add to our family through adoption. 

Good-bye little one.. we love you!

Cookie Exchange and Decorating party

This afternoon I hosted our annual cookie decorating and exchange. It was as crazy and fun as usual. The kids had a blast and I walked away with a lot of cookies... so it was all worth it!

Let's start off with a peek at my kitchen this morning... oh wow!

And now some fun! Max was very "helpful" this morning.

 Decorating cookies

 Eating cookies!

 Taking cookies home!