Livi's gifts

Last year about this time, another blog I read led me to this great gift idea for girls at Christmas time. I saved the link into my favorites and never forgot about it. I knew I wanted to get them to bring to China for a toy for our future little one to play with in the hotel.
Well, here we are....at that point...
and it just happens to be Christmas time.
So.....I figured, why not get it for her for Christmas.
Okay, not really
Since she won't be opening it until months after
But, it can be under the tree
and we can dream about next year when she will be here.
How fun will that be!
I think she's gonna love her new gift
I can't wait for her to open it.

We got her 2 of the dolls....

Including the Asian one names Linh complete with karate gear....

And a light up dressing room to hold it all

30 days of giveaways

Just passing on some cool news from a pretty cool fellow blogger. Stefanie at Ni Hao Y'all is giving away a gift 30 days in a row. I'm a little late, so there are now 25 left. All you have to do is be a follower of hers (I know a few of you already are) and leave a comment on each day to be entered. I'm hopin' to get lucky on this one cuz all the gifts are unique and fun.

Spare time

This is the sort of thing the boys do in their spare time....Legos creations.....big ones. I love it actually. It sure beats watching them numb themselves in front of some mindless TV show. Tyler did this one and took pictures of it before destroying it....which, by the way, if you're a boy, is as much (if not more) fun than building it in the first place.
Here are the pics of the house he made, complete with 5 levels, interior rooms, stairways, furniture, and crazy detail.
Can you find all the elements he put into each part?
In the kitchen.....
Do you see the sink? The cabinets and the fridge? How about the stove?

This is the living room....
There is a stairway and entry door, a couch (with a remote on the end) a fireplace and a small TV. Find them all?

He even made his bedroom....
Look closely and you'll see a bathroom (with no walls...LOL) a stairway into it, a nightstand with lamp, his bed with even a pillow, dresser, and a desk.

Every great house should have a game room....
...and every game room should have a pool table and a ping pong table.

As if having a game room wasn't enough, he added a dance studio. Do you see the DJ table and the red, blue, and green dancing lights?

Next is the family room. There's a couch with remote, large screen TV with a Wii along the side of it. Pretty cool.

And here it is. The whole thing. It's all enclosed from the outside, but if you open it up layer by layer you find all the details he worked so hard on. Very creative!



Wanna know what I consider the most impressive part of all of this?.......
.
.
.
.
It's the fact that my family room floor in the background is actually clean. Wow...now that's impressive.

B-Ball time

Tyler joined basketball this year for the first time. He's an 8th grader who's never played for a team, so he wasn't too surprised that he was put on the JV squad with mostly 6th and 7th graders. The great thing about this oldest kid-o-mine though is that he doesn't let that sort of thing ruffle his feathers. He just plays. And he's lovin' it.
He got to take a foul shot....he missed, but it sure looked good on the way to the basket. :)

There he is....my number 44

The poor child has my legs......I can always tell which one he is without even lookin' at his face. So sorry dear.....

A great action shot....

America, the beautiful

With a grateful heart, I thank all our military today, past and present, for their service to this great country.
For all the sacrifices, for all the time away from family....
For putting your life on the line for our freedoms,
and for giving of yourself, unselfishly, for a coutry you love and the foundation on which is was built.
May we never forget all that have served and died for us and for our freedoms.
The freedom to live our lives how we want
The freedom to worship without hiding
The freedom to succeed in anything we put our minds to
The freedom to vote
The freedom to speak our minds without fear
The freedom to have as many children as we want
The freedom to adopt from a country that doesn't share that luxury
And the freedom to know that we can sleep in peace at night.
Thank you.

Livi turns 2!

Yesterday was Olivia's 2nd birthday.
We wanted to celebrate, even though she's not home yet, so I got some cupcakes and we ate in honor of her.
I got pink and purple ones....cuz I can now.

When I got home, the boys and Jason had decorated the foyer and kitchen in pink streamers and balloons and Timmy was making a sign.

All day, I thought about her and all day I wondered.
I wondered if the orphanage was celebrating with her too.
I wondered if she got to eat some cake.....

Or blow out some candles.

I wondered if she got sang to....
or if she even knew if was her birthday.
I wondered if she could feel our love all the way across the ocean.....
and I wondered what it will be like next year when she's sitting here,
at the table,
under the sign,
on the chair with the balloons,
and feeling all the love of a family.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie.

Fundraiser for Olivia!

So, yesterday was the day.
Finally here.
All the planning and cleaning and organizing paid off and it was a huge success!
We had over 100 people show up for our fundraiser to help us bring our Livi home.
It was actually very overwhelming to look around and see how many people wanted to be there to help us out.
What a blessing to know we have so many friends and family that support us.

Here's how it looked on the inside.....
Our entry way......

A table to introduce everyone to Livi along with a guest book for everyone to sign and write something for her.

We had signs telling where everything was located....




The family room was set up for the silent auction (with so many things that our good friends donated and got for us)




and the living room emptied out to make room for the pasta dinner.....


The garage was completely transformed into a carnival for the kids.








All the kids (our boys included and Tyler's friends from school) that helped out with running the kids' games.....

And to top it all off....a friend who did his DJ thang for us and a rockin' dance downstairs!





Thank you, Thank you, Thank you everyone!!!
We will never forget it and we love that it will be a part of Olivia's story that we'll be able to tell her about how everyone helped get her home to our family....to her family. God bless all of you!