"Toot"

Happy Birthday Mason!! So when you ask him how old he is, he puts up two fingers and says, "Toot". It cracks us up. This was his first experience with cake and presents and he loved it. His favorite activity right now is playing with hot wheels, thus the theme. He loves to line them up and usually takes one to bed with him. We kept things small with just a few friends and family. We swam, ate pizza, and opened presents. He received all things boy, wood blocks, mega blocks, race track, and a basketball hoop or ba-ket ball as our friend Jake says.


I have enjoyed making the kids' cakes over the most recent birthdays but now I'm wanting to take some lessons on how to frost and such.


It took a few tries but he managed to blow the candles out, complete with a very long string of spit deposited on it for everyone's enjoyment. A collective "eewww" was heard by all.

Evidence he enjoyed every bite.

However, the most fun probably came during the opening of presents. The tissue paper beat out the toys by a landslide, at least initially.

NBA bound?

One well loved, handsome dude with Gigi, Pap-pa, Uncle Tim and Aunt Jennifer.

I can't believe he is two already. My kids' birthdays are always reasons for celebration and they sometimes turn into birthday weekends. But there is always this quiet moment of sadness for me first thing in the morning as I think about their birth moms. How grateful I am to them for their ultimate sacrifice that has brought us such joy and how I grieve for them and their loss. How I know they are missing out and how lucky Matt and I are as a result. If only she could see this and know how happy and loved he is. So, thank you sweet woman for allowing us the privilege of raising Mason Israel. He is well loved indeed.

Happy Birthday Handsome Boy!! We love you.

Israel.....

Three lovebugs all referred within a week (different years of course). A year ago today we were told we would have a son. His name was Israel and he was just 4 days short of his first birthday.
We were a bit sad we would miss this but so excited to see his pictures. The one above is the first one we received. It was the only one initially and it wasn't the best quality. We strained to see the details of his face. I couldn't wait to see his eyes. Ethiopians tend to have these big eyes. He was so handsome with that cocoa skin. The girls thought it was funny that he had on pink pants. He was in Durame, an area about 6 hours from the capital of Addis Ababa. We had no idea just how well he was being cared. But once we got there 5 months later, we knew he had been well loved on. Unlike for the girls, we learned some about his history including information on his birthmom but those details we will keep private. That is his story so we want to give him the choice of sharing or not. Wow, he just got cuter and cuter and I had no idea how much fun he would be. It's funny because we always wonder what our kids will be like and every time, it just seems God picked the perfect one for us and for our family. The pics below are ones we received along the way as we waited to travel.


There's those big beautiful eyes I spoke about.....

I didn't like this one initially. I thought he looked sad. But it grew on me the more I looked at it and it is now one of my favorites. He was a serious baby when we met him. Not the case now, quite the ham........yummy. Mason Israel..........

His birthday is this weekend so stay tuned for birthday fun...........

Lin Xiao

I tear up every time I see my kids' referral pics but this one.......oh, tears might actually fall. This is Madalyn Grace Xiao and it was 6 years ago today that we first saw her beautiful face. This is our first baby, the baby who made me a mama. We had waited 10 1/2 months for our referral (nothing compared to the wait now in China). In April/May of 03, SARS hit and the adoption process was put on hold in China for 5 weeks. We were devastated. We thought this would extend our wait but it actually sped things up. God works that way ya know. We weren't expecting our referral till January 04 but because they were backed up in China, they worked hard to catch up. I was at work that day and Matt received the call. He called me at met me at work and we opened our "present" privately and in the secrecy of my office. I will be honest and say I fretted about whether she would be cute. I have fretted about all my kids. Not that it would have mattered, you know. But boy, when we opened her pic, we couldn't believe how beautiful she was. She just looked angelic to me. And I LOVED her lips. We also thought it was appropriate that she had a Mickey in her basket. We have always wondered if that was intentional on China's part since they knew she was being referred to a family in Orlando. The other funny thing is that China overdresses their kids. They look all bundled up and when we got our hands on her, she was a peanut. I guess you could say getting your referral is like getting the ultrasound pics, but with a lot more detail...lol. Anyway, it's a sweet, sweet day for us as we remember "The Call" for Lin Xiao,which means smile and small. More to come on our journey to get her in the six weeks that followed this day..............

Mei Fu Kang

It was 4 years ago today that we got "The Call" for Mackenzie. "The Call", in the world of adoption, is how you learn about your referral or in other words, you find out who your new baby is. Four years ago today, we first saw her sweet baby face. We were actually at a Disney hotel, Pop Century, for Labor Day weekend. My parents along with my brother and sister-n-law were there as well. We were sure to bring a computer with us as we anticipated hearing from our agency, CCAI, or Chinese Children Adoption International. They are fabulous by the way. In any case, we learned who she was, Mei Fu Kang, meaning wealth and fortune, and that she was from the same province as Madalyn, Hubei. We had requested this and were so grateful the Chinese govt chose to honor our request. She is from the city of Huangmei which is about 5 hours away from Madalyn's city. Our hope is that they will go back together someday to learn more about their country and being from the same province will be helpful. We could not have been more in love. Isn't she just beautiful? She looked a bit like a butterball and we couldn't wait to get our hands on her. It would another 6 weeks before we could leave to go get her. More on this next month in celebration of her Gotcha Day. Till then, I know I'm biased but really......can she be any cuter???

By the way, all our kiddos were referred to us in the month of September so stay tuned for more memories................

Snip Snip

So our chunky monkey got his first haircut. When he first got home 6 months ago, I was a bit intimidated by his hair, what to do with it, how to care for it, etc. I always joked that we couldn't bring home an Ethiopian daughter because this mama wouldn't know how to do her hair! Anyway, I eventually got a care system down. But we just kept letting it grow. It was looking a bit crazy and seemed to fit his personality. But then there were days that well, it didn't look so cute. So while we were at Disney last weekend, we took him to the Barber Shop. He did great and could have cared less that there was a man behind him with scissors. They gave him a bunch of stickers to play with and he also got a hat that says "My First Haircut" on the back.

Here's a before shot taken about 2 weeks earlier.....just after a bath all picked out.....

Getting a bit tall don't ya think?

Checking himself out after Kenzie took his picture with Matt's phone.

My two handsome dudes.......

My Camera

I love taking pictures. Three years ago, we bought a new camera, a Canon Powershot ES. I liked it because it had some weight to it, had a 12x zoom, and could take continuous photos in a sports mode. It had a bunch of other modes on the dial but I didn't know much about those. We had a Canon Powershot before as well but a much simpler model. It had been a great camera. I have always wanted to learn more about my camera but the manual is not user friendly. I've thought about taking a class but have just never got around to it. Lately, the itch is worse. I'm wanting to research buying additional lenses and such. So I started playing around and took another shot at the manual. The more I read, it is beginning to make sense....aperture, shutter speed, iso, all that stuff. And I figured out the macro mode.........love it, and the digital zoom. I like to take close ups. So I had a little fun over the weekend and thought I'd share a few of my favs..........

You can blur the foreground by adjusting the aperture.

Same here but I blurred the background by decreasing the Fstop.

Madalyn's birdhouse

Macro mode

Although there is increased pixelation here, I love this one. This is our very worn antenna topper. I know, Disney....we're so gay.

Artsy

One of a zillion lizards in our yard, this one is peeking over our pool screen.

Using my digital zoom.

I don't know much about this one and haven't been able to do it again. You see that is b/w with only the red accented. Apparently you can accent certain colors but I don't understand this one much.

So now I want to figure out if I can reduce the excess pixelation. I'm wondering if I will need another lens. If you have any thoughts, let me know. I have said for years now that if I wasn't a counselor, I'd be a photographer. No where near that now but having fun.............

We Welcome the Tooth Fairy

Big day yesterday!! Madalyn has wanted to loose her teeth since she was about 4 or 5. She has been so excited and really began working on it about 2 days ago. We kept saying, "any day now". Then she realized the other one was coming in behind it. For about a month now, she has walked up to us daily and asked us to wiggle her tooth for her to see if it was any more loose. It had been bleeding on and off as she played with over the last day or two. We were in the van on the way to Disney and had just left the house. We didn't get far when she began yelling from back, "My tooth is bleeding, my tooth is bleeding. My tooth came out!!". We pulled over to celebrate the moment and take a few pics. Here they are.......


Examing her newly extracted tooth...


Very proud moment...

Always beautiful....

We had asked her a few days ago how much she thought the Tooth Fairy (which Kenzie calls the LOOSE Tooth Fairy) should bring her. She told us $78. Then Kenz informed her the loose tooth fairy couldn't carry that much. Anyway, she received $2 and the Tooth Fairy also left a note. We had a Dollar Store date day later to spend her well earned moolah.............