handsful

This time around, we decided to use an in-China organization to put together our care package.  Ladybugs N Love (www.ladybugsnlove.com) was begun by Angela (a former adoption guide who lives in China) and Kelly (a mom to 3 adopted children from China – and Angela was her guide for all 3).  They offer care packages, birthday cakes, orphanage calls, photos, etc.  All I had to do was go to their site, choose the items I wanted to include in the package, and Angela shopped for them and will mail them to the orphanage (with confirmation of delivery!). 

She took the above picture so I could see what she chose based on my requests…treats for the nannies and children, a disposable camera (hoping they fill it up with pictures taken of Dylan that we’ll pick up on Gotcha day), a photo album (I emailed her pictures of us to label and put in the album), and a toy car. 

Quick update on where we are in Dylan’s adoption…we received our fingerprint appointment letter, telling us to come in next Thursday at 10:00 to be fingerprinted.  After that, we wait for the immigration clearance form I-797C to come and we quickly send it (and our completed home study) to be certified at the state level and then authenticated at the consulate level.  When those are complete and returned to us, our complete dossier heads to China!  I’m thinking, based on others timelines ahead of us, that we *should* be able to send our dossier in June.  Which puts us around November maybe for travel.  At this point, it’s a TOTAL guess and anything could happen to speed that up or (more likely the case) to delay it.  We’re trusting in the timing.  Plus, with all that’s going on right now with our upcoming move (May 14th), we do have a diversion to keep us from dwelling on “the wait”.  Thankfully.  But, the truth is he’s waiting and everyday without us (and without him) is just plain wrong. 

Until then, we send him presents and hope he’s being told who the people in those pictures are.  Our next package will be sent in July, including one of those collosal birthday cakes!!

Marley is as comfortable with horses as I am…not.  She’s always been our nature girl, lover of all animals, rescuer of every toad and frog that makes it into our pool.  That’s our Marley. 

She’s taken horse riding lessons on and off for the last few years.  She really likes where she’s taking lessons now, but with our move, we’ll be on the look out for another. 

Recently, they got a few baby chicks at the barn.  Marley and her friend Sarah Grace always have to spend a little quality time with them after their lesson. 

Have YOU ever had a chicken resting on your head?  No, me either. 

Marley and one of her favorite horses, Lexy

Marley and Casper

Why do I have the feeling I’ll be grandmother to a horse one day?

Most days, we’re told we have our handsful (hence, the name of our site).  Yesterday, we had a houseful!  We braved the unknown and gave an open invite to the whole Jr. High at our church.  We wanted to give the kids a chance for one last bash with their friends before we move.  They began trickling in around 1pm. 

And, by 2:30 or so, we had a crowd.  Randy did a rough count at some point, and came up with about 75. 

We all gathered in the kitchen for some games.  We chose a few of the Minute to Win It games, from the tv show and made them girls vs guys. 

Stack Attack

Defying Gravity

Hanky Panky

Paper dragon

Randy’s made up game…

Junk in the trunk

   

Ping tac toe

Stick the landing

Games can be messy. 

Somehow, after calculating the girls and guys times, we had a tie.  “Okay, everyone go swim!”

Some went involuntarily.  Here, Ethan is being helped into the pool by some very kind 8th grade boys.  Awwww…notice brother Payton at the bottom smiling. 

The girls safely out of the 8th grade boys way. 

Apparently, our pool is still a little chilly.  A few brave souls decided the pond behind our house was much warmer. 

Abbey, far right.  Payton and Ethan swam across, too.  Marley is too much like her momma…either too chicken or too smart to try it. 

No, they aren’t wearing black socks.  Ewwwww….

I mean, really.  Would you want to swim in this gunk?? 

it does have a practical purpose…camo. 

Everyone who dunked in the pond was required to hose off / jump in the pool to “cleanse”.  I’ve not heard of anyone with pond sickness yet. 

How about some nice pictures??

Lainey and Nate

Abbey with homeschool co-op friends, Sarah, Brendan, and John

Ethan and Reese.  Or, I called them the “two guys with brown shirts and shaggy hair”

Abbey posing with Lindsey and Delaney

Lisa, David, their daughter Lauren, and Kristen (her husband Gregg was also there).  They are also Jr. High leaders with Randy and graciously helped us supervise the crowd. 

Marley spent some the day hanging out with her friends in the front room, playing “Sing It”. 

Marley (with her blow-pop stained lips) and Jasmine have been friends for years. 

Funny how no one is behind us in the pool…I think they were all in the pond. 

The grand finale of the party…ready, set, GO!

Girls vs. guys, of course

Great shot, Abbey!

Is there anything more fun than silly string?

Okay, ya’ll break it up!

The party was crazy, loud, tons of fun, and…did I mention loud?  Three kids ended up spending the night with us.  Thankfully, they all woke up early enough for us to get to church on time.  :)  We were all ready for Sunday cat naps today!

I know our kids will remember this party for a long time.  Any amount of noise and exhaustion is totally worth that.

The water. 

The pond behind our house.  The river that backs up to our neighborhood.  The bridge over that river that we cross EVERYDAY.  The sunsets over the river. 

We walked down to the dock in our neighborhood yesterday and took a few pictures.  Abbey was spending the night at a friend’s house. 

We’ll definitely miss the river :)

new pictures of Dylan!  It amazes me how many we have so far, given how few we have of Lainey during her time in the orphanage.  There are a lot of families currently waiting on their children from Luoyang, just like we’re waiting on Dylan. 

Denise is a mom, waiting on her adorable son Seth.  She’ll travel well before us and has offered to take pictures of Dylan…how wonderful!  In the meantime, they sent a birthday cake to Seth through an in-China organization and received pictures back.  She was certain that Dylan was in a few, and shared them with us. 

In case you can’t tell, Dylan is the guy to the right of the birthday boy.  He seems to be saying “let’s get this show on the road”.  lol…

This cake is huge!

I’ve been hoping for a picture of Dylan smiling.  I guess having a picture of him with his mouth covered in frosting will suffice for now :)

Thank you, Denise!

I had such a hard time narrowing down which pictures to post about our trip to Magic Kingdom last week!  As you’ll be able to tell by the large number of photos, I decided to go all out and post almost all of them. 

We had participated in the Give a Day / Get a Disney Day promotion a few weeks ago by volunteering at our local City Rescue Mission thrift store.  Those few hours gave us all (except Lainey) free passes for one day at Disney!  With our move coming up, we wanted to go ahead and use them so we woke up early last Wednesday and hit the road.  We arrived around 10am. 

The kids all wore their Disney pin lanyards with their current Disney pins to trade/collect.  We bought Lainey a lanyard, and bought the kids a few pins each to use for trading.  Lainey was really into it, wanting to trade with all the Disney employees! 

The boys favorite attraction is the Stitch’s Great Escape.  It’s really hard to explain how it works.  Suffice it to say that in one part, you hear Stitch burp and then smell that he had a chili cheese dog for lunch.  I skipped this one. 

We all rode the carousel.  :)

See the goofy mom?  Get it?  Goofy.  Disney humor.   

Ice pop break. 

Having fun, Abbey? 

Notice the obvious joy on the boys’ faces?  We’re in line for their FAVORITE ride…care to guess?  Think of a Disney song that’s nearly impossible to get out of your head. 

Yea, that’s the one.  :)

I asked Lainey if she liked this next ride – she said a definite no.  She didn’t like getting wet! 

She did, however, enjoy feeding the beautiful bird some of her fish crackers.  A perk about living in Florida…we have really pretty birds!

See?  He was just hanging out among the crowds. 

Amazed at all the Disney sights. 

Lainey LOVED the tea cups. 

Her first ride was with just the girls, spinning it just a little.  By the end of that ride, she was ready for big-time spinning with the whole gang.  I couldn’t catch her face during the ride, but believe me when I say she was having a smile explosion! 

Randy prides himself on how fast he can spin a tea cup. 

In case you’re wondering if I ever rode any rides, let me assure you I did.  I love Space Mountain, but it’s too dark for pictures.  Rode that twice.  Randy and I rode Thunder Mountain Railroad a couple of times, and tried getting pictures of each other. 

This was the best of the bunch.  What a riot. 

How can you not smile at Disney?

Sword in the Stone

Marley couldn’t budge it either.  Despite those guns she’s got!

Amazingly, she pulled it right out a second after I snapped this picture :)

Ethan and his stare down.  I think it’s cute and a little scary. 

After about 9 hours, the sun started to go down and we started to wind WAY down.  Disney at night is gorgeous. 

green…

 blue!  Disney magic…can you imagine their light bill?

Me either. 

Zai Jian (“Goodbye” in mandarin) from Disney!  Not sure WHEN we’ll be back, but we will be back :)

We’ve lived in North Florida for almost 5 1/2 years now.  When we moved here, we anticipated staying around 2 years, and then returning to our home state, North Carolina.  God kept us here longer, and we are extremely thankful for the life he made for us here, especially our friends and amazing church family. 

In March, Randy received an unexpected call from a job recruiter trying to fill a job here in Florida.  Randy politely declined…approaching existing customers representing ANOTHER company wouldn’t really fly.  Making conversation, he said it was a shame he wasn’t looking for someone in the NC area.  The recruiter perked up, telling him that they were actually hoping to fill the same position in the Charlotte area even sooner than the Florida position.  Hmmm…

Randy went through the interview process, which involved flying down to Ft Lauderdale for a face-to-face with the executives.  He was offered the job a few days later…so, after much thought, even more prayer, getting advice from mentors, and talking with our kids, we’ve decided that God is moving us to Charlotte. 

And, when I say “God is”, I mean it.  Recently, Randy’s job has not been going as well as he’d like.  The economy in N. Florida, especially for the sales field, has been very slow, and we had already been in discussion and prayer over what God was doing in our lives right now.  What changes were we going to have to make?  How would we downsize/make ends meet?  And, with our impending adoption – how would we afford it?  We had stepped out in big-time faith, knowing that God called us to Dylan…certainly he’d provide.  We just didn’t know how. 

If Randy could design his own job, this one would be it.  Amazing.  His last paycheck included commissions for past sales he was not expecting.  Amazing.  He received three times the amount he expected back in Paid-Time-Off reimbursements.  We now have money needed to make improvements/repairs to our house before putting it on the market.  Amazing.   So many other littles things that have come together, giving us peace that this is truly our path right now. 

We are sad to leave Florida.  We are sad to say goodbye to the friends we’ve made, and Randy and the older kids are hurting when they think of the relationships in the youth/junior high that will become “long distance”.  But, we have promised our kids that we will make many trips back here – we’ve already planned to bring them back for our church’s Power Up Clubs at the end of the summer.    We’re also excited about this move…we love NC, and are happy that we’ll now be about 2 hours from family, instead of 7.  The kids are looking forward to SNOW.  I am, too.  The smaller areas around Charlotte look wonderful, and are very homeschool-friendly. 

We know that God has the right place for us.  A church that we need (and, maybe, needs us).  Friends to be found.  We’re trusting.