handsful

On Sunday, we returned from a VERY quick trip up to NC to celebrate Randy’s grandmother’s 90th birthday!  We had a lot of fun in a short amount of time.  Here are some pictures of Memaw’s day…

We got ready for the party, and then took a few pics.  You’ll notice a certain color theme with our clothes.  Here is Marley, Kendall, Katherine, Lainey, and Abbey.

Foolin’ around with Daddy.  For the record, the official color of his shirt is “Rose”. 

Awwww….

Cousins Kendall and Lainey sharing trail mix.  This is the first time that they really hung out together and played…it was sweet. 

The birthday girl.  In case you hadn’t guessed, her favorite color is pink!  Doesn’t she look great?

Ethan and Payton with cousin Grant.  Trying to look cool in their pink shirts.  I think they’re totally pulling it off. 

Randy snapped this one…

After the party, we all posed for an all-pink picture.  This is Memaw’s family…her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.  Quite a crowd!!  Randy actually took this picture, so he’s not in it :( 

Our family

And, just for fun.  Lainey loves her cousin Caleb.  He leaves for college this summer…hard to believe!

Remember this picture? 

Another adoptive mom was visiting the orphanage with her daughter, and snapped pictures of the children as they gave them treats.  We were fairly certain it was our Dylan, but not 100%. 

Today, we received new “official” pictures of Dylan!  See what you think…

Using a chair as a walker??  :)

Yep, same guy :)  Our adoption agency will be contacting the orphanage in mid-May to ask for updated pictures.  I knew this…it’s customary that they wait 3 months after pre-approval before they ask.  I was impatient and went another route to get pictures sooner. 

He looks younger here…hair is longer, so it must have been shaved recently (we believe this because the pictures of him with shorter hair match the ones taken in late March by the adoptive mom).  He also appears to be on “both” knees?  I guess we’ll see about that. 

There is a wonderful lady named Adele, who has the website www.blessedkids.com .  She is a Chinese woman, living in Texas with her husband and adopted Chinese daughter.  Her family still lives in China, and through them and because of her good relationship/reputation with the orphanages in China, she is able to offer many services to adoptive families. 

Standing steadily, holding onto the shelf. 

I contacted Adele, because she is able to contact orphanages and ask for digital pictures and updated measurements of a requested child.  She told us that her dad was able to call the orphanage and get this information for us.  These pictures are a treasure!  The measurements, however, are a little confusing.  Comparing them to the stats in his initial file from almost a year ago…he’s the same weight (actually a tad lighter!).  I’m not concerned, because he looks healthy (as much as we can tell under all those layers) and because it’s quite common to get skewed measurements.  We’ll compare these to the ones we’ll get in May. 

Playing with tape!  Looks like maybe they’re making decorations? 

Blessed Kids has many services…care packages, translation, birthday cakes sent to the orphanage, etc.  What a wonderful treat it was to open the email with these pictures on Easter Sunday :) 

We also received an email from Brian Stuy (www.research-china.org) telling us he found Dylan’s Finding Ad!  We’ll be ordering that tomorrow.  All this makes this wait for Dylan easier in some ways (more pictures to stare at) and harder because it just makes us want him HERE now.

They’re all fun,

silly,

sweet,

and beautiful. 

And, they’re all mine.  I am blessed.