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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

We will soon be celebrating Emma’s first birthday with us!! How time is flying! She will be two on October 31st. Her birthday party will be on November 7th at 3:30 here at our house. All are welcome! We have been so blessed by friends and family who have so generously given Emma lots and lots of clothes and toys and books that she does not need anything. What she needed most she now has (a family). If you would like to share in this special day with us, we would love for you to come. Because she does not need anything…in lieu of gifts we would be happy to accept a small donation to our Orphan Ministry. As most of you know we started an Orphan Ministry at our church about 3 years ago and about a year and a half ago we started a grant program to help families afford to adopt. The biggest gift for Emma and the rest of us would be to help other families experience this wonderful miracle of adoption. Checks can be made out to Aldersgate United Methodist Church. You can specify HOPE Orphan Ministry in the memo area. I will certainly be happy to send a donation letter at the beginning of 2010 for tax purposes. If you’re reading this and will be unable to attend our party, you can send any donation to our church. The address is 397 Tyler Run Rd, York, PA 17403. If you plan to come, please just let me know so that I can have enough cake for everyone!

Another two months have gone by since our last update and there’s so much to report! We had an amazing summer and enjoyed visiting family and friends so much. It’s what I love most about the summer! We were able to see friends from college that we haven’t seen in years. We went to our old church in DE which is such a big part of our whole adoption story. It was so wonderful to visit our old friends and to see our old house. Wish we could’ve stayed longer as always. We got to visit extended family in WV. We got a wonderful weekend out at a golf outing with some new friends here in York who also adopted a beautiful little girl from China. Mike and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary and went to see Les Miserable (officially my most favorite Broadway show so far) and we went for dinner at the place we had dinner 21 years ago for our first homecoming dance together. We did a lot of reminiscing. It was a wonderful weekend!! We ended the summer with our annual trip to Myrtle Beach with the Fairall family. It was us, Jamie’s family, Katy’s family and Mom and Dad. It was so much fun as it is every year. Lots and lots of boys at that house. My parents have been blessed with 7 grandsons and Emma was the first grand daughter. She was totally outnumbered. But, she really loved her cousins! Her one cousin is just 1 day older than her so they are a perfect match. Emma truly LOVED the beach and the pool every day. We had several visits with Mike’s family as well with several cook outs at Uncle Stan’s and trips to North East to be with his Mom and Dad.

We were blessed to get a visit with our friends we made in China who live in England. Don’t know if you remember but they did not get their little girl while we were there. They had to return at the end of May to get little Lydia. It was so wonderful to see them with their little girl!! She is so precious and is everything you could ever want in a daughter. I’m so glad that they didn’t give up hope, persevered and stuck with the process. I know that those months between our November trip and their trip in May were grueling. They are so faithful We met them at the King of Prussia Mall as it was a pretty good halfway point (I think they had to drive farther though ) What a wonderful family they are. We enjoyed lunch at a Chinese restaurant and just visited and talked and walked!! They have some great pictures of our visit on their website at www.lydiahope.blogspot.com. Emma was quite the feisty child that day and the next day I realized that she was getting some molars in on the top. No wonder. She didn’t want me to hold her or anything – she just wanted to walk. Very unlike her. But…all in all she was still wonderful as long as she was doing what she wanted. I was so glad that they took time out of their busy schedule to spend a day with us. An awesome day for sure!

Emma just had a recent visit with the Orthopedic Surgeon and has given her another 2 thumbs up visit. He told me at this visit that the ponsetti method that was used on her (the casting and lengthening of the heel cord) should not have worked on her in theory, but because of her small stature and loose ligaments she was a perfect candidate. I’m so thankful that it worked for her. It is the most non-invasive procedure…I would’ve hated to watch her go through breaking of bones and screws and whatever else is involved. Thank You God!!! She will go back in 6 months again. So…we still just need to have the brace on at night. I think I said before on here that it will be a few years of wearing this brace at night. Her feet look amazing though and she is almost running now. What a blessing she is to us. She will get her purse on, get her baby ready in the stroller and add whatever is lying on the floor (which could be anything) next to her baby and look at me and say “Bye!” So…I look at her and say “Bye Emma, you have a great day, can I have a hug and kiss before you go?” And she comes over with her sweet little grin and gives me a hug and kiss and then goes back to her stroller and waves at me and walks off. Oh my goodness how I enjoy her! Yesterday I went to home depot with her, dropped off the cart in the parking lot and was carrying her, I whispered in her ear “I love you.” And she got that sweet grin across her face. Can a mom love a child any more than this? She just makes me laugh all day long.

Well…school has started and I’m so pleased with everyone’s teachers and how everyone is transitioning. It is such an early start to my day – I’m not an early riser so I have really enjoyed this weekend of sleeping in – which means 7:00 am. That should not mean sleeping in to me. We have an adoption seminar at our church on Sept 17th. So far no one is registered – but I’m hopeful that we will have at least one person/family there. I have to share Mattie’s schoolwork assignment. He had to write a poem. It was his name and each letter of his name had to start a new sentence. So….when he got to the letter A – he wrote “At church I love to sing and listen to the pasture.” Ha! We giggled over that for awhile. He’s such a good sport about it too. He just giggles along too. I had to send it to our Pastor and he used it in his sermon this weekend – I’m so proud of Mattie not letting it bother him. We were talking about it when we tucked him in last night and he was thinking of other stories that we should tell Pastor Jon.

Soccer will be starting this week and I’m sure things will be hectic. Mike and I are building some shelves in our garage to help with organization. I hope we remember that part of being organized is a continual job – not just an every few months job. We left all of our belongings out of the garage last night and are somewhat hopeful that some thieves came through the night and took some of our stuff. It would be fabulous not to have to put as much away as we took out. YIKES! How did we get all this stuff?????

Until next update!!!!

It doesn't matter that my book is upside down! I'm just happy to be going "night-night" with my big brother Michael!

Want some cream in your ears mom?
She had cream everywhere!! Our legs, arms, face and after the ears I decided it was time for a shower.

Me and my friend Lydia eating some Chinese noodles together.

I love my new friend. She kissed me right away!

I hope you appreciate this picture - Emma made it very difficult to get!!!! But we got it just as the day was ending.

What's good for me is good for my new friend Lydia.....Hippie Chicks from China!

Emma in awe of the ocean!

Here we are at the beach.

Am I happy or what?

So in love!

Running to Nana!

Thank you Erica for me sweet towel!

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