Autumn Moon Festival

Last year we were in China for the Autumn Moon Festival, and here we are in the US this year. I can't believe it has been one year soon since we brought Anna into our family. Today we were getting ready to celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival with the local FCC group. As I was helping Anna get dressed, I pulled out the two pair of shoes that her foster mother gave her (one pair she was wearing when we received her). The outfit I chose for her to wear was very similar to the one she came to us wearing. Apparently this brought a flood of memories of her foster mother because she began asking where her foster mother was. For some reason, Anna was thinking that the party we were going to was in China and her foster family would also be there. :-) She brought it up several times over the course of the evening & on the way home asked if we were going to China. She was always upbeat about it & not asking in a stressed way, just excited to be "going to China". Wow.

Anyway, here are a few pics of Natalie and Anna in their Moon Festival finery.

I decided to make an attempt at creativity......(not my strong suite). So here is my American version on moon cakes (since no one I know actually likes authentic chinese mooncakes!)

In case you can't tell, this is a lantern cake, and the chinese symbols represent the mid-autumn festival. The white one is like the bright, full moon. What do you think?

Anna is always (well almost!) in awe of her jie jie!

Grammy and her girls

A small gathering of our FCC group

Pass the catch-up

Time to catch up on what's been going on for us lately.....


First and foremost, we want to let Natalie know how proud we are of her that she is now officially a sponsor of a "Baby Sister" in China. For Natalie's 8th birthday, she requested donations for Half the Sky Foundation in lieu of gifts. We send in her donation money along with a request that Natalie be able to sponsor a child for one year, with a special request that the child be from Natalie's orphanage in Jiujiang, Jiangxi. We are honored that a baby has been chosen for Natalie. The baby is currently 9 months old and she is in the Baby Sisters Infant Nurture program sponsored by Half the Sky. They have done so many good things in the past 10 years for these children, it is amazing and we're very proud to be associated with them and even more proud of Natalie for wanting to make a direct difference in a baby's life. We'll get quarterly updates and our greatest wish is that we'll hear that she was adopted into a loving family.

Mandarin Class

The girls are now attending Chinese language classes one afternoon each week. There are two age groups.....the bigger girls are learning to write and the little girls are working on numbers, colors, and fruits. These children are SO smart and language is so much easier for them to learn at this age. My brain is like concrete....

Pimped my ride....

In other breaking news......I got a new car.....I dearly LOVE my new Santa Fe!!!!! Woohoo!

The following pictures are just simple sweetness.....

Thanks for checking in.....I'll make my typical pronouncement of "I'll do better".....and I will try!

One Year Ago

It was exactly one year ago that we finally got the long-awaited call that we had received travel approval (TA) to go to China for Anna.

I'll never forget that call and the excitement of rushing to make all the travel arrangements. I felt so "alive" that day. Whew! What an adrenaline rush! It is so hard to believe that we have had Anna in person for 11 months now. And we feel so fortunate that we somehow managed to have her in our arms within 7 months of first "seeing" her. Sadly the wait times have increased so much for China adoptions.....hopefully they will speed up soon and these families can be created much sooner.

I'll have the Pip n Pop song in my head again all day today, just like I did one year ago....

"L-O-V-E....Loooooooove....just can't get enouuuuuuugh." Have a great day!