For Aunt Sarah :o)

Karleigh Mei's Aunt Sarah bought this night-gown for her and last night was the first time she was able to wear it...it's been too cold before. She felt SO proud in it! Now she can go to bed in something "so pretty" too!!

We were watching American*Idol. Doesn't everyone have a microphone to sing along too!? She copies their moves too and it's soooo funny and TOO cute!! 

Rock on Karleigh Mei!!

"So Pretty"

Yesterday we went shopping at Cost*co and we found this dress that Karleigh Mei declared she MUST have! It was "sooo pretty!". Lexie and I agreed with her, so in the basket it went. The first thing she wanted to do when we got home was to try it on. She spun around and we all ooohhhh and awwwwwed at how beautiful she was in it. :o) This morning when she woke up, the first thing she said to me was "So pretty!". She wanted to wear her new dress! We didn't have anything special going on today, except that it was a beautiful day and the perfect day to dress up and feel sooo pretty and beautiful! Here are some pictures of my darling girl having fun in her dress outside today!







Today I also had Karleigh Mei try on a little skirt and shirt that I bought for her before we even knew who she was! The shirt is a size 24 mo./2t and the skirt is an 18mo.! Wow, was I surprised that they both fit! And the skirt even has some growing room. I tell you, this girl has no bottom! This girl hardly stays put for very long and it was hard getting some pictures of her in it. I LOVE the last one where you can see her sweet little knees. She has a boo-boo on one knee right now and a boo-boo on her finger too. You can see a pretty good scar from a past boo-boo. I wonder what happened.

Lent and Bloggy Reading

***I just wanted to clarify as I had some people email and comment me thinking that I will not be updating my blog. I WILL continue to update my blog (I too use it and turn it into a memory book at the end of the year). I am only giving up reading OTHER blogs...as this is where I spend wayyyyyy too much time and is my real sacrifice. :o)***

I have been giving this a lot of thought and after reading Denise's blog yesterday it sealed the deal for me. Although not Catholic, I think that Lent is a custom that all Christians should consider following. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (today!) and continues until Easter. The time between is 40 days and represents the time that Jesus spent in the desert with Satan tempting Him. During Lent, followers are asked to give up something that has significant meaning to them...or something that you would miss. For me, it would be reading blogs! I have struggled with this thought because I LOVE reading my blogs and keeping up with all my bloggy friends. But I hear the Lord asking me to do this for numerous reasons and so this is what I have decided. I will continue to update MY blog--we have some big days coming up involving Karleigh Mei (surgeries and such...), I just will not be "blog hopping" and reading others. 

Okay...this is going to be REALLY hard for me to do...I have even thought about deleting this whole post.  :o) I'd love to know if anyone else is going to give up something  (you can still comment and I will get it).  

Chocolaty, Chocolate Cupcakes :o)

I'm so bad!! I'm totally stealing these pictures from my daughter Lexie. She took them and posted them on her blog. But I AM going to turn this blog into a book at the end of each year, so I really do want these pictures in it too. :o) And I am giving her the credit for them.

I made chocolate cupcakes last week and Karleigh Mei sure did enjoy them!! We sure do love this girl!! What a sweet delight she is!!

I Was Once Fearful Of Special Needs Adoption

Do you see this darling girl?? I am so totally in love with her. This is my beautiful daughter Karoline Mei Qian (pronounced Chin). We call her Karleigh Mei or Qian Qian (Chin Chin). This little girl has already brought so much joy and love to our life. I am so very thankful that the Lord has trusted US to her care. What a treasure she is!! 

I must say that originally I didn't think a child as "old" as she, would be something I could handle. I had read a ton of books on "attachment issues" of older adopted children and it scared me quite a bit. I also originally was fearful of her special need. Was/is there something hidden that we don't know about?? I was afraid of all sorts of things. I was afraid of even things I had made up in my mind. I had made myself believe that others who had adopted a child with special needs adopted because they knew all about that need. That they weren't fearful of anything. That they were stronger and more knowledgeable than I. But I have realized that I was wrong. That just about everyone who has adopted a child with special needs has felt the same fears as I have. But we also have all been so incredibly amazed at how the Lord has carried us all through it. That He doesn't expect us to know everything. That it's okay that we are afraid. All He wants of us is to follow Him. To trust Him that He does know what He's doing. I am so very grateful that I trusted in Him. That this child that He gave to us was His perfect plan. For her. For us. I am completely in love with my Karleigh Mei!! Completely and utterly in love!! I would go to the ends of the earth for her and back again! 

Next week Karleigh Mei has an appointment with a Cranial/Facial doctor. I am at complete peace as to whatever he has to say. On March 20th she is going to have her eyelid surgery to correct her eyelid. While my heart grieves that she has to have surgery, I know it is what she needs and I have no fears about it or what is to come.

Praising God today for my beautiful and perfect daughter!!

Picking Up Sticks

We played outside again in this BEAUTIFUL weather! I LOVE it!! Karleigh Mei loves to collect things. Yesterday she was collecting all the balls in the backyard. Today she was collecting sticks! She was so sweet to watch as she'd collect them and then line them all up nice and neatly on the bench. I'm so in love with this darling girl of mine!

Outside Fun

The weather is warming up and we can play outside more now. Yippee!! Karleigh Mei is pretty tricky with the basketball. :o) Here are some tricks she can do...

She's a good dribbler...

One foot on... (I told you, tricky!)

And sitting on the basketball. She's so proud!

Garrison loves ALL things that have to do with skateboards. Here is with his "tech*deck" skateboard. Love how intense he is!

And here is a picture with Karleigh Mei and our faithful dog Mabel. Mabel is almost 11 yrs. old and is such a good dog.  When she was a puppy and a young dog, most of her face was black. We love Mabel!!

And here Karleigh Mei is "coming in" so that she can look at the picture I just took of her and Mabel. :o) So sweet!!

Yesterday we "lost" Karleigh Mei for the first time. We called and called her running around looking for her. Apparently she didn't want to be found. :o) We found her in the bathroom with big sister Lexie's make-up. Blush on your eye-lids (or EYE--doesn't matter which) make you feel beautiful!!

Fun With Friends!

I have totally swiped these pictures from a friend...but I wanted to post them. :o) We went a couple of weeks ago to an adoption fellowship family gathering at the park. Karleigh Mei had fun playing with sweet Maliah. These beautiful girls are only a day apart in age. How good is God!?!? And there are several more little girls that are the same age too!! Can't wait to get pictures of them all together!! I love how the Lord knew that this would be so important to me...for Karleigh Mei to have friends and for me to have their mommies as friends. What a wonderful support system they are to me. Thank you Jesus!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Lexie captured these sweet pictures of Karleigh Mei. She loves to catch bubbles!! Here are some pictures of her in action...

I love this one with her sweet little lips. Her lips are just the sweetest!!!! I need to video her singing "Hallelujah" 'cause it's simply the sweetest thing anybody has ever seen (and heard!).

It takes great skill to catch a flying bubble!

Some of the Many Faces of Karleigh Mei

And just as a side note....I patched up Karleigh Mei's good eye this morning. Don't know why I never thought of it before!! Anyway...wanted to see how well she could get around with just her "bad" eye. Let me tell you.....I was SHOCKED!! She can get around the house quite well! She could tell that we were either waving or blowing her a kiss from about 10 feet away (didn't try a further distance) and had a blast kicking a balloon and then looking for it! She actually really enjoyed having her eye patched! I'm wondering if the eye doctors would be surprised at all. It sounds like they don't think she can see much of anything.  Hmmm....

Gotcha' Two Months Karleigh Mei!

We love you Karleigh Mei our beautiful, silly girl! 

Adoption Story and No Hands But Ours

If you have not heard or been to No Hands But Ours it's a must go to site for those considering adopting a child with "special needs". It was put together by a group of amazing women who have adopted special needs children themselves, to be used as a resource for those asking themselves, "Is the Lord calling ME to consider special needs adoption?". I know that it would have been a HUGE blessing to me if it had been around when I was searching.

We have also submitted our story and it was posted today under "Family Stories". I am reposting it here as well!! I also highly encourage everyone has adopted a "special needs" child to submit YOUR story as well!! You never know who will be blessed by it!!

Everyone asks us when we made the decision to adopt. It was a seed that was planted in both Karl and I many years ago. I believe, for myself, it was planted when I was a child. I’ve always wanted to adopt a child. It’s always just been there…that thought, that dream, that longing. I had expressed my feelings to some of my friends and family members, only to realize that not everyone had this. Could the Lord be calling me to adopt? If this is not a longing for everyone, what was this?? After years of this longing growing…and in the meantime raising our four biological children (20, 14, 12 and 10 at the time), the Lord finally told us it was time. We both just knew that this was something we wanted and needed to do.

We began our “paperchase” in March of 2007. While I was gathering up all of our documents, my then 14 yr. old daughter stumbled across some blogs of families that had adopted. I loved reading the stories and looking at the pictures of all the beautiful children. And in some cases, I was able to watch unfold a child become the part of a forever family. My daughter then told me that many of the children in these blogs were “special needs” adoptions. What??? Special needs?? As I read further in the blogs I discovered that some of these children were born with heart defects, webbed fingers and toes, hearing loss, cleft lips/palates, etc. I found myself saying, “If these were children of my own, I would love them just the same and do whatever it took for them. These children are every bit as worthy as any other child…as my own children.” My daughter was the one who really encouraged us to take a look at the special needs/waiting children. I almost felt like by NOT filling out the special needs application that I was closing the door on the potential child that the Lord had planned for us. So we filled out the special needs application with our agency in October of 2007 and decided to wait and see what the Lord had planned.

On July 10, 2008 we received a call from our agency saying that there was a little girl on the shared list that we might be interested in. She was 32 months old and was blind in her right eye. We agreed to take a look at her file. When I opened up the email with her picture I saw a precious little girl with the cutest little lips!! I should have been overjoyed, but fear gripped me. What a huge decision we had to make and because she was on the shared list, we had to act quickly if we were interested in her. What was I afraid of?? For one, I had never seen a child with her condition. Her diagnosis was very vague. She had something on her eye and she was missing part of her upper eye-lid. We could also tell from her picture that she possibly had a cleft in her nose. I was also very fearful of her age. At this point I had read so many books on adopting and attaching, that I was so afraid of attachment/bonding issues. All of the “what if’s” scared me. But, my husband had no doubt that this little one was ours. After time, I realized that no matter WHAT child we had been referred, the “what if’s” would have plagued me. There is ALWAYS something to be fearful of! We sent our Letter Of Intent the very next day.

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Fast forward to December 8, 2008, the day that Shi, Qian was placed in our arms!! All of my fears completely dissolved!! Sure, we had and still have some bumpy roads to get over, but this little girl is such a blessing to us and our family. After we got her home we took her to see a pediatric ophthalmologist and she has been diagnosed as having “abortive cryptophthalmos”. Basically, this big word means that her right eye-lid did not form correctly and part of her eye-lid is fused to her eye.  Her “special need” is almost non-existent to us though. Being blind in one eye has not slowed this girl down one bit!! I’m amazed that she can’t see in that eye…we forget all the time that she can’t see out of it. We have her eye-lid surgery scheduled for the middle of March 2009. And we have an appointment to see a cranial/facial doctor just to make sure that there are not any hidden issues. And her age?? Oh my goodness, what a perfectly beautiful and fun age she is!!  I simply cannot imagine another age! And did I mention she was completely potty trained!! YES!!!  No bottles, no diapers, and a beautiful perfect child for our family!

Karleigh Mei Qian is our beautiful daughter, adopted from China. She is filling our lives with sooo much joy! We love her so very much and we cannot wait to see how the rest of her life will unfold! We feel incredibly honored and blessed to have THIS child as our very own.

Laundry Day and Brothers and Sisters...

So happy Lexie is home from school!!

Hanging with Garrison

My laundry helpers...

Wordless Wednesday