Two Years Together

We had horrible, monsoon-like weather today and it was pouring rain all day long, so most of the day was spent indoors. (Well, I was at school.) AnnaClaire, Kate, and Mom spent their morning at the mall. In celebration of two years with our sweet AnnaClaire, we continued our tradition of going to PF Changs, watching AnnaClaire's gotcha video, and giving her one of the 18 gotcha presents (this year, she opened a cute little pink panda bag!) that we got in China. On the way to PF Changs, AnnaClaire looked out the window and spotted the moon. She pointed and said, "Sissy, do you see that moon? God made that moon!" I smiled to myself as I answered, "You are right, God DID make that moon!" Later tonight, I was thinking how about 2 years ago today and what an AMAZING day it was. My life changed forever that day, 2 years ago. God made YOU, AnnaClaire! He made YOU 37.5 months ago! He made you and had perfect plans for your life! He knew that you would be brought to Chenzhou SWI in Hunan, China. He knew that our family was waiting, longing, and aching for you. He knew it all and he planned the perfect time for you to become a special part of our family! That day was December 11, 2006. He knew that you would be 13.5 months old when you were placed in the arms of your forever family! It was a day we had been longing for for months and months. We had been praying for you and aching for you and that day was FINALLY here! We woke up that morning and ate our last breakfast without you. We spent most of the day in deep anticipation for our guide, Amy, to pick us up from the hotel at 3:00. I don't know how we lasted that long, but finally Amy came. We got some papers ready and rode through Changsha to the Civil Affairs office there. Amy pointed out the window were we would meet you. We wondered if you were there yet! We walked in and there were lots of babies, but not you! 15ish minutes later, we heard a SCREAMING baby get off of an elevator. Mom and I looked at eachother saying, "I bet it's AnnaClaire!" A nanny walked in holding the most beautiful baby ever. We reconized you right away... those beautiful eyes, that sweet nose... We had to wait a little longer before your nanny finally placed you in the arms of Mommy. You SCREAMED. You cried out, "buuuuuuuuuuu" which means "no" in Chinese. You looked all around, reaching for your nanny and screaming. You were not very happy to be placed in your Mommy's arms. I don't blame you, precious girl. Your life changed FOREVER at that moment in time. You were 13 months old and you were afraid. We all just looked at you and let you cry it out for the longest time. Finally, you calmed down a little and once Dad and Amy were done with paperwork, we headed back to the hotel. It took you a little while to calm down again, but after a bath (which made you a little uncertain), and getting your hair brushed (with that beloved ladybug brush!), you were happy. Around dinner time, you were all smiles. What a smiley baby you were. You just smiled, giggled, and teased us all night long (well until we finally decided it had been a long day and we had been selfish enough keeping you up this long... and you slept all night long!). The day we had longed for had come and you were just as perfect aws we ever could have imagined. I will NEVER forget that day. Watching your "gotcha" video made all of those moments come back to life. I had forgotten how MAD you was coming to us! Yet, I had also forgotten what an extremely happy baby you were that night. You had the best giggle and smile and SQUEAL. You are so much the same as you were on that amazing day. Minus the screaming, you are still such a happy girl. You squeal and have the most beautiful laugh. Your precious face is also exactly the same... just older. So today, as we celebrate your Forever Family Day, I want you to know how much you are LOVED. How we longed and ached for you and how that day finally came on December 11, 2006. I want you to know that you are such a JOY to me and have been since that day, 2 years ago today. I want you to know that you are so incredibly special! I love you more than words can ever explain and I am so thankful for every minute of these two years that you have been a part of our family!

So today we celebrated. We celebrated YOU and what a perfect addition you have been to our family. Today was all abut YOU and how amazing these past two years have been. You were so good posing for lots of pictures for Sissy. You LOVED eating at PF Changs. You ate your rice like a pro with chopsticks and loved slurping your noodles. The highlight of the meal was the Great Wall of Chocolate (and getting to blow our TWO candles, in celebration of TWO years as a forever family!), which you had been anticipating all day! It lived up to it's description, although I had to laugh when you ate every morsal of the fruit that comes with the cake, yet still has some cake left! You loved going to look at the big Christmas tree by the restaurant and posed so nicely for pictures. You loved walking hand in hand with your little sister, talking to her the whole way. You loved coming home and opening a special surprise that was just for you. You loved watching a video all about you, reliving those first precious moments that we spent with you. You were so sweet to Kate and let her hold the new purse that you got. You loved every little moment of your special day. You always do... always love the little things in life and appreciate every little thing. I love that about you! I hope you LOVED celebrating your special day and felt special as we celebrated TWO years with you!

Happy Forever Family Day, precious girl! I love you more than words can even express!

You can read the original gotcha post under travel logs at www.bringinghomeannaclaire.com and go here to read last year's gotcha post and see how much our sweet Booie has changed in the past year!

Happy 2 Year Forever Family Day!

"All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
Psalm 139:16

Our Last Day Without AnnaClaire

KFC with the Martins!

With a sweet, curious Chinese woman at the Summer Palace

December 10, 2006 was the day before we got AnnaClaire. I will never forget that day as we experienced so many "lasts before AnnaClaire." The excitement just overflowed as all 10 of the families in our group (there were 11, but one family skipped Beijing) experienced their last full day without their newest additions. Everyone was just overflowed with excitement and emotions. We had such an amazing travel group (did both adoption trips!) Many of those families remain some of our closest friends. The highlight of that morning, it was a Sunday, was going to Church at the Beij*ing Inter*national Fellow*ship Chur*ch. It was such an amazing experience to be worshiping in C*hina. It did sadden me that we had to show our passports in order to get into the Church. Our guides waited for us outside, as they were not allowed inside of the Church. That breaks my heart. I will also never forget that there were people from Philip Hayden at the Church and they were selling 2007 PHF calenders. We bought one, having no clue that in 2007, our sweet Kate would be born and brought to Philip Hayden, where she lived until the day we adopted her! Amazing. We went to the Summer Palace that day, which was BEAUTIFUL. We had such amazing weather in Beijing for both adoption trips. After touring around (mainly just enjoying the time with our sweet friends, who are more like family!), stopping for some hot cocoa, and avoiding the mobs of people trying to bargain with us, we headed to the airport. Another amazing memory that I will never forget happened at the airport. Our gate was right next door to our dear friends, the Martin's gate. We had made it all the way there and had a while before our flights. We were all STARVING, but there were no restaurants in our terminal. So we headed out into the main part of the airport and found a KFC. We literally put our bags of KFC onto the conveyor belt to go through security, laughing the whole way. I will never forget that memory. We had a little over an hour (I think?) flight from Beijing to Hunan so we got in pretty late. Our guide Amy met us at the airport, and we exhaustively drove to our hotel... where we slept for the last time without our precious AnnaClaire...

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

And here's some pictures form today, two years and two babies later :)

Kate reading her "Pat the Bunny" book, her very favorite!

Sweet AnnaClaire watching her Christmas movie! Can't believe 2 years ago today, we had our last night without this precious girl!

Kate has been so incredibly SWEET!

Me and my two sweet mei meis!

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China was something I had always dreamed of seeing. In 5th grade, I studied China and I will never forget building a little, cardboard "Great Wall" replica and wishing that someday I would be standing on that Wall which I had heard so much about. I never thought I would actually accomplish that "goal" of being on the Great Wall of China. To be there was absolutely amazing. It has to be one of the most incredible things I have ever seen in my entire life. I hope you all have the chance to stand on that wall some day, looking into the distance of the massive wall stretching throughout mountainous China, knowing that HUMAN hands made the incredible wall that you are standing on. You look out and it seems unreal. I wish the pictures I have, the description I vividly remember could do the Great Wall justice... yet they simply don't. It is one of the most amazing, incredible, and beautiful sights I have ever seen... especially with a bright, blue sky back drop!

We also went to the Forbidden City and Tiannamen Square two years ago today, but I don't have nearly as much to say about those sights. They were fun to see, just very historical for my liking (I know, that is so bad!) But it was still cool to see these sights you hear so much about and that are such a big part of China. And of course, being with our group was sooooo fun! :)

The above picture is probably one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken. I did absolutely nothing to that picture, it is exactly as I took it (other than adding the faded boarder this particular project.) Anyway, we had a history mini-project and had to choose a quote from Emerson or Thoreau and make a collage/picture, etc. using the quote. I loved that quote and love it even more on that picture.

And here's a picture of our family (minus Drew, AC, and Kate!) by Tianammen Square. We are in front of the Olympic countdown, exactly 2 years ago. Oh to be in Beijing again...

Arriving in China Two Years Ago

Oh to be there again. The emotions, the excitement, the exhaustion of arriving in Beijing, China on that afternoon of December 8. We were finally done with that long flight, we were finally with the friends we had been talking with (and still talk to daily!), we were finally in AnnaClaire's birth country... just days away from holding her in our arms. Oh the pure joy of that day. We were absolutely exhausted, jet lagged, warn out, and ready for bed. Yet, we were so excited. We were finally in China, the country that had been on our hearts and in our prayers for a long time.

With that note, go on over to my friend, Lexie's blog (well her Mom's) because they got their sweet Karleigh Mei today! She is gorgeous! I'm so excited for Lexie and her sweet family!

And lastly... I am in the process of creating a video and once it's finished, I'm going to post my Christmas idea and hopefully you all can help me make it happen. I'll tell you more about it once the video is ready to go...

Here's some pictures from tonight for you to enjoy :)

The Journey Began...

It was December 7, 2006 and the emotions were high as Mom, Dad, Will, and I woke up in the morning. It was a cold, December morning and we excitedly threw on clothes and carried our suitcases into the brisk, December cold. We were picked up by our dear, sweet neighbor, who took us to the airport... I have vivid memories of sitting in the airport, eating Starbucks and waiting for our plane to Newark. I remember talking about our sweet girl, who was going to be in our arms in just four days. The day was full of excitement. It was one we had been longing for and praying about for a long time. Finally, our row was called and we boarded the flight to Newark, where we met up with some other families in our group and awaited our rows to be called to board the long flight... the one to Beijing. At last it was time. As we boarded the plane which would be our "home" for the next 14 hours, we began the real journey... The journey that has changed my life in SO many ways. The journey that brought our sweet AnnaClaire Chenhui to us and eventually led us on the journey to Kate. I was in 8th grade at the time, the youngest sister my whole life... and here I was heading to China with my family to adopt sweet AnnaClaire, who was only 13 months old. Never in the world did I imagine that I would become a big sister at 13! Yet here we were, going to China. We were on our way to China for our amazing little Booie, the joy of my life!

Two years ago today, we were on our way to China for the first time. At the time, little did we know that 2 years later, we would have arrived home from China for the second time just over a month ago.

This day will forever be engraved in my memory. We had been staring at pictures of our sweet girl for 5 months and the day had finally come to go get her. My life would never be the same...

A Birthday Party

Only 19 days until Christmas!

Cookie-faced Kate!

AC loved helping decorate the tree...

All dressed for Christmas (with one of her favorite- and memorized books!)

Our Church annually hosts a "Birthday Party for Jesus." Mom and I took the little girls and they both had a good time! The party started with singing lots of Christmas songs. AnnaClaire and Kate definitely were just dancing and dancing, and singing! They both loved the music! One of the pastors told a shortened version of the Christmas story and then all the kids sang the birthday song for Jesus. It was so cute. I think AnnaClaire was a little bit confused by the fact that Jesus wasn't coming to his own birthday party, as she kept asking, "Is Jesus coming?" So sweet!

After the music and story, they had different stations set up. There was a cookie decorating area, which was a hit for both girls. There was a bigger rooms with crafts, activities, face painting, etc., which we spent most of our time in. The girls both had so much fun! AnnaClaire got her face painted with a Christmas tree, which I think she thought was the coolest thing ever. She made a little paper chain counting down the days until Christmas, a bookmark, an ornament, and a bunch of other little things. It was such a cute little party and AnnaClaire seemed to really enjoy herself there! Kate was a little more reserved, as she normally is around lots of people. She did love the music and the cookie decorating though, and the little balloon dog she got, that is for sure!

The rest of the day was spent putting up Christmas decorations. Two decorated trees (one fake, one real), a complete village of snow village houses (spread out in 5 different areas in our house!), stockings (oh how I love seeing SEVEN stockings on the mantel!), and a bunch of other misc. Christmas decorations and we are ALMOST done! Tomorrow we're hanging greenery and putting candles in the windows... we're skipping wreaths in every window this year. It's too much work to open our 14 year old windows from the top... especially with Dad's back in the condition that it's in! Everything looks so pretty though! Oh how I love Christmastime! I think the little girls do, too! AnnaClaire loved helping me hang ornaments on the trees! We had to head out in the afternoon for a few things and on the way home, it had gotten dark so we drove through some streets in our neighborhood which were very lit up. Both girls were memorized by the pretty lights.

And just because they are so cute.... here are my two sweet sisters with their beloved new Santa hats! (these were taken on my phone in Walmart, hence the terrible quality)

Sweet Katie-Kate

Big smiles!

Two sweet girls who are ready for Christmas in 3 weeks!

This week, there has really been a noticeable difference in Kate. Don't get me wrong, she has been fairly happy for the past few weeks, but this week, she seems different. She looks HAPPY most of the time. She seems very content and like she is really enjoying life with her family. Kate's eyes have transformed from sad eyes into smiling eyes, which is such a joy to see. I love seeing her smile through her eyes! And that sweet little dimple... She has also become much more of a love this week. She has been snuggling and will put her head forward for kisses and blow kisses, which is sooooo sweet. Not only that, but she has become incredibly lovable. And sooo SWEET! We have really been enjoying her lately. She is SUCH a sweetie. She has also been more active and involved with other people, which is a huge change from the withdrawn little one we have been seeing. It's hard to believe tomorrow marks a month of being home with her... I think back to all the changes she has been through and how well she has done with all of those changes and it makes it hard to believe it's only been a month.

AnnaClaire and Kate have also become quite the pair and they are so sweet playing together. AnnaClaire loves having a constant friend, although she can be very in-your-face and sometimes Kate just wants a minute to herself. They are sooooo sweet together! They are both so full of themselves, too :)

And yes, we get soooo many comments on our precious girls, especially when they are dressed alike (and oh-so-cute!) They are pretty stinkin' cute, aren't they!?!

AnnaClaire Goes to the Dentist (11/18)

AnnaClaire and the sweet lady who cleaned her teeth

AnnaClaire (and Bunny, of course!) with our dentist!

AnnaClaire had her first dentist appointment a few weeks ago, on Nov. 18. She did GREAT! She was a little wiggly, as expected for a three year old, but was over all good. I think the highlight for AC was when she got to pick a little prize out of the "prize bucket." She picked an airplane thing! Her teeth look great and she has no issues, so that was good. She is still talking about her visit to the dentist :).

Happy 21st!

I never thought that I would have a 21 year old brother and a 1 year old sister... I'm pretty lucky, aren't I?

Happy birthday, Drew! We all love and miss you! Hope you enjoyed your day and can't wait to see you on the 30th!

be sure to scroll down and check out a great sale and a raffle :)

Sara Beth Bows and a Raffle

We are often complimented on AnnaClaire and Kate's bows and questioned on where we get them. We buy all of our bows from our dear friend (and beloved bow maker!), Jeanette, who lives nearby and is raising money for their adoption of Sara Beth by making bows! She has a big "After Thanksgiving Day Sale" and has lots of her sweet bows marked down! Be sure to check out the Sara Beth Bows sale here. In case you are wondering, Kate is wearing the 2 loop bow and AnnaClaire wears the 4 loop bow.

ITEM #2: A KIMONO STYLE DRESS made with "Michael Miller china doll" fabric. This dress would fit a girl between ages 3 and 5. --one of the many beautiful things that the Strands are raffling!

Our sweet friends recently returned home from China with their precious 11 month old boy. They were in the same travel group as the family I posted about a few weeks back, who were unable to go through with the adoption of precious Lu Ai and came home from China childless. Although they have walked through a very difficult situation, it is still in their hearts to adopt and they are hoping to receive a referral for their sweet Lydia Hope and travel back to China within the next few months. Having just traveled to China, money is an issue in their plans to return to China. First of all, would you please pray for this sweet family?

Anyway, our friends are holding a raffle to help raise some of the funds that the Cuozzos need in order to go back to China. They have beautiful items for sale, which were all purchased in China. Please visit their blog (www.strandfam.blogspot.com) for more info on the fundraiser and how to get your raffle tickets and help a family in need!

Oh Christmas Tree

On Saturday (The 29th), we headed up to Boone, NC to get our Christmas tree! It took us a little over two hours to drive to the tree farm. Kate got a little car sick on the way, but was feeling better with some fresh air. We had a blast! It was drizzling when we got there, but stopped and didn't start again until we were heading away from the tree farm! We loved the farm we went to last year, but they had such a good year last year that they didn't have enough trees this year! So, we tried out a new tree farm, which we liked a lot. There was hot cider and a hayride to the actual tree lot. There were cows and sheep on the way, which pleased AnnaClaire. We found the perfect tree about 2 minutes into our search, but made sure to check out every tree before chopping it down. As you can guess, we ended up with the first tree. Dad and Will were true men and chopping it down, while AnnaClaire happily watched. She LOVED helping pick out the tree and was walking through all of them looking. Her pick was her exact size :) She was so into the tree picking this year. I know this Christmas is going to be SOOO fun with her, as she understands it so much more than last year, and obviously the year before (we got home from China with her 5 days before Christmas of 06!) 3 is such a fun age!!!!!! (Of course, so is 20 months! Kate's just not quite into/understanding the whole Christmas thing yet... obviously! Although her eyes do light up when she sees a lit Christmas tree!)

We then headed to the Mast General Store, which we always enjoy going to. The day ended at the Daniel Boone Inn, a traditional home style cooking, family style restaurant. It is always our tradition to go there, and it always tastes even better, and yes, is always so worth the 1.5 hour wait (even with 2 toddlers!)

Oh, I just love Christmas... although I cannot believe that today, AnnaClaire and I opened the first window of her advent calender! How is it December already?

Lots of other stuff to catch up on, which I hope to do before Sunday. Why Sunday? That's the 2 year anniversary of the day we left for China for AC... so I'm going to re-live the trip through the blog. Hard to believe 2 years ago, we were getting ready to go to China for the first time!