Thank-Full

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Our hearts are certainly full of thanks in so many ways as we continue here in China! We celebrated with our dear friends, Bryan and Cheryl and their two boys, who came to visit us. It wasn't a traditional day by any means but it was super special. We actually ate at a Tibetan place and ate yak!, beef/potato/curry, bread with soup and milk tea.

It has been a full few days with lots of bonding with Hudson and sightseeing with our friends. Hudson has been doing fairly well as far as we can tell. We have had a couple of break down moments which I know are to be expected. One was on our paperwork day...he had just said goodbye to the orphanage director and another girl from the orphanage they called his "sister" and we were suppose to take a family picture for the some kind of paperwork. He cried for about 45 minutes straight and the lady taking the photo wanted it to be perfect. So we waited and waited with lots of strangers coming up to us offering their "help." That was hard because I think he was sad to be leaving those who had loved him most of his life. I just wanted to scream and say, "Don't you realize you can't make a toddler smile for a picture!" The other break down was tonight....we just got off a plane and got settled in our new hotel and he cried for about an hour as we were trying to lay him down to bed. I don't know if it was another new place that sent him over the edge or what but it made me really sad....so Matt had a crying wife and son:)

We did get to visit his orphanage and take formula to give and interact with some of the kids on Thanksgiving which is another reason it was so special. My heart broke to see his "bedmates" and meet his nannies and see what his life was. I am so grateful for God's grace in the moment and will have it etched in my mind forever. We also received a copy of the birth note which is the letter that was left with him by his parents when they abandoned him....ugh...so moving...it begins as a note directly to him saying...to my cute baby....

We are in our last week and are looking forward to this new city and meeting several other families who had their Gotcha Day last week as well. We are so thankful for your prayers...they mean the world to us!

We were able to see the Panda's in Chengdu! Ava and Cooper would have loved this! They were really fun to see and were very up close!

Experiencing Hot Pot....really yummy!

A Quick Video

Here is a video clip of Hudson's first belly giggle fit......and the first time he smiled for us.

 http://youtu.be/-4vJZlyI8MU

Gotcha Day!

Today was Gotcha Day! We went and met Hudson at 2:30pm this afternoon! What a surreal feeling today as we headed there and as we left with him back to the hotel! He was very stoic the whole time we were with him at the civil affairs office and you could tell his mind was whirling trying to figure things out. 

Back at the hotel it took him about 40 minutes to start to play a little and jabber some. We broke the ice by figuring out he has a huge tickle spot...his belly. It was so fun to hear his giggle! 

It is late here and we are headed to bed. Hopefully, Hudson will be able to sleep:) We are thankful today for his life! More pictures to come later!

We Are Here!

We arrived late last night and met our guide who took us to our hotel. It was a very long day of travel but we are thankful that all went well! You can only watch so many movies in a day and that's what we did for much of the flight. 

Today was a day to rest and adjust a little bit. We enjoyed seeing the surrounding area. We played a lot of frogger crossing from one side of the street to the other and had many tries at communicating with the people we ran into. Our hotel is very nice with the only downfall of being really warm. If you know Matt at all, he loves having a fan even in the winter at our house, so we are on the lookout to buy one:) We were in a store today that looked like they sold them but much to our disappointment it looked exactly like a fan but it was a heater:) Glad we didn't buy it in our excitement!

We will meet Hudson TOMORROW at 2:30pm!!! We are excited as well as anxious. How will he respond? Please pray for him as we take him from all he has ever known. We will keep the bigger perspective in view but know this moment is hard. Our family is about to grow and we can't wait to meet our son!

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Matt in front of our hotel

The Packing is Almost Complete!!

Ready...Set...Go!!! Here we go...we are heading to China early Friday morning to meet our 20 month old son, Hudson! It is hard to believe the time has come! We were expecting to go get him about 3 weeks ago so after the delay we are READY!!!

We hope to get on here often and post updates and pictures of our time so that you can continue on the journey with us! 

Thanks for waiting with us these last few years! Can't wait to post pictures for you to "meet" him soon!!

First Day of School

Ava started preschool this week! Let's just say we weren't sure how the first day would go but she LOVED it!! I am so so thankful! She got up Tuesday morning and was so excited to go.


She is showing off the bag her teacher made for her to carry all her papers home. I loved seeing her be brave this week! I love that God is building into her courage one step at a time! She is a different girl than last year at this time and it is so fun seeing her become more independent.

Two Big Birthdays!

It's hard to believe but Cooper turned 3 on August 27th!! All of a sudden he seems so big to me! This summer we took the kids to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie in the theatre. It was their first one on the big screen. Because of that Cooper wanted to a Pooh cake. My attempts in the past to make birthday cakes have been big disasters so I'm not sure what overcame me this year. Oh...I know it's this latest thing called Pinterest that I'm loving! It was here that I found how to make a very easy Pooh cake...and it was!! Cooper is our full of energy comedian these days! He keeps us laughing that is for sure. He definitely has his tantrum moments but lately I've really seen how he tries to help others be happy. He is a non-stop talker these days and I love having full on conversaations with him!

We also celebrated another big birthday....Matt turned 40 on August 26th! It was a great weekend to celebrate the boys in our lives!

Here is Coop with one of his gifts....he is waiting to take our orders at the McDonalds drive thru:)
And here is Matt with one of his gifts... a Chicago Bears vs. Cleveland Browns pre-season game at Soldier field in Chicago. It was a first for Matt to be at the stadium.

This was a spontaneous trip in the sense that I gave Matt the tickets a little less than a week before the game...so we needed to make plans for our kids, where to stay, etc. The bonus was we asked our good friends, Steve and E, to go with us and they were able to! Steve is a Browns fan so the guys had a great time and E and I are Magnificent Mile(the big shopping district downtown Chicago) fans...so it worked out well:)