Could she get ANY cuter???

Little Miss Hollywood!

Dissertation is completed! I am official a Ph.D.! YAY!
I'm busy working on this weekend's garage sale and next week's Scentsy fundraiser.
More info to come!!!

BBQ Bash Fundraiser

If you live in the Dallas area and would like to come to a BBQ Bash hosted by our good friends the Doss family, please click on the "buy now" button on the right hand side of the page. The Doss' have arranged for live entertainment, great BBQ and fun activities for the whole family at an awesome outdoor venue! We feel privileged and honored that they have decided to help us on the Journey to bring Rachel home in this way!

The ticket prices are very reasonable...so PLEASE consider joining us!!!

Nov 20th at 5pm
$12 per person
$25 for a family with kids under age 12

What a GREAT deal for GREAT evening of food and fun! And you can help us bring Rachel home!!!

BBQ Bash Tickets

1 Ticket $12.00 2 Tickets $24.00 3 Tickets $36.00 Family Ticket $25.00

I'm so far behind in postings!

Oh man...we've been so busy!!! But, the good news is that the dissertation defense (aka final presentation) is Oct 25th. Once that is done...and I incorporate the committee's changes and submit it to the graduation office by the 29th. I WILL BE FINISHED! Whew. That will feel good! But for now, a few pics from the last few weeks. More once I'm through next week. We took lots on our recent trip to visit family...

Megan & cousin Ashley dressing up

She asked to play with shaving cream one morning...and this is what she does with it. silly girl!

Well, who doesn't end up with sand EVERYWHERE when they play it? I especially like it on the bridge of her sunglasses.

Her new passion: climbing trees.
Or rather, sitting in trees since she asks one of us to put her IN the tree!

Christmas Frenzy!

Stacy at My Cup Overfloweth just returned from China with their son, Solomon. She knows the struggles to raise funds when you are adopting and has created a Christmas Frenzy. She is providing an opportunity for families who are in the process of adopting and are fundraising to post their items in one place. It also provides families who are looking for Christmas gifts and want to help others an opportunity to purchase items. Head over there and see what she and others are selling. I think people have just begun adding their items, so check back frequently!

OH, and she's doing a giveaway for those who are purchasing! Don't forget to check that out, too! And maybe you can win a Christmas gift...or a special gift for you!

Drum roll, please...

The winner of the ipad is Kim T! Congrats, Kim!!! I will ship the ipad this week!!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who donated to help us bring Rachel home! We are so blessed by those who chose to donate to help us!

Ipad drawing Sunday

Just wanted everyone to know that we will draw the winner for the ipad tomorrow!!! Sunday morning I will post the winner.

You can still purchase your tickets! Click on "chip in" on the right hand side of the page.

Donate $10 for one chance to win
Donate $20 for THREE chances to win

Thank you to all of you who have joined our journey to bring Rachel home!!!

Ipad Giveaway

Only a few more days for the IPAD giveaway! Please be sure to donate for your chance to win!!!

Click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the blog to go to paypal to securely donate to help bring Rachel home!

$10 donation gives you 1 chance to win!
$20 donation give you 3 chances to win!

Being Real...

Maybe some are wondering why we have opted to adopt from China again. And maybe even more some are wondering why we have chosen to adopt a teenager from China. I have had people ask me “why not adopt a teenager from here?” And maybe others are wondering the same question.

There are many reasons why we feel this child—YangLan (soon to be Rachel)—is the child we want to bring into our family. First, we do not want Megan to be the only Chinese person in our family. Why does this matter to us? Well, sometimes adopted children feel like they are “different” because they are the only one in their family who does “fit” or doesn’t look like someone else. Does that mean Megan will feel this way? No, but she might. And we want her to have someone who has a similar heritage as her in our family.

Second—and potentially most importantly—is Rachel’s age. See in China, on an orphan’s 14^th birthday, they “age out”. They are no longer eligible for services and can no longer live in the orphanage. For a child—age 14—who has lived in an environment where everything was done for them (cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.), they have little to no survival skills. There are several different non-profits that offer programs at some orphanages to help children have a trade skill for when they age out. These trades may be ironing, laundry, computers, etc. And I would venture to guess that with the American child labor laws, few—if any—are able to work in factories. This leaves few other options for them to survive, prostitution being one of them.

We never expected to adopt from China again. In fact, back in 1998 or 1999 when I first felt called to adopt from China (and began praying for our daughter in China), I believed we only had one daughter in China. When we began the process to bring Megan home, I firmly believed we would only go back to China to visit—one day. However, since we got home with Megan, I’ve wanted her to have a sibling. With her continuing sleep problems, we really felt adding a child younger than Megan may not be the best solution for us. Besides, we are not getting any younger! I’m not sure if at my age I want to do the baby-thing again. I’m not saying starting to parent a child who has 13 years of history before us is going to be easy, but I’m going to venture to guess she’s sleeping through the night! LOL. However, once we truly discussed and decided to pursue an adoption of an older child, I realized all these years I have been praying for both Megan and Rachel. How amazing is God?!

I’ve also recently realized that most don’t know the story of Megan—well, the part I can share! When we shared with our friends and family that we were beginning the process to adopt from China, it was a little more than a year after Ian had died. Within about six weeks, God brought us over $21,000 to completely fund the adoption having done virtually nothing! Now, we had to wait for over two years to bring her home, but we never questioned whether we were on the right path because we knew this was God’s plan for at that time. This time, we are not questioning God’s timing because we know Rachel can’t wait much longer—she turns 14 in September! We are trusting He will handle the finances this time around, too! So, we are doing things like the ipad giveaway, selling hair clips, garage sale, consignment sales, selling t-shirts, applying for grants, working overtime, etc. to obtain the funds to bring Rachel home.

Ipad giveaway

Donate to win a BRAND NEW ipad
TODAY

Help us bring Rachel home!

Donate $10 and you get ONE (1) chance to win

Donate $20 and you get THREE (3) chances to win

ALSO:
If you donate and link this on your blog, post a comment with the link to your blog and you will get an extra entry.
OR
If you are my friend on facebook, donate and post it on your status, post a comment to this posting and you will get an extra entry!

Click on the "CHIP IN" link on the right side of the page to donate securely through paypal.

The giveaway will end on October 15th. Get your tickets NOW!

All proceeds will help us bring JiJie home.

Introducing Rachel

First, if you have attempting to purchase raffle tickets for the ipad, I'm having some paypal issues. I hope they are resolved very, very soon.

Second, when we got home from our SD trip, we had a CD of pics of JiJie, who's American name will be Rachel. Here are a couple of our precious big girl. She looks so grown up in these pics. They were taken late August.