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.

IPAD Giveaway

YES, you read that right!!!

You have a chance to WIN a NEW ipad!

In honor of Nana's 60th birthday and my finishing with my dissertation (well, almost), we're starting the ipad giveaway on September 30th!

More details coming soon!

My singing sweetie

And now it's September...

Holy moly...where is this year going? Whoa.

I did defend my dissertation proposal at the end of August and all went well, so I'm continuing on the journey to get this thing finished up to graduate in December! FINALLY!!!

September is the month I have dreaded for some time. I have to finish writing my dissertation before we leave for SD on the 24th. Guess that means as of today I have 22 days to finish it. Holy cow. Needless to say, stress is very high at our house because life is not stopping for me to write. DH is unable to get any additional time off this month, so that leaves only weekends to write (other than naptime and some evening time). Of course, I'm still teaching an online class, so I must work on that as well. Combine that with preparation to leave (packing, arranging dog sitter, etc.), paperwork to bring JiJie home as well as fundraising. Yeah, just a little stress. DH did come up with a plan for Grandmom to come and visit for a week for me to write, so she'll be here on the 13th. That idea came directly from God! My goodness. I felt a million times better at even the possibility. She'll leave just a few days before we leave to head up to SD (and see her again!).

So, things a bit light on the blog front...and will be for a while. Of course, October is looking like its going to be a bit overwhelming as well. And may include another trip back to SD for a family function, plus a bunch of fund raising plans that just could NOT fit into September. sigh. November? Hopefully a little less stressful!

New Hair clips!

I've gone FRUITY with this bunch! Check them out on my blog dedicated to my hair klips .

Pics and Such

Well, what else would you wear with your swim suit than biker boots? I mean, really, mom.
(her new favorite shoes!)

My little piano player (like Dr. Marvel on Punchinello, of course)

Another family pic taken by our case manager after our homestudy

My little beauty with pigtails. Hair has gotten so long she no longer needs clips to hold back the wisps!

My cuteness (otherwise known as "sweetness")
I got this super cute dress for $1!

New JiJie Pictures

I sent a request through our agency for updated pictures of YangLan. They arrived today!!!

Busy, busy, busy!

Here are a few of the pics I've taken recently:

At the splash park with her friend Marisa

Doesn't she look too grown up here?
I got this super cute, "biker" dress at a garage sale for $1!
And now I've found some super cute boots to go with it (for 50 cents!).

Always the imitator!

Who doesn't eat their oatmeal with their cool shades on? Right?

Doing "santa claus face"...as she calls it...(aka shaving) with daddy in the morning.

Family pic using the timer on the camera. Not bad, I didn't think!
We'll send this picture to JiJie in her package.

Such a beauty. She's so grown up!
sniff, sniff

Another Long Post

Okay, so its a long, potentially boring post, but things have been so crazy we've had time to even pay attention to the blog. Anyways, lots of changes in our little Megan. Here are a few:

• She's spelling about 100 words. She is obsessed with words. "what does this spell?" "How do you spell ...?" On and on. It gets a bit old, actually.
• She loves to play the Ladybug Game, Elefun, G0 Fish and Candyland. She likes to play Chutes and ladders, but doesn't have the patience to play it right (she just wants to slide down the chutes all the time).
• She likes to play ball. Scratch that..she LOVES to play ball!
• She loves to sing various bible songs. And she knows the words of lots of songs. Favorites right now are "I have decided to follow Jesus", "I am the good shepherd", "Ask, Seek, Knock", Jesus is knocking, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves the little children...I could go on and on. She has an awesome 2-cd set of 100 bible songs that she absolutely LOVES.
• And did I mention that she loves to play ball? I think so.
  
• She has her top two 6-yr molars. Yes, SIX YEAR molars. Overachiever. I just thought we had a teething break. sigh.
  
• She loves to pretend she's Hermie from Hermie & Friends (M@x Luc@ado's series). Hermie is a caterpillar, which means she crawls around the house everywhere--rather than walking. She also loves Punchinello. She uses all sorts of phrases from these movies: "Can I come too?" "What was THAT?" "That was close." "I think that's a pretty good idea" (as she puts her finger by her mouth as though she's pondering something).
• She now asks "How was your day?" when DH comes home from work, but she also asks me at various points throughout the day.
• She loves to wear her hat...and she looks so adorable in hats! She has the face shape for hats.
• She's so expressing her independence. She doesn't want to sit at the table to finish eating; she doesn't want to sit on the potty to go potty; she doesn't want to get dressed; etc.
  
• And did I mention she loves to play ball? Yep, I think I mentioned that.
  

I'll post pics tomorrow. I have a few really cute ones we took recently.

As far as us, I am proposing my dissertation on Aug 24th. I then have to finish up writing the last 2 chapters in the month of September. We leave on Sept 24 to head to SD to visit family. I'll need to defend my dissertation by Oct 29th to graduate in December. We're still working on fund raising events including more hair clips, t-shirts, garage sale. Oh, and a raffle coming soon (probably October)! We're going to raffle an ipad for those you who want the newest technology, here's a great opportunity to WIN it! More to come. We still have a lot of money to raise to bring JiJie home. JiJie is Chinese for big sister, and until we have her new name determined, we're calling her JiJie. So, not a whole lot of time to blog in the next 2 months.

Another Fundraiser

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were working on some t-shirt sale options. Well, one is now ready. You can find the advertisement on the right hand side of the blog. A portion of each sale will go to our Bring Megan's Sister Home fund.

I'm also working on getting t-shirt sales set up though Show Hope, Steven Curtis Chapman's non-profit. Its not quite ready yet, but hopefully within the next week or so it will be. This one will be a bit different in that we will have take orders then place an order when we have enough. More on that yet to come.

We appreciate all your help to bring Yanglan home!

Klippies by Kris

In order to keep this blog about us and not about hair clips, I've started a new blog just for hair clips. I may occasionally post new items over here, but all hair clip info will be on the new blog: Klippies by Kris. Please check it out! I've added several new items!

Introducing Megan's Sister

We've officially received our approval to adopt her...so here she is!

We will add an American name to hers,
but we don't know what that will be yet.
Her Chinese name is YangLan

These pictures were taken in 2008, so I'm interested in seeing how much she's changed in the last two years!

More Large Flower clips

Here are some more beautiful large (4 inch) flower clips.
Each 4 inch flower is securely attached to an alligator clip. Each clip is covered with a coordinating ribbon and partially lined. All ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.
The clips stay in Megan's very silky hair quite well, actually. She always gets compliments every time she wears one!

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s)

Each clip is $5
Price includes shipping

Lavendar

Light Pink

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s).

There is a limited selection of these flowers available.

Hair Clips--Large Flowers

These flower clips are adorable. Each 4 inch flower is securely attached to an alligator clip. Each clip is covered with a coordinating ribbon and partially lined. All ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.

The clips stay in Megan's very silky hair quite well, actually. She always gets compliments every time she wears one!

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s)

Each clip is $5
Price includes shipping

My adorable model (acting very silly!)


The other orange sold out...so here's the new one.
It does a slight yellow around on the tips of the pedals, and it's cute, too.
Orange--Large

Yellow--Large

Hot Pink--Large

Deep Red--Large

I can use a crystal in the middle of all (except the orange), if preferred

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and color(s).

There is a limited selection of these flowers available.

Hair Clips--Small Flowers

Have you been looking for smaller flowers to put in your little one's hair? These would be perfect! All flowers have coordinating ribbon covering the alligator clip. Each clip is partially lined and all ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.
To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and size.

My model with the 2 small flowers in:


Prices listed below:

Small white flowers (approx 2 inches in diameter)
I also have light purple (as Megan is modeling above) and light yellow.
These are small enough that you can use two.

Each $3 (includes shipping)
All of these are VERY limited


my cute model with the medium flower in:

close up of the flower:

Medium white flower (approx 3 inches in diameter)
Each $4 (includes shipping)

There are limited number of each of these available.

To order, simply click on "Chip In" on the right hand side of the website. In the Comments section, identify quantity and size.

Hair Clips-- Matching Pairs

One problem I've recently encountered is finding matching clips to use in Megan's hair to hold the wisps back with pigtails. Or do you simply want to clip the long bangs out of their face? These matching ribbon alligator clips are the solution! They are partially lined and all ribbon has been heat treated to prevent fraying.

To order, simply click on "Chip In". In the Comments section, identify the number of pairs and your ribbon selection.

Each pair: $5
(includes shipping)

And here's the model!


An example of the finished product

These are your ribbon options:

spring green zigzag, light blue, lavender stripes, light pink with white dots

Red, Hot pink/black dots; hot pink; light pink; pink/purple dots; XOXO

To order, simply click on "Chip In". In the Comments section, identify the number of pairs and your ribbon selection.

Fundraising

One of the things that we will be doing to bring Megan's Sister home that we didn't (purposely) do to bring Megan home is fundraising. There are several things we have lined up to do in the upcoming weeks (there are higher priorities right now), but one of them is the "chip in" on the right hand side of the page. Chip in allows you to donate cash to help bring Megan's Sister home using a credit or debit card or a paypal account. Simply click on the 'Chip in' link and you will be directed to a secure website to donate. Don't feel pressured to do so, but I've had some people ask when/how they can donate, so I thought I'd just set this up.

What kind of upcoming fundraisers are we talking about? I've made several very cute, high quality hair clips for Megan (and gotten loads of compliments on them, as well!). I've shared them with some of my friends and they STAY IN fine hair. So, watch for them soon. I have most everything ready, I just need the time to pull it all together and create the blog post with the pics.

Another fundraiser we are working on is t-shirt sales. There's a website that handles everything for us and we get a portion of the t-shirt sales. Again, still working on that...hopefully it will be up within a month.

We've got a couple of other ideas...but need to work them out quite a bit more. And if you have any ideas, PLEASE let us know!!!

As if our life is not CRAZY enough!

We feel the Lord leading us to go back to China to adopt! Its not at all what I expected...or anticipated! I completely believed we were done adopting from China, but apparently we are not.

Sunday night as I was rocking Megan to sleep, I began praying for our "missing" daughter. I was reminded of all the reasons DH has said we need to wait (M's sleeping problems is the biggest one! But him feeling too old to do this again being another). Then I know it was the Lord that asked why not an older child from China? I have always said if we went back to China it would be for an older child (10-13 yrs old). In China, once an orphan turns 14, they become ineligible to be adopted into a family. This option "overcame" all of DH's concerns as she'd be older so we would not likely have the sleep problems...although we'd have a whole host of other potential problems (like her extremely limited English and our almost non-existent Chinese skills)...and it addresses his concern of having a younger child in his "old age". I knew EXACTLY the agency we wanted to use and emailed them that night. I did more research on their website and saw some of their waiting children. There are 5 little girls on there...but one of them COMPLETELY caught my eye...not only is she beautiful, but she's 12 and needs to be adopted before Sept 2011 (A little faster than DH was thinking!!!). One of my "musts" was that she has to love younger children...knowing how needy my Megan is with older girls!!! Well, there was very little information on the "description", but it did say something along the lines of loves to play with younger children. We both feel this is our daughter. We've contacted the agency saying we want to adopt this little girl and have begun the paperwork to bring her home. She will be home in about a year. My hope is that we will travel in April...then all my children will have joined our family in April!

I ask that you begin praying for our new daughter (who we are calling Sister at this point, because we want her to have a say in what her forever name will be). I also ask that you pray for God to open the storehouses and bring the funding to bring her home. If you remember, God brought incredible miracles when we began the journey to bring Megan home. He brought us $22,000 in a span of about 6 weeks. While I certainly don't expect to have the funding in 6 weeks, I do believe that God can bring the money we need to bring this precious little girl home, too.

Megan has been asking for a sister for several months. I asked her Monday if she wanted a big sister or a little sister and she said "big sister". Of course, since then she's saying "little sister"! So, I asked her if she wanted 2 sisters and her response? "No, just 1." (and she will frequently remind us she "just wants one")! This kid cracks me up!

Pics

A few of my favorites from the past week or so..

Such a little lady...and big girl. Her new favorite way to sit (modeled after mommy, of course!) And notice the flip-fl0p tan lines on her feet! She's SO TAN already!

My little fashion-esta! She is completely in love with these boots lately! We've worn them to the post office (but didn't get out of the car) and the mailbox a couple of times. I don't know how she can stand it! It's been SOOOO HOT down here!

Kota's turn with the crown...

Irish's turn (it's a "new" one)

In case you think only the dogs wear it...here's Megan's way of wearing her crown!

And now it's June

Oh man, I can't believe it's June and I have not even posted one time yet this month! And it's half over. That's bad, especially considering that I am using this as her "baby book" to keep track of things she's doing. I've been so busy working on my dissertation, I have time for little else. My goal is to have stage 1 done by July 1st; propose by the end of July; then I need to have everything written by October 1st in order to graduate in December. As you can see, this is major undertaking and to complete it in 3.5 months...well, may be just crazy. I honestly don't know. I just know I can and I must be done with everything by December. If I don't officially get to graduate until May, that's fine, but I simply CANNOT pay tuition for a semester past fall! I just can't bring myself to do it!!!

So, back to Megan...here's a quick list of some of the cutest things happening right now.

• Sleep is still an issue. Some days are better than others, but overall, its still not good. We've been using melat0nin, which has helped, but the little stinker has figured out to push past the exhaustion it creates (like she always has). And I'll just leave it at that.
  
• She Loves, Loves, Loves Punchinello (a character of Max Lucado's). I found a movie at a garage sale and she repeatedly asks to watch it. It seems to have replaced Elm0 (my heart is not broken). At any rate, she loves to "act out" and "repeat" so many things from the movie.
  
• One of her favorite 'repeats' is: "can I come, too?" I mean for everything! If I'm going in the bedroom, she says "can I come, too?" It's so funny. And the way she says "too"...it's more like "TUuuuu".
• She has gotten into movies. Kind of. I mean she'll watch Punchinello, as well as another of Max Lucado's story lines, Hermie the Caterpillar. In the last week or so, she's started watching Clifford, the big red dog. But, no telling if that will last! She still loves Super Why.
  
• It seems like there's always something I'm laughing about that she says every day! She's so fun.
• She started sitting on the floor and opening a book and "reading". She looks at the book, turns the pages, holds it with the book balancing on her hands, then she puts it away.
• She's still sitting in a booster seat with a belt at home. At some point during the meal, she typically asks to sit next to dad. At which point she repeats the rules "if you stand up, you have to sit in the buckle chair". Of course, all you can really understand because she talks so quickly and softly is "stand" and "buckle chair".
• She likes to tell the dogs to go into the bedroom (they, of course, don't listen) and she likes to put them in the bedroom. So, we have to tell them (and sometimes have to herd them as well) with her closing the door. Sometimes she likes to go in there with them and shut the door despite the fact that we're getting ready to eat and need her out with us.
• She tends to order the dogs around. A lot. She likes to tell them to "Stop barking, Irish. Stop barking, Kota." First she says it loud, then she repeats it softer as she gets close to their face.
• She loves to "walk with them" (aka the dogs). Irish tolerates her standing next to him a lot more than Kota. Kota has figured out that if she just lays down, then Megan will tell us what she wants to do requesting we make Kota stand up. Then we have to explain that Kota doesn't want to walk right now.
  
• She likes to play with the dogs with their toys. Sometimes throwing the toys and trying to get Kota to fetch (which is only does when SHE wants to!).
• She likes to put things on the dogs heads. For example, she's gotten into this princess crown. She loves to wear it on her head and put it on the dogs head. Her favorite is to put it on Kota's head. I took a picture of it on Kota's head. I'll have to upload it. One day. Sigh.
• She loves to spell words. Nothing new there.
• She's sleeping with bring one of her stuffed dogs when we go to the store. She's named two of them "doggie Chris".
• She loves to roll the ball.
• She loves to wear dresses.
• She loves to open the doors...and lock them. If you know where we live, you could easily into our back door (we've hidden a key outside b/c she's always locking us out!).
  

That's about all I can think of right now.