~~Prayer Request~~

An FCC-AZ family NEEDS OUR HELP! Recently, FCC-AZ mom Kim H. received the news that her 4 year old daughter Riley, adopted in 2005, has been diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia. Aplastic Anemia is the same condition that Kailee Wells, also adopted from China, is recovering from. http://www.kaileewells.com/index.htm Aplastic Anemia involves the reduction in the number of every type of blood cell in the body -- red cells, white cells, and platelets. Symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, increase risk of infection and increase bleeding risk are due to bone marrow failure and the loss of blood cell production. Riley's treatment will involve immunosuppressant drugs, steroids, antibiotics and possibly antiviral drugs. If Riley's pharmaceutical treatments are not successful, then Riley will need a bone marrow transplant. She is currently receiving platelet transfusions and is on neutropenic precautions, meaning she is not allowed to go to school, to be out in public places and can have limited visitors.

Riley is from Hubei Province just like Alexa. I believe in the power of prayer and also believe in miracles. Please say a prayer for Riley and her mom Kim. This could be any one of us living this nightmare. I have been in contact with Kim and she appreciates and welcomes all prayers offered up! Thanks so much!

Rock On Little Learner!!!

This afternoon I sat down with Alexa to do a couple of workbook pages. Well....58 pages later she was done. The girl did the whole book!! I guess I need to hit the teachers store again. ; ) As a former teacher I taught over 10 years of Jr. Kindergarten. I try to find a balance of not pushing Alexa, but still making sure she is stimulated and always challenged. We try and make it fun by playing learning games, putting sight words around the house and doing simple addition in our every day activities, cooking, gardening etc... We originally had her at a traditional school the first four months of the year and her teacher actually had the &^%* to tell us that Alexa did not know how to hold a pencil or write her name ( she mastered both in her late 2's). Can you imagine?! Needless to say, this teacher did not know our daughter or care enough to find out so we pulled her immediately and now she is at a school that we love and she is enjoying. Maybe I should send this workbook to her old teacher with a "nice" note. ; )

~~Good Times~~

This is one of my all time favorites of Alexa. It really moves me. It shows the depths of her amazing soul. This beautiful child of ours has so many amazing layers.


Waiting for PohPoh and Papa to take her out to lunch and the library.

Alexa is lucky to have such fantastic grandparents ( I know they would say they are the lucky ones ; )

This girl loves getting sprayed with the hose. Daddy is always a willing participant.

Hey, that's a great way to cool off!

The Chief took this photo. I just love her face!!

~~Just Because~~

Just because she was looking too cute, I had to take some shots before school this morning.

Only about one more month left of school before summer break. We have all sorts of plans for the summer. Alexa will start gymnastics, go to a little cheerleading camp, and have swim lessons. I think we are going to take a break from dance and pick up again in the Fall. We have a couple of trips planned, playdates and lazy days by the pool on our schedule. We will be meeting a new friend baby Georgea and hope to see her often too. Next month we are going to CA and plan to do the beach, San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld. Alexa loves anything to do with animals so this trip is super exciting for all of us. She has never been to the beach so I'm really excited to see how much she will love that!

~~Visit with friends from our travel group~~

Today we had a special visit from one of our travel families; Sean, Patty, Zach and Jordan. We traveled together in 2006 to get our girls and share a forever bond. The last time we saw them was about 18 months ago at the reunion we held at our home here in AZ. Alexa made everyone a place card for lunch and was really anticipating this latest reunion. It is such a special gift when the girls are able to see each other.


This was the cutest because as I was taking the picture Alexa put her arm up and proclaimed "together forever!"

To see them together makes me so happy.

The Chief took video of them and here they are watching themselves.

Jordan is super cute. According to her mom, she is also strong willed and sassy...hmmm sound familiar?

Double trouble!

All three kids in the playroom. Zach is Jordan's older brother and is really sweet

They really remind me of sisters in this picture. They call each other " their China girls."

Hugs!

When it was time to leave and everyone was saying goodbye, the girls embraced each other and Jordan said " I love you" and in the most tender voice I have ever heard from Alexa she responded " I love you too." I just about lost it. Just the sweetest moment ever!

The second sweetest was right after they left, Alexa knelt down next to the front door in front of the glass, folded her hands and said the most heartfelt prayer I have ever heard her say. She said "Dear God, please bring Jordan back to me to visit. Please let Jordan and Zach visit my house again." She prayed like this for about 2 minutes. Robert and I were speechless. Thankfully the video camera was still out and he grabbed it and managed to tape the last few minutes. Oh, this child of mine...she never ceases to amaze me and touch my heart!

Happy Easter!

We had so much fun this morning. Alexa woke up at 4:20 and ran into our bedroom reporting, "The Easter bunny came!!". Jolted from a deep sleep I said, "Yes, he did but you can't see what he brought you till 6:00, now get back in bed." So around 6:30 we started again, all of us a bit more rested. Alexa loved her Easter basket and was really excited to have been visited by the bunny. Next it was off to get ready in our Sunday best and go pick up PohPoh ( my dad is in Chicago...we missed you dad!). We went out for a nice breakfast and Alexa cracked us up as usual with the funniest conversation. After that we came home and did the Easter Egg hunt in the backyard. You can tell by the joy in her face that she really had fun doing this. It is such a joy for us to watch her enjoying every moment. Hope everyone had a nice Easter! : )

"Mom"

"Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom", and on and on it goes all day long. Some days I get tired of answering endless requests, questions, cries, whines, pleas, etc. Sometimes I just want to finish a thought, an email, a meal, a show, a page, etc without an interruption, and then I give up. I admit rather guiltily that my patience sometimes wanes. It is these times that I remind myself how many years I longed and worked for the days when I would hear "mom..." in my life and in my house. This always brings me back to the absolute joy having a daughter brings me. Sometimes I think that us adoptive moms have a bit more patience ( some may disagree and that's okay) when it comes to parenting our kids. It never takes me long to forget about what I want and remember what I've worked so hard do become. I love being a mom, it's what I am most proud of and what brings me the most joy. So when I hear "mom" for the hundredth time of the day I'll just smile and think "yep, that's what I am...your "mom".

~~What a good mommy~~

This is the "serious" mommy face. Hmmm, my mom told me that I do the same face. Imagine that? ; )


"Shushing" her baby.


Telling her baby "it's okay".

Alexa loves her baby dolls. She has about 10 " kids" as she calls them and she plays with them every single day. Usually my dad is the "baby daddy" if she is over at my folks and she tells him just what to say and when to say it. She comes up with all sorts of scenarios and situations for these "kids" and the names change daily. This morning one of her dolls kept dying ( I think this is some residual feeling of losing Ms. Stubbs ) and she told me to go bury her in the ground. Goodness! She takes very good care of her "kids" which is no surprise since she really is so caring and loving with all of her family.

April Antics

For Alexa's birthday she got this cool dinosaur kit where you pretend you are a Paleontologist. She wore her goggles and went digging for dinosaur bones.


Spending time with friends at the railroad park.

Fun in the sun.

Attending a luau birthday party for one of her school friends.

Baking Easter bunny cookies.

Coloring Easter eggs with me and PohPoh today.