Some Christmas Gifts!!

Ms. Wang never leaves me hanging!!! I woke up to about 17 new Christmas pictures of Finley!! I love seeing how well cared for she is and how obviously happy she is. It warms my heart and I was able to celebrate a bit more knowing my daughter, half way around the world, was also celebrating!! The younger girl in the pictures I believe is a girl from Fushun orphanage that was adopted as an older girl to a family in the US and she now attends university in Florida. On her breaks she returns to Fushun to help in the orphanage. I think that is amazing!! She will be in Fushun until January 19, so we are hoping we will get to meet her while we are there-- fingers crossed!!

A Little Christmas Entertainment!!!

And now I present a little bit of Christmas Entertainment~ Mia's little Christmas Dance Recital~


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It looks as if our little girl had a bit of stage fright but she did great!!!

This is a picture of Mia and Morgan, one of her little pals in the dance class. Turns out Morgan's mommy, daddy, Kevin and I all went to high school together so dance class has been a fun time to catch up!!

Just as a quick update, the travel approval we were so praying for did not come this week. We are very sad as this might move our travel back to the second week of January unless for some miracle we get the approval at the beginning of next week. While I am sad it did not come, I have faith we will get it next week and will be in China very soon to pick up our little girl. We have lots to do before we travel so an extra week might be useful (but still rather leave sooner than later).

Anyway, I leave you with the face of our beautiful angel!!!

I will post Christmas pictures soon. I also have more cute video of Finley and I finished the girls room yesterday (didn't change much just added bunk beds and changed a few things) so I will post some pictures of that soon as well. I wish your family a wonderful Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!!!

Christmas Cookies with Grandma and Grandpa

A fun tradition we have each year is to make Christmas cookies with Grandma and Grandpa. Every year the kids look forward to it and so do Kevin and I. My sister Cassie has even gotten into the the tradition and has now done cookies with us 2 years in a row. This year was a great time and we now have mountains of cookies to consume!!

Grandma and Ethan

Grandpa and Kevin watching some of the game

Messing around-- KEVIN!!

Owen complete with his chef hat and apron grandma had made him for Christmas a couple years ago.

mi Mia concentrating on painting

She has skills

Max even got in on the action-- at least all the action that hit the ground that he could eat up!

Decorating the cookies

Owen loves-- and I mean loves decorating the cookies and he is quite good at it as well!

Flour all over her sleeve-- still as cute as can be!!

Ethan with the finished product-- pre- cooked

Again messing around!!

Had to get a picture of Kev and I

Silly Kevin

Working hard

Grandma and Owen

Mia with her cookies

Relaxing afterwards with Grandma and Grandpa on the couch watching the survivor finale

The Many Faces of Finley + New Video

UPDATE- for all you who are expecting the video I have been promising. We have 6 new of Finley. Here are the first 3. She is precious and I love hearing her little voice!!

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

We received more pictures from Ms. Wang of Finley-- YAAAAAA!!!! I am constantly amazed at the level of involvement we have in Finley's life already. Ms. Wang is showing Finley the videos of us each day and tomorrow she is going to start telling Finley about her new American name-- Finley- so she is familiar with it when we finally get her. I could not be any happier!!

So, this set of pictures were awesome. Many of them were obviously taken in the middle of a tantrum which I think is priceless because it shows her feisty side--love it!!! I am continually amazed by our daughters BEAUTIFUL lips. Angelina Jolie has nothing on our little girl!!! Check them out in the following pictures. I cropped many pictures to just her face so we could observe

THE MANY FACES OF FINLEY

The "NOOOOOO" face

` The "OK I'll Smile for the Camera" Face


The "Concentration" Face


The "Oh My Goodness" Face


The "Silly" Face




The "I'm on the EDGE" Face

The "I am taught at a young age that I must display the PEACE sign when there is a camera present" Face

The "Tantrum" Face



Those were the many faces of Finley-- I hope you enjoyed!!!

And now some other cute random ones:

There were a few pictures that were obviously in the middle of a tantrum-- this is the beginning of the tantrum

Too cute!! Not sure what they were looking at but too cute!!!

Ms. Wang and her husband. It is snowy there right now!!! Fun!! I love this couple. They are like second parents to Finley.

Mr. and Mrs. Wang and their son-- very handsome!!!

The Wang's and others. So thankful for this couple!!!

We sent video to Finley

I decided to send video to Finley with each of us telling her who we are and that we love her in Chinese. It was a labor of love because we started with a great long video and then I tried to email it. Way too big and it would not send. Then I started the project of individual videos and they were great until I tried to email them and realized they were all way too big as well-- uggggg!~~! So, I did it again and had to make it super duper short or they would go over our size limit. So, we did super short little videos and I sent each one in a separate email to Ms. Wang.

I sent them Monday and Ms. Wang emailed me this morning that she showed Finley the videos and she loved them a lot and understood what we said--- yaaaa!!! I'm sure Ms. Wang was being generous in that I'm sure they would have a really hard time understanding us but hay, at least Finley got to see all of us again talking to her in Chinese!!!! Ms. Wang also said she would take some pictures and video soon and send them this week.

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Ms. Wang sent more pictures!!!

Ms. Wang sent more pictures from when she and her husband took Finley home for the weekend for the Autumn Moon Festival. They are a couple months old but such a treasure. Finley will love to see these pictures of her main caretakers when she is older.

I love seeing the street market and all the hustle and bustle!!

Mr. and Ms. Wang with Finley. I love having this picture!!


My beautiful girl!!!

So, we have confirmation that our file is at CCAA and we are now waiting for TA. Our amazingly phenomenal China Coordinator Sabrina said she thinks our TA will be send before Christmas and we will get it after Christmas which will get us travel mid January. We are hoping for early January but we will see! Moving along :)

We have a crazy weekend with a program at Church tonight, tomorrow night and Sunday. It is an awesome program called Bethlehem Marketplace where everything is transformed into the time of Jesus. All of us are involved (the boys are carpenter assistants and Kevin and I are making the food with my bother Brad-- Ill take picture) but tonight we have to leave the boys (their grandparents are coming and taking them home) and we have a big Christmas party to go to. Last night our great friends Chris and Lia took us to the Nokia Center in downtown LA (where the Emmy's are) for a big dinner event and a show. We saw the Rocketts Christmas program and it was amazing. Plus we had a massive buffet and open bar with all you can drink and all the concessions (candy and popcorn) you want. It was a wonderful night and we thank our pals for taking us!! So we have a crazy busy weekend but we are really looking forward to it!!


I had to throw this picture in. It was a lazy day a few weeks ago and the kids were watching movies all morning by the fire because it was cold and raining out. Mia was on the computer looking at pictures of Finley. It was so cute that I had to take a picture of it-- on my phone so the quality is poor but I had to post how cute it was!!!