Happy Adoption Day Jamae!

Once there were two women who never knew each other. One you do not know. The other you call Mother.
Two different lives shaped to make you one. One became your guiding star; the other became your sun.
The first one gave you life; the second taught you to live it. The first gave you a need for love; the second was there to give it.
One gave you a body, the other taught you games. One gave you a talent. The other taught you aims.
One gave you emotions; the other calmed your fears. One saw your first sweet smile; the other dried your tears.
One found a home for you that she could not provide. The other prayed for a child; her hope was not denied.
And now you ask, of course you do, The question others ask me too: This place or your birth place-which are you a daughter of?
Both of them, my darling - and two different kinds of love.



On Jamae's adoption day, we are reminded of the love that her China mama had for her and the sacrafices she made. We are eternally grateful that she gave Jamae life and that God placed Guang Xue Ru into our family. What an awesome journey we have been on these last 3 years.

Jamae's 4th Birthday

Jamae was so excited to celebrate her birthday. She has talked about turning 4 for months. She promised me that when she turned 4 she would still be my babycakes. She is all girl - constantly talking, playing dress-up and putting on makeup. She loves spending time with her friends, helping me in the kitchen and going to church. Every morning she greets me by saying, "Mom, what do we get to do today?" She has become very independent but thankfully stills loves to snuggle up with mom & dad. She has a special bond with her sis "Nani" (Madison) and would follow her around all day if Madison would let her. We continue to be amazed by this beautiful gift God has given us. Happy Birthday Jamae

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! Jody's mom and dad as well as his sister, Becky and niece Michelle and nephew Tim came to visit. What a great time we had. It is so much fun to have family visit when we live so far from all our family.
Enjoy the pictures!






Christmas Eve




Did Santa come?





Happy Birthday Jesus!


Opening Presents!

Happy 18 Years!

Christmas Baking

We always enjoy our traditional Christmas cookie decorating day. It was fun to have Tim join us!







Don't they look great!

Jay's OSU cookie

She Ming

Today our family submitted our acceptance to adopt She Ming from China!! Ming is a 12 year old boy who is currently living in an orphanage in Fuzhou, China. I'm sure you are wondering how this all happened.
Our family first became aware of Ming on our agency America World's website a year ago September after seeing his picture on the waiting child list. We adopted Jamae through AWAA back in 2004. Our friends, Scott & Alisa Shaw are also in the midst of adopting a daughter from China through AWAA. It was back in the fall of 2006 that both Alisa & I became aware of Ming and began praying for him. This past spring, Alisa asked our Orphan Ministry team at the church to also pray that Ming would find a loving Christian home before aging out of the system at age 14. Ming continued to be on my heart and I couldn't believe that a family had not stepped up to adopt him. I started to wonder if our family was supposed to consider adopting him. Last summer, I started to work on a Bible Study that I was going to be leading in the fall called, "What happens when women say YES to God". God made it very clear to me that he wanted me to step out completely in faith and say YES to something that He was going to ask me to do. I didn't know at the time that something was adopting MIng.
Then in September, AWAA informed us that on September 15, they were going to have to release Ming’s profile, at which point he could be adopted out through non-Christian agencies...or more probably be released to the streets. The evening of September 14, Jody called a family meeting. We discussed whether we were to be the family that would step up and take him in. Following a time of prayer, we unanimously agreed that the reason nobody else had stepped forward after all of those months was because Ming was meant to be in our family. On the morning his profile was to be released, we put a hold on it and declared our intent to adopt.
Since then, there has been a whirlwind of activity. We’ve submitted the necessary paperwork, undergone a home study, and been fingerprinted. We also submitted our paperwork to tell China that we are accepting the referral of Ming. Today that paperwork was sent to China. Now we just need to wait to hear from China that they have accepted us to pursue Ming's adoption. We hope to hear within a month.
This is obviously a huge leap of faith for us. We are well aware of the many challenges of adopting an older child, and it will be interesting to have Ming fit into the middle of our family (Ming is 5 weeks older than Madison). But the bottom line is that we believe God has ordained Ming to be in our family in just the same way that He has our other five children. We certainly need your prayers and encouragement. I look forward to updating you on our journey!

Oh Christmas Tree...Oh Christmas Tree

Today was our annual 'pick out our Christmas tree' day. It started out with breakfast at Perkins (not many places to choose from in Moses Lake). Then we started on the 45 minute drive to Wilson Creek. Since moving to Moses Lake 5 years ago, we have ended up at a different Christmas tree farm each year. Last year we decided that we had exhausted all the farms here in town and needed to move to a neighboring town to find just the perfect tree. We searched for just the perfect tree...
Did Jamae find the perfect tree?

Or maybe it was Mitchell...

Madison found it!


We had a great morning! A day we will never forget...especially when the tree fell off the roof of the car!

Love & Diving or is that Love of Diving?

Jay definately loves diving. Districts was really fun for him. It was great for him to accomplish his goal of going to districts this year. Four guys from his team went to districts which were held in Ellensburg which is just over an hour from here. He went over with the team on Friday but the divers didn't actually compete until Saturday. That gave them Friday to warm up and have fun! They spent the night in a hotel and then were ready to compete first thing Saturday morning. We all traveled over Saturday morning to watch him. He was competing against 20 other guys in 11 dives. Jay did such a fantastic job. Not only did he accomplish his goal of qualifiing for districts, he made his personal best score. Diving is now over, but Jay has plunged right into gymnastics. Not only is he taking classes, the gymnastics center has hired him to teach two classes of boys tumbling per week. Jay is also working on his lifeguard certification so he can be a lifeguard at the pool this summer.



Jay at districts with his friend Chad. Notice the bleached hair! The district boys either bleached their hair or shaved their heads. I'm glad Jay chose the bleaching. We are getting used to it now.


Love was in the air yesterday! I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day. We have a family tradition of sending the kids on a scavenger hunt for a present. When Jay was 3, I sent Jay on his first scavenger hunt for a Valentine present. He loved it so we have kept the tradition. This was very simple was Jay was 3, now it is a complex process. The hunt took me a few hours to put together. Each child gets their own hunt, with the clues getting harder for each child. I am happy to report that I was able to stump the oldest 3 with some of my clues. Usually, each child does their hunt seperately but this year the 4 oldest wanted to compete with each other so they all went at the same time in a race. Mitchell was the winner. We had a lot of fun.


Mitchell looking through his bag of Valentine goodies from school.


Jamae opening her Valentine present after going on her scavenger hunt. After opening the present, she wanted to go on another hunt for another present. Wouldn't we all like to do that.



Chinese New Year is Sunday. The year of the pig! We spent last Saturday night celebrating the new year with the other chinese adoptive families in our community. Jamae enjoyed having another excuse to wear her chinese silks.


Jamae and her friend Susannah


We send you all our love this Valentine week!

N-O-V-E-L-I-S-T

Madison had the opportunity to represent her class in the 5th grade spelling bee today at her school. She is quite the speller and her teacher felt like she had a wonderful chance to win and go on to represent her school in the city spelling bee. With only a few students left in the bee, Madison got hung up on the word novelist. I thought for sure she would spell it right, but as Madison told me afterwards, "I always forget if novel has an a or an e in it". She picked the a and she ended up spelling it wrong. Madison's goal was to get farther than she did last year and she far exceeded her goal. Congratulations Madison! We are so proud of you!

Diving into Districts

What an exciting weekend we had! Jay's goal this year in diving has been to qualify for districts. This weekend he had his last dive meet for the regular season. It was an 11 dive meet and that meet would determine if he qualified for districts or not. He went into the meet .50 points ahead of the other diver that he was competing against for the spot on the district team.


Jay had a terrific dive meet. He had 11 dives to complete and he did a great job on each one. I feel like it was the best meet that he has had. He really gave it his all. He ended up beating the other diver by 31.85 points. It was a very fun moment after the meet when Jay's coach included his name on the list of divers competing in districts. Now Jay has 4 days of practice before he heads to districts on Friday. Competition is this Saturday, February 3. He will again be performing 11 dives. We are so proud of him and this opportunity he has this weekend. On to Districts!

Saturday Survival

A look at how we spent our day on Saturday:
7:00 - Wake up Jesse.
7:30 - Jesse picked up for a day of skiing and sledding with his youth group.
8:50 - Jesse knocking at the door because his trip got cancelled due to bad roads.
9:30 - Drive Jay to his dive meet warm-ups.
10:15 - Leave home with Madison and her friend and take them to soccer scrimmage.
10:40 - After dropping Madison off at soccer, hurry over to Jay's dive meet.
11:00 - Arrive just in time to watch Jay in his meet. He once again did an awesome job.
11:45 - Jump back in the car to bring Jesse to the ice skating rink - alternative since ski trip was cancelled.
12:15 - Arrive home for lunch, gift wrapping, and a quick nap for Jamae.
2:00 - Jay calls to ask if he can go home with him friend. Say yes and grateful I don't have to run out to get him.
2:30 - Madison arrive home after 2 soccer scrimmages, tired but happy. Thankfully she had a ride home.
3:15 - Put Mitchell and Jamae in the car and drive Mitchell to his friend's birthday party.
3:30 - Drop Mitchell off at the batting cages for his party.
3:35 - Walk next door and pick up Jesse and his friend from the ice skating rink.
3:58 - Drop Jesse and his friend off at home. Watch Jesse hobble up the driveway because his feet hurt so bad.
4:00 - Drive 2 blocks down and accompany Jamae to her friend's 3 year old birthday party.
5:45 - Arrive home thankful that Mitchell has a ride home and I don't have to turn around and pick him up.
6:00 - Make dinner. eat dinner, clean up.
6:30 - Mitchell arrives home safely.
7:30 - Bathe and put Jamae to bed.
8:00 - Play board game with Jesse, Madison, and Mitchell.
9:00 - Bend the house rules and let Jay spend the night on a Saturday night so that I don't have to make the hour round trip
drive on slippery roads to pick him up.
10:00 - Realize all the kids are accounted for and go to bed.

How did you spend your day?

Ice Skating

We decided to take the family ice skating! It sounded like a good idea. Our town had just completed a new ice rink and we were eager to try it out. Never mind that none of the kids had ever skated before, it had been about 20 years since Jody and I had skated, and the weather was only about 20 degrees outside. We were up for the adventure. Once we got there and got everyone into skates (they even had skates Jamae's size), we started off on the ice. Jamae went 1/4 of the way around and declared she DOES NOT LIKE ICE SKATING. She has continued to tell me that all week. She spent the next hour crying because she was so cold. I ended up hanging up my skates early to take her and Madison inside to stay warm. (I didn't really mind since my feet were hurting so much). Jesse and Madison got horrible blisters within the first 15 minutes. Madison decided that she then didn't want to skate anymore but Jesse, after bandages and more socks, got back out and loved it. Mitchell (7) who had never been on the ice, absolutely had a blast. He got the hang of it quickly and never stopped. He was the big surprise of the day. I wasn't sure he would like it. Jay, the high schooler, much to his surprise, I think, had a good time. He wasn't sure if ice skating with his little siblings was going to be much fun but he realized it was fun. As we were driving home, Jody and I weighed the pros with the cons and decided it was a successful outing, especially since Jay, Jesse, and Mitchell were asking me on the way home to take them back the next day. Next time we will just leave Jamae home.

Go Bucks!

...20 hours and counting!

Jamae's 3rd birthday

Jamae came downstairs on the day after Christmas and told us that she wanted more presents under the tree. I guess one of the advantages of having a birthday the day after Christmas is that when the presents are gone under the tree, your mom brings out all of your birthday presents. Jamae sure enjoyed her birthday and her week of celebrations. Tuesday was her birthday, Wednesday was the 2nd anniversary of the day we got her, coined "gotcha day", Thursday was the 2nd anniversary of her adoption day. We celebrated by seeing Charlotte's Web. And on Saturday her 4 favorite friends came over for a My Little Pony party. Oh what fun!


Jamae getting ready to open her presents!



Jamae loving on Dora.



Blowing out her candles.



Jamae being a pony at her party.