Meeting Scott's Kaifeng Foster Sister: Kimberly Dang Wei

Kimberly lives just down the road from us, how exciting.... 1/2 way around the world and now neighbors.

One year home ~ Bella & Deanna. May 26, 2012

Happy 2 years!

Then 2009...

2009

2009



2011



2011



2011

Deanna's care package cake party pictures

Foster Update: Deanna

First-- She is sooo beautiful. This is our precious girl-- how can your eyes not well-up from pure joy knowing we will have our daughter in our arms in less than 60 days-- okay, okay-- back to the facts. :)

Her Update reports: Healthy (we already know she has CP), she is potty trained, and she knows her colors. She is more confident. She can lead other children to recite children's songs, and she can lead the morning exercises. :) She is introverted and shy amongst strangers and new environment and gets scared to talk, but when you know her--she is outgoing. She has to be reminded of nap time, otherwise she will continue to play, and play. Adorable.

She loves rice, noodles and dumplings---{hmmm, that sounds totally familiar!} :)

Dinner, anyone?

Tonight for dinner, we had our first recipe from Athena's Christmas present cookbook-- we had Broiled Shrimp w/Vegetable Kebabs; served with Horseradish-Herb-Sour cream Sauce and Stir-Fry Fried Rice. The kids helped gather all the ingredients and even loaded the Kebabs--they had a great time. Yummy! They turned out delicious. P.S. **Mom's on clean-up duty tonight, since the kids cooked--they loved that part. :)

Meet Deanna!

Meet Deanna, our fourth daughter from China-- I can not put into words what this child means to us, to call her our own. I can not even begin to tell you the story behind her and us, because it was always in our heart-- never on paper, but we knew somehow this little Maoming sweetie would be brought to us or us lead to her-- almost 3 years later; we have found each other, put a name and face to our daughter and peace to our dream... She is from Maoming, Guangdong she is age 7. We have named her Deanna HuanYu. We have come complete circle and our family feels very complete. We have been waiting for this little sweetie to be our daughter since we first adopted Hannah MeiRu (Maoming, Guangdong 2008 at age 7). Hannah and Deanna were foster sisters. :) When I saw her picture staring back at me the day our agency posted her profile-- I knew her province, her name and her age before I even read the file-- I knew it from inside, from a place that only GOD had told me these things. She will fit perfect into our family. Bella XiaoHan {our youngest daughter :) waiting in Anyang, Henan} is age 4, Deanna HuanYu ** whom you just meet is 7, Our Hannah MeiRu is 9 (adopted 2008 Guangdong), Jacob 10, and our two oldest Scott Yu age 12 and Athena NiuNiu age 13 (adopted 2009 Henan). See told you, Deanna fits in perfect; in numbers and in our heart-- we can not wait to travel to pick up both our newest daughters in spring.

from Ash-- a teary eyed mother whom is Blessed beyond measure, and Humbled beyond reason.

Closure

Today was our last post-adoption Social Worker visit from Jan, our dear friend and adoption SW. Today also just happens to be Chinese Moon Festival. James bought moon cakes from our local Asian grocer. *Wishing I'd taken pictures of the visit, oops for afterthoughts. We had a great evening of moon cakes, tea and lots of stories of this past year with our two newest and oldest kids to share with our SW. We loaded her up with pictures to include for the final Ch!N@ post-adoption update. The kids had a great year in pictures. Don't worry she will be our Clinical Social Worker for Bella's adoption as well...so we will still see her. :) Jan is like an extension of our family with all her strengths, concern, intuitiveness and blessed help. The evening went well, everyone interacted including the boy, and we had a great final visit and a wonderful Moon Festival.

Happy Gotcha Day, Happy Gotcha Day!!

The Grandparents were able join us from out of state, to Celebrate the 1st Anniversary "Forever Family" Dinner for Athena and Scott (Our two Newest, yet Oldest kids).

We started off with the famous Pu Pu Platter... MMmm!!we enjoyed our dinner, traditional family style... a smorgasbord of Chinese indulgences for all to share. Athena can slurp a mean noodle, and fast! ~But... ...Scott, he is the original "noodle" charmer :o). and little Hannah most definitely enjoyed her new brother and sister's "family" evening out!