Wow.

Ok, you NEED, NEED, NEED to read this blog: The Journey

It is about an amazing young woman who...well...you're just going to have to go and read it. She's simply amazing. And I am WAY humbled by how God is using her. I know it may seem long, but go back to 2007 when she started it. Who am I kidding? You'll read two posts and want to go back just to get the full story.

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IF you do your homework and read this blog (notice I said, IF) then I'll reward you with pictures of the girls' first pumpkin carving experiences and Halloween. Ok, now go and do your assignment!

They grow up TOO fast....

The girls have been talking, talking, singing, and talking some more. Tony and I just giggle/laugh/choke every time they say something new and exciting. Before I forget all of these precious things though, I need to document them. So really, my friends, this post is for them. For their on-line baby blog book of sorts. Some more fun milestones to document. But if it interests you, read on!

• Abby's all-time favorite song is "Five Little Monkeys" and she sings it with such joy and enthusiasm, that one cannot help but sing along, She LOVES the part where the doctor says, "NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!" and we know she loves it because it is often recited at level 10 volume and with such inflection. It's a riot. That's not even the best part though. The best part is when she says doctor. All you hear is the "ct" part. Ok, say doctor aloud. The "ct" part sounds throaty and German. Like a "kt". Well she gets into it and you hear, "Mama called the "kt-r" and the "kt-r" said...you know the rest. Tony and I were in TEARS the other day at this little Chinese American girl in our backseat emphatically singing this song sounding SO German! If I can figure out how to upload a video, we'll post it. You, too, will laugh.




• Another Abby-ism. The girls both want to take a turn praying before lunch and bedtime. Well, Laney got smart and asks to pray first for lunch. She figures she'll get to eat sometime that same day if she prays first. See, Abby is our little preacher. She's a walking-talking-two-year-old Holy Spirit. She prays...and is SO thankful for everything. Her prayers are about 10 minutes long (ok, I exaggerate, but they're long). At bedtime, she always says, "Thank you Jesus for my bamily (family). Thank you for Doug, Theresa, Evelyn, Carter, Jessica, Jiselle, Mickey Mouse, Tigger, Gigi, Mimi..." You get the picture. Sometimes, even Mama and Baba get remembered! And I say she's a little Holy Spirit because she convicts you if you forget a part of your prayer. When Tony and I pray before or after them, Abby always chastises us if we forget to say thank you for our family. Goodness, that little sweetheart. She is amazing and I pray that she, and Laney, grow up into powerful women of God. God's gotta be thrilled that she's showing us the way already!
  



• How's Laney doing, you might ask? I'll share two Laney-isms. Of course the girls are two, AND sisters so they're bound to argue. Well, when they fight, we have been dealing with a four letter word flying from their mouths. (I KNOW! And I was just talking about how holy they are!) Well, this four letter word is "MINE!" So, Tony and I have been responding, "No, now, mine is an ugly word. We do not use that here. Besides, that toy (doll, etc.) isn't 'mine', it's ours! We share!" Oh that Laney-Mei. She uses that against us at every opportunity. The other day Tony had some candy or something and she reached for it. He said, "No, Laney, that's mine." She immediately responded, "No Baba, it's not mine, it's OURS!" HOW the world can you argue with that?




• She has also been surprising us with some of her newly learned manners. She is getting really good at asking politely for something, or to do something. She will sweetly say "May I sit there?" or "May I help you LaLa?" or "May I have that please?" She especially turns on the charm when it's something she wants and was told she couldn't have. We're in big trouble with that girl. She's two, remember?
  
  


Here's Abby showing off her big girl bed!



• Life in the big girl beds is slowly taking shape. When Tony took off the side of Laney's crib, she yelled, "Oh no! Baba broke the bed!" :) I'll be honest, when we set the cribs up (ok, Tony set them up, I cried) I was really sweating it. Everyone gave us horror stories. Now, mind you, I'm not naive. I know that there will be a time we'll smack ourselves for not leaving them in cribs till they're 20, but for now, it has been great. In the mornings when they wake up, how great is it to just yell, "Good morning! Come in Mama and Baba's bed!" and NOT get up? And bless their hearts. Other than that first night of telling them not to get out of bed without letting us know, we haven't mentioned it. Well, Abby chucked her glow worm out the other day and would NOT get out of bed to get it. So I just told her, no, you threw it out, so it's out. (I didn't remind her that she could get up to get it.) Laney just told her, "La La, Baby Bug is sleeping on the floor tonight!" And tonight, it was too funny because one of them was yelling from their room, "Where is my ribbon blanket?" I told them to look for it, and within a minute we heard in a sing-song voice "Ribbon blanket, where aaaarrrrreeee youuuuu?" Yep, we both laughed aloud. How cute is that?
  
  
  

Laney LOVES the little rails on her bed! Abby's bed style didn't have them. Good thing both beds are low to the ground!


• Tony wanted me to document that Laney is becoming more and more like her Mama. The other day when he was taking them to the sitter (which he does every day--gets them dressed too! THANK YOU LORD, for this man) they pulled up to a stoplight. Well, evidently Laney thought they had waited long enough and yelled, "GO Baba!" He had to explain how he had to wait until the light turned green. Hehe, so she doesn't have the patience of a saint, neither do I!
  
  
• One last thing. The girls are starting to get that they were born in China. Occasionally we'll ask them where they were born and they'll say, "In a airplane. Baba got sick" Heheh. Yeah, well.... :) But recently, when a friend of ours, Patti, had her mom and dad here, the girls really took to them. At church this past weekend, they asked for hugs from the girls because they were going home. I told Abby they had to drive back home to Canada, where they are from. She looked at me funny, so I asked her, where are you from? She said, "China!" YAY! And if you ask Laney where she lives now, she'll say, "In-knee-ana" YAY!
  

Well, that's it for now. We'll have more to post soon because we're slowly approaching the one year anniversary for our Family Day. The day God chose to unite us in China. I am super emotional about it, and about everything tonight, so it's good that I'm not posting about it. I'd be a blubbering fool. I just wanted to get these fun, growing up moments down on paper. :)

Laney has been experimenting with facial expressions lately. Here's one of the common ones we see now. Dang, she's cute even with a little snoot!

Abby came out of the restroom the other day looking like this. Can you see what's a little off in this picture? Yes, yes, the belly is adorable and kissable! However, look closer. She put her jeans on backwards! To some of you, big deal, but in our family, it's a hoot! The girls' Aunt Nae Nae use to do that when she was younger. If she had jeans on that didn't have front pockets, she'd problem solve! Turn those babies around! I immediately had to snap a picture for Renee! Love you Renee!

I have been tagged!

Well, this is my first time of playing "Blogger Tag". I guess we will have to see how I do. I was tagged by JEN, at to list 7 random/weird facts about myself. Oh my, I feel so vulnerable!

1. I LOVE avocados! I would eat them like apples if the outside wasn't so yucky!

2. I know just about every line to the movie, "Pretty Woman"--sad, huh?

3. My underclothes MUST match my outer clothes! :)

4. I would secretly love to be a speaker at conferences. About what? Not sure, so guess that won't work!

5. My alarm is set for 5:15, but I don't get up until 6:30 (or whenever the girls get me up) and I STILL run late!

6. I'm ultra competitive and spoiled, therefore I cheat. I cheat at checkers, Monopoly, and whatever game I'm challenged in. Anyone up for some UNO?

7. I am obsessed with my daughters looking nice! No, I mean it. I need therapy, I swear!

Ok, there they are. Seven revealing facts about yours truly! Now, my goal is to get Tony to do this too.

So now I must tag 7 others..............

Sarah-Are We There Yet?
April-Miles and Miles to Mylei
Beth-Not of This World
Robin-Journey to Lyra
Vickie-Expanding our Family
Mary Mia-Salsa in China
Melissa-It's All About Caitlyn

Ok, my friends...TAG! YOU'RE IT!

My little cuties

Ok, I took some adorable pics of the girls enjoying some popsicles a few days ago, but those can be saved for chilly day in December. We have some way better pics to share.

We are lucky enough to have traveled to China with several wonderful families We have stayed in contact with several of them and really treasure their friendships. One family, Scott and Tina Ferrell were traveling to bring home their second daughter when we went to China! It was so nice to have their expertise in Guangzhou. They hooked us up with a laundry service, and they showed us the path to the cheap, wait, affordable squeaky shoes!

More than that, they've been available to listen to our questions, and rejoice in our victories. Well, their greatness doesn't end there. They also just happen to be phenomenal photogs! Since they were traveling to Indy (from Ohio) to do several other photo shoots, they offered to stop by and snap some pics of the girls and catch up. The slide show you see below are those pics. Some are posed, some are just spur-of-the-moment shots. Honestly, I love them. If I didn't, you'd never see them. I usually hate myself in pics, but there's just something about being in a picture with my family. My girls. My husband. It helps ease the self-loathing.

So, thank you Scott and Tina! We had big fun playing at the park with you. We need to do it more often! Want to see their other work? Check out: http://capturedmemoriesphotography.zenfolio.com/

(To the family---you WILL get copies!!! Relax!!!)

If it doesn't load, click "View all pictures" you'll see them there.

D.C., Angels, Jeff Gordon and Post Placement...

Hello! We're sorry for the long delay between posts. The little twinsters have kept us more than busy. When Rett posted the last time we were in our nation's capitol. Here is the story.


A few weeks ago I received a call from our Congressman's office. The gentleman on the line said that Congressman Pence had nominated us to be recognized as Angels in Adoption through the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. As a result, we were invited to D.C. to attend a series of events and be recognized as Angels in Adoption along with about 179 others from across the United States. Since we had about a week or two to plan for the trip we spent a ton of time on the web researching flights, hotels and etc... We finally decided to drive (the Jeep got an impressive 22 mpg, not bad for an "evil gas guzzler" SUV) and stay over on the way there and way back.


We made the trek there and we stayed at the Hyatt on Capitol Hill per a recommendation from Debbie in the Congressman's office. It was a perfect place to stay. We could see Union Station from our hotel and when we walked out the front door we could see the Capitol Building. This was convenient because all of our events took place in the general area (and Union Station had plenty of shopping and food all within walking distance).


We arrived on Sunday and walked around the area and ate at Union Station. On Monday we took an open air double decker bus tour. We were able to see all the sights in a very convenient way. On Monday afternoon we learned that there was a change in venue for the Monday evening event that we had planned to attend. Unfortunately, due to the change, we could not bring the girls. But it all worked out for the best. Our good friends Tony and Treva took a train in to D.C. from Baltimore to have dinner with us. We had a great time and we appreciate them taking the time to do this.
On the bus getting ready for the tour.
On Tuesday we took a cab to the Hart Senate Office Building where the main event was held where all of the Angels were to receive their certificate and pin. This too ended up being changed to another location, luckily to the Russel Senate Office Building next door. As a result, we were able to cruise around two Senate office buildings (and the tunnels below them). The event was fun and the girls were very well behaved.

After the Angels Ceremony

After the event we ventured out to go to Congressman Pence's Office. The Congressman's office offered to take us on a tour of the Capitol Building and Congressman Pence was going to meet us at the Capitol Building for some photos. When we arrived at his office we met another couple from our hometown! Imagine that. They were going to be on the same tour. When we arrived in the Congressman's office the girls took over (see photos). But don't worry, they didn't use the red phone on his desk. The girls posing in front of Congressman Mike Pence's desk while Abby wonders what she can get into next...

Counting the starts on the Congressman's rug...

The tour of the Capitol Building was great. It was nice having a personal tour with just two other families. We met the Congressman on the steps of the Capitol for photos. Once inside he took us on part of the tour. Cool stuff!! We were able to sit in the gallery of the House chambers and watch the debate on the proposed offshore drilling bill. We were able to see and learn many unique things about the Capitol.



On the way out we had a brush with a celebrity, sort of... Everyone was very nice and held doors for us since we were pushing a double stroller with sleeping twins. As we exited the Capitol some nice people held the door for us. When we arrived at the bottom of the ramp, Ryan, the Congressman's staffer, asked if we saw who held the door open for us? We said no, we were trying to get the girls maneuvered out the door. He informed us that Jeff Gordon (the driver of the #24 Dupont Chevrolet) held the door open for us! I hopped on a nascar website later and there was a story about Gordon being at the Capitol Building that same day...it was Jeff Gordon.



The trip was great and the recognition was an honor! Thank you Congressman Pence. Although the girls may not remember the trip, we took tons of pictures and we will tell them about the royal treatment they received when they get older.



Shifting gears...we have some other exciting news. Last Friday we went to Indy to our home study agency. We met with them so they could complete our final post placement report. It is due on the date we met the girls so we had to meet now so the report could be generated, translated and sent to China. It is hard to believe it has almost been a year with the girls!



Below are some photos of our trip. Enjoy. We promise to provide the next update in a more timely manner. Thanks for stopping in...

The girls wondering what the big deal is...a bunch of old buildings?

The trip is fun, but we like the simple things in life like a good book.