Fu sisters for life

If you have been following my blog, you'll know the story of our dear friends the W's and our connection to them. We unfortunately were not able to travel to China together to bring the girls home but I was able to be a part of Miss E.'s homecoming and it was amazingly wonderful. After several months of our girls being home, they were finally able to meet yesterday. For the very first time. Or maybe not? Who knows, Angie and I like to think they crossed paths while in Fuzhou.

Anywho, what a beautiful day we had! It was just remarkable to have the girls together and the older kids played like they were old friends. And the parents sure did lots of talking too :-) It just feels like "home" to be with their family. I can't say that Sunshine and Miss E. were thrilled to play together ... but at least they finally met each other! LOL. They are destined to be forever friends and Fu sisters for life ... we have lots of time :-)

After turning several outtakes into one viable portrait (thank you Photoshop!), we were able to recreate the same group portrait we took back in March when we were only dreaming of holding our girls ... with just teeny pictures of them halfway across the world. At that time, today's reality seemed so far away. Now I look back at that picture and think that it seems like forever ago. Funny how your mind works, isn't it? What's also funny is that the new portrait looks like a boatload more people ... is it just me? The other one looks kind of empty I guess. Welcome home, baby girls. None of us are empty anymore!

PS - "Fu" is a common nickname coined by adoptive parents for all of the kiddos that come from the Fuzhou SWI, where our girls are from. While in China, they are all given the last name "Fu" from the first 2 letters in the city's name. It means "luck" :-)

Dinner time at our house

Dinnertime is like this at your house too, right?! LOL. Total chaos and I love every minute of it :-)

Birthday yogurt

Blowing out a candle in your breakfast yogurt is normal, right? LOL. HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY to my special little Lovebug. I love you to the moon and back!

Sunday Snapshot {So Loved}

I'm not even sure that words can do these portraits justice, so I'll keep it short and simple. Thank you to Jen, a special friend and talented photographer who went out of her way ... you have given us a gift that I will never be able to repay! I am so grateful for the time and energy that you took to create these memories for our new family of 5 ... I know it isn't easy to wrangle 3 kids and make everyone look amazing :-) These are priceless and will forever be a wonderful reminder of God's love for us.

"We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19

Progress & next surgery

Sunshine continues to make slow but steady progress with her physical therapy. I do still feel like there are some days when I am a therapist all day long, but it's working. She is now pulling up on everything, including moving objects like the ride-on toys! She can't pull herself onto them yet, but I'm so impressed that she is pulling up on them - that means she trusts herself enough to balance on them. So cool! She has also started furniture cruising, finally! I never thought I'd be excited about that, but I am! I'm so thrilled to see even the smallest steps :-) She is crawling more too, but her favorite mode of transportation is still the butt scoot. LOL. I'm working on teaching her how to go down the steps on her belly but she seems to favor flying head first instead. Oh boy. It's interesting because she is so reserved in the rest of her life, but happy to plunge head first down the steps. Go figure.

We are 3 weeks out from her next surgery. Ugh. Honestly, I'm dreading it because I know what the recovery was like for the last one. I'll be doing a lot of prayer for patience and grace, I'm sure. This next one is a final, cosmetic lip repair. The surgeon will also do some nose work, although she will most likely need a nose revision around Kindergarten. And because this surgery is the cosmetic fix, the surgeon uses plastic surgery sutures, which do not dissolve and have to be removed under general anesthesia (again) 5 days after surgery. Thinking about that makes me want to cry. She will also have stents stitched into her nose to support the healing process ... they are removed at her one-MONTH follow up appointment while she is awake. That one actually makes me stomach a little woozy. I can usually handle a lot, but I think I might have to leave the room when they strap her into a papoose board for that. Everything is already *so* traumatic for her ... I'm afraid of how she'll handle it.

On the positive side though, she'll have a beautifully-repaired mouth and nose and all will be healed before Christmas. I'm trying to keep things in perspective, but it's so difficult to put your child through something like this! For all of the prayer warriors out there, I'll take all of the prayer I can get! For Sunshine AND for me. LOL.

A little teaser ...

Just one for now ... Can't wait to share the rest for Sunday Snapshot!

And another one bites the dust!

That's #3 for her! There are many more in various stages of "loose" in her mouth but Angel is more of a "let it get so loose that it falls out on it's own" kind of gal. There is absolutely NO wiggling and pulling as far as she's concerned. I can't blame her, I'm sure I was the same way.

And YES, I had to bribe her to snap these shots. Why is my beautiful baby girl so hard to take pictures of?! Maybe it's an independence thing but it is extremely frustrating!

Day off!

The kids had the day off from school today. That meant pajamas and a slow, laid-back kind of day. We started with making biscuits. Angel helped me roll the dough, Lovebug helped put them on the tray :-)

And Sunshine helped a ton by playing with the leftover dough. Doesn't it seem like that last bit of dough just rolls out forever and ever? I solved that by turning it into a toy. Check out the video of her playing with it, she is such a hoot!

Once it was time to eat, as per usual, the below shot is what I got of Angel. LOL. Why, oh why, does she not like having her picture taken?!

Once I bribed her by threatening to eat her biscuits, I got a sorta smile. LOL. Food works magic.

We spent the rest of the day chillaxin and playing. I adore having ALL of the kids home with me, seriously adore it.

She cracks herself up

I admit, I grabbed a few minutes of editing time while I gave Sunshine a snack (I am crazy busy this week!). I was sitting right there with her, promise!! Anywho, a few minutes into her snack, she just started laughing hysterically. If you have heard her laugh in person or on video, you know how funny it is. LOL. So I looked up at her to find that she had put a hole through a piece of bread and then put her sippy spout through said hole. LOL. Ohhh was she proud of herself. And she thought her new creation was pretty awesome. Love this kid!!!

Grace

G.R.A.C.E.

I know that most people will just see 3 siblings playing nicely together here in these snapshots. And sure, on the surface, that works. But I see more. I see two older siblings showing grace to their youngest sibling as they teach her how to play with a new "toy" ... I see grace bubbling out of the youngest sibling as she patiently sits on her older sister's lap (something she typically scoots away from!) and learns. I see God's grace shining down on our family for giving us this beautiful moment, albeit brief. I see three siblings that are bonded to the core - not simply 2 siblings that are trying to figure out how to include another child (and oppositely, a singular child that is trying to fit in). When I snag a glance of all 3 of the kids playing and learning together so well, it makes my heart melt and I know that all of the work is worth it. Oh my God is so good.

The pumpkin patch via the iPhone

We went on a Pumpkin Patch field trip with Lovebug's Pre-K class today - so fun! The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. I nicely asked (begged) my dad to come along for (moral) support. LOL. I wore Sunshine in the sling, and Lovebug is such a good little guy, that I think I actually could have done it myself. But I always look for a good excuse to bring my parents along to anything! They are so amazing with the kids and it's pretty awesome to hang out with them anyway :-)

So I was doing pretty well until I realized, halfway to the patch, that I left my camera at home. *So* close to remembering everything. Oh well. You still get the idea with my grainy, very blue iPhone pictures :-)

She said MAMA!!!!!

Sorry, that's an old picture - I shot it over a month ago (you can even still see the stitches in her lip and she doesn't have any molars!). But I didn't have an image to go with this blog post and needed one! And I promise, she does not spend all of her time in the high chair, despite what the most recent pictures of her may lead you to believe. It's just the easiest place for me to keep her still! LOL.

Anyway - YES, she said MAMA ... deliberately! She pointed to a wedding picture of me & DH and said "Mama!" Not like, "mamamamamamamama" like kids do. But a deliberate "Mama" ... oh bestill my heart. What an amazing goose bumpy kind of moment. God is so good.