It's A Wonderful Life

I have so many thoughts about things that I want to write about. But most of them would be better with pictures. We just got a new fancy camera and I don't know how to use it. Doug is the photographer of the family and always has been. I love pictures but don't like to miss out on anything by standing on the sidelines. I also see the blogs that have the professional quality pictures and it really puts me to shame. So I guess I just showed my first weakness on the blog. I don't like to take pictures and I haven't had motivation enough to learn how to download them onto the computer, until now. I really want to tell you about our son that is on the International Folk Dance Team at BYU and the tour that they are going on through Northern California next week, but it would be so much better if I could put on some pictures so you could see how great it is. I had my 12 year old son take pictures of some of the process of doing Niya's hair, she is our 8 year o...

Our story with our Chinese children started almost 7 years ago. I had just had a baby. That made 12 children for us. We had 7 children 5 and under at this point. I had a very full plate but loved it. Doug, my husband, was absolutely done and wanted some time for himself at some point in the future. We had been looking for a new home to fit the family for 18 months without much luck. Most large homes are not filled with bed space but extravagant living space. We had 3 children sleeping in our room and no where to expand. With all of this we were still paying off our last adoption and didn't like having the debt. I really understood where Doug was coming from and I had to agree. We were done!!! Isn't 12 children enough? That is not what our Heavenly Father thought. I had an experience that made me wonder if we had a little Asian girl that was to come to our family. I convinced myself that I was just making things up but still couldn't get it out of my mind. A few days later R...

I wanted to add a picture of our sweet little girl. I will add our story later. It's just too late right now and I really need some beauty sleep. I'm finally back. Life sure comes at us fast and very often with great intensity. I truly believe that we all have the abilities to handle the challenges given to us. The problem that I have is knowing when it's OK to say no. I have really wanted to introduce our sweet little princess. She was born in September of 2008. That makes her 2 years old. Her need is one that is very manageable but she will always be visibly different than others. I would not normally announce this to the world but I feel it is better for those that will meet her to be prepared and not noticeably stare. She is missing some fingers and toes but can function as any other child. She has both thumbs so she will be able to do anything that is required of her. We still don't have a name for her. We are desperately looking and can't seem to c...

Here He Is! Our precious little boy. He turned 3 in November and is now waiting for us in China. We have not officially chosen a name for him yet but we are certain that we will not be using his Chinese name. As we have been searching for names and hoping that we could find a Chinese one that we like we found a few that we thought may work. However, while trying it out realized that the name just wouldn't work for one reason or another. The latest one was Bo. I thought it was a good name until someone asked how you spell it. I said "B.O." Well at the laughter I realized that was not going to work so well. So goes the Chinese name this cute little boy has. It is not a name that any good mother would allow their child in America to have. No his name is not BO. We found this little guy through a Yahoo Group that advocates for the waiting children in China. We had found our little girl but knew that we still had a boy to find. After much consideration and a deep urge to go a...

When you have the amount of people in a family that we do it's hard to know where to start. I have decided to start with the basics and go from there. Hopefully in the near future I can make a post about each individual child. They all have some truly amazing gifts to offer our family and the world. I am a proud mother! People always say that if they had kids like mine they would have had more too. Not to fool anyone though, they are human, OK, maybe not Ressa or Tyler, or Sereen, or Creed, or Britt or Pierce or Hannah or Casey or even Niya, Marshall, Emma, Clayson and definately not Malia. Oh, sorry that would mean they are all perfect!;) Our family is unique to say the least. We have 13 children. To answer the next question, 9 biolocigal and 4 adopted. Yes, they are all ours we do not run a daycare. Tyler is our oldest son. He is in college and dances on their International Folk Dance Team. We are excited for him because he will be going to Eastern Europe for a thre...