Celebrations

This weekend my brother and I threw a party to honor our parent's 40th wedding anniversary. Many relatives were able to come and help us celebrate this wonderful milestone. I'm so proud that my parents have stayed lovingly committed to each other for four decades. I'm glad that Sarah was home to be a part of this - it is part of her legacy. (BTW - she is dressed in a H'mong dress that we bought while we were in Sapa, Vietnam. Seeing her in it brought back so many wonderful memories of our crazy adventures - including the night train - that we had.)

Sarah had a chance to play with 5 of her second cousins. Many people don't believe me that Sarah ever cries. So.... here's proof that she is just a normal kid. Despite how it may look, she actually had a lot of fun playing with her cousins. It was just way past nap time when this picture was taken. Five out of the six kids pictured here came to our family through adoption.

These 'boot'ies were made for walking!! It has been a week since Sarah took her first independent steps and she is still going strong. She can now make it across a small room before stumbling or sitting down. The shoes on the left are the ones that I bought for Sarah when we first got home (1st week of October). The pair on the right are the ones I just bought for her a week ago. Look at how much just her foot has grown! She's growing up (sniff, sniff).

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Baby Steps

I'm happy to announce that at the tender age of 18.5 months Sarah took her first independent steps. On Sunday she took 3 steps on her own (before face-planting) - and she did this twice. Yesterday she took 5 steps on her own (while drinking milk from her bottle) before she sat down. I can't officially say that she is walking, but we are making great progress! She is such a joy! Despite the ups and downs of the adoption process, it has been an incredible ride. We are privileged to call Sarah our own.

Random Pictures - pre and post Christmas

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What a difference a year makes!

Tomorrow Michael and I will take Sarah to a reception for Ha Crick, Dillon International's in-country director. We attended last year's reception for Ha with many of the same couples we will see again tomorrow (the Le's, Perryman's, Sweet's...). This time last year we were waiting on pins and needles to hear news of the liscense so that we could recieve a referral. It was going to come "any day." Well, it didn't come until mid-spring! But, this year we are all returning to the same location to see Ha with our babies in hand! I can't tell you how wonderful that feels!!! The Lord is so good and gracious to His children!

We had a fabulous Christmas. It took a while, but Sarah finally got the hang of ripping bows and paper off the packages. I'm sure next year she will be wanting to rip off the paper and bows before Christmas!On the 27th we went with the youth group on the annual ski trip to Colorado. Sarah was amazing on the 16 hour bus trip out and decent on the way home. She is far more patient that I am on long trips. I think the high altitude must have sqeezed everything out of her system, because every diaper we changed in CO had a present in it! The youth are so good with Sarah and she was spoiled rotten with attention. I was able to ski 2 out of the 3 days - thanks to Michael taking a day and Jaclyn taking a day with Sarah. So, I got Mother's-Ski-Day-Out twice. Now....back to reality!