Thankful Thursday

I am just thankful.
For Life
For the Love I am surrounded with
For my Family
For Anna Grace
For God's Amazing Grace
but especially
For the Miracle of Adoption
For the Miracle of Prayer
And this Week especially
Andrew Hudson

*Gotcha Day : 1-21-10*

Far From Wordless...Wednesday.

There is an orphanage in Beijing China with over 1000 children in it.
There are over 13 million IN China....Over 147 million in the WORLD...
So let me tell you how amazing God works...
In 2007 we traveled to China to get Anna Grace. What an A M A Z I N G travel group we had!
In that travel group our sweet friends that we loved, The P Family, was with us getting THEIR Anna Grace....We did not get to spend a lot of time with them in 2007 because they went to Guangzhou and we went to Chongqing but eventually met up. They were amazing and we loved them. Once we were home with Anna Grace like I had said before we were DONE. Stick a fork in us done. NO. MORE. KIDS. (Hehe I just LOVE God.)
Well in July 09 we decided that we just had to go back and get Jian Hui. I mean Look at that face! Who could ever say no?!? So we started the process again...keeping it low key. Well The P family was starting the process again!! AT THE SAME TIME. OFF THE SAME LIST. SAME ORPHANAGE!!! They were going to get an absolutely beautiful little girl who was 3. She is just beautiful. As is Andrew. Well while we waited, we prayed, met together, let the Anna Graces play and just had fun and supported each other. It was great. See I told you God is good!!!
Well we got to go to China together...AGAIN because we have the same LID and Agency. Pretty amazing.
Once we had the little ones we took Andrew up to their room to play with MollyClaire and she automatically ran to him and hugged and kissed him!! Woww! They then played little sumo wrestlers and made us all but pee ourselves laughing! It was great!
Now that we are home we met up at our house and had a get together...When MC saw AH she ran to him and he about fell off of his car trying to get to her! It was precious! They started talking away and it was amazing.
Kathleen brought her Orphanage Pictures from the camera and My Mom had ours of Andrew. Once we started looking we noticed that they were in the same baby room AND they slept side by side!! OH MY! How awesome is that?!?! God has connected two families and two children who live within 45 minutes of each other!! How AWESOME is he!? I mean seriously?! Who would have ever imagined?!?
So today I leave you with these precious pictures and a reminder of
How Great Our God Really is!!!!

Andrew and MollyClaire!

A Whole Month Ago Today...

A Whole month ago today a little boy that for 3 years was prayed for was placed in our arms.
He had no idea who we were, He didn't know where he was going, he had just left everything he had ever known.
He was so brave. Such a sweet little boy.
He soon came to know we weren't going anywhere and we loved him...dearly.
He has been here in our arms for an entire month.
That is one month he has been with a forever family and out of an orphanage, one month of being rocked to sleep and told "I love you", one month of being forever loved, one month of having a Mommy and a Daddy plus 4 siblings who would do anything for him.
He has changed so much, he has grown, he has changed lives, and has been as big of a blessing as his Mei Mei! Oh we love him!!!
Happy One month Gotcha Day our Sweet, Spicy, Wild, Funny, Princess loving (but hey he is living with the BIGGEST princess lover in the world.), Creative, car-loving, loud, lovable, laughing, smiley little man, Andrew!!!
WE LOVE YOU!!!

How Are We Doing?

That has been our big question.
How are we doing?
In all honesty,
GREAT.

Andrew has blown us completely away with how amazingly well he is doing! He LOVES life. Everything he does is with a smile and that smile can make a room light up. He is the life of the party, like his Mei Mei. Oh and he loves that Mei Mei of his!! He loves to with her and if he and my Dad are going somewhere (taking me to volleyball) he gets all stressed out if she is not in the car with him "Mei Mei seat; Mei Mei seat" it is precious. We took him to the doctor on Monday and he is going to need tubes in his ears, which is normal for cleft babies. His lip/palate look really good and the doctor was very pleased! His speech and language is coming along so great!! He is picking up more and more everyday! I am pretty sure we learned "potty" today! Yay for no more "Now Now" (as we call it.) I am just so blessed to be his Jie Jie!! I love to be with him! He went to "school" with Anna Grace on Valentine's Day and did SO well! Oh My Gosh! He acted like he had always been there! He went in and sat in Mrs. Chasity's lap! It was precious!
Anna Grace is slowly coming to like him more and more. This was SUCH A BIG change for her! She went from being the ONLY baby to Thing 1 and we added Thing 2. She has been a trooper for sure! She has her moments of loving him and moments of not favoring him. The FUNNIEST thing happened the other day....Andrew was yelling in Mandarin and doing something crazy and Anna Grace looks at him, points her finger and yells something to him in "Chinese" we all about died laughing! We asked her what she said and she put her head down and refused to tell us...I wanna know what it is because it works!!! haha. So as you all now know, Andrew is adjusting WONDERFULLY and is a perfect fit for our family! It feels like he has always been here!
Hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!

Too Cute Tuesday

So this Tuesday I had to post about this princess who I think is just oh so cute. I mean seriously she is beautiful, smart, precious, sweet, happy, fun, and just ooh too cute. I took these pictures of her yesterday and fell in love with them! I have to admit I was pretty darn proud of myself too. Not to blow my own horn or anything (woo woo) heh. She and Andrew are doing wonderful but he is just a little bit-ok a lot- harder to take his picture! But he is a boy. Anyways the Princess gladly posed for the pictures..even smiled... (:
Enjoy the pictures of my Princess!

She insisted on having flowers.
Nice Touch Princess (:

Love this smile

Girl loves her Uggs

My Very FAVORITE...EVER.

I love this too.

Strike a Pose
Happy Tuesday!!
off to watch American Idol
hehe

Happy Valentine's Day

*click to enlarge*
from Andrew and Anna Grace
We have now changed to Trucks and Tiaras!
Welcome to the combined blog!

Cuteness is...

this little Chicka right here...I mean is she not precious??

She has done so well with a new little monkey running around her palace.
She has accepted him

With such grace....
it amazes me....

She smiles and Loves.
Oh does she love this little one.

She chooses to smile
and I could not live, breathe, or be productive without her.

Oh adoption.

Such a beautiful miracle.
In which not the child is lucky
but
I am.

As is everyone who meets our little Chicka!
She is spunky,

Beautiful,
and just plain
Lovable.
And because of her,
I am who I am
Today.
I love you sweet girl!

I feel horribly guilty for how I have been as a big sister these past few weeks. I have probably not paid half of the amount of attention to her trying to get to know Andrew. Which is wrong. So wrong. Because he is always going to be here. He is not leaving. Praise the LORD! No, he did take her place.AT.ALL. Yes, I love him just as much as her but no more. She is my sweet Princess. I will always have a special, special place for this sweet little girl in my heart and my arms because she was my first love, my eye opener, the reason that to this day I love Orphans, my heart is for them, She is the reason I am who I am and I want to make sure when she is older she knows that I love her more than myself, the air I breathe and the life I have.
She is my Sweet, Loving, Princess and no one in this world could ever replace my Anna Grace. Ever.
(Oh and PS....Quick Question::: IF I MOVE MY BLOG...WILL YOU COME TO THE NEW ONE?)

Opinion Needed

This is not easy for me, at ALL. It is actually horribly HARD.

We are Home with Andrew now. Happy, YES, happy! We actually could not be any happier besides being over this AWFUL jetlag. (sigh)

But blogs...hmmm.

Well ORIGINALLY I had planned to just make a combined blog and be done with it.

I actually MADE a blog already.

But,

Well,

I LOVE this blog.

It is like my child, my home, my safety, my comfort zone.

Everything I know really.

I am thinking of the lyrics from Taylor Swift's song....

And we know it's never simple never easy

Never a clean break, no one here to save me

You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand

But,

I mean they are both just so cute and now they live together.

We are finally a forever family.

Together.

It just doesn't make sense for me to have two seperate blogs right??

i don't know.

I mean this should be easy but I just LOVE "Ashton's mei mei"

It was my first blog and in my small minded opinion has become quite successful. :)

hehe.

But anyways,

So my question to you, all of my readers, is this

SHOULD I COMBINE BLOGS??

or

SHOULD I JUST STICK WITH TWO??

Red Couch, China 2010

Welcome Home You.....

Welcome Home Andrew Hudson JianHui!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!! You mean so much to us and we are so happy to finally have you home, in our arms, in the sweet USA. (: