Mack - 13 months!

Introducing Mack-March 2010

Since I wrote in November a lot has happened. Duh! And really I wouldn't even know how to give a lot of details, so the short list is Christmas, my brother's wedding, gymnastics meets, volleyball games, swim meets, Dave and Cole and Piper's birthdays and our spring break! But, most importantly we were "matched" with our 5th blessing. A little boy, from China!!!!! I wrote that we began our second adoption last spring and Dec. 16th we received our referral. It was the day before my brother's wedding!

His name is Guo Yu Hui. He was born Feb. 9, 2009. He was born with bilateral cleft lip and palate. It was corrected on Oct. 9, 2009. On Dec. 16th we accepted him into our family and we are waiting to find out more information on him. We named him Mack Andrew Nicholson. He will be 2 1/2 years younger that Luke!

We are waiting to see when we will be able to go and get him! Hoping that it will be June. We have Luke potty trained and out of the crib waiting the arrival of "baby maaa" this is Luke's interpretation. Need to work on the hard consonants!

We have asked for post surgery pictures, but have not seen anything. As soon as we have more information we will post it! Please pray for the details as you think about us. Dave and I will most likely make this trip ourselves. It is exciting and overwhelming thinking about working out all the details.

3 Years Old!

Oct. 20 we celebrated Luke's 3rd Birthday. This day was actually uneventful. The day before my Grandma had surgery and she was in the ICU so postponed the party a few days so there would be more time to enjoy it. We had brunch and enjoyed a couple hours together on Sat. morning. I can't believe he is 3 already. This year has gone so fast. His birthday was Thomas the Train. Everything he does is about trains. He loves them. Sometimes he wants to sit at the computer and watch Thomas the train videos on Youtube. I don't mean show I mean kids taping their real thomas the train tracks with the trains sitting on them. Really....The other kids are so great. Cole is almost half way through his Junior year. We went to our first College Fair the other week. That was weird and exciting. Shelby just finished her Freshman Volleyball season. She is doing great in high school and Piper is really busy with school and gymnastics. She also has a lead part in the church Christmas play. We will be looking forward to that. Dave is well and we are all enjoying the fall time in Illinois!

Our Homestudy is done. We sort of sat on it a few weeks for personal reasons, but finally finished all the forms. Now it will be translated by our agency and shortly sent to China. After that we wait for a Log In Date which is the beginning of the real waiting time. God is totally in control of the timing and we are just following through with our responsibilities.

There is lots to look forward to in the next couple months. I will be more diligent with postings. Thanksgiving, Christmas play, my brothers wedding, Christmas. Hope everyone enjoys these fun family times!

So Big!

Just a little update on Luke. He is having a great summer of "growing up" and learning lots of new things. He swims like a fish-almost by himeself. It's so great! We joke about taking him to the pool last summer in China thinking he was going to be scared and he just threw his head under without even flinching! He's jumping on the trampoline, hitting his baseball and going to speech every other week.

Just wanted to say Thanks to Orlando for the bike to practice on! The leg strength is almost there!!!!