One Year Ago

January 22 will always be an important date in my family. It was the day we accepted Princess' referral. Today she is a happy, healthy, full of life, into everything toddler.




Princess wasn't always the happy girl she is today. I believe when we accepted her referral her life and future were very fragile. To understand how far she has come you have to see where she was. The pictures below were her referral pictures. The one in the red shirt is still painful to look at. I think this was before her heart surgery. She was a very sick little girl. I post these not to make people feel sad or bad. I post them because I get so many emails from people who are considering adopting children with cleft lip and palate or congenital heart disease. It is hard to imagine a child who is malnourished and sick thriving a few short months later. My girl, like so many other special needs babies, is no doubt, a miracle.

Why China?

I'm talking about why we went to China at www.thinkchristian.net

Check it out over there and join in on the conversation!

Battle!

Princess has discovered swords.

These were once banned in my house. As were guns, camouflage, and any other war-like toy. But when my oldest started school he was the only boy in the class without a water gun. So he built them out of paper, Lego's, blocks, and anything else he could get his hands on. So my husband decided that Joshua was getting a water gun and then he wouldn't be so obsessed with them.

He was right.

And over the years our arsenal has grown. We now have enough "weapons" for a party of 20. They are mostly Nerf, and I still insist if it looks real it can't come home with us. The boys battle every night. And Princess has started to join in. She whacks them on the head, it's ever so gently because she is so tiny, and they fall down and play dead.

Tonight this went on for hours. And they giggled and giggled and giggled.

Dare I say they are siblings who like (notice not LOVE) each other. Love and like are two different things. Like means they want to spend time with each other, they want to play with each other, they look forward to seeing each other.

When you bring a child home, in your head and heart they are part of the family. Period. But in reality, at least in my house, it has taken time for the kids to adjust and to see her as one of the gang.

She's getting there. She is slowly becoming one of "them."

She's a princess with two princes for brothers. She proudly showed me her Hello Kitty purse today. Inside was a Nerf bullet, a rubber snake, and a Star Wars Lego guy.

That's my girl!