Fundraiser Success!!

This Christmas season someone from our small group (home group) decided that she wanted to make a fundraiser to help save up for our little Jeremy. It was a Christmas cookie sale that she set up. She told people about it from our church and we told our friends. It was all very organized and we made a lot of money. We all are very thankful for all the people who put the effort into helping us bring our baby home!

This Christmas we got the cutest toys for Jeremy. It made me feel so good that people are so excited for Jeremy to come home that they are already bringing him gifts!! We got a kitty cat piano and a little tricycle. Thank you all for the toys! He will love them! Oh yeah almost forgot to mention, me and Julia did the honors of opening the gifts. LOL

One Child at a Time

This is a persuasive essay that I wrote for my English class in school. Hope you like it!

At this moment 500,000 social orphans wait in our foster care systems. Every 18 seconds a child becomes an orphan without parents and every 15 seconds a child looses a mother or father from AIDS. One and a half million children are living in public care in Eastern and Central Europe alone with no one. Over 120,000 children in U.S. foster care are waiting to be adopted. Does this look like an orphan crisis? Yes, it does. I believe adopting orphans is very important. About 143 million orphans are in the world and they need our help. Together we can adopt and save the hungry orphaned
children!

Night after night you climb into your bed and wait for your parents to come and kiss you goodnight. Every child knows a kiss goodnight is very special. It's like a silent "I love you". It is always a big deal. There is some sort of comfort in it. You know your parents will come, so you just wait. Imagine being an orphan. You get into the crib or bed that you share along with 2 or 3 other kids. You don't wait for a goodnight kiss because you never get one. Or maybe you wait but you know deep down it's not coming. By adopting, you can give a child hope. They will be able to finally wait for their silent "I
love you". They will have a family to love and support them. They will feel like their life has meaning and they won't be alone.

Orphans are at risk of becoming victims of violence, exploitation, trafficking and other abuses. Many people are scared or upset about things like this, yet they just sit and don't do anything about it. A way to help decrease the violence and abuses is by adopting a child, so when they get older they won't be involved in these things. If many orphans are involved in these abuses and violence then by adopting, less people will be. When children are adopted their parents can teach them what's right and wrong and protect them.

Adopting is important. It gives a child a home and a family to love and care for them. In reality, adopting a child is probably one of the best things you will ever do in your lifetime!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We've had a great Christmas so far. We got up and talked about the birth of the only and only Jesus Christ. Then we went and opened the presents. We all were really happy that we were all together for Christmas, but sad that our little Jeremy wasn't. : ( We were all a little disappointed but we can't wait 'til next Christmas when Jeremy will be with us.

Wednesday night we watched A Home for the Holidays. Oh my gosh. It was sad. I wasn't crying, but my eyes were watery. My mom was crying. All those kids in foster care need a home. It made me feel so grateful for the kind and loving parents I have. I pray one day those kids will be able to say the exact same thing.

Well have to go. Merry Christmas!!!! Wish you all the best!

Steven Curtis Chapman on Good Morning America

Steven Curtis Chapman on Healing After Death of Daughter, New Album - ABC News

This is a video of Steven Curtis Chapman on Good Morning America.

A Home for the Holidays

This Wednesday watch A Home for the Holidays on CBS featuring Faith Hill. This TV special is celebrating the families who adopt and the children still waiting in the foster care systems. Carrie Underwood, Shakira and Reba McEntire are going to be performing live.

Be sure to watch it! It will be awesome!!!

Rockefeller Center, New York City

On Friday, December 4, 2009 my family and I went to Times Sqaure and met friends of ours at Toys R US. They have adopted two girls from China and now are waiting for their 3rd. We have so much fun with their family. Their little girls who are 7 and 6 are so cute! We all get along so well and I love spending time with them. We went on the giant ferris wheel in the store and then went out to eat at this really good restaurant called Tony DiNapoli's. After that we went to go see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and then went to the American Girl Store and looked at the windows at Sacks Fifth Avenue. The tree was beautiful and huge as always and we took A LOT of pictures! Here are some of the pictures we took:

I wish I still could go on my Dad's shoulders.

Mommy and Daddy!!! (Janet and Jim)

This is me and my sis. Sister Power!

This is me and my sister in front of some lights that we passed by.

This is the beautiful tree that we went to see. It was so big and the lights were really pretty.

This is me and my family : )

This is the tree and the fountain on the skating rink. It was a nice view looking down at the skating rink and watching the people skate.

We also went to M&M's World. It was so fun!!!!

M&M's World had a lot of M&Ms in all different colors and everything.

Hello Pre-Aproval!

We got our pre-approval! We all are very excited! This is now one more step towards getting our referral acceptance! YAY! It was supposed to take a month but it took us only 2 weeks! We are ahead which is a great thing! Soon we will be getting our little boy! We all hope to see him soon and we pray for him to be treated really good. It could be 3-6 months until we get our travel approval. I hope it will be sooner than 6 months but whatever God wants is fine with me!

On December 3 it was my sisters 9th birthday. She had a great time and we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet (of course!!!!!). We had a great time eating......and for the record.........Julia didn't even eat the Chinese food! She did have dessert though. Haha...