Home for a year!!!

As of October 1st, 2011 we have officially had our sweet Sara home for a year! She is truly amazing, as are all of our girls!! It is unbelievable what a hand God has in adoption. There is not another baby in the world that He could have placed more perfectly into our family. Lauren and Caroline are the best big sisters EVER and Sara simply ADORES them!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, God, for having such a wonderful plan for our lives! We love you so much!! :)

We've Been Home 6 Months!!!

Home for 6 months already???? It seems like we just got home, and it seems like she's been with us forever!! This has been such a wonderful time for our family. Sara has done so wonderfully and is loved by so many people!! Her sisters absolutely adore her and spoil her rotten. They are such great help! We are about to go on our 2nd camping trip since Sara has been home and she is so excited! Every time you go into the camper she gets excited. It's going to be great!!! She is finally starting to walk with more confidence, so she wants down all the time now. I am definitely getting a work out chasing her around!! I still pray for her birthmother quite frequently. Especially when I am rocking her to sleep and just looking at her precious face. We are eternally grateful to her and sad that she had to make the decisions that she did. I just wish she could have a little glimpse into Sara's life to know how much she is loved!!

Wow! Time is flying by!!

I cannot believe we have been home almost 3 months already!! It has truly been 3 of the best months ever! Lauren and Caroline are so very, very happy to have their precious baby sister to play with, care for, and love. They are the most awesome big sisters EVER!! It is amazing how different it is this time around since we have so much help!

We have been having so much fun ever since we came home. Our camping trip was so much fun, and Halloween was great as well!!

Now, we are preparing to enjoy our first Christmas as a complete family of five. I am so excited! We have already had two wonderful family Christmas parties that were full of fun and precious memories. Tomorrow we will start out with our traditional country ham breakfast at our Aunt and Uncle's house, then that night we will bake Jesus' birthday cake and leave a piece for Santa. I think I may be more excited than the kids are!!

We are so thankful for everything that has taken place over the past five years. We are thankful that God's timing is always best. We think we need things NOW, but God always knows just what and when things are right for his plan. We are so thankful for his plan and for Sara being a part of it. She has truly made our family complete.

I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas celebrating the wonderful birth of our precious Savior!! Merry Christmas!!

We Made It Home!!!

Well, we did it!! 6 planes, 1 typhoon, and 1 train later we are finally home sweet home with our little sweet bundle and our family is complete. We are happier than we've ever been. In New Jersey, just when we were in line to board, our plane got delayed from leaving at 6 to leaving at 8. I cried! Then it changed to 8:30, then 9. I was having a heart attack thinking it was about to cancel, when they finally found a pilot and we began to board - praise GOD!!!! I was so upset because my wonderful family had planned a welcome home party at our house and I just knew it was ruined because it would be so late!! My sweet Mom just comforted me and said not to worry, that we would just figure things out and I just needed to get on that plane and get home safely, so that's what I tried to do!! Sara slept during that whole flight, so I was able to catch a little sleep too. When I woke up, I looked out that plane window and I knew that the lights I could see below were the lights of Nashville, TN. I just asked John to please hand me the tissues. Tears just streamed down my cheeks. I couldn't believe that we were FINALLY going to be home! He just smiled at me because he knows that I cry at everything, but when the wheels touched down, we were BOTH crying!! The word "thankful" can't even describe how we feel for all that has happened. We are just overwhelmed with emotions! When we got off the plane we had to quickly change Sara's clothes, then we walked down the path until we got to where our WONDERFUL friends and family were waiting at 10:30 p.m.!! I just cried and cried as I hugged everyone and they just loved on that sweet baby. After we visited for a while, most of us went back to our house and even though it was 1 in the morning, we still had our party!! It was great! They had the cutest cake for us, balloons, and signs!! It was so very, very sweet! I have the BEST family in the whole entire world!! They all worked together to give us the best welcome home party ever! I cannot thank them enough!! :) Thanks to ALL of you for all of your thoughts and prayers during this entire journey. I know that many of you have followed us through it all and we really appreciate it! I can't wait for you all to meet little miss Sara because she is so precious! :)

We take the train to Hong Kong TODAY!

Well, we've done so many things the past few days, and it is finally time to begin our journey home!! After four and a half years, we finally crossed our last hurdle yesterday at the American Consulate in Guangzhou. It was a bit emotional knowing that we are finally done. As we stood there with our right hands raised saying our oath, we knew that it was finally official, and Sara will finally be a U.S. citizen the moment we step into the airport in New Jersey. That brought tears to our eyes!! We can't wait to walk off of the airplane and know that Sara will have the freedom that our country provides! We have learned so much over the last two weeks, and we have truly come to appreciate the freedom more than ever and are SO happy that she will have that opportunity. It's easy to sit back and take it for granted until you actually spend time in another country for a short while and learn what it is like for them.

Well, on a lighter note, we took a pearl river cruise last night that was very beautiful. The lights of the city were so pretty! The food was not exactly homecooking, but I survived on the noodles and rice and just passed over the chicken feet! lol We are leaving today at 4:15 to take the train to Hong Kong where we will spend one night. Tomorrow morning our flight leaves at 10:35 for New Jersey! (15 and a half hours on a plane with an 8 month old baby!! YAY!!!) I don't really care though- I'll do anything to get home to my other babies!! After our 4 hour layover in New Jersey, we are Tennessee bound!!! Please pray for the trip because it's gonna be rough!! But that's okay because we can do it!! We love you all and can't wait to see you VERY SOON!!! :)

Only 3 full days left!

Okay, we only have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday left, and then we fly home Friday! We can hardly believe it! We have learned so much and had a lot of valuable time together! This time bonding with Sara has been more than amazing! Words cannot even begin to describe the emotions we have felt over the last 2 weeks. Adoption truly is a gift from God that is such a great opportunity for so many families. It has been exciting to watch the other families with their babies and see how much the babies have opened up and changed in only a week and a half.
They all seem so happy and just know how much their mommas and daddies love them already. It is just really neat how God has taken this trip and strategically planned it so that we got all of the hard part over with first, then just opened it up for us to see the reasons why we are here and let us appreciate being here rather than just complaining the whole time. We still really, really, really do miss our Lauren & Caroline, the rest of our family and friends, and Tennessee in general, but we have come to appreciate being here and enjoying the time that we have here. Thanks for the prayers and encouraging words that have gotten us to this point! We love you all and can't wait to see you all and share lots of stories and pictures very soon! :)

We are soooo thankful for Guangzhou, China!

Well, we made it to Guangzhou yesterday around 3:30 or so. It was one of the best feelings so far of the whole trip. I think it comes in 3rd, right behind the McDonald's fries! When we were driving into town and discovering the differences between here and Nanchang, we were beyond excited! We didn't hear constant horn blowing or see total filth everywhere! What a great feeling! Just when we thought we were happy, it got even better...we turned the corner and saw our hotel. We realized our hotel is right beside McDonald's (I already had a heads up on that one) AND has a Starbucks right inside!!! The whole bus was so excited! The others in our group couldn't get their bags down there fast enough to get to their Starbuck's! Today we went to Shamian Island and had the medical exams done. That was an absolute madhouse, but it went well. It was EXTREMELY crowded because today was the first day it has been opened since the Autumn Moon holiday. We had to wait forever, and there were people everywhere. Now I just hope we didn't pick up any germ souvenirs while we were in there. It was funny because when the Americans would finish and leave the building, you would see them start taking out wetwipes and wiping everything down. Sara weighed 17.7 ponds, and she did great!! :) We are about to leave at 4:30 to go to another meeting where we will turn in more paperwork for Sara's visa. Busy, busy, busy!!! Well, we are now more than halfway done with our journey!! It started out rocky, but now it's getting better!! Thanks so much for all of your thoughts and prayers!! Please continue! We love you all and miss you! :)