Merry Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Meilin's journey home

Here is a video of our journey to bring Meilin home!

Safe In The Arms of Love

Here is a video Reece's Rainbow just finished.  It is beautiful seeing all these children home with their families, where they belong.  At about the 1:10 minute mark is my favorite picture!

Thanksgiving

Meilin's First Thanksgiving!

Pretty sure she was thankful for a lot this year!  We all were and at the top of the list was that she was home finally!

                                     

All of our kids together!!!

Cousins

Meilin, Max and Mia saw the pile and had to climb on top too!

Then there was a fun game of rolling on the floor!

 

This year may not have gone as we planned but we still have so much to be thankful for!  Meilin loved Thanksgiving and everyone there.  She did not seem to be bothered by any of it.  She ate great too and loved all the food.  It is hard to believe that she wasn't even home a week when we went!

Zoo in China

We went to the zoo while we were in China and the kids had a lot of fun.

My little joey's

Can't beat the cute pandas!

The kids favorite part was probably feeding the giraffes!

Especially the baby giraffe!  Adorable

But watch out for the tongue!  Meilin saw it coming and dropped her leaf!

 

I will try to keep posting pics to highlight some of the good times in China!

Home and getting settled.

We finally made it home the night of Nov 23rd.  I had hoped to keep blogging through out our trip and after we got home but the trip didn't go as planned and jet lag got the best of us.

 

The flight was long but we were so happy to be home and seconds away from our family being together.  I will let the pictures tell the rest!

 

Meilin did not mind the attention or all the pictures as you can see!

 

 

It was nice to be home but difficult at the same time.  Their were so many things around the house reminding us that the trip didn't go as planned.  We are still trying to take everything in that happened and figure out why.  I am more at peace each day that we don't and may never have all the answers.  It was such a hard thing to go through.  It left a scar in all of us but we need to move forward.  We need to celebrate Meilin as well and that is what we are doing!

Meilin is doing really well.  Most of the time it feels like she has always been here!  Today we were getting Max and Mia ready for preschool and Meilin went and grabbed her backpack!  We took her in with them to see their room and she was trying to find her cubbie to hang her stuff up on.  Looks like she will be starting preschool with them sooner than we planned!  She is ready to go.

I will try to post more pics of our time in China and her first Thanksgiving this week!