One home...Many hearts: 7/26/11

Welcome to our story...

God has richly blessed us with a big, fun, happy family...
We have 9 children... 3 homegrown & 6 born in our hearts!

Blake... our oldest is 24 and a fine young man, with a heart for the Lord. His interests include; God, his family, mission trips, making music, playing classical guitar, playing drums at church, and writing.

Brianna Faith... is 19 years old and has a compassionate & tender heart. She's a wonderful big sister. She began talking to us about adoption when she was 11 years old. She is "Faith in motion"

Brent... is 15 years old. He's an awesome guy! He's in highschool. He has a special heart for family and God. He loves sports & spending time with family. Brent loves to laugh & is full of life!

Bethany Lidia... now 14, joined our family in August 2006, at 9 yrs old. She's from the beautiful country of Guatemala. In just a short period of time, she learned English, started school for the very first time (at 9 yrs old) and is now in 8th grade. Lidia's passion is sports & dancing!

Benjamin Ross... 14 years old. We first saw his picture in April 2007. By September he still hadn't found his forever family... well, we discovered that was us! Ben came home in May, '08. Ben is deaf, but his special need is that he needed a family. Ben loves making home-runs & hanging out with family & friends. Ben is from Tianjin, China.

Briella Xiyao... our beautiful 13 yr old daughter from Fujian Province, China. She joined our family on July 13, 2009. She's always wearing a big smile! Home 2.5 years now, she's very fluent in English & also sign language. She is extremely smart & a great student. She loves basketball & playing with all her sibs!!

Bellamei Ying... our exquisite Inner Mongolian princess. Bellamei is 13 yrs old and held my hand for the first time on July 18, 2011. She has melted into our big family seamlessly and it is truly an honor to be her mommy.

Brinley Grace FuChuan... is 8 years old and joined our family in July 2007. She's from Jiangxi Province, China. She has the most gentle, sweet spirit... we're so blessed to have Brinley Grace. She has my grandma's heart. She's an angel!

Bayla Shea Chao-Yu... our youngest. She's 7 years old, 5 months younger than Brinley. Bayla's from Hunan, China & came home at 11.5 months. She's bright, funny, endearing (and spicy!) We all can't get enough of her hugs & kisses.

This morning was our Consulate appt and everything went well. Tomorrow we will receive her visa to come home. We will leave the hotel Thurs morning at 6am and head to the airport. We have an 8am flight to Beijing, then a layover there until 4:10pm when we take off for Chicago. Then, 1 more flight from Chicago to Charlotte will bring us home (almost 30 hrs later). Can't wait to see everyone at the airport! It will be late, probably either 10pm or midnight, depending on how quickly we get through immigration in Chicago. The girls are doing great, and we are enjoying the swimming pool every day. Here are a few pics, that include 1 of my girls with Ann Marie, the other 12.5 yr old that was adopted by a family that is also with our agency. Ann Marie is from a different area of China than Bellamei. Actually, they are exactly 1 week apart - Bellamei being the younger one. We went to a park and I am always fascinated by the geriatric crowd, just going to town working out on the exercise equipment and the ladies doing dances together (all at the park). It was REALLY hot though! I took a video of Bellamei dancing & singing in our hotel room. Hopefully, I can find a way to get it on the blog. I can't wait to arrive home and see all my other sweeties! Not too much longer now :)