SO, I saw this video on an amazing adopting Mom's blog -it is really a great perspective.  Please take the 4 minutes to watch this and let me know what you think, let's start something BIG...

Here are a few random photos from this weekend. Aunt "Nenny" came to see us and the kids love her so much. Mina took to her right away.  We had a laid back weekend, the weather was beautiful, we spent the afternoons poolside, cooked out, and played at the park.  Jenny is so good with the kids and got them out there playing football with all the big kids.  Now J.C. is all about playing football.  I also threw in some photo's of Mina wearing the silly swim cap that she loves, and her other favorite thing,,, talking on the phone. 

Pre-school Graduation

It's official, Our little girl is not so little anymore.  She had her preschool graduation this week, there was a short program and then we headed outside for a picnic with all of her friends and their families.  The kids had ice cream sundae's and Mina, was all over it!  It was a bitter-sweet day, we love seeing the people are babies are becoming.  She will be starting Kindergarten in the fall, but not until we have a super fun summer.  We are really looking forward to spending some quality family time and fun in the sun.

I also had to post this cute photo of Mina sporting the glasses,  I can tell she is going to be one of those little girls that love to play dress up, she thinks she is so funny when she puts on someone's hat or glasses.  Our big girl started a swim team and Mina became very attached to the swim cap and wore it all night.  I was worried that she was going to fight me on taking it off before bed.  I will make sure I post a photo of her in the swim cap soon.  It is pretty funny!

Some Serious Catching up!!

So I have been seriously slacking on keeping up with the blog, so here are some super fast posts where the photo's will have to speak for themselves a bit... 

First off Mother's Day!! I feel so spoiled... I had my shower on Saturday and Mother's day on Sunday.. what a great day.. we went to church, to breakfast, and then I came home and spent the entire afternoon on the couch working on a photo book of all our 1,500 some photo's from China. A serious undertaking, but it will be nice to have it done, and it was nice to actually be able to sit down for a few hours and work on it, instead of my usual working on it for 5 minutes at a time and getting 

sidetracked by Mommy things, while i was working my amazing husband, made me a feast,,, check this out, steak, lobster tails, baked potatoes, veggies, and Bailey's white chocolate, pecan cheesecake,,, Yeah!!!! I am the luckiest girl in the world..also for a gift, and because pictures of my kids are my favorite thing, he went out one day last week and took a bunch of photos of each of them and put them in a frame for me and had it sitting on the table nice, right? I love this kinda stuff, Makes me feel wonderfully loved and special... 

And today we took Mina to the pool for the first time,  as you can see, she loved it.  The water was freeeezing, but gotta love the kids, they don't mind a bit. Also Mina's new favorite thing,,, the juice box.  Don't even let her see it unless you plan on giving it to her right away... what a mistake.

So my amazing girlfriends thru Mina and I a beautiful shower.  It was the perfect day... 

My favorite thing about my neighborhood is that they have these huge swings in this one section. of course the kids love it and we took Mina for the first time the other day,,, she loved it too. Check out the last photo of Mina working the chopsticks.. she actually picked up a few pieces using one hand until she figured out that stabbing the food with one chopstick works a bit better.  too cute.

Cuddle time and K.'s 6th Bday party,  she had a "half-sleepover" all the girls wore their P.J.'s and we did crafts, painted nails, played outside and had her favorite requested cake, which is actually like a big ice cream cookie sandwich.. such a fun night, she had a great time. 

One of my very favorite things!!!

This makes me happy,,,,aren't I lucky that it makes all the kids happy too! I LOVE to pick strawberries in the spring, almost as much as I like to pick apples in the fall. I was so excited to take Mina, it is so fun to do all of our family favorite things with her.  I love how she just joins right in.  We would all probably enjoy our time a bit more if I would leave my camera at home but come on... check out these cute pics... Most every photo I took was of Mina chowing down on berries, she really had a blast, we all did.  We are really loving that the weather is warming up, we are definitely outside people & Mina is too!  We have a bunch of fun family things in the works for the summer.   Check out the last photo of the 3 little ones... after school snack time.. Mina is so excited when they get home from preschool.  They love each other so much... They are already inseparable, we do have other chairs, they just all want to sit together all the time.  We now fight over car seats and dinner time seating, because everyone wants to sit next to Mina.  

Ok, so you HAVE to read this article, the one posted here on the side, Yeah, the Haiti one... I read this article last week, and can not get over it.  It is truly making me nutty.... Please read it (let me know if I didn't get the link right, I am not so great at all this computer stuff)  anyhow, go ahead- read it...  It breaks your heart right? How can this be happening?  How?  The kicker, the real kicker, is that there is a full fledged Hague accredited adoption "plan" in place with Haiti and there are tons of children available for adoption. The problem is that, adoption is not a priority with the Haitian government, seeing that most people in the government have bigger problems of their own, like their families starving to death.  So you can get a referral for a child, almost instantly, but it will take the Haitian government around 2 years to process your paperwork!!  You can even visit your child in Haiti as much as you want for the 2 years you are waiting....  This seems like complete craziness to me.  When I was calling around trying to get info. on the adoption programs, I was told, "your working with a broken system, there is nothing you can do" .  Really, I mean really.... these are kids, nothing we can do.   I have been brainstorming... but am a little scared to make more phone calls with my ideas, because I don't want someone to tell me, that my ideas won't work...  Wouldn't it be great to fix this... I am sure there are thousands of families that would be open to adopting from Haiti, but staring at your babies photo for 2 years, while they are starving to death is a bit much to sign up for....  I'll keep digging to get more info....Who's fired up???

bloom Project Golf Tourney!!

Yeah!!!  What a great day yesterday... We had our bloom project Inaugural golf tournament and it was Great!!!  Check out my awesome friends!  I LOVE these girls.  It has been so crazy around here and now we are done and we can't wait to get started on next years event.  We had great weather ( I was so worried about that) and great sponsors, and great golfers, the BEST volunteers EVER, a great emcee.. do you recognize this guy...Brandon Russell from TLC's  Trading Spaces, a great dinner sponsored by Outback Steakhouse, and Shane Williams singing and rocking out... What a great day..  Check out our cute little guy,  I didn't expect him to hang out at the course, but he worked an 8 hour day, tooling around on the golf cart. He had so much fun!  So when we got home I gave him an extra backpack that has all these logo's on it, I told him how proud I was that he was such a big boy and worked so hard all day... Now the backpack really isn't that cool, but I went in to check on him before I went to bed... That sweet child was sleeping with his backpack on... I took it off of him after snapping this photo, but without fail, he came downstairs this morning in his P.J.'s with his backpack on! I love this child so much it breaks my heart.  Mina hung out most of the day, she LOVES the crowds, it actually said that in her referral information.  The more attention the better for this one.  We stood in front of the entire crowd with her playing peek-a-boo and blowing kisses.  Our big girl was selling raffle tickets at the dinner which is so out of her element, because she is complete opposite of Mina, she hates attention, but she was great. I am the luckiest girl in the world!

I'm so proud of my girls. I'm so lucky to be able to call these girls friend... Tonight we have our last meeting about our big golf tournament tomorrow!  This is big people!  Months ago one of the most amazing girls I have ever known, well, we started talking about adoption, we started thinking about this project.. We thought it would be a great positive way to spend our time as we waited and waited and waited for our babies.... We both had no idea that God already had babies for us...and that by the time our little idea was a full fledged charity that was having a golf tournament, I would have my baby and she is only a few weeks away from holding her precious bundle...  So tonight we celebrate, and stuff golfer goodie bags, and think of all the last every detail (with 2 other amazing women who have joined our efforts & share our passion) And tomorrow,,, well it will be a combination of a million things, Great, Amazing, Stressful, Crazy, Scary, Wonderful, Confusing, Busy, Proud and over..well for now,,,for a few months.. until we start planning our next big thing,,or next years tourney... 

Busy, Busy, Busy

What a fun and busy week.  Full of firsts for Mina.  Our big girl had her 6th birthday!! I can't believe it.  We did the family thing and she will be having her big girl friend party next week, this week was just craziness, and it is not over yet. Papa and the little guy needed some one on one time so they camped out in the backyard, of course we all got to join in on the roasting of marshmallows and playing in the tent.. Mina loved every second of this.. She even let 

Grandpa give her a squeeze.. All the kids LOVE Grandpa, and Mina has taken awhile to warm up...maybe the fact that he had control of the marshmallow bag worked in his favor, but whatever it takes, cause we are lucky enough to have the best Grandpa in the world.....Yee-haw (sorry, family joke. I always shout, "I've got the best kids in the whole world" and they all reply by screaming, "Yee-haw" don't know why, we just do).  Oh, and Mina also had her first powdered donut.  this is big stuff people...she obviously liked it, and gave us one of our favorite cheesy smiles.  This child is so full of joy, we are amazingly blessed.  I got the best kids in the whole world.... YEE-HAW!!!!