A Christmas Service Project

I have joined a Facebook group with families who have adopted from Sarah's orphanage. It has been wonderful to see more pictures and try to get a better idea of what Sarah's life is like. It has also been hard to see how poor her orphanage is and the serious needs they have. Just to give you an idea, up to a few weeks ago, they had never had heat. That is a lot for this mom's heart to bear.

In light of this information, I have teamed up with our adoption agency to raise money for Sarah and her friends this Christmas and Thanksgiving Season. It costs so much money for shipping that we have decided to just raise money and send it over to Sarah's orphanage directly. If you are interested in helping our sweet Sarah and other orphans in her orphanage, here is what you do:

Go to  CCAI (our adoption agency who is also a Chinese Children's Charity) and click on donate in the top right hand side of the page. From there when it asks if this is for  a specific project, click on that. Then type in "Bentley ZhuMaDian Project" and all proceeds will go directly to Sarah's orphanage in her name. You can also write a check and mail it into CCAI. If you do that please write "Bentley ZhuMaDian Project" in the memo. The link above will provide you with CCAI's mailing address.

There are about 600 children in Sarah's orphanage. They are located in Henan province, which is the poorest province in China. It is also the most populated with over 100 million people. Sarah's orphanage is located about 2 hours south of the main city, so there are even fewer resources.

As a family we are always looking for service projects this time of year. I honestly can't think of a better way to serve. These children are truly in need and so deserving. I like the idea that everything we give will go directly to these cuties. Each of Sarah's siblings are working on making money to send to her too.

The due date will be December 10 so that we can get the money to them before Christmas. Thanks for all of you who choose to help! Sarah, as well as all of us, will be eternally grateful.

This is our Sarah - this picture really pulls on the heart strings

Halloween ween 2013!

We had another fun October! It ended with the most candy I have ever seen. The kids totally scored in a big way. They received more full size candy bars than I could believe (especially considering I never got a full size candy bar in my Trick or Treating days). I almost felt guilty for only handing out bite size candy ... almost. The candy is now hidden safely out of sight from ... me!

We had a fun church party followed by me volunteering as class mom for Brig. I planned and ran the 5th grade Halloween party all by my lonesome because I could not convince other parents to help. The good news is that Brig had a blast, and said it was more fun than the church party - one point for mom! Ultimately I just want him to know I love him and care for him, and I think that came across.

Here are some pictures from the festivities.

Zombie Tennis Player

Black cat - all his own creation

"Brig" Foot this boy has some imagination!

Beautiful Rupunzel

Real hair extensions - she felt glamorous

John and Kate "The Supers" ready to save the world!

We didn't forget our sweetie in China

Big Fat Exciting News

We are adopting again! We have been matched with another cutie from Henan province. She is a little girl about 15 months old. Her Chinese name is Ying Ying, which means warbler in Chinese because apparently she sounds like a singer when she cries. She has captured our hearts already, and we can't wait to bring her home sometime in 2014. This is the picture we received that convinced us she was meant to come to our family. We are going to call her Sarah Helen.

Mom ... I love you!

Recently John started telling me he loves me. He has been home over a year. We had never heard him say that he loves us until last week. He started about a month ago talking about other things he loves. "I love noodles!" "I love cars!" "I love my shirt." It got me wondering when I would hear those words directed at me. And then, out of the blue, "Mom, I love you!"

In all of our parent training for adoption they kept reminding us that love is an action. I'm so thankful that our actions are helping this little joy understand the emotion behind the word too.

"John, I love you too!"

Happy 4th Birthday!

We just celebrated John's 4th birthday on Wednesday. Officially he isn't four until Monday, but Rick will be out of town, so we wanted to celebrate together. This birthday was so much more fun than the last read here. He was so new to our family and our traditions, that he really didn't understand what a birthday party was - he didn't even want cake.

But  this year, our cutie was all about a birthday. He wanted a pumpkin cake, wanted chicken for dinner, noodles for lunch and muffins for breakfast. He was SO excited about his presents too. His birthday was so much fun this year. Happy Birthday sweet boy!

The Magic Carpet

This is what we call a "Magic Carpet Ride" in Idaho!

One Year Together!

It is hard to believe it has been one year since we met our sweet little John. In other ways it seems like it was forever ago. He is a blessing and a joy. He makes us laugh out loud. We love it when he says things like, "What doing?" or "Where going?" He used to call Cora, "Corup" and Kate, "Mei Mei". He still calls Lydia "Jie Jie".  John is full of life and energy. He is sweet and helpful - my boy loves to clean, thank you very much John! He loves life and continues to love being in our family. We love you too, John!

John's referral photo

John today!