Please pray...

Our little Ella will be having her palate surgery tomorrow morning at 8:00...The doctor said it would a 5 hour surgery and she will be in the hospital 4-5 days.

Please keep our little Ella in your prayers!!!!

My first booboo!

Oh poor little Ella...today I put the girls down for their nap around noon which is their normal nap time...well for some reason they did NOT want to go down so needless to say I had to go upstairs to their room several times and tell them to go to sleep. Luckily our little ring leader, Sophie, is still in a crib. If she had the freedom of a toddler bed I could see the two of them tying their blankets together and escaping by scaling down their bedroom window (they are very sneaky together!!)...so anyway...Greg and I are downstairs when we hear a boom and then Ella starting to cry. I run up there and poor little Ella has a cut under her eye. Luckily her partner in crime is very verbal and this is the story I got:

Me: "WHAT happened to Sissy??"


Sophie: "Sissy fall down go boom!"


Me: "What was Sissy doing??"


Sophie: "Sissy bouncing on her bed fall down go boom."


Sophie: "Sissy crying"


Me: "thank you Sophie..."





OH my poor little Ella!!! Despite her injury she can still flash me that million dollar grin!! :)

Pregnancy...

This is my second pregnancy...the first being with Sophie. This pregnancy felt very differently from my pregnancy with Sophie and for that reason I believed it was a boy. I was so confident that the day before the ultrasound I went on Gap.com and bought a lot of baby blue...Besides how could a mother's instinct be wrong??

Well I was a tad bit wrong...we are having a little girl!!! We are thrilled! Three little girls...how could I ever complain or be disappointed!! But that does not mean that others do not act disappointed for me...of course I have to hear, "Oh...it's another girl" I can't help but get irritated, why would anybody be upset with the gender of their child??? Maybe it irritates my inner core b/c in China there are thousands of little girls that are thrown away soley b/c of their gender...It's God's plan and He has blessed us with three little girls...THANK YOU GOD!

And I will end with a cute picture of my little blessings

How cute are we??

Love this picture!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a wonderful Christmas and words could not explain how happy we were that Ella was able to be with us! She had a great time unwrapping all of her gifts and playing with her new toys...the way she ripped through her stocking and gifts you would of thought she has been doing this for years!!! It's hard to believe this was her first Christmas...first of many!! She is the joy of our lives (along with Sophie) and we fall more in love with her everyday!!!

On our way to Christmas Eve service.......................making Christmas cookies!


Christmas Eve with their new jammies!



Family of Four...soon to be five!!! .................Giving Rudolph a kiss!

Rubbing off on each other...

It's been a long time since I have posted (I know my sister is going crazy...sorry!)...Things have been a little crazy here trying to settle in with 2-2-year olds...AND for those of you who don't know yet...I'M PREGNANT! So I have been a tad tired keeping up with the girls and being 4-months pregnant! But I am not complaining...we could not be more blessed!

Sophie and Ella are starting to grow on each other...Sophie will always ask, "Where's sissy?" if she can't see her. She even wants to Ella to play with her (sometimes!)...but it's a start. I have to laugh how they have rubbed off on each other...I had first imagined that they would rub off on each other in "positive" ways...For example, Sophie may want to go potty on the potty chair...Ella may pick up some words from Sophie, and so on...well not exactly...here are several examples of what they have learned from each other...

1-Ella now will take Sophie's binkys and put them in her mouth (mind you-her cleft palate is not corrected yet so she can't suck!) The funny thing is we are trying to rid Sophie of this bad habit!

2-Sophie will now "rock" herself in her bed and carseat...Ella has a habit of rocking her body to get herself to sleep-it's quite disturbing to watch but it is what she had learned to self soothe herself...well now apparently Sophie who was rocked by her mommy all the time needs to "rock" herself to sleep!

3-Sophie will start to drool when she sees Ella drooling...the difference being poor Ella can't help it!

4-Sophie will copy Ella and take off her shoes and socks during EVERY car ride...which is quite time consuming when you have to think we need to then find the socks and shoes that they throw once they are off, then put on the socks..then put on the shoes...times two!!!! UGHHH

I have to laugh at those two...of course if I wasn't laughing I would be crying!!! :)

Here are some new pics...

Sisters...

I have to say Ella had adjusted beautifully since coming home! She's doing a great job and I could not be more happy...however, she and her sister, Sophie are NOT getting along. I did expect this since Sophie has been our princess for 2 years and now we have another princess in the house but there are times I want to pull my hair out!! :) I can not leave them alone b/c it is guaranteed that one of them will attack the other if an adult is not around...it starts that one will take a toy away from the other, there will be yelling, and then usually a push, shove, whatever is most convenient at the time! :)



I have to say Ella holds her own...she is a lot smaller than Sophie despite only being a month younger but I tell you she is still in survival mode from her days in the orphanage. Today we had company over and the girls wandered into the hallway...I said to our friends give it 2 minutes and somebody will be screaming...I called it. Sophie all of a sudden starts screaming crying so I quick get up to see whats wrong...she points and there on her arm was a very clear imprint of a bite!! Ella must of bit her so hard b/c I could count every tooth mark...oh the fun!!



I know they will someday be best friends and my referee days will soon be over...hopefully sooner than later!!