Cai

I've been thinking about whether I should post this about Cai. On one hand, I feel like her medical information is private and it will be her story to tell. And then I think how great her story is- how can I not share it? So I want to share some of what we know about Cai and how God gently placed her into our hearts.

As you probably know, both Cate and Cai were on Chi*na's special needs list. Cate's "special need" just happened not to be an issue at all. Cai was born with a spinal meningocele. This is probably why her parent's could not take care of her. Greg and I knew nothing about spina bifida before Cai's medical information was sent to us. So we sent it to our pediatrician and we joined a group to learn more and we talked and we prayed. We realized that there were always unknowns in adoption and well, in life, we decided that we would be this little girl's family. Although we were aware of the many medical issues that accompany spina bifida, Cai seemed not to have any of them. But she does. We found out in the recent update that we received.

So, at first I cried and cried. For lots of reasons- because when our wonderful ( she really is wonderful) agency coordinator called me on my cell on a Sunday from California and said that she had some bad news, my heart broke. To lose Cai would have been devastating for us. Anything else, with God's strength, we can handle.

And then, after realizing that we can't "handle" anything without God's love and grace and strength, we tucked this information away and fell in love with her again. Only stronger and deeper in love.

" I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Phil. 4:13

Chinese New Year

What a great weekend- Snow, Valentines Day and Chinese New Year! We celebrated Chinese New Year with three other families. Everyone brought Chinese food and we had a great variety of food. It was delicious! The children made paper lanterns, colored masks and enjoyed playing with Chinese money. 2010 is the year of the Tiger- it has really been neat learning more about China's culture and traditions!

Snow... Continued

Well, the snow stuck and boy, are we glad it did! Snow is just beautiful, and not something we EVER get to see, so we played as long as we could and took lots of pictures. It is quickly melting and turning into slosh. If you skipped the last post, please go back to look at Cai. We are in love.

An update on Cai!

While we were told that we would not receive any more pictures of Cai, our agency was able to send us this picture with an update. We were so happy to get this! We think that she is beautiful. Her update also said.. "she often looks at the picture album the adoptive family sent to her. She excitedly introduce the family members to her neighbors." We treasure this information and the pictures.

SNOW!!!!!!!

Yes, I know it's winter and that's what happens- but not where we live! My children don't ever remember seeing snow at our house, and we have only seen a few flurries. So, when it starts really snowing on the way home from school, that causes some excitement! It isn't sticking yet, but we are hoping it will!