Lifeline Family Reunion

Today, we attended the Lifeline Family Reunion.  This event is a time where families who have adopted children from China through Lifeline come together to celebrate a special bond and see the wonderful people who have helped put our families together.  I am fortunate to be part of a group of moms who have children that were born in China and we meet regularly, so this was a time for our children to be able to have a play date and our husbands to be able to meet or catch up with each other.  We were able to see both of the guides we had while in Guangzhou, Rebecca and Miko.  They were amazed at how much Amelia had grown and changed in the 9 months since we were with them in China.  It was a day of fun!  Amelia had a BLAST!  She LOVED the bouncy house and driving the play cars around everywhere.  She was also able to paint a pumpkin and have lunch.  She pitched a HUGE fit when it was time to go because she wanted to go "jump" more.  Unfortunately, the bouncy house was full of bigger kids.  Amelia also needed a BIG nap, so we decided to go ahead and leave.  We are so grateful that Lifeline has events like this so that we are able to keep in contact with the individuals that brought Amelia into our family and allow us to be with other families like ours.

Our FABULOUS case manager, Karla

Amelia can hardly wait to get in the bouncy house!

Can you tell how happy she is?

It was like bumper cars in there!

Rebecca, one of our guides from Guangzhou.  She helped us get all of our paperwork completed for our medical exam and Amelia's visa.  Thanks to Rebecca, we were able to bring Amelia to the United States.  Rebecca is amazed that Amelia's hair is curly.  She said the Chinese believe curly hair is a sign that a person is "very determined".

Visiting with friends

Painting a pumpkin

Did you notice Amelia's boo boos on her face?  These were from being pushed on the playground at school on Wednesday. :(

Miko was in charge of picking us up from the airport and taking us shopping while in Guangzhou.  She has a son that is almost Amelia's age.

The Lifeline China Team with Herbie (Lifeline's Executive Director)

What We've Been Up to the Past Week

This week has been pretty busy.  Last Thursday (26th), we celebrated Bailey's birthday and Amelia's Referral Day with dinner at Stone's Throw.  It was fabulous!

Amelia learned to use a knife to cut butter and add it to her bread.

Bailey enjoyed his family outing.

Sue and I took the children to the Greek Festival on Friday.  This wasn't the best picture, but it documented that we went.  The girls LOVED the food and music!

After church on Sunday, we noticed the Mt. Laurel Grocery had pumpkins or "punkins" as Amelia says.  She wanted to go see them.

David worked a booth for the school system at the Vestavia Hills National Night Out on Tuesday night.  Amelia and I went to see what it was all about.  I tried very hard to get Amelia to ride a pony, but she wouldn't go near them.  She wanted to watch them walk from far away.  Her favorite thing was the HUGE bouncy slide.  There are no pictures because I was sliding down with her.

Daddy's booth

Amelia loved sitting inside the helicopter (or airplane as she referred to it).

She tried to buckle her seat belt and didn't understand why we weren't going into the sky.

We also got a tour of the fire truck, but Amelia did NOT like it.

Wednesday afternoon, Amelia and I ran some errands.  We met Daddy for an ice cream at Brusters.  Amelia wanted the "pink" ice cream and ate every bit of it, including the cone.  We also celebrated Paw Paw's birthday Wednesday night, but I forgot to take pictures.  Happy Birthday, Paw Paw!

Thursday afternoon, Amelia had a play date with Ella at Aunt Sue's house.  These precious girls have so much fun together!

There was a lot of rolling on the floor together.

We took a wagon ride.

Amelia took a picture of Ella and...

Ella took a picture of Amelia.

They decided to throw a 2-year-old fit at the SAME time!

 It was a very busy week, but it was a LOT of fun!

House update:

Our fence was finished this week.  Thank you, Mr. Steve!  We LOVE it!  We will meet a landscaper on Saturday to start the next phase of our outside transformation to give this house some curb appeal.  The shutters are in and are waiting for my dad to have some time to come install them on the house.  Pumpkins and hanging baskets with fall flowers have added some color and fall decoration to our front porch.