The Best Christmas Gift!

We just got an update and pictures of our sweet Addie! She is becoming more comfortable each day since her fracture, and was even comfortable enough to be upright! The Wyse family had all the children from the Agape House foster home up to their personal residence for Christmas dinner and presents! Unfortunately our package didn't arrive in time for Addison, but I'm sure it will show up soon. We have some more news on Addison's femur fracture, it runs the length of her femur zig zagging from side to side. She will need to have surgery, but it will have to wait until she has had at least 3 doses of he medication that make her bones stronger, and she grows bigger, as she is only 12 pounds! So it sounds like she will probably have surgery once she is home with us. As you can see from the pictures below she looks pretty happy!

Look how cute she is.....cast and all! We were surprised to see that the spica cast only went down her fractured leg and not both legs. In our past experience Nathan had both legs casted!



Looks like our sweet little Addison enjoyed the gifts! Oh how I can't wait to get our butts to China and bring her HOME!!!

Sad News

We have just received some news on Addison. Keith had emailed me tonight to let me know that she had broken her femur (thigh bone) not only is it broken, but it was broken from top (head) to bottom of the femur, and the fracture runs parallel with the bone! This is something we have never dealt with before, and we don't know what that means for Addie, as with a "normal"femur fracture the child would have surgery and have a nail inserted in the the bone for stability. We are devastated, both Howard and I wish we could be there to comfort her, as she is in a spica cast (from armpits around her torso and both legs to ankles with a cutout for diapers) We don't know what this means for her future when it comes to being able to walk, and strength of this bone. What a sad way to celebrate Christmas. It was last year almost to the date that Nathan had fractured his hip and we had to cancel our Christmas travel plans to see our family. I hope that this will maybe speed up her refferal process as she will probably need surgery if we ever hope to see her walk. Please pray for our sweet Addie girl, femur fractures are major, they take a long time to heal from and are very painful! My heart is breaking for her! Obviously we will not be Skyping with her for a while, but when I receive an update I will let you all know! God has a plan for even these things that WE think are awful, and his plans are for good and not for evil, and he LOVES her more than even we do. So that is what I will take comfort in as I head off to bed.

O Lord, you are my lamp. The Lord lights up my darkness. ~2 Samuel 22:29~

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

~Psalm 34:18 ~

Sweet Addie Update

Well, we are making plans to Skye with Addison and the Wyse family next week. I am very excited! I guess our girl has blossomed into a joyful, smiley, exuberant little one! She is now sitting up all on her own!!! She has no interest in trying to stand or walk, but Nathan waited until he was 15 or 16 mos old to walk as well, and we were doing tonnes of water therapy etc. as soon as he was diagnosed, so I am sure that helped him. Poor Addie hasn't had any of that, so rightly so she will be a little behind with these milestones. Keith informed me that they have moved Addison out of their private home and into the foster home. I was a little surprised and saddened to hear that, but I understand having a baby is time consuming, and they are very busy people. I am just sad to hear she is being jostled around to different homes, as it may effect her attachment and trust in us once she comes home. Apparently the nannies and older girls in the foster home are head over heals in love with her and she is still being doted on. I know that God knows all and sees all, and this is part of his good plan for her and our family. I know I want this journey to be his will not mine, BUT.....we want to show her love, hope, faith, understanding, family and trust. How long must we wait? I am sure once we get her referral everything will move so quickly that I'll will not remember how hard this waiting was! I was okay with the wait when we didn't know who the Lord had planned for us, its the knowing who she is and that she is getting older by the minute that is difficult. Listen to me! When there are families whom have waited almost 4years for their referral!!!! I am thankful, beyond thankful that He has chosen us for this purpose! We are so very blessed! And I DO trust his good and perfect plan for us! Have a great day!

The Nutcracker!

So my sweet Riley girl, our dear friends T & M, and myself braved the cold on Saturday, to see the Royal Ballet of London's production of the Nutcracker. It was beautiful, the sets and costumes were amazing and the dancing was mesmerizing! So much so that a 4 yr old (Riley) and a 6 year old (Miss M) sat and watched with very few interruptions! I just found out that the Cineplex Odeon presents ballets and operas quite often! I think the Nutcracker will be one of our new traditions at Christmas! If you are interested in seeing the Nutcracker at the Cineplex search your local Cineplex Odeon and I believe they a showing it once more on the 23rd of December! I would highly recommend it! In our city there was all of maybe 15 people who came and watched! It was nice to have the theatre to ourselves! I was thankful to have some special time with my Riley girl :)

You know its cold when.....

The last two mornings this is what we woke up to! Yesterday it was -56C with the windchill and today it is -53C with the windchill! I guess you know its cold when....your natural gas meter freezes!!! Yes ours did! What does that mean? Well....it means we had NO heat yesterday! We were so blessed that Howard came home Saturday night to pick up heaters for his crew at the job site and spent the night at home because, at 4AM I awoke and was freezing! I asked him to see what was wrong as we could see our breath!!! My lovingest husband went to check out the furnace and came up saying some words I will not repeat! He phoned the furnace repair guy, and explained what was going on. The repair guy told Howard to call our natural gas provider immediately as we were the 15th person to call with the same problem ( a frozen regulator valve on our gas meter.) We cranked our oven so we had some heat, and made sure our kids and the extra kids who were having a sleepover were well covered and warm as they still slept, and Howard went out to his office to "raid"there space heaters as we were afraid our pipes would freeze! Our kids woke up and I had them dress in layers and I took them over to our friends house which was cozy and warm and then I ran to the church to "raid"some more space heaters. We are very thankful that Howard was home, we could find some heaters so early on a Sunday morning and that we had friends that would answer the phone so early (I waited until 6AM) and that our pipes didn't freeze. We are also so very thankful for the ATCO Gas guy that came and replaced our meter! I can't imagine working outside in that cold! We finally had heat at 3PM and I will never take for granted the luxury of a warm house again :)

Holiday Entertaining

Last weekend we had a wonderful get together with our dear friends. Riley and I decorated the tables and we made a feast for a king! We had the yummiest prime rib roast ever!!! bacon chive mashed potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and a delish veggie casserole. I think it was the best meal I have ever had in my life! Top it all of we had the company of our dear friends Trina and Vince and their 4 fabulous kids! We had tonnes of laughs and then after dinner we went to an outdoor production of Bethlehem Live at a local church. It was awesome! And their youngest daughter who has been home now for a year was in awe, there were times she just watched with her jaw dropped and eyes as big as saucers. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen! To think just a year ago she was in foster care in China! Now she is learning about the true meaning of Christmas with her forever family here in Canada! We followed up our frozen trek with dessert and warm drinks and more fun and laughter! It was one of those nights that won't soon be forgotten. I can't help but be amazed by God and how he loves us enough to put such wonderful friends in our lives! Here are some picts from Nathan's camera of our evening and table, my kids were quite ecstatic about the "fancy"table setting :)

Sweets for our guests. You can never go wrong with hedgehogs!


Just before we ate.

the dinner table.(I think I put the napkins on the wrong side!)

LID Finally!!!

We finally have a log in date (LID) for those of you not navigating the adoption world, that means our dossier (story of our life) has made it to the officals in China. I say finally because our agency received our paperwork in August, so I was expecting to be logged in by the end of October at the latest. I guess it doesn't really matter because we "found" Addison on our own anyways. I just received an update on our sweet little Addie and apparently she is being spoilt rotten and doing very well she has started sitting up and they are waiting for the orphanage to mail them the paperwork to bring her to the doctors for her adoption physical, once that is done her paperwork goes to the CCAA and then we pray her paperwork miraculously shows up in FOI's (our agencies) private list! Tada just like that;) Yeah right! So we would be humbled and honoured if you would lift us and Addison ( Xue Ying Liu) up in prayer, we are praying that her physical will happen quickly, that she will be fracture free, that someone at the CCAA will have the heart to put her directly on our agencies private list and not the shared list, that our heavenly Father will prepare her little heart for us, and prepare us for her, we pray for peace, wisdom and discernment and most of all (for me anyways!) Patience!!!! We (Howard and I) have a certain date we hope to have Addison in our arms by and its not at all out of the question, however it does mean we would probably need to have her offical referral by the end of January. We serve an amazing, powerful and loving God and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt He is still in the business of miracles, so I am praying for this, our own personal miracle! Every night as I fall asleep I think of our sweet angel baby Addie just waking up in China, and I pray she will know just how wanted and loved she is! I read recently in my devotions, that in the Bible, in the book of Habakkuk it says to write down your vision, and make sure to back them up with God's Word. Then get alone with God, and take a few minutes everday to declare good things over your life. Something supernatural happens when we speak it out. That's how we give life to our faith. Here is the verse...
And then God answered: "Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what's coming.
It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!
And it doesn't lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It's on its way. It will come right on time. ~ Habakkuk 2:2-3

So I am deciding that IF our words can prophesy our own future, I will choose to predict blessings and good things not defeat, failure and mediocrity.
Wow! My intentions for a quick post turned into something completely different! I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week! 9 more sleeps until Howard is back home!!!

Family Pictures

Whew! That was quite a job getting five of us ready for family pictures! I wonder if there is a rule that says all family photos MUST be stressful for the Mom? These two are the favorites of the shoot, yet still I can find some issues with each of them! What do expect trying to get three kids and two adults looking and smiling at the same time though :)


I loved the kids coordinating outfits this year. Usually I go with the traditional red and black, however Josh loves green and when we saw this line he begged me to do the pictures in green this year :)


This was the first year that Riley didn't freak out and cry at our holiday pictures! I have a tradition of getting the kids pictures done during the holidays, and buying a new pewter frame every holiday that holds a 5X7 we have 5 of them so far and all the previous years picts come out during the holidays for us to display. I much prefer doing this then having school pictures displayed, as I am not a huge fan of the overpriced usually tacky (in our case) school picts. Costco has some beautiful wallet size embellished frames that would be perfect for our holiday pictures, as the 5X7 frames will soon outgrow the cabinet I put them on, and I would like to keep up this tradition until the kids leave home, or when they refuse to have the pictures taken ;)
We also finally set up the Christmas tree since Howard came home, I will post in the next few days with the pictures from that evening. Tonight we have some dear friends coming over for a holiday dinner party I think I'll try to take some picts of tonight as well and post on that later this week as well.