Update on Our Little Princess

Practicing her Kung Fu

Yes, we received a long awaited update on Chaning and boy was it received in such a way that He could only have orchestrated. As you can clearly see, Chaning is such a happy little girl and is very loved. We are more excited than ever to meet her and are forever grateful to her foster family for loving, protecting and nurturing her.

Looking at the pictures we sent her.

My Brave Girl on Giggle Juice..Take 2

OR Scheduler - Please be here at 8:30 a.m. for her surgery. Mommy & Daddy - Alarm goes off at 5a.m.; arrive at UAB 7:30a.m. Picture taken at 10:30 a.m still in the waiting room.
Progress 11:30 a.m.- Julia and Daddy relaxing on her hospital bed
waiting for giggle juice
12:00 p.m still waiting on that giggle juice.

12:30 p.m. - Giggle juice arrived!!

3:30 p.m. - My baby girl is returned to her room looking a little like Mick Jagger. Dr. G did an outstanding job on her nose and lip.

It was a looooong day for us but we are so thankful to be home and in our own beds tonight. Julia has an upset stomach from the meds and lack of food for so long but seems to be resting quite well with her last dose of meds. I was so concerned about having to put the restraints on her arms but she is so self conscious of the surgical sight that she has been so good about not touching it. Again, we are so blessed to be right beside such a world reknowned surgeon who is so good with kids. Even after being in surgery all day long, he came back to check on her before going home. Yes, we did make it back with Braxton (who was actually classified by the doc as looking more like a dog toy). What can I say, she loves him.

As many of you might know by now, we did receive updated pictures of Chaning and were blessed with information about her beyond measure. I realize many of you are waiting for me to share those but I will be restraining from that post until possibly tomorrow.

Our Brave Girl!!

Braxton

Tomorrow is another big day for us around here. Julia is having her second cleft revision and third cleft related surgery. She seems to be relatively calm about what is about to happen tomorrow. She has to know what to expect with this being her third time around. It's always a long conversation when pre-op calls to run down her previous surgeries. Instead of carrying around social security numbers and birthdates of all my children (yes, I have to stop and recall dates at a rate of one per minute these days), I am going to have to carry around a medical history for each kid. Although cleft has not been her only special need, we are so thankful that we have been able to give her any and all medical attention that she has needed. We are so fortunate to live so close to UAB and to have the Intl Adoption Clinic nearby as well.

Well, we will get up before the rooster crows tomorrow and head out. We have packed a bag in case we do decide to stay overnight. Julia will arrive in her PJ's with Braxton in hand. My job, as a upstanding mother, is to make sure Braxton leaves with us. He has been granted the priviledge to accompany Julia back to the operating room. Braxton, unfortunately, cannot have a bath or he might take to falling apart (according to the unremovable tag). I have been assured that he will be moved away from her once she is put under, germs--uggh. If you remember the update of her last revision here I didn't do too good of a job of bringing Snowball home with us, oops.

On a different note, we were told that updates on the children (that includes Chaning) should be coming soon to our adoption agency, they hope! Do I smell chocolate brownies, cake balls, Reese's and all other sugar coma induced items heading my way???

Caleb and Matthew taking on noodle duty before we got started.

This was our inside assembly line. The plates then went to an outside table and the guys outside delivered plates to the cars as they drove by.

This was not Chase's station. Not sure why he was hanging around the croutons.

Amy braved the heat and wrestled with these noodles all night. Luv ya, girl.



Meredith was my scripture queen for the night. We actually got to witness our noodles multiplying to feed many.

Jennifer and Kim were our desert and bread stuffers. Thank you, ladies.


Fun with Fundraiser #1

Well, it's been a while since I have posted. I have to remind myself sometimes that this blog is considered to be my little girls "baby book". Right now it might seem that some happenings that are recorded are a little trivial but someday it will be priceless information that my girls will enjoy reading.

Let me first start by saying, it moves me to tears to see the love shown for Chaning before she has even arrived. Right now, Chaning has no clue that her life is about to be changed and that so many others, besides the ones surrounding her now, are lifting her up in prayer and are awaiting her arrival just as excited as we are.


I know many of you are wanting to know how the spaghetti dinner went. It was awesome and the response was enormous. My goal was to sell 500 plates. We ended up with the equivalent of selling 570 plates. WOW!!!


If you know me, well, I'm a little anal (thanks for the label, Amy) about things being organized, written down and not changed in midstream (unless I can visualize the outcome). I have to say that God placed each and every person in their place at the right time for this to be pulled off as smoothly as it was. I cannot thank the people that baked, cooked sauce, donated the bread, gave their secrets of commercial cooking wisdom and most of all donated their time. I will share that the day before the dinner Satan kept throwing road blocks in our way but God placed rainbows right behind them. We love each and every one of you!


With Julia, we did a huge auction and that was our only fundraiser. With today's economy and the months that it took to put together that auction, we felt it best that we chose things to do to raise money for Chaning's adoption that everyone could participate in. This brings us now to Fundraiser #2. We will be having a two location yard sale on April the 3rd. We are asking people to give us a call when spring cleaning this year and we will come and pick up your items that you would like to donate. Even without me promoting this up until now, we have been receiving items weekly. I can tell you that we are getting some GOOD stuff. I don't know about you but I love a good yard sale and this will be for a great cause.

This week is the week that Julia has her 3rd surgery for her cleft lip revision. Her being a year older has made a huge difference in us being able to prepare her for what is to come. I always hated when one of my babies had surgery but were too young to know what was going on. Those were some long trips from the house to the hospital knowing you are handing your child over and they have no clue. We are hoping to bring her home the same day because she had no issues after the last surgery. Please pray that this is the case and that she has a short recovery. She is such a strong little girl and so brave but when she wakes up from anesthesia, that all goes out the window. I'm sure my name will be called over the intercome system within five minutes of her waking up. We have even been asked to leave a surgical center one time after she woke up because they felt that she would calm down if I got her out of there. She is a fighter and we love her.

You might notice I have added a chip in button on our right-hand side. This might give you a little head's up to our 3rd Fundraiser. No details right now, but we will probably be having a giveaway in April. Stay tuned.