Who had more fun?

You decide...a great birthday celebration for Daddy!

I-800 APPROVAL! HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!

Great news today from our new BFF at Department of Homeland Security-we are I-800 approved! China families know that this means one big step closer to Article 5, TA and finally our Gotcha Day!
Happy early birthday Daddy!!

xfxccdx (by van) aka Sunflowers

Van LOVES the computer...no surprise since Daddy is a big fan as well. So he's decided to do his first blog post. Notice his fine photo skills as well.

791 USA Days for Van

As of today, Van has now lived more days in the USA than he lived in China. It's hard to think about the fact that he spent the first 790 days of his life somewhere else and without us. It is actually much much harder to think about than I realized when I started typing this post. I've been thinking about this milestone for a while but focusing on the 791 days he's spent with us vs. the ones without. I can't even begin to imagine what that was like for him but I do know that there was obviously love and caring during those days. He carried that with him and instantly shared it with us. He has brought us 791 days of love and laughter that we never could have imagined. There's at least 791 ways of describing the joy of these 791 days. Infectious belly laughs, silly songs and wacky dances, cheers of encouragement, giggles of deafening proportions, words and words of words of please and thank you and sweet child prayers. He defines joy and he spreads it with reckless abandon. Wonder what the next 791 days might bring?

Swimming, swimming

Plenty of that around here this summer with the high temps we've been having. Van aka Aquaman has suddenly decided to keep his face under and make his jumps bigger.






And a bonus Zak pix update.
Our sweet boy has some dear friends with him while he waits so patiently. I love the little hand holding. We did move one step closer to him today with yet another document arriving to check off the government list. Wishing he would be home for some swimming this summer but we know there will be plenty of fun filled brother days ahead when he does finally gets here.

More mugging for the camera

Yes once again, Zak has managed to work his way into the lives and blogs of our fellow Baotou adoptive families. We were thrilled to see his smiley face once again as he "seriously sports his mohawk", say Daddy. Check out his wardrobe changes too and the cute arm around pose...this guy is gonna be quite the match for Big Brother!!

The Growing Up Song

Vacation bible school show #2. The week started out kinda rocky...Van was not too sure about Austin and Logan's Vacation Bible School. But by Wednesday he was loving it and turned in another fine performance at the Friday show. Cell phone camera quality so it's not great but seeing Mr. orange shorts hugging his pal Logan not once but twice in the song is priceless. He really is growing up every day.

Growing up a little bit more from Scott M on Vimeo.