Please pray...

...for my friend and co-worker, Shawn. She is having surgery early Tuesday morning to remove a large brain tumor. Click here for her CaringBridge site. Please join us in praying for Shawn's surgery to go PERFECTLY, AMAZINGLY well and for a speedy recovery. Thanks!

UPDATE
From Shawn's CaringBridge page:
Shawn is out of surgery, and doing quite well. They were able to get the whole tumor out, and as of right now, thinks only her speech may be affected, and that she would be able to get that back. She has spoken a little bit already, and is able to get out about half the words, which is a very good sign. Additionally, her speech has improved since already over the 10 minutes that she has been awake. She is a little weak on her right side, but the doctor seemed very positive and not at all concerned. So, overall a very positive prognosis. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers (clearly they are working!) and we will keep you updated.

Another update: Shawn's tumor is cancerous. Stage 3. She has already started chemo and radiation. See above for the CaringBridge link.

More "Welcome Home" and The Many Faces of O

Our super sweet neighbor, Mary, did all this work on our driveway to surprise us as we came home from China. It must have taken a loooooong time to do all of this! She did it the Tuesday evening before we came home because she had to work on Wednesday. She was so happy when she woke up on Wednesday and it hadn't rained! Unfortunately, within the hour of us pulling in the driveway, it poured and the rain washed it all away. It literally rained for a matter of minutes and was done by the time we got home, but it was too late :( Thank you, Mary, for the thought and effort and we are SO glad you took pictures!

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And now for some of Miss O's different expressions...

Our Wonderful "Welcome Home"!!

We keep getting requests for more blog posts and more pictures and updates on how our sweet Olivia is doing. We admit that we are totally behind on blogging! In fact we still have China pictures and videos we want to post, but if YOU had this little sweetheart to play with would YOU want to blog? :)


To answer your questions, Olivia is doing amazingly. When we think of how significantly her life has changed in the last three weeks we can't believe how well she has adjusted. She has a big personality in a little 17 lb. body! She is over her ear infection and doing great. She is a peanut in size 6 month clothing!! We hardly had anything that small so most of her clothes are a bit big on her. I hit the thrift stores so she has a few things that fit now! :)

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Charlotte, whose dad took many of these great airport pictures, and Isaac and Ava (my great-nephew and niece) had fun playing while they waited for us to get there (special thank you to Val and Kirk for your photos, too!)
So sweet....watching for us to come down the escalator. It is this sight that made me choke up - there were even more kids lined up at the glass...
Here we come!
We completely blocked the area where people read which baggage claim is theirs! :) Our god-daughter, Kiah, with her sign


My precious Mama, meeting Olivia. With our friend's photos, we got it from both angles!
Words can't express my joy that my mom was here for this moment! What a miracle and a blessing!

We flew home on Lee's 40th birthday

My niece, Jenny, brought birthday cake!

Jenny, meeting Miss O

Our friend Sirene gave us beautiful flowers

And a balloon from the Emanoffs
Grandma Marsha holding Miss O for the first time!

Grandpa Wilson holding Miss O. They have become good pals!

Now this one tops everything...Our dear friends, the Brennans, are in transition - currently staying with relatives in Indiana. Fred was a meteoroloist for NWA which is now owned by Delta, and they just sold their home in Bloomington, soon to be relocated to Atlanta. They ALL flew in on standby just to be there for our arrival. They have been great mentors to us and we love the entire family. We miss them so much already and are still trying to get our brains around the fact that we can't just pop in for pizza and lay around on the floor playing games, telling stories and end up laugh-laugh-laughing. LOVE YOU, BRENNANS! Dang Delta!!! Stink!

Miss Sandy got to hold Miss O since she flew all the way from Indiana!!
Miss Tracy got to hold Miss O because she drove all the way from Eagan.... :) She was threatening to babysit in a week or something crazy like that! :D
Isaac and Olivia meeting for the first time...

Corene got a smile from Olivia

We LOVE our baby! We can't believe it, even now, that she is home. She exceeds our wildest imaginations for everything. She is a great eater, sleeps through the night, has a fun personality, and seems to be super-dee-duper-smart. We can't believe how we are blessed. Our friend Jenna said it better than I could (for you grandparents, click on "Jenna" :) )

First time in the carseat. She fussed for a minute and then stopped. Probably because she was looking at me and listening to me cough all the way home!

Thank you for all the cards, emails, facebook notes, gifts, calls, visits, and all the love, prayers and support for this long journey to Olivia. She has been prayed over and longed for - two years before she was even born. The painful wait for Olivia is what brought us to our Patricia and then Philippe. I will say again that having Patricia and Philippe in our hearts helped us get through the last year to O and O will help us through the last year to them. God knows what he is doing as he knits the tapestry of our family together. We have learned to be content with each day, each stage of waiting for our family, even while watching the families of those around us grow. While we look up at the tapestry from the underside, all we can see is the knots and strings going every which way. We can't see the picture!! What is it? What does it look like? We know that God's plan is better than anything we could have come up with and that the complete picture is very clear to Him.

Please pray...

...for our dear friends, the Flynns. They started the adoption process for this special boy, Jed, in October of 2007 and he was due to come home anytime now. God called him home to heaven instead.

The family is devastated as are all who cared for Jed at his orphanage. The Flynns are an amazing family whom we met on online through our Haiti agency, and we stayed with them last year and were instant friends family. We love them so much and ache for them as we know the pain of a long wait, as well as the emotional, physical and financial toll of international adoption, although we can't imagine a loss such as this. Please cover this family in your prayers as they longed to hold him and now will never have that chance. Jeddy was born without legs, and one comfort to the Flynns right now is that he is running and dancing with the angels in heaven.

Jediah Paul Flynn

July 7, 2007 - June 1, 2009

Baby Shower Photos!

Here we are at Olivia's baby shower! It was a beautiful party and I can't imagine anything improving it. My lifelong friends, Margie and Mindy, hosted it for us. The best gift we got was Olivia's picture the day before. The greeters!

Charlotte and Olivia O, from our local Chinese adoption group, doing their nametags :)

My sister, Jill, working on moving frozen peas from one dish to another in 30 seconds...

My friend, Sandy, trying to find safety pins in a bowl of rice...
My cousins looking at Olivia's 100 Wishes Quilt (which doubled as a perfect cover for the large screen TV)Left to right, Patti, Mindy's mom, my mom, Margie's son Hans, and Margie's mom, Donna
Olivia O

One of the centerpieces

These were our party favors
My friend Margie designed the beautiful invitation and the cake matched!

Our little friend, Zoe

WOW
Time to open the gifts

I needed Lee's help!
Here's what it says

I had to take a picture of the audience we had while opening the gifts! So cute!

This is me with Celia Woyke, whose family also just got their referral. We will be traveling to China together. She picked out this dress for Olivia all on her own! Thank you, Celia!My and my niece, Jenny. She is one of my bestest friends :)

And here are her kids. You have seen them before! I loooooooooove them!!!

With Lee's mom

and with my mom

Just like the old days, the girls all slept over and we talked until 2:30 or so! My friend Sindy stayed over too. We had a great time!Here we are the next morning! Kristi, on the top left, flew in from Ohio, and Mindy, on the bottom, flew in from Texas. It was a wonderful time with dear friends. Kristi and I have known each other since we were babies, and she met Margie and Mindy through me in Jr. High. We have all been friends for over 25 years. LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!
Thanks, girls, for a lovely weekend and a wonderful party!! Thanks to everyone who came to the shower as well! I will never forget it!