Gottcha day

Well tomorrow is the big day! Two years with Emma Lin. Boy did it go by past. These past two years really have been the best of my whole life. Life was good before having a daughter but it does not compare to how great it is with her. Sure there are days when I say If only I could sleep a little more or boy what I wouldn't do to stay up late and watch TV or have a nice night out without having to worry about being home at a certain time. But that passing and I wouldn't trade being a mom for anything in the world. I just sit here and wonder just how lucky I am to have such an amazing child that calls me mom everyday (sometimes a million times a day). Emma Lin is such a happy child, she loves gym class, T-ball, swimming, The Phillies especially Hunter Pence, Loves to learn boy is she smart I think smarter than me. Loves snuggling with me, playing with her stuff animals nad making breakfest with daddy. Loves having fun with her Aunt and cousins. Loves to turture my dad and teasing him all the time. He always says "what did Pop Pop do that you don't like him". I know she loves him, but somehow senses that teasing him is fun. Loves spending time with her grandmom and playing and snuggling with her. I rememeber this time two years ago in China not being able to sleep texting and skyping with everyone trying to find something in English to watch on TV and counting the minutes until I could see and hold my little girl. The night felt like the six months of waiting was nothing compared to these last few hours. I think I slept about 2 hours. Then finally we got the call from our guide come on down to the 2nd floor Emma Lin is here. The elevator ride from floor 8 to 2 was about 10 minutes and I am not kidding. WE thought we had our video camera filming and found out later that is wasn't. WE don't have any pics or video from the first moments but I can picture it in my mind like it was only a minute ago. walking in and seeing this little girl nervous and scared looking around and wonderin where am I? So tiny on here nanny's lap dressed in all pink with a birthday bib on. ( I kind of thought that was funny that day, but now thinking about it, It was a birthday for us as family. The nanny stood up and handed her to me and boy was she so light and tiny I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. Wishing I could of known what she was thinking in the tiny little head of hers. She was comfortable with me. Snuggled up to me and showed me her badge. I don't think I have ever smiled so much like I did that day. ONly when her family from the orphange were leaving did she let out a tiny little cry, but seconds later she was fine. We had her smiling and feeding us puffs right away. She stole my husband and my hearts right away. We spoil her but she really just wants to spend time with us. I don't think she could care less if she didn't have any toys. I cannot wait to spend the day with her tommorrow and at night some of our family and friedns will celebrate with her. June 13th will forever be the best day of my life and I wish I could tell her birth parents, Thanks for bringing this special blessing into my life, that she is happy, healthy and loved so so much. Happy Gottcha day Emma Lin Glori Inch, thanks for being the best kid in the whole world I love you more than you will ever know! Happy Gottcha day to Parker, Ling LIng and Leah!!

Happy new year!

School

Well we started looking into schools. I can't beleive next year Emma will be going to pre school. I really don't likeing making this decision. I had no idea on how hard it would be. Trusting others to take care of your child while you are not there. I know she is not going to like being somewhere where I am not there. That is going to be really hard. She is smart as a whip and will have no trouble on the learning end. But sharing and playing and being without me is going to be challenging. I started her in a gym class that I am not with her. She cried the first time but participated in the class while cring. We go again Thurs. hopefully she won't cry this time. I understand that she is crying because she is unsure if I am coming back or if I left her. I tried to explain to her about it, but I am unsure if she uderstand me. I wish all the adopted families lived close by this way they all could go to the same school and we could say if they needed us. That would be such a great idea. Oh Well hopefully by september she will be better. Or I might just be taking her out of class until next year.

Sarah, more then just a social worker

Well last week I read a sad email. A sad one for me and happy one for our social worker. While I am happy that she is leaving her job at Living Hope to be a stay at home mom to her little son. I am sad for me, the comfort of knowing she was just a phone call away a short car ride away was comforting. The thought that someday when Emma is old enough to understand her story, I would of loved to bring her to Living Hope the place that found her for us. I know I am being selfish but Sarah was such a Hugh part of our lives. I remember the day talking to my husband on the phone about weather or not we were going to adopt. I was at work googling adoption agency in the area and Living Hope popped up. I was reading him the info, "they are having an information meeting in a couple weeks, do you want to go and get some info" the next words out of his mouth were "yea, call them now and let them know we are going". I couldn't believe it for a couple years we have been talking but nothing was for sure until I heard the words "yea". So we went and what could of been a bad experience turned out great. I thought we would meet this uptight women in a business suit who was all manners and a little mean, but who we met was this young women ( I think younger then us). Looking very casual in jeans and a sweat shit. Who couldn't be any cuter or nicer. Talking to her was very relaxing as if we knew her forever. It made our decision to adopt the right thing. We knew at that moment this was the place. At that time we didn't know Sarah would be matching us to our daughter, that wouldn't come for almost a year a later. But indeed it was idea to help us switch programs. She came up with an idea to hold a meeting about Sn adoptions. Without that meeting I am not sure my husband would of change his mind. In that meeting we meet a husband and wife that were kind enough to share there story and their words changed my husband mind and a few short days later we were in the sn program. That lead us to Sarah finding us our daughter. She had talked to us, listened to the little things that I said, understood my husband issues. All without commenting, she just knew what little girl to look out for. And one night files come up on her computer pics of little girls and boys and there she was a little girl with a smile in her referral pic and she clicked lock. See one day we were talking and a fear of mine was a pic of an unhappy baby how could I bond with a pic like that, how do people do it. Sarah paid attention to that little detail a conversation in passing and locked a file of a smiling little bundle of joy, who now is my daughter. I am forever gretful to her and always will be, we might not talk on a daily basis or even see each other, but I sure am going to miss her. She is my angle the one who made my life happy and full. The one who gave me the best gift anyone could ever even think of. The one that without hearing her voice or seeing her face makes me laugh cry happy tears and gives me the best job ever. Taking care and raising the sunshine of my life. I hope your son brings you the joy my daughte brings me and I know you will do a great job raising your son he is so blessed to be able to call you mom. I will miss you and thanks for all you did for me and family. We love you SArah!!

I am a horrible blogger. I hired my cousin to start one for the bridal shop because I am such a bad blogger. I just know I would get into in the beginning then never write anymore. I am sorry that I don't post. Mostly because I would love to read the post back someday. Love to print them out and make a book out of them. What a great gift that would of been for Emma some day to read. But I don't post about all our fun things we do, the daily funny phases that comes out of my daughters mouth. The amount of love I have for the wonderful little girl that is my daughter. about how much I am thankful everyday that she is in my life. about how she is the most important person in my life and I would do anything for her. But I just don't and today I just felt like writing it down. I love my little Emma Lin so much and I can't wait for Christmas not because I am going to get cool gifts that I wouldn't buy for myself, but because I am going to have the best gift ever and that is sharing the day with my Emma and watching her get excited over her gifts. Looking at her beautiful face when she smiles at something she likes. I am extremely grateful this that our family is together, that we are all healthy and happy. Of course I wish my grand mom and Ryan's mom were here to meet our beautiful daughter,but I think they had a hand in helping God find us for us. Merry Christmas to all my friends and family. Here is a happy and healthy new year.

Disney

Well the count down to Disney is on. Everyday I tell Emma we are going to Mickey's House (who she loves so so much, along with the rest of gang). I cannot wait. I am so excited to see her cute little face light up when she is there. She loves rides and loves characters so she will be in heaven when she is there. The best part about the whole trip will be we are going with our whole family. My parents, sister and family, my father in law and nephew. We are staying in a big house and we will all be under the roof for 7 days. This by far will be the best part for Emma. no one has to leave to go home or go to work. We will get to go to sleep as 10 and wake up as 10. She loves the company of our families, loves when we are all together. We have a full week planned with character breakfest. Bippy bop boutique (another thing she loves is getting her face done and nails), Polyneise lu ale, Pirate ship cruise and of couse dinner in China. It will be great and I can't wait to go. We leave Monday November 7!

We are getting ready for the fall season. Summer was pretty awesome. We really did get to a lot of fun things. Emma Lin is getting so big, she pretty much talks in sentences now and it is so funny to hear. She still get some of her pronouns mixed up, but her speech is very clear. When she wants me to hold her she says "mommy hold you". Music class started back up and its nice to see some of our old friends. Emma is really started to play with other kids, before she would just watch. I started to fall clean and I am slowing decorating each room. It so neat to watch Emma pick out all the new items in the room. She counts everything to, it is quite interesting how much she notices change. We leave for disney on Nov. 7th. I can't wait she is going to love it. We bought her a Minnie mouse outfit and Snow White (boy does she really look like snow white). We are decieding which one to wear Halloween.She now sleeps in a regular bed which she loves it nice to get in bed with her and cuddle in the mornings under the blanket. We have had a couple cool mornings to do this. Hopefully she will get to the the PHillies win the world series this year. She is quite a fan already and like Hunter Pence. I think she likes the way he wears his socks. I took her yesterday to get a feather in her hair and boy does she love it. It looks really neat in her hair. She is gettig closer to her daddy. She has always been a mommas girl wanted me to everythng for her. She really only went to daddy when she wanted to play. Now she goes to daddy for everything. I not sure why she changed so suddenly but my husband is loving every bit of it.
This summer has been quite interesting on our part to. I think me and ryan had a little string of bad luck this summer but we are able to laugh about it and we are just thankful that we are ok and happy and healthy.
First someone stole my camara with some really cool pics. after that we got some damage from Hurrican Irene and needed to replace our carpet padding( our carpets are only less then a year old) As soon as we replaced them we got another storm and this time we had to replace the padding and carpets. then after that someone stole our air conditoner unit(yes the real big one that sits outside) who does that. Well we just sat back and laughed. The cop almost didn't believe us when we told him. HE said this was a first.