Our version of the red couch picture!
All of our daughters!
One happy Momma with her girls!
After the swearing in ceremony, in front of the consulate!
Big Sissy and her two new sisters!
We were blessed to have such a wonderful family with us in GZ!! The Holts were in China in 2005 and now the returned for a little sister! They kept us laughing!
There are more posts to post, pics to see and experiences to tell about but for now we are focused on our journey home. God has blessed us with our daughters and sons. How lucky we are to parent this crew!
I have mentioned before that our dear Emma is a challenge. She has so, so much to learn. We are putting our faith in God that he will help us every step of the way. Hubby has been the one to deal with her misbehaviors. Once we get home it will be just me and the girls- Please pray for wisdom and patience for me as I deal with the challenges of two new daughters throughout the day. I do not doubt for a moment that God can do it but I do doubt whether or not I can do it- so as long as he is in control we will be fine!
Today we had the girls sit down with our family, our guide and the person in charge of the guides. We discussed expected behavior in America (seatbelt, stay with your family, etc). We discussed family expectations- respect older brothers, respect parents, respect our home, listen to parents, the parents are in charge, all children in America either go to school or are taught at home... it's the law, etc!
In all honesty - they made it very clear that if she(Emma) wanted to be in our family this is what she needed to do. We were glad they did! We know that kids are defiant at times, we know they test the limits and challenge the rules, we know they want control, we know that everyone makes mistakes. We are a happy family, we treat each other nicely, we love each other, we respect each other, we help each other and we believe we can be a great family to our new daughters but they need to work hard to make it work out. We believe they heard that message and now we will all move forward.
It was interesting because Emma then behaved perfectly and Ellie acted up. There are interesting dynamics when adopting bio sibs! I am sure this will not be the last time they act as a tag team. For too long they have been labeled good and bad. It is my goal, my mission to stop that. We used it a little to encourage better behavior from Emma while in China but that is not a game to be played at home.
I want... I dream for both girls to feel for once equally loved, equally treasured, equally admired and equally respected. This is not a task I can do on my own- this is so much bigger than me. It has to be all God, and only God.
Please pray that all goes as well as possible on our journey home!
Please pray for our journey as we become a family of 11 (2 parents and 9 children)!
Truly the Lord knows my heart! He knows my dreams! I am so grateful to him! He knows that as a child I played "big family"! My family had 13 in it so stay tuned!!
There is some other interesting news but I will wait to share it. It's all up to God and I completely submit to him!
