Grand Junction Dance Festival 2010

Last weekend our son Christian was involved in a dance festival put on by our church. These are big events and our stake (geographic region) has never put on one before or at least I don't remember any.
Since January the youth ages 12-18 in our stake have been practicing and the women have been sewing costumes. Many people worked hard to put on this great show.
The dance festival was a show where 5 stakes each performed dances from different eras: The 20s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. The stakes involved in Colorado were Grand Junction (2), Meeker, Montrose, and also the Moab, Utah stake. They danced 2 performances held at Mesa State. It was terrific!

(Christian is the first boy on the left.)

Below if the video of just our stake (Meeker) performing the 50s dance. Christian is in the back left and hard to see. Notice that our Stake President makes an appearance as Elvis!

Here's a picture we took of our Stake President after the show with his grandchildren.

Lacey's Birthday Weekend

Can you believe our sweet baby is one year old? It is quite the milestone as it seems like we've only had her such a short amount of time, yet feel like we've known her forever.
We sort of celebrated Lacey's birthday off and on all weekend long as we had such a busy weekend with Christian's dance festival (another post on that later).

Lacey is opening the presents her birth family gave to us when we picked her up at the orphanage. They were meant for her first birthday and we kept our promise that we would give them to her.

Check out the lovely bracelet and necklace from the birth family!
We celebrated with a birthday dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant.
Later she enjoyed a yummy cupcake made by Christian and Jeremiah.
This is the first picture (referral picture) we saw of our baby girl.

It's amazing how much we loved her just from this picture! I remembering crying uncontrollably when I saw her. Tears of joy! She's growing up so fast.Parker loves to give Lacey kisses. She turned and kissed him too, but I was too slow with the camera.
Lacey has had some interesting hairdos this weekend. One morning she woke up with this crazy mohawk.

It was then that I decided perhaps her hair is now long enough to curl it a bit. I am so excited to be able to fix her hair. I have waited so many years for this moment.....

We sure are enjoying out "Elegant Blessing" (the meaning of Lacey's Taiwanese name)!

Motivational Moment

Amid the chaos of this Summer it is easy to get discouraged. I have had a trying week with trying to keep two houses clean and ready for house showings at any moment. I took a break and saw this message in an email. It's just the motivation I need today!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my Handsome Prince. Thanks for giving me the greatest adventures of my life. You're my best friend! Thanks for making me laugh every day and for being the greatest Father to our children! I love you!

I Love My 5 Kids

Tonight I ran across the first discrimination I have encountered since adopting Lacey. I wrote out a whole post about it and then decided it wasn't worth my time. I guess it was just therapy to write it down and then erase it. I think the discrimination was more geared toward us having 5 kids than it was about adopting her. Wow, is 5 kids really that many? I don't think so and if I was younger I'd have or adopt a bunch more! I feel so much better now! By the way, the above picture is kind of silly and was taken at a luau at our church. However, I believe it's our first family picture!

A Precious Weekend

This weekend was one of the best weekends ever. It's the kind of weekend where I want tried to take mental pictures and lock them away forever in my heart! Our 3rd son - Ian was baptized. He's such a joy to have in our family and we are so thankful for him. He's a real spiritual giant and full of joy!
Also, Lacey was given her name and a blessing by her Daddy. This is a tradition in our church where babies have a special prayer that announces her official name (Lacey Enya) to the world. She is also given a blessing to help her throughout her life.

We had lots of family to be with us on this special weekend. Most came from Utah and my cousin came from Wisconsin. Also, we have lots of family that lives close by us.

We stayed up late laughing, visiting and having a wonderful time. We had 40 people to dinner. We still own 2 homes (mixed blessing) and so it was easy to accommodate everyone. I could not believe how easy both sides of the family got along so well this weekend.

Here is a picture of two Taiwanese cousins through American adoptions. Trevor was adopted from Taiwan 5 years ago by Gerry's cousin (also our best friends). He was adopted from the same orphanage as Lacey. This is the first time these two cuties have seen each other. A real tear jerker.

Our Parker on the right with cousin Logan. They were inseparable all weekend. By coincidence they came out dressed exactly the same!
We even saw this incredible rainbow from our deck.

It was as close to a perfect weekend as we could have had!

An Adoption Miracle

Through this journey of adoption, I had so many miracles in order for everything to work out perfectly. It has been a journey of faith and of God's will being brought to pass.
Today I'd like to share someone else's journey. Along the way I met Tami. She's an incredible woman of faith. They adopted Noah from Taiwan and then decided Jeremiah needed a home too. Jeremiah is a special needs child with cerebral palsy. I saw Jeremiah in his crib when we were in Taiwan and I've been praying that they can get the money they need to adopt him.
Tami and her family have literally raised the money to adopt him $1 at a time. They have held bake sales, plate dinners, car washes, auctions, yard sales and every kind of fundraising event you can imagine. I've been amazed at their determination.
They leave for Taiwan soon - I think next week and after all that they have done, they needed a bit more money. Today they received an anyonomous donation via PayPal for $2000. They finally have the last bit of money needed to adopt Jeremiah! Praise God! You can view the video here.