The Firstbrook Five

Carving Chaos

10 kids, 6 adults, and lots and lots of pumpkin guts! It was a wild and crazy time with friends on Sunday, carving pumpkins, catching up, eating food, sharing stories.

There's just something special about being with "old" friends. You know, the ones you shared babyhood with. We all held our babies together in the cry room, called eachother after sleepless nights, prayed eachother through hard life transitions. We all live in different cities now, but not so far away that we can't still get together - what a treat!

This get together was particularly special and meaningful - Will has been sick for many, many weeks and is finally feeling better; Cheri lost her dad just 2 months ago and is still  moving through the grieving process; the Bryan's hadn't yet met Katie Mei and we hadn't yet met Baby Dylan. All combined, it was just so great to be together again. We can't ever be thankful enough for the gift of friendship. Nights like Sunday night are just a little bitty fortaste of Heaven - the sweet fellowship here is just a glimpse of the perfect fellowship we will share when we are finally Home. As good as it was on Sunday, I can't even imagine how wonderfully perfect it will be when we are all together without the stain of sin!

And it was also a special night because we were able to have Katie Mei join in our family traditions. Ron loves carving pumpkins with the girls - and it was such a treat to have Katie joining in! No more, "next year when we have Katie." We're finally living in that space - Katie is here - and we are doing everything WITH her, insteading of WAITING for her!

She just cracked us up all night. She found a neon green pumpkin scooper, and boy howdy, she was not gonna give it up! Katie went from pumpkin to pumpkin, "scraping" as only she could do. I'm not really sure if her clothes will  ever come clean, but who cares, the girl had fun! She also loved meeting Dylan. Cutie patootie Dylan is just 3 months younger than Katie; they sure had fun checking eachother out. Hmmm, maybe we could start thinking of an arranged marriage?!

Kelsey and Emily had so much fun, we hardly saw them at all during the evening. First they carved to their hearts content, and then they ran off to play and we didn't hear from them again (except to quickly eat dinner and then go back to playing)!

One quick story from the night . . .

Early on in the evening six-year-old Emily came to me and asked if she could have some candy corn. I quietly explained that she could have a few, but only if they were offered to her. She ran off into the other room to go back to her friends, and I overheard her say, "Cailley, my mom says I can only have candy corn if it's offered to me. So do you want to offer me some candy now?!" Needless to say, her tummy hurt later from all the candy consumption! :)

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering what our little Katie might be wearing tomorrow . . . here's a sneak peak:

Isn't she just crazy cute?!

We have a walker . . .

Whew . . . it's happened . . . Katie is walking. And walking. And almost running!

Katie began her full time walking just in time for our week long vacation at the Country House (aka Grandma & Grandpa's house in Redding). My mom celebrated her birthday last week and we decided to celebrate all week long with her! We had a blast taking pictures, shopping, watching the girls play outside and taking a field trip with Grandpa. Of course there was lots of eating out interspersed in all the other activities! All four of us girls just love getting spoiled at Grandma and Grandpa's!

So the girlie is walking, and she loves it. She has yet to topple over and hit her head on the corner of the coffee table or fireplace, but that day is coming. Trust me, it's coming soon. She just loves to be on the go now. No more playing with toys for hours minutes on end. Now it's look at a toy, get up and walk around, find another toy and glance at it, walk around some more. We never know where she is from one minute to another, but usually she's just gallivanting about, happy as a lark!

While we were busy at the Country House we did get quite a few pictures taken.

Kelsey, as always, loves  to pose for the camera - we got some great shots of her. Sorry  she's looking so old - who knew that at 10 she would be so composed and beautiful!

Emily can only be stopped from playing for a minute or two for a picture - don't even try to fluff up her hair or straighten her shirt -she's got playing to do and the picture taking is just interrupting her fun!

Katie is definitely taking after Kelsey in the picture taking department. She loves to pose  and then come over to the camera and look at the picture I just took. As she looks at the screen on the camera she goes, "ooooooh." As if she was saying, "look at that totally adorable little girl." Which is true!!!

Overall we just had a great week being away and playing and visiting and having a super fun time. The girls loved lounging about in their pj's, eating Chocolate Chocolate Everything, and in general being spoiled, spoiled, spoiled!

It's back to life as usual here at The Firstbrook Five. School starts again in the morning - if you talk to Kelsey, don't ask her about the 3 quizzes and 2 tests that she'll be taking this week - I haven't told her yet!

Five months ago today

Five months ago today we became a family of five.

Five months ago today a screaming bundle of cuteness was placed into our arms.

Five months ago today our hearts broke for a little girl who was scared, upset, hot, tired and terrified.

Five months ago today we fell in love with the sweet girl from the picture.

Five months ago today our hearts grew to a size we didn't know existed.

Enjoy looking at our last five months. It's hard to believe where we were just five short months ago. Katie is growing and learning and loving. We are growing and learning and loving. And we are doing it together. God is good. So good.

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For this woman we prayed . . .

Yesterday was quite a remarkable day! Just as Kelsey and I were finishing with her schoolwork I did a quick check of my email inbox. There in my inbox sat the most amazing email . . .

But first a little background. While I was recovering from Mono I finally checked all my email from when I was sick and found an email from Brian Stuy at Research-China. Brian is an adoptive Dad who does great work between China and other adoptive parents. It was from Brian that we received Katie's finding ad. Brian also goes into orphanages and takes pictures so that adoptive parents can actually see where their children first lived. Well, Brian's email stated that he was sending a team of people to ShangRao to try and find as many Foster Families as possible and to match up those Foster Families with children that have been adopted. The email asked that if we had any info on Katie's foster mom to please let him know. Well, we did have the name of her foster mom written on a piece of paper from the Orphanage Director. Of course the name was written in Chinese and we couldn't read it - but at least it was documented. Unfortunately, we were too late to get this info to Brian. By the time I read the email the team was already gone. I was pretty disappointed to say the least. While we don't dwell on Katie's past, we do realize that we would like to offer her as much information as possible some day. It will be her choice what she wants to do with that information, if anything. So, I read Brian's email, wished we could have participated, and moved on.

So, today I open up my inbox to see an email from Brian with an attached list of almost 3 pages - children from the ShangRao Orphanage matched up to their Foster Mother! I opened up the list from the email and held my breath while I scanned the list. Would Katie be on the list? Please, please?!

Finally, half way down the second page I saw her name - with the name of her foster mother across from it. I ran and got the paper where the Orphanage Director had written the name as well, and while I can't read Chinese, there is no doubt that the characters match! Yippee!

Then I clicked over to the link with pictures. And I found her name. And I clicked on the picture. And up popped a picture with the face of a precious Chinese woman. A woman we prayed for, for months and months. We prayed that God would protect her. That He would keep her warm and give her strength to care for our child. We prayed that He would enable her to love and bond and feed and play with our girl. We trusted God that He had placed Katie in foster care, and He had! And now we were seeing the face of this sweet woman. The woman who first loved Katie. And we know she must have loved Katie. From the way that Katie has been able to love us and bond with us, it is obvious she had some sort of attachment early in life. And that attachment was with this woman, Feng.

The tears started rolling and they took a long time to stop. It really is impossible to describe the emotions of setting eyes on the very person who held your child all those nights that you couldn't. The woman who tenderly fed her and cared for her. Who woke up in the night with her. Who saw her first smile, heard her first laugh. This woman was the first to hold Katie's heart, and our heart's are forever grateful to her.

The best news of all came later when I called Brian to thank him. Brian has Feng's address and is giving it to us. We can send her a letter of thanks. We can send her pictures of Katie so she can see how her hard work and dedication made a difference in our child's life. We can send her some sort of gift to express our gratitude and to try and make her life a little easier, a little brighter.

Let's all say it together - God is good!