One year ago our lives were changed and will never be the same!!!

Today is our Gotcha day anniversary and we celebrated while we were at the beach. We went swiming in the morning and then after a good nap went to get a pizza and bought a cake to have for a dessert. Kenna was saying it's a happy day after we said a prayer over her cake. Tomorrow we plan on going to the Aquarium and out for her favorite Texas roadhouse she loves it because the ladies dance. Sometimes I can't believe it's been a year and then other times it seems she has always been here. Josh and Kayla love her much more than I ever expected they always ask to take her with them everywhere. I can't beleive how much she has growed and how much she has changed over the last year. We will never forget our time in China and the life long memories with The Hoffman's that we traveled with.

Where were you a year ago today?

We were on our way to China and I can't believe that it has been a year already. Our lives have been changed and I know that was what god had planned. We just found out that we are going to the beach next week and going to be celebrating Makenna's family day there. Here is a few pictures of the beautiful clouds from the plane.

Firepit and smores

I have been wanting to get a fire pit for a back patio for over a year now. We finally found one that we liked and Dana said that if we buy it we have to use it every weekend. Sounds good to me and Kayla. This was the first weekend we had to wait until the heat from the day was gone and we fired it up. Makenna just walked around saying Hot and burn baby. Kayla and Dana had a great time making smores and burning the marshmallows. I think we are going to have lots of fun with this maybe not every weekend though.

Praying for this family

I have been watching a story unfold in China this week that is absolutely breaking my heart. An American family was there adopting their little girl. New rules from the CDC now require newly adopted children to be tested for TB before being allowed to leave their country of origin. This little girl tested positive a month ago, but no one except her orphanage knew. (They were unaware of the new CDC rules.) They began medically treating the child, who is now no longer contagious. Children cannot pass TB via cough anyway, because they are unable to cough hard enough to bring the germ up from their lungs. SO...like I said, this child IS NOT CONTAGIOUS.

She has been denied a visa to the US. Her parents, who have a child back home waiting for them. Neither can stay in China due to both needing to go back to work.

The CDC said their newly adopted daughter needed to have a sputnum test--which she did--and it came back negative. Then the CDC said the test was not performed at a facility that they approved, therefore it could not be accepted. Their facility will take weeks to complete the testing.

Many calls and emails have been made, but it came down to the decision of the top man at the CDC and he refused to grant a waiver to keep this little girl with her family. If this child had been a biological child, she would not have been prevented from going home.

Her parents have had no choice but to leave this little one in China with another family until all the CDC requirements have been met. This is a new law by the CDC, and will no doubt start to affect other families in the adoption process. This law is another example of hysteria-driven rules that make no sense. Why would you keep a child--who is unable to pass the germ to anyone on a plane--from being with his/her family?

Please visit their blog for the video of them saying goodbye to their little girl and her screaming for her Daddy it is just heartbreaking. I cannot get over this and have said prayers for all of them throughout the day. Here is the link to their blog http://jayscruggs.livejournal.com

Rainbows

We had a very bad storm this afternoon and when it was over this is what we saw it was actually a double rainbow though in the picture you can only see one.

Riding bikes

Kenna loves her bike as she calls it. She always wears her helmet. The weather has been so hot and so raining that we don't get to go outside that much. The other day the garage door opened and she grabbed her bike and helmet and was off.

Things that happen when you have teenagers and a toddler

Lately Kenna has been picking up words from Josh and Kayla I am not talking about nasty words we don't say them in our house. I'm talking about teenage talk. Kenna has been going around with her cell phone saying I'm texting one minute. When I ask her to do something she says I am like her sister Kayla always says.The other day she looked at me and said my bad. How can you keep from laughing at her. She uses three and four word sentences now. She just 2 years old going on 15.