Sunday, December 24, 2006

Twas the night before Christmas

Mom, Dad, Shelley, Maurice, Tyree, Corina joined us for Candlelight Service at church. It was beautiful. We then came back to our house for the traditional Christmas Eve eats. Mom's famous stuffed mushrooms and several different appetizers along with some really yummy wine. (accept for mom, she likes the sweet stuff) We played our "new" favorite family game, Pictionary. Jake is really good at this game.

Last year we started a new family tradition for Christmas Eve, the exchange of pajamas. Of course Scott got the sparkly red thong underwear again this year. Sorry no pictures. I am not sure why there are none? Everyone looks forward to getting new pajamas!




Friday, December 22, 2006

Family and Friends...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our friends and family.

2006 has been another blessed year for our family.

Jake continues to enjoy school and his new neighborhood and friends. He began the year by finishing his basketball season on a high note. His team took second and he learned a lot of new things about teamwork and hard work. He had a good baseball season and continued to have his ups and downs throughout the season. He started the year playing 3rd base and finished playing 2nd base. Next year we begin kid pitch. Heads up batter!! We went on our annual ski trip to Winter Park, CO and he really had a blast and got so good that by the end he was almost skiing better than us. The summer finished with our annual trip to Beaver Lake, AR. Jake amazed us both by deciding that he was going to put his own skis on and get up on his water skis without help. After a couple of tries he was off. Also, he learned to kneeboard forward and backward this summer too.

As second grade began Jake went through his normal adjustment period. Over the last month or so he has taken to reading “chapter books” and can’t get enough of new words, new characters, and wants to buy or check out new books daily. He loves his teacher Miss Cannady and she is doing a great job encouraging him with all of his work.

Jill has had an interesting year. She fell on our last run on our last day of skiing in March. Six weeks later, after a painful 9 hour car ride from Colorado, Jill had ligament replacement surgery (ACL) which went well and she was up and around a few weeks later. She still works at Bank of America but now has moved closer to home and works on the west side of town with a large, diverse team. At times it has been challenging but she perseveres for the sake of all her customers whom she loves and looks forward to seeing whenever they come to visit her.

Scott has continued his work at Pfizer. He is about to finish his 6th year. There have been challenging times as the company makes major changes in personnel again next year. He continues to love coaching Jake’s baseball and basketball teams. When he is not coaching or working he has been doing some running. He completed his goal of finishing the Turkey Trot, a 10 mile run, in less than ninety minutes. He looks forward to getting ready for the Wichita half marathon next September. Oh yea he turned 40!!

Our family is about to be completed, as many of you know we received our adoption match on her eighth month birthday, November 30th. Baby Emma will be able to come home with us around the first of February. It will be a two week trip for the whole family.

Merry Christmas and thanks again for your thoughts and prayers

Scott, Jill, Jacob and Emma

Monday, December 04, 2006

Hi everyone, my name is Ruqin, aka Emma!!


Hi my name is Ruqin (pronounced RooChin), aka Emma.

I just wanted to introduce myself to all of my new family and friends and say hello from Quangxi Province in southeast China.

I was born on March 30, 2006 and just turned 8 months old on the day my new mom and dad were notified about me. I will be coming home around February 1st of 2007.

I weigh about 15 lbs and am about 31 inches long. I love to laugh alot, play with my red ball toy and generally enjoy life sleeping, eating and playing my way through each day. As you can see I work out doing push-ups and am working on my crawling for some cardio 5-7 days a week for about 30-60 minutes :)

Although, I am on the opposite side of the world from my mom and dad, I am not scared. I know God has sent an army of angels to look out for me until mom and dad get her. I sure hope they hurry. I can't wait to see my big brother Jake. I heard he has been very excited and has been letting everyone know as much as he can about me. I love you Jake.

I want to also say thank you for all of the prayers even when you didn't know exactly who I was. I can feel them every night and it helps me to sleep peacefully.

Once again, thank you and I love you Mom, Dad and Jake.

Emma