I'm not sure what to title this post.  Today we finished all of the manditory physicals for the whole family and we have fingerprinting on Friday.  I've been doing the paperwork this time, and I have even printed and made copies!  (If you don't know me very well, then you don't know how monumental that is for me!)  I want her home so badly that I will do ANYTHING to get her here.  Some things are exactly the same as with Jack, where I buy her clothes and lay them out and look at them and then fold them neatly and put them back up.  I love to imagine the different colors against her beautiful dark skin and hair.  I love to daydream and wonder if she will be a "girly-girl", or pull the bows and headbands out like my other two daughters did.  Will she be as dainty as she looks?  Will she be loud like the rest of my kids, or will I finally get a quiet one???  Yeah, not likely!  Will she love music?  Will she have a special blankey or stuffed animal?  Will she be as snuggly as Jack, and therefore I will never again only share my bed with my husband?  Do they even make a bigger bed than king??  Will she take to our dog as quickly as Jack did?  I pray for her almost constantly.  I have her city's weather on my phone so I always know what it's like there in comparison to here. She is so beautiful.  I have been reading and watching youtube videos of Lanzhou, Gansu China, trying to learn all I can about where she is.  Oh God, please be so close to our sweet girl.....please hold her and protect her......please send Your angels to guard over her.  Please let her love and receive love......please make the time until we can go get her be short! Please send the money so quickly so it's not an issue.  Please blow all of our minds with how fast and smoothly this adoption goes!! Please allow more sweet kids that need homes to find them!  Make heavy the hearts of those  that You want to adopt....there are children all over the world that just need a home and a family, love and protection, medical care, and guidance, laughter and a reason to laugh and enjoy life.  And mostly a chance to know Jesus, to love and live for Him!  I can think of nothing better to do with my life....What an honor to raise them for Him!

Life is good.  Busy, but good.  Evan is neck-deep in band practice. We all love to go to Friday night home football games and watch him play at half-time and see our friend Jordan play football. Grace is involved in volleyball.   Cate's dance and running club will start back up again in September.  Jack and I go to speech two days a week and will probably be adding more soon through the local school district. Chris is reffing little league football again, so that will be every Saturday until around November.  And I try to run an organized (insert the kind of laughter that makes milk come out  of your nose) household.  But, we make it work, and we are healthy and enjoy one another, so that's all that counts.  Our house is always loud, overflowing with friends and family, often messy, and somewhat cramped, but it's full of love and teamonade or coffee.  Come on over and hang out with us!  I'll make you something to eat :)

Please keep praying for sweet Sophie.  God bless you,
Leslie

Round Two!!

Well......I'm sure this will seem fast to many of you, maybe even extreme, probably not something that many will even understand, but we are adopting again from China.  We have felt for several months that we would love to go back to China and bring home another sweet child.  We didn't expect it to be a girl!  We thought we would bring home another little boy, about Jack's age, and our family would be complete.  We have read hundreds of bios on children in the last 11 months, inquired about a few, but never felt any of them were "the one".  A couple of weeks ago I opened the Holt file and saw this sweet face; this head of dark hair; those piercing dark eyes, and I knew.  I just knew.  We inquired about her and had her file reviewed by our sweet pediatrician and our wonderful plastic surgeon.  While we haven't heard from Dr. Jiang, Dr. Sauer did respond back quickly and told us some of the things that we may be faced with when bringing her home.  She is vey small, less than 20 pounds, and three years old.  She still doesn't walk on her own.  She can crawl and walk in the walker.  She has pretty much the same type and degree of open palate that Jack had. She has had her lip repaired.  There are many unanswered questions surrounding her inabilitiy to walk.  But we love her already, and we will face her medical unknowns armed with a team of physicians that we know and trust with her sweet and precious life.  We are going to be able to use some of the paperwork from our adoption of Jack, and so we were told to expect this adoption to go much faster.  We don't feel led to make this adoption as "community" as the last one.  We feel that there are so many amazing families in our wonderful church that are exploring adoption and fostering that we want to join in their time of excitement and newness, and not be in the spotlight with Sophie.  We know the drill now, and we feel that God has already covered this adoption's costs and answered the questions that we don't have answers to.  If you know me (Leslie) at all, you know that "at peace" is not a feeling I am known for.  Anxious, restless, sleepless, worried, and over- all stressed...?  YES!  But I can't even explain the peace that I have about bringing Sophie home and all that adding to our family entails.  She really needs to be home....she is fragile and not thriving in any way.  Please pray with us that everything she is fed will supernaturally nourish her body and mind.  Please pray that God will heal her sweet body.  Please pray that God will rain down the rest of the money that we need to bring her home.  We chose the name Sophia.  It is a family name, and it means "wisdom".  Please ask God to continue to give us wisdom and guidance on this journey to bring her home.  Who knew God would bless us with another beautiful angel from China???  Who knew that God would allow us the pleasure and priveledge of another of HIS amazing children?  We are so blessed.  We thank you in advance for supporting us as we set out to travel to a very remote area of China, desolate and poor, to bring home this treasure that God has for us. 
In Him,
Chris, Leslie, Evan, Grace, Cate, Jack and soon to be Sophie Fuller