Our year in Pictures

A look back at the blessings in our life this past year.

Starting with of course the blessing of our little miracle baby, Lucy Joy Peak. Born at 34 weeks, She weighed 5lbs 12 oz at birth.

Spring

We received official word from China in the early spring that Amy was ours and Brent and I traveled to China late May to bring her home.
Amy was so excited to find out she had sisters!Family favorites:



The girls have kept us busy and laughing all year long. Happy New Year!

Hand-me-downs

Don't you love hand-me-downs? So many memories when you see your different children wearing the same clothes.
Angie wore this shirt too, well up until I took it out of her drawer and put it on Lucy, but I can't seem to find a picture of her in it too.

at play

Yesterday I took all the Christmas decorations down. The girls helped of course.

It felt good to have an open living room again, without a big tree in it. Of course to the girls it was a wide open play area and they have been playing with their new train set all day in our living room. Poor Nala, our dog she didn't know where to go without stepping on toys so she climbed up on our footstool and has been there for a while now.

Young girl needs a home!

This was posted on one of my boards today. This dear girl is about to "age out" at 14 which means she is no longer eligible for adoption in China. The Orphanage fees have been waived which is almost half the cost of a CHinese adoption. The agency will probably waive their fees as well which is about another 3rd of the cost of a Chinese adoption. Please pray for her, she will be 14 in a few weeks and it will be her saddest birthday she's ever had if she doesn't find a family.
For more information you can email Love without Boundaries at: info@lwbmail.com

Put "Fu Chang - 13 years old" in the subject line and they'll forward
it to her ASAP

Karin

Forwarded from Amy Eldridge of Love Without Boundaries:

I just got a letter from a staff member at the Shantou orphanage. There is
a young girl on the shared waiting child adoption list named Fu Chang. She
will turn 14 in three weeks and still has not found a family, so her
chance
of adoption is almost over. Chang is an extremely sweet and gentle girl,
and she has watched all of her friends in the orphanage find families.
The orphanage said she is "heart struck" that no one has stepped
forward for
her to become their daughter. She wants a family so very much.

The orphanage has agreed to waive the $5000 adoption fee if a family
can be
found for her. If you know anyone who has a dossier in China who is open
to an older child adoption, please let them know that the orphanage
fee will
be waived.

Still praying for a miracle for her.

Amy

Big Girl

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great day, I am trying to reclaim my house from the Christmas clutter. :-)
Lucy decided to take her first step yesterday on Christmas day! It was just like her other firsts, she felt like we could handle it so she showed us her new trick laughing and clapping to let us know she was completely in control. She's adorable. :-)

On Christmas Eve we took the girls to the Christmas Eve service at church. They just wanted to get to the part where they got to hold a candle and tried to wait as patiently as they could until then. When I finally gave them each a candle, I decided that was the first time Amy has been that close to a candle or fire before. She didn't have it very long before it was time to light it but she had already broke the candle stick and put it upside down in the candle holder. I lit mine and gave it to her. She tried to take it from me by grabbing the fire! I yanked it back from her and put her hand under the the cup safe from the dripping wax, even though my hand was covered by wax by then. I kept a close watch on her while we had our candles lit. When it was time to blow them out I leaned over and took a breath and opened my mouth and she said (very Loudly) "don't eat it Momma!" Kinda broke the solemness of the occasion for the others around us. :-)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Peaks

Karianne is actually holding mistletoe but she is waving it so enthusiastically you can't see it. :-)

a Tooth!

Finally at 11 months old, Lucy has her first tooth! bottom right tooth. At this rate she is following her sister Angie who got her first tooth right before her first birthday and didn't get another one until her second birthday!

Lion Slippers

I bought these adorable little lion slippers in China.
Lucy finally fits into them!

Hey, Where's baby Jesus?

Can you give me directions again?

Angel, can you tell me where baby Jesus is again? We can't find him!

lights and fish

We took the girls to look at a huge walk through light display at Rhema Bible Institute tonight. The girls were unimpressed because they were so cold. Brent and I thought it was fun though. Afterwords we went by Bass Pro Shop and decided to stop in for the girls to walk around and try to redeem the night for them. Karianne said, "finally we get to go somewhere fun after waiting a long time at the lights!"
They liked the bears, the fish and the elevator. There was a Santa's Workshop for kids and they colored and played with toys. Santa was off Duty and made no bones about it. Yikes.

Anyway my favorite line of the night was Angie looking at the mannequins with no heads and said, "look momma, that man forgot to have a head! That's so silly!"


Uh, don't really have a picture for you, I guess this is a trippy rendition of the lights, they were neat though.

Doll giveaway

By the way, I am doing a new giveaway on mommasdarlins.com

No one has entered yet, so if you enter you have a really good chance of winning. :-)

My favorite ornaments

The girls brought home these handmade ornaments today. I can tell they are going to be my all time favorite ornaments.

There is a story behind Angie being less than happy to be riding on a reindeer's back. She had eaten a banana for breakfast and I stuck the Banana sticker on her face. For the picture they made her take it off. She was REALLY not happy about that.

What a cutie

Lucy is 11 months old!

She crawls, she waves, she stands, drinks with a straw, and oh that laugh!

Hmmm

I had no idea this was on my camera, nor do I know the story behind it. I do know it's Karianne, I recognize the pants. :-)