Christmas was...

Not very Merry in our house. It started out great. We had a great meal, attended our church's Christmas Eve service, youngest 2 were tucked into their beds, presents were put under the tree, cookies made. Aaron & I were settling into our bed when it happened! We were hit hard by the stomach flu! It attacked the oldest 2 first hard & then tried to take down Aaron, but failed. I spent all of that night & Christmas Day taking care of the oldest 2 & keeping the youngest 2 entertained and away from everyone else. 

We survived & everyone is on the road to recovery. Here are a few pictures...not many, but a few. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & be safe this New Years Eve!

Blessings, Tracey

World Smile Day

Today is World Smile Day!  This is a special day to us because of our awesome boys!  Graysen & Jaxen were both born with bilateral cleft lip and palate in China.  Graysen's initial lip repair and palate repair were both done in China for free by an organization similar to Smile Train and Operation Smile. Here is Graysen's before, after and present day pictures.

Graysen with his nanny

Graysen as a baby after surgery & showing off his wonderful smile on his 7th birthday!

 Jaxen also had his initial lip repair in China.  It had some complications and when we received him, he had one side that had become disconnected.  This was quickly repaired once we were home by our awesome surgeon at Children's Hospital.  Here is a couple before pictures and a current pic.

Jaxen before any surgeries

After his 1st initial lip repair

Jaxen with his great smile while we were at the beach!

 We are beyond blessed to be their forever parents and to enjoy these smiles everyday.  I encourage you to pray & donate to one of the wonderful organizations I mentioned above or to Love Without Boundaries who also offers cleft surgeries to children in China along with many other surgeries and healing homes.  A cleft smile is beautiful to me, but a repaired smile can open up the world to children and even adults.  If you have ever thought about adopting a child with cleft lip &/or palate and would like to ask questions, please fee free to contact me anytime on here.  I love to talk about it! Here's one more picture of our crazy boys showing their personalities.

Blessings,
Tracey

We are expecting...from Africa!

We are taking another leap of faith & starting an adoption from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa!! 

As you all know, we have two wonderful boys from China. Each of their adoptions were exciting, new, adventurous & left us completely dependent on God. We are blessed & so incredibly thankful that God chose us to be their parents! 

This time is going to so different & we are going to be leaning on God more than ever! First off, we are adopting a girl & requesting "as young as possible". Both our boys came home at 2 1/2yrs old. We had some stability with our China adoptions, but DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) is a non-Hague country. This means there is not a lot of stability in the adoption part. They are tied with Burundi as the poorest country in the world. We are not going to be traveling as a family & taking tours like we did in China. 

The process is not too much different than our first two adoptions. We will receive our referral (picture & info) after dossier submission. This is currently happening at 4 months. Then we finish the adoption process, which is currently taking 9-10months, before we travel. As I mentioned previously, DRC is a non-Hague country so there is instability. This can cause the time frames to change. 

The most important thing you can do for our family is pray alongside us. Pray for our future daughter, her birthmother, our adoption process & our family. We are all excited but also very much aware of how this will change & bless our family!

Blessings,

Tracey

New School Year

Well I haven't been on here in forever, but decided to finally update.  We have begun a new school year & a new school.  The boys are now in a Christian school where they only go part of the time & I homeschool the other days.  So far we are all still emotionally intact & we are surviving.  The boys are doing great...mom is the one still struggling.  I just don't want anything to fall through the cracks.  Here are a couple pics from the couple weeks we have been back in school.

Blessings, Tracey

 Our 1st day of homeschool

Graysen celebrated his 7th Birthday at school!

 School books finally arrived!!

Both boys working hard

  

 

He was so proud of himself

Forever Family Day

Last Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, marked the 4th year that Gray has been in our family!  Receiving the blessing that is Gray, was such a long answered prayer!  It was a long journey that brought us to the other side of the world where we met a very scared, very upset little 2yr old.  You can read about our whole journey to get him at our adoption story site.

He has grown so much & amazes us everyday with how smart & funny he is. He loves robots, superheroes, legos & costumes.  He loves to make people laugh and loves to be the center of attention. We celebrated with a fun weekend filled with things he wanted to do...hiking, eating out & toys

Happy Forever Family Day Gray!

Our first time meeting him

He was such a sad little guy

The next day was the day he became our son!

After a few days with us, he was all smiles

Our first family photo

Enjoying a day of fun after his 1st Forever Family Day

A couple months after celebrating his 3rd Forever Family Day
 & he got a new little brother!

Mommy & Gray

Gray with his crazy siblings...we are so blessed ;)

Blessings,

Tracey

Great News for Cleft Families in East TN!

We absolutely love our boys' surgeon! He has done 5 surgeries on Gray & 2 on Jax! He has taken great care of them, let me text & call anytime when I have a freak mom question & even has a son who was also born with cleft! I could praise him all day, but wanted to share this article that was published in our local Children's Hospital newsletter! The cleft team that Dr. Ray is a part of has become officially approved as a Cleft Palate Team by the American Cleft Palate Craniofacial Association and Cleft Palate Foundation!!! It takes a team to treat children born with cleft & the team at Children's is amazing!

Here is the full article Cleft Palate Team Recognized Nationally

Blessings,
Tracey

Updates

So a lot has happened since my last post. I decided last Saturday to tackle my laundry room instead! I was checking out one of my favorite blogs & decided that day was THE day to do a makeover on a very used area of our house! I will post about that as soon as I snap a couple more pics.

Until then, I have been playing around with our mantle. March is one of our favorite months around here. It's mine & hubby's birthday month. It's also our 6yr olds 4th Forever Family Day on St. Patrick's Day! Plus green is a favorite color around here ;)

So here is what I came up with! Even Sushi, our beta fish, made it up there.

Blessings,

Tracey

Lots of Ideas

Aaron & I (mostly me) have been searching for a different house for a while now.  We are used to moving every couple years to a new location, so we have been getting the itch to move here lately.  We have decided that we will stay in our area a little longer...well at least til our daughter graduates next year.

Now that we have decided to stay put, we need to fall in love with this house.  It's a great house, in a great neighborhood.

The only problem is I am ready for a one story house outside of a subdivision.  Until then, we (really just me) have to make some changes around here.  I have so many ideas floating around in my head now.  I have been driving Aaron crazy!  He has been a great hubby & just smiles at me, tells me to write it down and humors me.  I have been on Pinterest & my favorite blogs The House of Smiths , Our Vintage Home Love, & Remodelando la Casa.  They have beautiful homes & do all their designs and projects on a budget!

There is a big need for a fence to keep our 2 youngest away from the road.  They are drawn to it & it puts fear in me every time they are outside.  This takes priority & also will give them somewhere to play safely so mom can work on this house.

The room that is currently driving me nuts right now is the kitchen.  I hope to eventually paint the builder grade dark cabinets white, put up a back-splash, install under cabinet lighting & add hardware to the cabinets.  Until then, I am focused on the eating are of the kitchen.  I recently moved the computer back into this area so the boys & I wouldn't have to keep going up and down the stairs so much.  The problem is it takes up room & I had to push the table over.  This has made the light off center & is driving me batty!

Driving you crazy too?  So now I'm off to explore more ideas & hopefully will get a plan in action.  Maybe some new paint will make me feel inspired.

Blessings,
Tracey

P.S. We are supposed to get snow tomorrow...my boys are super stoked!

Happy Valentine's Day

I love my husband! He is a very thoughtful guy, but not big on Valentine's Day or flowers. I have only gotten them a handful of times in the past 14yrs. Usually it is after dropping a bunch of hints.  Yesterday he surprised me! He was gone all day at work so I didn't expect anything, but the UPS "cupid" arrived with a dozen roses, a teddy bear & chocolates! Now my dining room smells like roses & looks great!

My beautiful daughter Ashley also gave me a gift!

Graysen making his Batman Valentines for his class

Jaxen being very serious (as always)

I hope your Valentine's Day is filled with love!

Blessings,

Tracey

Lent

Well today marks the 1st day of Lent.  Ash Wednesday.  I am not Catholic or any other denomination.  I am a Christian who feels that I need to give something up that means something to me, something I do everyday.

I decided to give up Facebook.  I know some of you may not consider this much of a sacrifice, but I do.  I am always on FB or checking FB.  It is my main way of connecting with family & friends.  It is also a huge time suck!  Don't get me wrong, I like FB & I think it is great.  I know it is nothing compared to Jesus giving his life on the cross or God giving his Son to die for our sins.  It is something I will think about daily & every time I do, I will turn my thoughts to Jesus.

So who wants to join me?

Anyone?

What will or would you give up until March 30th?

Blessings,
Tracey

Chinese New Year

This past Saturday we celebrated the Year of the Snake with our local Families with Children from China group.  Chinese New Year is fun for the boys & a great way to socialize with other children from China.    This year our FCC took Province pictures of the children in each group.  Both of our boys are from provinces that don't have a lot of adoptions. Our boys were the only ones in the picture for their provinces.  Graysen is from Liaoning Province in Northeast China & Jaxen is from Guizhou Provice in Southwest China.  I will post later this week about each of their provinces.  Until then I will leave you with pictures from the celebration.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Happy New Year!

Lots of Chinese crafts!

Followed by a Dragon Dance

Blessings,

Tracey