It's Christmas Eve and I'm grateful for...

...Love Without Boundaries, a wonderful American run foster home for children who need a little extra love and care to start out with. They saved our daughter's life when she was only 4 months old and have taken care of her every day since. Today I can rest a little easier knowing she is being fed, sheltered and loved. Every precious child deserves these things. Please consider going to their website and sponsoring a child. They are amazing!!

http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/programs/foster-care/sponsor-a-child/

The Secret's Out...

I guess it's not much of a secret considering most people that I've recently told pretty much knew it was coming but we now officially have a wonderful announcement to make.....

We have a new daughter!!!!  Her name is YuHe (yew-huh), which means "rain on the lotus" and she is almost 3 years old!!

We are just so excited and completely in love! We think she is adorable and she has an amazing smile. She is described as being a sweetheart with lots of energy! She is going to fit right in with the Forbes family kiddos.

We feel very blessed to have this opportunity again. And yes, naturally, a little tiny bit overwhelmed too. We hadn't counted on adopting so soon but I just couldn't pass up the chance to reuse our dossier within a year of Ava coming home and so we've been scrambling to make it work. We've had preapproval since the beginning of June but there were some changes in the rules and things got a little complicated for a bit but we are moving forward and are now waiting for USCIS to approve our I-800A. We hope to be logged in by the middle of January which would make travel around June if all goes well! Keep your fingers crossed for us!

And what do the kids think about all this? Well, the boys say they can't wait to have another sister!! They were all for it from the beginning and never hesitated when I asked what they thought about it. I think I have the sweetest, most giving, boys in the world. Ava looks at her pictures with me and we talk about Mei Mei (Chinese for little sister) and we practice saying sister but she can't really understand yet what this means. YuHe will follow her a year behind in school and I think that they will become the best of friends. We can't wait to meet her!

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!

My Little Fashionista!

This girl cracks me up- I just loved how she got all dolled up in her scarf, leopard print jacket, shiny sequin hat and cow mud boots completely on her own. This girl has style! Incidentally she was going out to play with her brothers who were wrestling in the front yard. She loves doing what they do and bossing them around, of course!