Oh My Gosh!

Mary, baby Jesus, and the kids

The kids looking at the baby Jesus

Bradley saying his lines at the church production

Bradley and the Drummer Boy

Kennedi and Papa ready for the show!

Bradley in a Cowboy Christmas at school

Kennedi playing the bells at the school performance

Kennedi ready for the show

Lookin' pretty in Sissy's old dress!

The 9th Annual Cookie Party

Kennedi and friend Daphanie

Kennedi and friend Mia

Oh my gosh, it has been forever since I last posted on here! I am so sorry for the one or two of you that are still checking in! :) Honestly, I am so addicted to Facebook now that I am often on there posting pictures and things. There are so many of my friends from here and friends from AWAA on there that I kind of forget to get on here and post! Plus with me trying to go back to school and do my homework, make sure the kids are doing their homework, and working full time, it doesn't leave much time to "play". Anyway, I am starting today, my vacation until January 5th so I have time to get on here and post a note and some pictures! To update you all, things are going really well around here! Kennedi continues to amaze us at how well she has adjusted. Even with all the holiday commotion, she just really "goes with the flow". She and Carrie (her friend Gigi from China) try to talk on Skype once a week or so which is really sweet. We had our annual cookie decorating party at Nana's house with about 40 kids this year and we mailed Carrie and her sister Abby a package of cookies and frosting to decorate their own cookies. Kennedi just received a gift in the mail from Carrie yesterday for Christmas. What a blessing it is that our families can be connected like this and the girls can continue to "grow up" together. As for Katelyn and Bradley, they are both in our church production this year. It is a totally different show than last year with much less acting and much more singing. They have had practice every Sunday since the beginning of November, dress rehearsals all last week from 6-9pm, and then 4 perfomances which started Sunday and the last one is today. Bradley has a speaking part in which he quotes part of a bible verse about the birth of Jesus and then him and Katelyn along with 20 other kids give gifts to the baby Jesus at the end. I can't help but get teary-eyed when they are on stage. I am so proud of them and their willing to get up in front of a thousand people (literally) every night and tell the story of Jesus' birth. God has really blessed us with the 3 most beautiful children anyone could hope for. Tonight they have their last performance and then we head to Nana's for Christmas Eve dinner and presents. Tomorrow we do our thing here and then head to Mark's mom's for Christmas dinner. We are wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas and hope you remember the reason we celebrate this holiday!

*Hugs*

A Powerful and Moving Video for the Christmas Season (be sure to mute the music on the left!)

I stole this from a fellow blogger, Kristy (thanks Kristy for posting it on your site!). It is very much the truth. We all need to take a step back and look at what we are doing.

Spreading Some Christmas Cheer

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Kennedi's First Halloween!

Kennedi's, Bradley's and Katelyn's Pumpkins
Pumpkin Carving Mess!
Katelyn and friends Kandace (on left) and Kate (on right)
Salvadors and McLays
Indiana Jones and his 5 o'clock shadow
We once again had a wonderful time at Northpointe's Trunk or Treat! Kennedi had such a good time and was like an old pro. She never once got scared and just walked around getting candy with the kids like she has done it a dozen times before. There were hundreds of people this year, it was amazing! The best costumes I think were Fred and Wilma and the best car decorated was the Gerritts car that was done in complete High School Musical Sharpay fashion complete with pink boas, FABULOUS in big letters, lights, and even puppies in cute carry bags! Too cute!! The kids played on bounce house slides and road a hayride. We had a great time.

Katelyn and Bradley both auditioned this week for the Northpointe Christmas Play. Bradley once again was cast for a speaking part (although we don't know what that is yet) and Katelyn was cast for a non-speaking part! We are so proud of them and their courageousness. So, another year of twice a week practices and 4 nights of performances but it's all worth it!

Hope you all had a fabulous Halloween and are having a great start to your November. Can you believe it's November already??? Ready for the Pumpkin Pie and Turkey???

**Blessings**

Thank God For Technology!

As some of you may remember, on our Gotcha Day back on March 17, 2008 we learned that Kennedi left behind a best friend (and pretty much a sister because they lived together with their foster moms). On this day we also learned that Gigi was being adopted by someone from the States but they had not received their travel notice as of then and that's all they could tell me. Once arriving home with Kennedi I began the search to find someone, anyone, who knew of someone adopting a 5 year old from Bao'An. A lady finally contacted me from Idaho stating that she knew of a family adopting a little girl from Bao'An and put me in contact with them. I emailed them right away and asked about their little girl. To make a long story short, they emailed me a picture of Gigi and Kennedi together and they were the family I had been looking for! We followed them to China and back through email. We have been emailing each other off and on but Gigi (now Carrie) needed some time to adjust to her new family. So yesterday I got an email from Carrie's dad saying that Carrie saw her mom looking at our blog and she of course recognized Kennedi. They sat and told Carrie about us and Kennedi and watched some videos on our blog together. Her dad said we could set up a time for the girls to talked and we discussed using Skype. Well... I of course have been waiting and praying for this day since getting Kennedi 7 months ago and so I was right on that! I downloaded Skype last night and went into Fresno today to purchase a webcam! We got it hooked up and Carrie called Kennedi! Of course I couldn't figure out how to work our webcam so Carrie couldn't see Kennedi but we could see Carrie and her mom, dad, and sister. The girls giggled and had fun! They talked about their rooms, their Halloween costumes, and their pets. We talked for about a half an hour. They went back and forth over who loved and missed each other most. It was the cutest thing! Tomorrow is Carrie's 6th Birthday so Happy Birthday Carrie! Can't wait to talk to you again sweetie! God is soooo great! Hope you all are having a great weekend and have a wonderful and safe Halloween!

October Fun!

Kerman's New Pumpkin Patch, Harvest Acres

The kids had fun picking out their own pumpkins!

They were filthy by the time we were done!

And could hardly pick their pumpkins up!

Crazy Hair Day At School:

Happy Birthday Katelyn!

Our little girl turned 12 yesterday! It seems like yesterday that she was a little thing running around here. Now she's a grown up 7th grader. We are very proud of the young lady she is becoming. She is very involved in church and attends a small group each Tuesday evening. She easily makes friends and enjoys just being one of the girls. She is taking 3 honors classes her first year in Jr. High and is getting good grades in all her classes. She just recently took up horseback riding lessons and enjoys that very much. She is in the drama club and the colorguard. We think she is a very special young girl and love how God is a big part of her life. We love you Kate very much. Thank you for being a great big sister (especially how you have really taken care of Kennedi since March) and for being a great daughter!
Yesterday we took her and the kids to Monterey for the day. We had a great time. We went to the aquarium, to Bubba Gump's for lunch (YUM), and then down to the beach for some fun in the freezing cold water! The kids ended up getting soaked but had a great time. It was a great way to spend Katelyn's birthday. Hope you all have a blessed week!

A Special Week!

It's hard to believe I am writing this post but one year ago we received the call from America World that they had a little girl for us! It was October 1, 2007 when they posted that a new batch of Special Needs referrals had come in. This is what I wrote on October 2nd:
Received an email yesterday that AWAA did receive 33 referrals!! Ususally they received about 25 so 33 is awesome! They are processing the referrals before they release any more details regarding the number of boys vs. girls and age range but we should be hearing that soon. Then they are off to translation before any calls are made. Maybe we could hear by next week sometime??? Here we go again.....
Then again on October 4th, this is what I wrote:
Some exciting news..... Received an email yesterday from AWAA saying that the referrals (19 girls and 14 boys) were processed much sooner than they expected and they are going to begin making the phone calls on Friday. THIS FRIDAY!! They received 4 girls ages 3-4 and 1 age 5-6 so one of those could be our Kennedi! CRAZY!! Please keep the prayers coming and keep checking in these next few days for hopefully some exciting news!!
The very next day, OCTOBER 5TH, this is what I wrote:
It is with great joy that we announce the referral of our daugher Kennedi Mei Salvador (Bao Xin Mei)!! We decided to take Faith out and use Mei as her middle name to keep some of her heritage. She is 5 1/2 from the Bao'An SWI in Shenzhen City. She is perfect for our family and we can't be more happy!


I was home on this Friday that the call was made. Lauren, our family coordinator, called and said "Tina, this is Lauren and we have a little girl who we'd like to tell you about, do you want to hear more?" "YES" I said! (is she crazy?!) She proceeded to tell me that she was 5 1/2 with a repaired cleft lip and said "Tina, she is so beautiful". She told me she was going to email the pictures and information to me and then I was to call her back with our decision. I was beside myself, couldn't think straight. I was gluded to my computer waiting for the information to come. Called Mark, my mom, and the girls at work. My heart was racing! Of course as soon as we saw her picture and read her information we knew she was our daughter. We immedately called Lauren back and said YES!! Then began the horrible wait until we could have her in our arms....

I still am in disbelief that it has been a year since then. (Actually between you and me I thought it was a year ago today but as you see it was a year ago on the 5th. I probably thought the 8th because today 12 years ago was my due date when I was pregnant with Katelyn. Also my dear AWAA friend from Maine, Tonya, received her call on the 8th) Our lives changed for the better this week last year. We love you Kennedi, more than you'll ever know.

On another note, Saturday is Katelyn's 12th birthday and we're going to Monterey. Will definitely post some pictures for you all this weekend!

**Blessings**

New Kitties!

This past Saturday we went to the local SPCA to get the girls new kittens. They had to stay and be "fixed" so we couldn't pick them up until today! Aren't they cute? The grey one is Katelyn's and her name is Tinkerbell. The orange one is Kennedi's and his name is Pumpkin. Kennedi originally wanted a white one just like the one she had in China and was going to name it the same name, Dexter. But once we got to the SPCA on Saturday and she saw this orange one, she immediately changed her mind! They're so cute!
Oh... and the family I mentioned in my earlier post, the ones who just came back from China with their daughter needing open heart surgery, she is out of surgery and is doing good today! Of course it is still going to take some time to see how everything goes but as for today she is doing really well! Praise God!
Hope you all are having a wonderful week! Happy October! Can you believe it's October? WHEW!