Olivia & Kennedy

Here is a picture of Olivia with her friend, Kennedy. Olivia is the one in yellow just in case you weren't sure (and shame on you if you couldn't tell!!!) Kennedy is in several pictures we've received of Olivia and she's also in Olivia's video. I had noticed her several times but was very pleased to find out recently that she is being adopted by another family from our adoption agency! Our program director has visited Olivia's orphange several times and said that they seem to be good friends. It does this Mom's heart well to know that my little girl has a best friend. Kennedy's mom, Elaine sent me this picture of our girls last week. They live in Tulsa, so we won't be planning play dates too often, but I do hope that we can get together a few times a year. One of the reasons we chose Dillon International as our adoption agency is because they have such great post-adoptive programs including family get togethers and cultural camps. Since quite a few children are being adopted from Olivia's orphanage by Dillon families, she'll be able to continue relationships with many of the friends she's lived with since she was just a baby. That means a lot to me. She's lost so much in her young life and I'm glad to know that she'll have a link to her past and her culture through other adopted friends from her same province.

Speaking of our program director who has visited Olivia's orphanage, I spoke to her last week about Olivia and mentioned that she was able to hold her the last couple of times she was there. She said that Olivia is very social and sweet. I was tickled! She looks so shy in pictures but of course, she's no doubt confused about the cameras and English speaking people. She better get ready, because if there is one thing I'm famous for it's taking pictures!

I feel pretty bad that I hardly ever post, but I'm sad to say that there is rarely any news to tell! I've spent the last two weeks working on Olivia's room and it has been so much fun! It's so much more fun to decorate for a girl than a boy. It's also much more fun to buy girl clothes. Boys just don't have much to choose from! Olivia's room is absolutely darling! It's about 99% done and I'll hopefully post pictures in the next couple of days. For any of you who can though, you should stop by and see it in person! I'm just a little bit proud. I'm completely and totally nesting! It's nice to have something to keep my mind off the waiting though.

Jake is pretty good at keeping us busy of course. He's absolutely hysterical. For those of you who don't have the fortune of spending oodles of time with him, I just can't put into words what a treasure he is. At least two or three times a day Mike just looks at me and says, "I love him. He's just amazing." I couldn't agree more. We are continually amazed at what a great kid we have. I can't tell you how often I thank God for Jake. He keeps me sane and he keeps me laughing. We took him to the Columbia County Fair Friday night and met up with our friends Todd, Stephanie, Sydney and Laney Scruggs. Sydney is Jake's "girlfriend." They are absolutely adorable together. They hold hands and sit together during church. It's the sweetest thing. Sydney's a good girl and she comes from a good family. You never know! I'll try to get a few pictures posted in the next couple of days and include one of them. They had the biggest time riding rides. Jake was really big enough this year to truly enjoy the rides. He was so excited. We also bought 5 candied apples (the thing I look forward to ALL YEAR LONG!) and we finished eating the last one today. Ah... another year before I can have another one. Next year we'll have to buy extra since Libba will be here to enjoy them as well! It's funny how whatever name your children call their siblings ends up being what you call them. I wonder how long Libba will last. My niece Carolina is still Lina because that's what her brother Chase called her as a child and she'll be 11 in a couple of months.

I would also like to add a great big CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Mary! Her family brought home their daughter last week, adopted from China. Welcome home Miss Vivian!

More Pictures!!

There are several families with our adoption agency that have LID's of August 29th and we've gotten together and started a Yahoo group so that we can rant and rave together. One of them is a family from Dallas. We have lots in common with them. They have a daughter, Anna, who is two and in the same orphanage as Olivia. They also have a biological son who will be 4 soon. Jake will be 4 in December. How weird is that?! The Mom, Mandy, seems really great and we look forward to meeting them in the very near future. We will no doubt be traveling throughout Vietnam with them and our daughters. She sent me a link to a video slide yesterday of a family who is currently in Vietnam. That family adopted their son from Ninh Thuan, where Olivia is, and posted a few pictures of the children at the orphanage. Olivia is in 4 of them! We are incredibly excited to get ANY pictures or information about Olivia, so we are thrilled! If you'd like to check them out go to http://2332357120.slide.com/p/1/craigwkids. Just click on the link and it should take you there. Enjoy! We certainly are!

Yay!!! We finally got our video of Libba!

Ok. Maybe this picture wasn't taken today, but this is a good representation of how excited Jake was to see a video of his baby sister - whom he calls Libba! This picture was actually taken at Yellowstone when we were on our trip a few weeks ago. We were all jumping up and down today though when we got our video. We had been expecting it since last week and I was about to lose my mind - which of course wouldn't be a big loss. The video was only about one minute long, but it was still so amazing to see her. She is absolutely gorgeous. She really is. I know that I'm biased, but honestly, she's BEAUTIFUL! I could just eat her up. I love her smooth skin and brown eyes and those pouty lips just kill me! All three of us can't wait to get our hands on her. I want to kiss those cheeks! Jake will no doubt give her huge bear hugs as soon as he sees her. She's going to be very lucky to have such a great big brother. God has truly blessed us with sweet beautiful children! Now if we could just get our whole family under one roof things would be perfect!

When I was pregnant with Jake, I eventually got to a point where I was couldn't sleep at night. I've heard this is preparation for those long nights when the baby doesn't exactly "sleep like a baby." Well, apparently I've come to the same stage in my "paper pregnancy!" I am having lots of trouble sleeping and then I'm exhausted all day long. My mind is absolutely racing! I can't believe that after all this time we're actually this close to having Olivia home. I can't seem to focus on anything anymore. I just think about Jake and Olivia. I can almost see him holding her hand walking into church, him helping her up steps, him feeding her (I can only imagine what all he'll try to feed her!) They are going to be so precious together. He's so looking forward to her coming home. I'm still sick at my stomach thinking about leaving him home while we travel to Vietnam, but I still believe it's the best decision for both he and Olivia. Wow! I'm actually getting sleepy now. Perhaps blogging is a good sedative for me. I may have to post more often!