Double Happiness

Ever have one of these days?

Ever have one of these days? Originally uploaded by Donna & Andrew.

Have you ever had one of those days where you can hardly wait to get home and kick off your shoes and rip off your pantyhose?

Esther finally meets her family!

When we were in China last September, we visited Gwen's orphanage in Shenzhen and I recognized one of the little girls because I'd been corresponding with her new Mother in the USA. This is XiaoTian (Esther). We took this picture to send back to her waiting family.

Fast-forward six months to today and click <here> to see Esther in the arms of her beautiful big sister, Sera, and her new Daddy. Mommy is home in Florida taking care of the rest of Esther's siblings including a three year old "near twin" sister who was also adopted from China.

I have to tell you that I love Esther. Gwenny and her are not close in age so they probably didn't play together at the SWI but I still feel like she's family. She's such a sweet little beauty and I've been so happy to get to know her big sister via her blog and private email over all of these months. I know you'll be unable to visit their blog without crying tears of joy for this incredibly blessed family. Esther is one of the luckiest Shenzhen girls and I just wish we all lived closer so we didn't have to restrict our visits to our blogs. Now to get her back to Florida so she can finally meet her Mommy and the rest of her family!

Gwen and Maddy's new room?

As you might remember, Gwen's nursery was originally inspired by Kelly Rightsell. Click <here> to see her really wonderful site.

Here's Gwenny's nursery just to refresh your memory. The theme was "Fashion Frog" and I hand painted the big frog:

We're making an offer on a new house <click here to see it> and that means I get to redesign the nursery. Yippee!!!

I really loved our original theme and it hasn't been so long that I'm tired of it (yet). But, heck, change is supposed to be good, right? So I popped into Kelly's site to see if there was anything that inspired me and look what I found!!!

Now tell me it's just a fluke that I found this? I *have* to paint these cute frog-ettes on the wall in Gwen and Maddy's new room! There's just no other way!

I can't believe how easy some things are when they just "click" into place. Now, who wants to come over and help me paint?

Update on new house

We've decided to make an offer on the new house (see entry below). Our agent will present our offer to the sellers and their agent tomorrow morning. We're were told that the sellers are expecting another offer too. I hope we don't have to go 12 rounds with them! I really love this house but I can't stand the offer / counter offer part of this process.

I'll let you all know when we know something.

Michael is going to SJSU!

We got Michael's college acceptance letter today. I think Gwen looks happier than her big brother about this news! Actually, she's just happy to be near him and that's not always to his liking. But we're hoping that as they both continue to mature together, they'll someday be the best of buddies. I appreciate all of the nice comments and helpful advice about my two kiddos! I'm a lucky mom and my kids are wonderful! Even the big grumpy one!