I Heart Faces: Beautiful Black and White

About a month ago, my wonderful husband bought me a DSLR camera. I knew nothing about photography, or even how to use my camera. My friend Amy, who traveled to China with us, takes absolutely beautiful pictures. She recommended an online photography class taught by Lisa, who blogs at www.thelongroadtochina.com. Lisa is not only an amazing photographer, but also a great teacher. I have learned SO much. Plus, a portion of the fees she collects goes to help Half the Sky, an organization that is near and dear to our hearts. I am a total amateur, but I can't tell you how fun this has been for me, I've always loved to take pictures, and now I'm learning how to beautifully capture these moments with my kiddos. It's also given me a hobby of my own, something I haven't had many years. I've taken over 5,000 pictures in the last month, and deleted them majority. :) Several of the photography blogs I follow have weekly challenges or competitions. I decided to try some of them for fun, and to challenge me. Not to mention, that this will give me incentive to blog again, and my mom and dad will get to enjoy photos of their grand kids more frequently.

This challenge is for I Heart Faces, and is called, "Beautiful Black and White." I love this picture of Grace, she brought this special dress downstairs to wear - she loves to dress up. Paul's grandmother made this dress for his niece about 12 years ago, and now Grace has it. It's a beautiful dress. She's also wearing both of our pearls from China, along with a few other treasures she pulled out of my jewelry box, another one of her favorite past times. I can't believe it was one year ago today that Paul and I boarded a plane to China to meet our beautiful daughter. She is such a joy.

To see more beautiful black and white pictures you can visit I Heart Faces.

Photography Class

Some pictures of Will, Ben and Grace

Hello Blog

I have been such a slacker! Here is why: We were SO busy this fall with school and our new (wonderful) co-op that I didn't have time to blog. Grace and Joe's birthday came and went, and I kept thinking I needed to upload those pictures before I could blog again. Then Halloween, Christmas, a trip to Disney and the ocean, Sam's 12th birthday. Before I knew it I was completely overwhelmed, but could find the time to sit down and blog about all of that and upload pictures. So I'm just going to let that go and start new today. If I have time I'll include some of those pictures, if not that's ok too. I feel better now, lol!

We are doing well. Life is always interesting with five kids. Not always easy, but we have a lot to be thankful for. All of the boys are playing basketball right now, and thriving at their co-op. Grace continues to amaze us. She loves going anywhere, so she's happy to spend Saturdays at basketball games and loves school. True to the Wade tradition the threes have been more difficult behavior wise than then twos. I'm talking typical obedience issues, not adoption related issues. Although, that kind of colors everything. Other than that, life is moving along as usual. I didn't include pictures of Will and Ben because they were in Florida with Grandma Linda when I took these. I am going to try and be better about updating from here on out. We'll see. :)

I Want to Go Back

Maria's Big House of Hope, Luoyang, Henan China

I want to go back to China. (I want to come back with a 5 year-old, but that isn't happening and wouldn't be in anyone's best interest.) I want to go back to the Henan Province, I saw very little of it other than then inside of my hotel room. I specifically want go to Luoyang, the city Grace is from. My one regret of our adoption trip was not visiting Grace's orphanage with Paul. At the time we were convinced (and advised by our guide) that it would be too difficult for Grace to make that 2.5 hour trip back to the orphanage and have to say good-bye again. This may have been best for her, and we can't do it over again. But,I so wish I could have gone.

Paul is planning something special for his 40th birthday. Neither of us wants to have a party. Paul wants to go to Detroit's Fantasy Baseball Camp. He told me he was planning a special trip for me for my birthday too. I don't turn 40 for over two years, but I immediately said, "I want to go back to China." Right now we can't adopt again (Paul says never) but I still have a heart for serving the orphan and a heart for China. The amazing thing is that of all the hundreds of cities in China, Maria's Big House of Hope is in Luoyang. Not only that, but China is building a new building right across the street from MBHOH, that will be the new home of Grace's social welfare institute.

I really want to take a short term mission trip to MBHOH in two years. There are several obstacles though.

1. It is really expensive.
2. Paul isn't sure he wants me travelling across the world without him.
3. We have 5 kids, and we homeschool. I am the one who cares for our kids day-in and day-out while Paul goes to work.
4. I'd really like to have someone travel with me. If any of my sisters (by blood or in-Christ) read this know I'm praying one of you will join me. :)
5. This is the smallest obstacle, but you have to be a Show-Hope sponsor. We aren't sponsoring them at this point, but we consider this to be a very worthy organization which we have benefited from.

The bottome line is I know all of the obstacles are surmountable if God wants me to serve in China, and if not it won't happen. I have two years to pray and plan, and would love the prayers of others.

Me, The Children's Place, and the Sweat Pants Beast

On a much lighter note; did you know that jeans are painful? Well according to my kids they are. When Sam was a baby I usually dressed him like a little man. Many of the clothes I bought for him were similar to what I would buy for daddy. Then when he was about 18 months and I was pregnant with Joe I discovered The Children's Place fleece pants, and I bought them about 50 pairs of fleece pants on rock bottom clearance and several matching shirts and that was it. They have worn sweats or athletic shorts every day since. Will and Ben have worn sweats since day one and they also refuse to wear long sleeves. An old t-shirt (preferably one with star wars or something similar on it) and basketball shorts are their outfit of choice, even in sub-zero temperatures. Long pants and especially long sleeves are worthy of tears. Coats and shoes are torture devices. Khaki pants and khaki shorts are "church clothes" only to be worn on Sunday mornings and then shed quickly. They went through a phase of bringing play clothes to church and changing in the bathroom as soon as church was over. We quickly nipped that in the bud. One child even wants his "church pants" to have an elastic waist. We discovered The Children's Place elastic-waist cargo pants and usually buy a few pairs for church each winter. We've had every size of these pants from 2T up. However, these only go up to size
14. This means that soon I'll be shopping for men's elastic waist pants. Do they sell these in the senior citizen section? I want to have fall pictures taken of our family. I would prefer the boys wear jeans and a longs-sleeved button-down shirt. But, I can't escape the feeling that I would be making up something for the picture that wasn't true to our life. I guess I'll go for khakis. This weekend we went to a housewarming party and I wanted the boys to look nice. I pick Grace's clothes and she has such cute stuff. I tried to convince them to wear the one pair of jeans I buy each year - just in case. But, I was informed that jeans hurt. We had to dig through our winter clothes and find our dressiest sweats and most decent t-shirts. To make matters worse the boys ripped the knees out of all of their "good" sweats (Children's Place wind pants) last year. Ugh. I've taken to buying every pair of nice looking warm-up pants I find at the Goodwill. Truth be told, I prefer yoga pants myself, but try not to wear them out of the house too frequently. I'm pretty sure that Grace prefers stretchy pants as well. Why am I writing, this? I'm not sure. I just needed to get it off my chest, and those of you who see us frequently will now understand why my kids always look like they just just left a track-meet.:0)

Grace's Six Month Slide Show

I made this slideshow for Grace and she loves it. There is no way I have time for fancy Creative Memory books like Sam and Joe have, so this will have to suffice for now. :) She looks at all the pictures and says all the names. I am so bummed I didn't get more pictures of her TN cousins when we were down there to put in it. I am also frustrated that online the slideshow music is off because it takes so long to download the pictures. But, it is what it is. I can make a dvd for anyone who really wants to see it. Or you can come visit me. :)

A digital slideshow by Smilebox