Okay, so back here on THIS post, I put up the pictures of Miss Sarah Lu and the horse she rode. At the time though, I couldn't put up the pictures of Chayah and still have not put those up.. until now, that is. Here (finally) are the pictures of the beautiful Miss Chayah Elizabeth riding her "pony" this summer! She was a little scared of it, but she still had a fun time!
I just love these outfits that we found- matching sets of girl clothes with baby outfits. Chayah loves her Bitty Baby "Gracie" and she loves getting to have matching outfits to her! :)
Faline is Sarah's deer. And Sarah absolutely adores her Faline! She's had Faline for quite a while, since she was three years old! She picked out Faline at the Disney store with Daddy. Sarah takes very good care of Faline, who will sometimes join us for dinner and is always tucked into bed with Sarah :)
Sarah and Chayah's school had a project to fill boxes for Operation Christmas Child by Samaritan's Purse. Each class was assigned their own ages, so they were to get items that they would like themselves and then send them to other kids in the shoe boxes. This was part one of our shopping for items for the boxes. The girls loved getting to help get everything together to send! Sarah, again, said right away that she wanted to get BOY stuff for a little boy somewhere in the world. And Chayah went for a girl, of course. :)
As soon as Sarah came home, she began telling us about her friends in China. My sister Chrissy and I would be on our computers, looking through pictures from the orphanage, and Sarah would come over, point at the screen and name each of the kids. We learned these kids names and they became a part of our lives too. Their pictures went up around our house and we would continually talk about each of them by name and pray for them.
There were three kids that she always talked about: "Di Di" (meaning little brother), "Tian Ai", and "Duo Duo". We fell in love with these kids and longed to see them be adopted as well. We would be driving in the van and Sarah would say "(insert friend's name) doesn't have a mommy or a daddy or jie jie's (big sisters) or gou gou's (dogs)!! (Insert friend's name) needs a mommy, daddy, jie jie's and gou gou's!" One day in particular, she went up to my dad, grabbed onto his arm, and very seriously said, "Daddy! Didi is crying for you!" We caught on to Sarah's passion and wanted each of these three little ones to have families of their own.
In April 2007, as Chrissy and I were searching through every waiting child list possible for China, we found Di Di's and Duo Duo's files listed on Rainbow Kids. We were so excited! We had only been home with Sarah for 4 months at the time though, and most agencies would not allow you to start another adoption until you had been home at least one year. We were thrilled to contact the agency anyway though and keep in touch with them. We told them how we knew these kids, had extra pictures and videos of them, and how our Sarah had been telling us how they needed to be adopted. They did have several families interested in Di Di and Duo Duo, but after three months on their list, still no one had committed to bringing either of them home.
In July 2007, their files were returned to the CCAA. We were devastated that they still did not have families. But the story doesn't end here because God always has a plan and that plan is always better than anything we ever could have imagined on our own.
Fast forward a few months, during which we continued to pray for these three kids and the families we knew they must have- just not yet. In late November 2007, as we approached our one-year anniversary of having Sarah home, we knew that we needed to adopt again. My mom began to contact a few agencies with waiting children, inquiring about a few little girls who had not yet found their families. The crazy thing is, each time my mom would inquire about a child who hadn't been placed, a family would step up for that child! This happened five times in a row. 
The last time, we were looking at the agency CCAI. We noticed on their waiting child listing that they had several referrals from around Hebei province, but none from Langfang (Sarah's orphanage). My mom sent my email to the waiting child coordinator and asked if they ever received referrals from Langfang, specifically a 5 year old little girl named Dang Duo Duo. Immediately, the lady at CCAI wrote back. "Call me ASAP!!!!!!!!!" and her phone number was all the message said. Of course, my mom called right away. The lady at CCAI told my mom that she had Dang Duo Duo from Langfang's file out on her desk and that she had just been getting it ready to send it back to China for the second time as they had not had a family step up for her.
Out of all of the agencies for China adoption, it was the ONE we contacted. Out of all the kids in China, we were were matched with the ONE we knew. "Dang Duo Duo" is my Chayah Elizabeth! If you don't believe God still performs miracles today, I'd tell you to just look at Chayah- and then, you have seen a miracle!
It is amazing how God worked to bring Chayah into our family! Through my dad and sister Chrissy meeting her when she was 2 years old while on a missions trip, to being matched with Sarah and bringing her home from the same orphanage, to Sarah's passion for her friends to be adopted, and to the true miracle of finding Chayah's file- it is all just so amazing!!
I am so incredibly happy and blessed to have Chayah in my life! She is my little sister and she is the silliest little girl. She is now 8 years old and has been home for not quite two years. I love you, Chay Chay!
"For this child I have prayed, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him." ~1 Samuel 1:27
For the past few weeks at church, the kids have been taking offering for the local pregnancy center. They could bring money for their offering, or they were accepting gifts for the pregnancy center, like diapers, formula, or baby clothes. The girls thought it would be lots of fun to take baby clothes and I have to agree!
When we went shopping to pick out a few little outfits, we asked the girls if they would like to take boy or girl clothes for babies. Sarah immediately jumped up saying that she wanted to take "Baby BOY clothes", so Sarah was the bearer of some adorable little boy onesies which she thought were the cutest things ever (and again, I have to agree)!
Chayah wanted to take Baby GIRL clothes and so a sweet lamb and panda it was! Seriously, how adorable are these? I love them! Chayah thought they were so adorable too.. when she first saw them, many "ooo's" and "aww's" were heard. :)
Tooth number 2 that is, for a certain Sarah Lu. She lost her second tooth on Saturday evening and was so excited about it! She was in the kitchen with mommy and was wiggling it back and forth. She had been wanting that loose tooth to come out for some time! Then, as she was wiggling it, it came right out! She was so excited! She then ran around the house to find me and daddy to tell us her big news too! :)
Snapped this picture quick before the girls went off the school. I mean, just look at them! How could I resist taking at least one picture of them? :) Don't you just love how "twin-ish" they are? The other evening they were talking to each other, first Sarah was saying how "wouldn't it have been fun if we were born as twins?" then the Chayah said back "yeah! wouldn't it be fun if we were connected twins?!" (like conjoined twins) and Sarah replied, "yeah! or we just like hold hands all the time.. like when we're awake and when we're sleeping!".. Silly girls!
Rachael, me, and Chrissy about the time my mom first wanted to adopt from China
On February 8, 2005, they visited the Langfang City Social Welfare Institute. There they saw the kids that would change all of our lives. There was a tiny baby girl, just a few weeks old. She was bundled in blankets and laying in a crib. She had been abandoned the night before. She was beautiful, and that baby changed all of our lives. When my dad saw that baby, his heart was totally broken for the orphans and he knew needed to act. Chrissy and my dad also saw other kids there- a row of little toddlers, being fed a chopstick-full of food down the line, and a seven-month-old baby girl who had a prettiest eyes and definitely captured Chrissy's heart within the short time they were there. After their visit there, my dad told Chrissy he knew we needed to adopt. A few days later, the rest of us got to find out the news too!
"Dang Lu Hua" was then 26 months old and just as gorgeous as can be. We were amazed! We were in awe! And we were completely overjoyed that she was ours! And would soon be our "Sarah"!
