Four Years Ago Today....

We found out who our daughter was. Her name was Wu Yu. And she just celebrated her 1st birthday. She was born in Nanchong, Sichuan China. She was living in foster care for the past 10 months.

It's our referral anniversary for Abby. That day was such a special day. We waited all day for the call. And because there was a storm brewing somewhere by us, schools were closed so Tiff was home to share in the experience. It was such a special moment. Bill took photos as I took down her information. As soon as I hung up, I cried. It was so overwhelming. We had been waiting for 7 years to have another baby. And Abby was our baby. She was and is perfect for us. We love her so much.

I can not believe it's been 4 years since we found out who she was and where she was living. I remember that once we found out, we wanted to get on the next flight to get her. But we had to wait 2 months. That was a long 2 months. But we did finally get to hold her in our arms. And she has stayed there ever since.

I'm so grateful and thankful that her birth mom chose life. I'm so grateful and thankful that she cared enough to make sure Abby was safe. I'm so grateful and thankful for my precious Abigail. Her birth mom will always be in our thoughts and prayers. The sacrifice that she made is unimaginable to me.

And I can't forget about Abby's foster mom. She clearly loved Abby very much. She took care of her for almost a year. She bonded with our precious Abigail. She took such good care of her. Abby was the biggest baby in the group. And I could tell that was because her foster mom loved her and gave her everything that she could. I'm so grateful to her foster mom.

One thing that we make sure that we do with both Abby & Jadyn is we talk about their birth mom's and foster mom's. Without these women, I don't know where my girls would be right now. They made sure my girls were safe. They took care of their needs. Their birth mom's gave them life, their foster mom's helped them live until we could come. They will always know that there are 2 women in this world who cared about them and who had something to do with them joining our family.

The girls know that we are their family. They know that they are adopted. They know that they were chosen by God to be our daughters. They are very proud of who they are. We are very proud to call them our daughters.

Below are the 3 referral photos that we received from China. When we first saw Abby's photo, we knew instantly that she was our daughter. She was and is so beautiful.

The first photo is the first photo we saw of Abby. We were instantly in love. The 2nd and 3rd photos came to us via Fed Ex the next day.





And now, 4 years later, we have a 5 year old who's goal right now is to be a teenager like her big sis Tiff. She has a boyfriend. His name is Corbin Bleu (from High School Musical movies). She does not realize he's a little old for her. She loves her family, she LOVES High School Musical, she loves watching movies with us, she loves to swim like a big kid now, she loves Disney, she loves Webkins, she loves to love.







Abigail Grace Yu, we love you so much. You have brought so much laughter to our family. You are growing into such a beautiful, wonderful little girl. We are proud of you and pray that God will always protect you and that you will always remember that we love you very much.
Love, mommy

Photos from Disney

I will put a few photo slide shows from this weekend in this post. We had a great time! I wish we did not have to come home.

Friday's photos



Saturday's Photos



Below are photos from today. We drive to Downtown Disney. We did a little shopping. Then I told the girls they could get their feet wet. Take a look at the photos and see what happened. :-)

Chef Mickey's

We woke up VERY early (5:15 AM) Saturday morning so we could go down to breakfast with Mickey. Our reservations were for 7 AM. This is why we stayed at The Contemporary. We did not want to have to drive to the hotel this early in the morning.

We arrived downstairs around 6:50 AM. We were the 1st ones in line. They took our names and we walked in. They took a family photo. Then we were seated. The food was really good. The girls had PB&J pizza. That is different, but they liked it. They also ate eggs (Abby had 3 hard boiled eggs AND scrambled eggs), Mickey waffles, bacon, fruit and more.

The one thing that stresses me out about these character meals is the characters. LOL I feel that we can't eat because they come around so fast and we have to have camera's ready & autograph books ready etc. I had to keep telling myself to relax. :-)

We were at breakfast for over an hour. We filled up. Then we headed back to our room to get ready for the day. I believe I wrote about our morning at Magic Kingdom in an earlier post from the hotel.

Abby had a great birthday breakfast. She said it was a lot of fun.

Enjoy the photos.

Debbie

Abby is 5 years old now! (Sept 5)

Well we've had a very busy weekend, I have not posted about Abby's birthday yet. So here I go.

We woke up at the normal school time on Friday and we all went into Abby's room and sang Happy Birthday to her. She was so excited. She got up, they ate breakfast and then she opened her gifts from us. We bought her some workbooks, High School Musical sunglasses and Bill made her a High School musical purse. We also gave her some stickers.

Then it was off to school. I went back at 9 AM and brought cookies & juice for the class. It was fun seeing Abby in class. She has a lot of little girlfriends. They are all very sweet.

We were able to get Jadyn out of her class so she could have some cookies too. Jadyn was happy about that, but was ready to get back to her class.

We left our house around 2 PM and headed to Disney. Abby has been waiting for so long to go for her birthday. We stayed at The Contemporary this time. It was our first time here. The hotel is nice.

We ate dinner and then off to Epcot. One thing we kept saying all weekend was "Where are the people?" It was definitely a light weekend at Disney.

Abby is so happy she is finally 5 years old. She kept telling everyone that she saw that she was 5 and Jadyn was 4. Jadyn does not like not being 5 yet. These 3 months are always hard because this is the only time they are not the same age. But Jadyn is handling it very well.

Here are some photos from Friday.

The cupcake photos were taken Thursday night. We had her cake then because we knew we probably would not be able to have it on her birthday.

Happy Birthday sweet Abigail Grace Yu. We love you very much!
Love Mom

A fun and busy day....

It's only 2 PM and we've had a fun filled day. Our day started at 5:15 this morning. I got up and took my shower. Then everyone else got up and got ready for breakfast. We were at Chef Mickey's by 6:50 AM. We were seated by 7:05. They first took our family photo (which we're suckers, and bought). Then we ate. The girls did very well. They ate a lot. They saw Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Minnie & Donald. They were thrilled. Abby got a special place mat since it was her birthday breakfast. Then she got a cupcake & candle to blow out. Breakfast was really good.
We were done by 8:15 or so. Headed back to the room to get sunblock & last minute things for the morning.
We took the monorail to Magic Kingdom. We got to the park around 9:00 AM. It was EMPTY! We were shocked. We literally walked on every ride we did today. The rides we rode were Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain (Tiff & Bill), The People Mover (me, Abby & Jadyn), The race cars (Bill, Jadyn, Abby & Tiff), the tea cups (me, Abby & Jadyn), Goofy's roller coaster (Bill, Jadyn, Abby & Tiff), The train to Frontierland, Splash Mountain (Bill, Jadyn, Tiff AND Abby!), Tiff & Jadyn did Splash mountain again, Thunder Mountain (Bill & Tiff), the Haunted Mansion, The carousel and then Mickey's Philharmagic. We could not believe how light the crowds were. The crowd was starting to pick up as we were leaving.
It is HOT today. Very hot. The sun is strong. No cloud cover.
Bill & the girls are at the hotel arcade now. I'm cooling off. I think we'll head down to the pool later after a much needed rest.
I have to tell you that this hotel reminds me of a lot. Yesterday, the halls reminded me of being in a hospital. Then this morning, when I was getting ready to take a shower, I thought I was in China. The hotel reminded me of China.
The hotel is really nice. We like it here.
Well I'm going to rest right now. I just wanted to type up some thoughts before I forgot.
Until next time...
Debbie

We're at Disney

Well we are here. The weather is okay. Some sprinkles. It's very overcast. That's better than HOT! :-) We checked into our hotel around 3 PM and we have a computer & FREE internet. Woo Hoo! So we are thrilled. One problem is I can't check email. Oh well. I can post here. But no pictures since we did not bring any cables to plug into the computer.
We are having fun. Abby has had a great birthday. The girls are exhausted. They are getting a bath now and then off to bed. We have to get up at 5:30 AM to be at our 7 AM reservation for breakfast with Mickey.
The hotel is very nice. The room is awesome! Very spacious. We love it.
Well that's all for now. Tomorrow will be very busy.
Love, Debbie

Some cute stories

I have to tell you a few things the girls have been saying lately.

Today they start choir & AWANA's at church. Well Abby has been announcing to everyone that she is going to "Choir and Iguanas".

The other day, Abby & Bill were running down the street as we were coming home from school. Jadyn wanted to run. I said "Mommy does not run. I like to walk and listen to how your day at school went." She then proceeded to talk for almost the whole walk home about how her day went. She was very detailed. About a block from home, she said "Can I stop talking about school now?" I have to admit, she is my only child who will tell me how her day went. The other 2 say "okay" or "fine" or "boring".

Today Tiff told me how a friend was talking to her and she zoned off. Her friend said "did you hear me? Are you listening?" Tiff said "Oh sorry, I got lost in someone's eyes". (She's too young for this! Please help us. LOL)

I asked Abby the other day if anyone has told her that she does not look like me. She said "No, because I do."

Today Jadyn said she misses her "Chinese mom". I asked her if she meant her foster mom or her birth mom. She said "My foster mom".

Abby heard this and she said "I miss my foster mom AND my birth mom."

We were talking about how we threw a birthday party for Jadyn before we met her. Jadyn said "Why did you do that?" I told her "because it was your birthday and we wanted to celebrate." She said "Is it a long walk to China?" I said "yes, it is."

Then I told her how we sent her a birthday package to China and that she did not like it. I told her how she cried. She said "Why did I do that?" I said "I have no idea."

The other night Tiff had a friend over. She said "mom can we invite a church friend?" I said "no". She said "But we already invited him." I stopped and said "WHAT? HIM?" I then said "You know boys are not allowed over." She said "But he's a church friend." Again, please pray for us. LOL Just so you know, mom won that discussion.

Yesterday Jadyn told me, with sort of an attitude, "My teacher wanted us to spell C-A-T". She said it like "That is so easy. I know how to spell that."

Oh and this makes me laugh daily! As you might know, we get asked every day if the girls are twins. They are tired of people asking. They (well mainly Abby) rolls her eyes and announces very loudly "NO, We're not twins!" Well, now they have arguments about the food & drink they have. They can not eat or drink the same thing (if we go to McDonalds etc) or else they will be twins. What? Twins for eating the same thing? BUT, it's okay for them to dress alike. That does not make them like twins. They crack me up!

I hope you have enjoyed a few tidbits of our life. The girls never cease to amaze us. Abby will be 5 on Friday and I can see how her personality is growing. She is definitely starting to mature. Jadyn is not far behind at all.

Love,
Debbie