Jasmine...A Little Starfish on Her Gotcha Day!!

Amanda sent me this darling photo of little Jasmine on her gotcha day. She is wearing one of the new outfits that was sent, so I wanted to post it. I know that if I saw that one of the Starfishes wore an outfit I sent on their gotcha day, it would mean the world to me. I am trying to look through my donation photos so that I can see which family donated it. If you recognize this little outfit as one that you sent, I hope that this photo blesses you.

Good Morning Everyone and Welcome to the Saturday Morning Chat Group!

Good Morning Everyone and Welcome to the Saturday Morning Chat Group! Happy Memorial Weekend!

CONGRATULATIONS!! We have some new babies coming!

to Gail from 'Aging With Grace' for the referral of a new son who will be named Will.

to Paulette from 'Love You Forever' for the referral of a new daughter who will be named Annaliese.

A Little Evening Fishing...

Memorial Day

I am taking Friday off from work, so I am kicking my Memorial Day Weekend off early. I have to say that the families of the fallen soldiers from this war we are still in are filling my thoughts today. I saw the photo that is in my header and I just couldn't escape the magnitude of it. There are over 5,000 mothers who will mourn their sons and daughters this weekend, their children who have passed away in this war. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, children, brothers, sisters, grandparents all who will spend this weekend in painful tears over their loss. My heart goes out to them and to the families who have lost loved ones in previous wars. God Bless Them.

For Linda...A Look Around the House...

This is a quick look around our downstairs. I didn't photograph our 3 seasons room, which where you come into the house, but this is where we spend most of our time. It is a very open floor plan.

You can't see Tim's desk very well, but it is on the right. What you can see is Eli's little TV area. We have been really challenged by television and games. There are things our 15 year old can watch and play that our 12 year old can't. And things our 12 year old can watch that our 3 year old can't. So, Eli has his little area where he can watch his Disney videos and play.

Below is our living room. It's kind of dark because the ceiling is a stained wood. So, while the ceiling is white in our dining room, it is brown in the living room and kitchen which makes lighting a challenge. But I love the warmth it provides.

This is our kitchen. I kept all of the flowers that Tim has given me since we met and dried them and they are above the cupboards in my kitchen. You can see some of them. I also have all different knobs on my cupboard doors. I have some from Disney World and all different places.


I like a clean home, but I'm not a stickler about a tidy home. I need clean bathrooms and clean floors, but everything doesn't necessarily have a specified place and I don't sweat the small stuff. We definitely have some clutter around here, but I can live with it.
Our home has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. If I could change one thing about it, it would definitely be to add more storage. And I have always wanted a HUGE bathtub, maybe someday...

I LOVE THIS ONE!

I love this time of year...

There is a golf course behind our house that we drive through in order to get home. At the main entrance, the road has about 20 very large lilac bushes on each side. They are at least 20 feet tall. For only about two weeks each year, the bushes bloom and it smells so wonderful. I always bring home a vase full so that we can enjoy that wonderful smell. Eli likes to get his nose right into them!

Home to Me...

I have lived here almost half of my life. I am at perfect peace here. It's like my soul finds comfort from the water.


I have the same type of relationship with my house. I love my house. I can never imagine living anywhere else.

I couldn't even tell you how many hours I have spent on this porch next to a fire in our firepot. It is our family place on summer evenings. We roast marshmallows, talk and stay warm. I love fires. I never grow tired of sitting by one and watching the sun go down.

This is the view from my front porch.

This is our dock. I love to sit on the bench at the end with Tim and enjoy a cup of coffee on weekend mornings. I hit tennis balls as hard as I can off of the end of it and our black lab Cooper runs all the way down the dock and jumps off into the water to get bring them back. We also catch a lot of fish off of it!

All of my children were born and raised on this lake. They have known each neighbor since they were small children. They are as tied to it as I am. I cannot wait to wrap Sophia in a blanket and hold her close to me on my porch next to a warm fire. I cannot wait for her to become as much of a part of this place as we are.

Happy Birthday Heather!

Happy Birthday Heather! I heard from Lisa that it is your special day, so I hope that it has been wonderful! Heather's blog is 'Our Little Ladybugs'.

Please Send a Hug to Robin...

Please join me in sending a hug to our dear friend Robin from RedThreadStitches. Her personal blog is 'Dreaming of Tea for Two'. She has been sick for the past couple of days and sewing around the clock to get her orders completed. Thank you to everyone who has placed orders. It has been amazing to see how successful her fundraiser has been. And also, thank you for your patience while she is working to complete close to 500 orders. I know that despite the success of her sewing campaign, they still do not have the total funds owed to their agency this month. So please, if anyone can make a donation to her cause, now is the time. She also has the IPOD raffle going on.
I know that uplifting comments would mean the world to her right now, so if you could please visit her blog, that would be wonderful. She is one of the gentlest souls I know here in blogland. If you are a praying person, please pray for their adoption journey.

Sunday...

3 Word Sunday...Win A wii

Win A wii


Please support the Waala family. They are selling raffle tickets for $5 each and the winner gets a new wii! This is a joint effort between two sibling families who each is adopting an older child from China, so they need to raise twice the funds. www.waalahouseoffun.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday Kerri!

Happy Birthday to my good friend Kerri at 'The Monkey King'! Her special day was yesterday, so please go over and leave her some fun comments...

Welcome to the Saturday Morning Chat Group...

Good Morning Everyone and welcome to the Saturday Morning Chat Group! I hope you all are well!

I had a wonderful conversation with Amanda yesterday and she gave me quite a big of information about herself and Starfish. (What she could through IMing).
She told me that there was some damage from the earthquake to the Starfish home which is a 3 bedroom apartment. They are trying to get repairs done. She said it is mostly drywall repair and the carpet will need work. All of the babies now stay on the first floor. I told her all about the fundraiser and the auction. She told me to please thank everyone. She cannot see our blogs, they are blocked in China. She sent me an article that she wrote a little while ago, so if you want to know how she began Starfish, please read the post below.

I know that many of us are still very emotional about the earthquake. All I can say is please continue to pray. The stories coming out about the devastation are just overwhelming to me.

The auction still needs your support. Please look around your home and see what treasures you may have to donate. So far over $1000 has been raised, but each surgery costs approx. $3000. If you are unfamiliar with the auction, press the link on the upper right hand of my blog. Head on over there today and do a little shopping ; ) I just donated 3 dresses.

Sharon from 'And Bai Li Makes 3' is in China right now to bring her daughter Bailey home. Please pray for them and follow their journey.

Janet from 'Tuininga Treasures' is home from Africa with her two little ones. She is posting about their adoption experience, so if you would like to know what it's like to adopt from Africa, please visit their blog.

THE CHAT ROOM IS NOW CLOSED....HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Amanda's Story...The Beginning of Starfish

Tonight I had the privilege of talking to Amanda and I asked her how she started the Starfish Foster Home. She sent me this article that she wrote. She also wanted me to thank everyone who has donated. She told me that $6,000 has come in for surgeries. She is unable to see blogs, they are blocked in China. Her blog is updated by someone here in the United States. She is aware of the fundraiser and of the auction and she is very grateful for all of our support.


IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING

What would you do if a dream that seemed absolutely impossible suddenly came true with hardly any effort on your part? Your life as you know it will forever be altered and if you were to make this commitment it will be a decision that will commandeer the rest of the time that you are alive.

My impossible dream: Opening an orphanage in China. I had never considered that there was even the remotest possibility that as a foreigner, I would be granted permission to start. A casual conversation on the way home from the government orphanage, where I had been volunteering for the past six months, turned into the stunning news four days later that I could go ahead. Where were the piles of paperwork, the months of waiting and the endless visits to government offices? What had happened to the famous slow grind of bureaucracy? The speed at which this took place scared me and it took me a while to come to terms with what it all meant. A few months earlier I had asked to become a foster parent and was turned down flat. Now I was offered as many babies as I could handle. What a paradigm shift!

If I was a logical woman I would have made a run for it. I was about to accept a lucrative job offer in Korea which included a two year Masters degree. My heart, however, could not pass up this chance to make a difference in the life of a child. I threw all caution to the wind and without much preparation, I forged ahead. There was no time for very careful budgeting, cost analysis or professional looking grant proposals to philanthropic organizations. I was not going to let some small, tiny, insignificant detail like money stop me from passing up this golden opportunity, so I delved into my savings account. Tom Brokaw once said something along the lines of: Making money is easy, but making a difference is decidedly more difficult.

So here I am almost a month after the arrival of the babies, five girls and a boy. As you can well imagine the morning of Sept 13, 2005 was filled with much emotion. The learning curve has been steep, the experience exhausting and the benefits truly inspiring. Nothing compares with the fact that three of the girls, who were malnourished, underweight and expected to die, have had their lives saved. Not only that, but that they are thriving.

I am looking forward to our first adoption, which is going to be a bittersweet experience. I clearly understand my purpose in all of this. I am to be a provider, protector, defender and a record keeper for these defenseless children. I am to prepare them to be placed in the arms of a new mom and a dad. I hope that in the future, they will know that during this time of rejection and abandonment, they were also wanted, cared for and loved by many people who have put forth so much effort on their behalf. I think about meeting them years from now, knowing that they have grown up healthy, happy and have been blessed by love.

As I sit here at 3:55am, everyone is asleep which makes it a perfect time to write down some thoughts. I keep watch over them, accompanied by baby sounds: The snores, grunts, groans, sucking noises and the occasional cough.

I have become bolder in my dreams of the impossible and my expectations have been raised considerably. I dream of hundreds of children in a bi-lingual environment, family style housing, a school, an army of local and international volunteers and teachers, medical care, a website, a foundation and first rate special education facilities. I still harbor one huge secret dream, which I will continue to keep close to my heart. Maybe one of these days I will tell you that this too, has come true. I often see the slogan on billboards around China and I now know that it is true: Impossible is nothing.

I am off to the mundane tasks of having a baby, multiplied by six. The 24-hour-on-demand-bottle-delivery system, the never ending diapers and the mountains of laundry…..


Amanda de Lange

THIS AUCTION ITEM ABOVE IS CLOSING TONIGHT (FRIDAY) AND THE HIGH BID IS $50.00. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS, IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO CAN OUTBID $50.00????


I can't tell you how happy I am that it's the weekend! Fridays are always fun at work and I'm looking forward to some great weather on Saturday and Sunday.

I donated 3 new dresses to Daleea's on-line auction for Starfish, so please go over and bid on them and consider donating something. You all know how passionate I am about the Starfish Foster Home and this auction is a lot of fun and as long as we keep donating and bidding, it will continue to bring in money for the surgeries that the Starfish babes need.

Have a fantastic day!!