Lila's Year Anniversary

Today at 5:00PM it will have been 1 year since we layed eyes on our wonderful Lila. We pulled up at he Civil Affairs office in Xian, China on June 29, 2008 to unite with our daughter. On the cab ride over felt like dream. I was in China picking up my third child.... is this really happening????? When we arrived I noticed a car with the window half way down and inside a little girl sleeping ... I knew that was Lila. We went inside and watched the other parents recieve their children and wondered why my daughter was still sweating out some zzz's in a hot car??? Finally I see her nanny open the door and walk in with little Dang Ai Ling. Groggy and sweaty she just showed no emition at all. Scott and I just stared at her and kept saying out loud "She is so beautiful". The nanny tried to convince her that we were her parents but that was no easy task. She crept over and relieved me of her new sippy cup I brought and backed away. She had no idea how to get the water out but just liked to hold it for comfort. Time passed and the paperwork was complete and we were set to take our new daughter in a cab and back to the hotel. Sounds easy right..... not so easy for Lila. The poor thing cried and scream as we sprinted to the cab I was worried that all the staring eyes would think I was stealing this little girl. My heart broke for her but we made it to the hotel. She refused to take any of her dirty not so genlty used clothes or the little boys striped navy sandles off. She just cried, a broken cry, one you don't only see but feel. It was all over when we took our shoes off then she knew we weren't going anywhere soon. Lila picked up my shoes and brought then to me to put back on and walked me to the door. Oh Lord what have we done???? kept circling in my mind. I want my boys and I want to go home!!!!She was in need of a bath but refused to take her soilded clothes off. I had an idea... I brought out some of her new clothes and one adorable pair of chunky sandels with red flowers& a bow on them and that is all it took. She quickly kicked off her manly shoes and slipped the girly sandels on ( which were about 4 sizes too big not so accurate measurments) and got into the bath tub. She played in there for what seemed like a hour but what ever it took to see her happy and stop the tears was worth it. I called it "Tub Therapy" and she had atleast 2 sessions a day while in China!!! While think back of those first few days with her and the stress we all went through it was really nothing a distant memory that is almost comical now. Lila has completed our family and our hearts. We will never forget the journey to reach her and will be forever grateful for the journey ahead.

First Weekend of Summer break

The kids were so glad to have school over that we went to the Japanese Restaurant to celebrate Friday night.Jake just loves to eat there and knowing how picky he can be just warms my heart to see him stuffing his face!!! We also took Lila to the DC Zoo for the first time as usual she fell asleep about 10 mon into the drive. She loves animals and wants to be "animal doctor" when she gets "big" and we all know that nothing would make me happier. Maybe I can be her tech? Sunday we went to church and decided to grill out and hang outside and fun was had by all. I realized that we had spent the entire weekend together with no social interaction and had a lot of Stark family fun!!!Cade (as usual) was the highpoint of our entertainment. He had received a goody bag last day of school which contained these funky star glasses. So he comes outside shirtless with stars on his eyes. He cracked us up his I don't care what people think personality makes him one special kid I love that he can truly be himself!!!!

Cade 's Graduation Program

Well I for one am soooooo happy that Cade and Ms Beamer will soon be parting ways nothing against her.....(ok a little bit),but she and Cade just didn't have that connection I was looking for!!! He was a little ham during the program ( as expected) and seemed to have a good time. I must tell the story of Cade's day at school Monday. I get a call from Principal Jenkins and he just wants me to know about a " little" incident which transpired at school that day. "No big deal, I just want you to hear it from me".... OH good Lord here is comes...... He proceeds to inform me that Cade had pulled his pants down on the playground to check to see if he had broken his penis do to a fall while playing on some rocks. Ms Beamer took him to the principal office where he just told Cade that if he needs to check himself he needs to do that in the restroom or tell the nurse. I thanked him for telling me and couldn't help but giggled a bit. So later that night Scott and I asked Cade what happened on the playground and he told us that he thought he hurt his privates so he needed to check and Jake decided to chime in with such intense agreement that falling on rocks really can hurt your private parts. So dinner was yet another comical eating experience thanks to my two awesome boys.