If Everyone Could be This Light-hearted.....................

Daniel had his last basketball game this past Saturday. This is a huge program through Lake Pointe Church. Many games are played all over the Rockwall area (using many of their different school campuses and gyms) each Saturday with kids in all age groups. Usually they play some loud entertaining music to get the kids pumped up. This excites Daniel! This particular day, the person running the sound did not have the volume up nearly like they normally do, but Daniel still got into it. For those of you who know Daniel and his personality, you will get a kick out of this. Notice that he is the ONLY one getting into the beginning of the game. Keep watching, as just when you think everything is over, Daniel is still MOVING! Doesn't he look like he enjoys life??????

Four Years Ago Today....................

My dreams to adopt a little girl from China came true. We traveled to Changsha , Hunan and met the cutest little almost one year old girl we had ever seen. We celebrated Aslynn Brooke XinYu's Gotcha Day today. At one year old Aslynn could barely sit up, could hardly stand up holding on to something, and couldn't keep her tongue in her mouth. Today, she is probably the most verbal 4 , almost 5 year old I have ever met. She is definitely the princess of our household. Aslynn loves gymnastics. She enjoys preschool and Cubbies. She hardly knows a stranger. We are so honored to be the parents God chose to have raise her. We know she will give us a run for a money when she hits the teen years!!!!!!

Daniel's Valentine Concert!

In big school districts, it is not really feasible to have one concert to accomodate the entire elementary, etc., so one thing we found that they do here is have each grade level have their own night of concert one time during the year. The second grade got Valentine's Day this year. Paul and I love the way they do this. We only have to sit through about 5-6 songs of just our child singing, and then we go home. No sitting through each grade level, singing their umpteen songs. Derek had his back at Christmas. Anyway, Daniel did a superb job. He loves to sing, and he sings with such expression and meaning. They sang an "I Love You" song where they point to who they are singing to. Paul and I were totally mush feeling how strongly he wanted to let us know he was pointing to us. Here is a clip of their last song of the night! You know you have one of the tallest children in the grade when they are standing in the center of the back row!!!!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other words, Happy Chinese New Year......a few days late. Good thing they celebrate for two weeks, so I am not totally off the mark! Last Friday night, we went to our own family celebration of CNY at the very Americanized Chinese place, P.F. Changs for dinner. Uncle Phil and Cousin Ryan joined us. The girls enjoyed getting all spiffed up in their Chinese dresses and proudly showed off their heritage. Enjoy the pictures!

Two Years Ago Today..............................

Paul and I picked up a frightened little girl (almost 4 years old) from the Civil Affairs Office in Changsha, Hunan China. She didn't realize that her life to that point was not the ideal. She loved her caretakers and friends, and she did not know what it was like to be in a family. After a rocky two weeks getting to know her mama and baba in China, she decided that family was not all too bad. She loved her brothers and sister. She loved having toys and clothes to call her own. She loved American food (except cheese and milk). She learned a new language quickly. I still wonder where I would be with my mandarin if the situation was reversed!!!!! :) Ava Marie XiaoE Wetzel has grown up quite a bit in the past two years. She understands so much. She loves to learn to write letters. She memorizes her verses each week for cubbies. She plays soccer. She goes to preschool each morning. She is a favorite in her Sunday School class. They knew that they couldn't get by with watered down lessons in her class when she asked them "Who is God's wife?" :) We celebrate today as the day she joined our family and made it complete! After dinner we enjoyed a little cake. Then we got out her photo album of all the pictures we have of her in China and pictures of our adoption trip. She enjoyed going through each one and telling us what she remembers. Her memories are somewhat sketchy, but you can tell things come to her all of a sudden. As she continues to learn and grow, we realize what a privilege it is God gave us to raise this precious child.