Our family Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 was one of the most memorable and special Christmases yet!

To have our family together was truly an overwhelming feeling of completeness and joy. Last year was hard for me because I thought we would be traveling to China in December to bring home our little Mia. So, of course all I could think about was her during the holidays and wishing she was here with her family.

This year was so nice having the whole family here. Mia home for her first Christmas and having Jason, Matthew, Kristen, her husband Max and our Grand daughter Emma all here was especially nice. Mia and Emma had such a great time together and opening gifts in the morning was really fun to watch. Mia loves Emma and she adores her big brothers and big sister. It was just nice being all together, it’s a rare treat anymore. They are all growing up and moving/living in different cities in VA. So it’s great to actually have family time together.

The rest of our families (grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins) come to our house every year to celebrate Christmas together. Scot’s family and mine combined so we have a big crowd and a great time together. We have a big Christmas dinner and then we always play the White Elephant game or Chinese gift exchange. The younger kids play their game and then the older kids/parents play a separate game.
This year we still did the White Elephant but we added a new spin to it…you had to make a home made gift-made by you. This was so much fun and we were all so surprised with the amount of talent this family has. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with next year.

The idea was to take the money that we normally used buying a gift and donating it to a charity instead. I think this will become a new family tradition

Look who's 3!

Mia turned 3 today!

We had a family get together to celebrate Mia's first birthday in the USA and turning 3 years old:) She had a great time having everyone sing Happy Birthday to her and opening her presents. The tissue paper from gift bags were a big hit with her as you can see from the pictures.

It has been so fun watching her learn about each holiday/celebration this past year. My baby is growing up so fast; I can’t believe it has almost been a year since we brought her home to her forever family.

Mia's first Halloween 2009

Portraits by Kevin Hurley

We finally went and had Mia’s portraits done. This was a gift given to me at my baby shower before we went to China to bring Mia home, I think I was just waiting for life to slow down a little so we could take some time and go see Kevin Hurley. With adjusting to her new home/family and Mia’s surgery, recovering from surgery and my work-it just had to wait.
We had such a great time and Kevin was wonderful with her, he really captured her personality in these pictures.

Mia's first dance class

Mia's first trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Prayers answered...Mia's home

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for Mia this week. God has been so good and gracious to us! Mia was in surgery for 5 hours Tuesday morning. We were told that Mia’s VSD (hole in her heart) was much larger than they expected.

While we were in the waiting room we got the call from our wonderful surgeon that things went well and Mia was on her way to the recovery room. About an hour and half later she was taken to ICU where we could then visit her. We went in to see Mia and she was not a happy camper to say the least. She was scared and MAD!!! The nurses were able to adjust her pain medication to make her a bit more comfortable and to help her sleep.

Mia did much better when we weren’t in the room, every time she heard my voice she got all upset and wanted to be held but we couldn’t hold her, this was heart breaking. She slept most of the day and really did amazingly well throughout the night.

Wednesday Sept.9,2009 Wednesday Morning we hurried over to the hospital to see Mia but we were afraid she might react the same way she had on Tuesday but she was very calm and we were able to sit with her and comfort her. She was doing so well.
Every hour that went by Mia was feeling better and they were able to remove one of the IV’s from her hand and the catheter.
It was also nice for all three of us to see Mia’s Grandma Penny, Poppa and big brother Matthew, Sheri and John Moore came to visit and got a few smiles out of her today


Thursday Sept.10,2009By Thursday she was even better and getting more lines removed and the drainage tube and IV in her neck was finally taken out. This was in no way a pleasant moment for anyone-especially Mia, at this point she was just ready to go and hated to see the nurses walk in the room because that meant someone was going to do something else to her again. She was just fed up! We did have a little fun today; both Grandmas’,Shirley and Penny were here to visit today-so she enjoyed them. We also were able to give Mia a ride in a little red wagon they have there for the kids. We pulled her around her floor and took her down to the cafeteria for dinner with us. After dinner we headed back to the room and our friend Sheri was there to visit us

The doctor’s came by and check Mia and told us that she was doing so well that she should be able to go home Friday morning! We were thrilled, two days earlier than we expected.

Friday Sept.11,2009 Were going home today!!!!
After the doctors did there last check on Mia we were able to leave. We left around 10am and got home and we all just crashed and took it easy all weekend.

God has been so good! We thank Him for all that He has done and for His hand being upon this entire process. How blessed we have been to have a truly AMAZING surgeon repair Mia’s heart and all the nurses and staff at UVA were all truly wonderful.

We want to thank everyone for your support and prayers during this time.

Heading to UVA to have a broken heart mended...

Mia is scheduled for surgery in Charlottesville, VA at UVA Children’s Hospital on Tuesday, September 8th. She will have open heart surgery to repair her VSD heart defect. Please pray that Mia will respond well to all that's ahead of her. Please pray that the surgeons will have skill and precision and accuracy in all they do for Mia and that this surgery will be successful. Also pray that she will recover well and have no infections or illness during this time.

We thank God that we have so many who love us and will pray for us at this time. I will be updating our website to keep everyone informed. I will post an update here when we return.

Mia's Baptism

Mia was Baptised today at Church of the Holy Spirit, it was such a beautiful service. She wasnt sure what was going on but she did great. We were so happy to have the whole family their with us.













You have come into the world so tiny,
Yet with such great promise for the future.
Before you were even born,
God planned wonderful things for you.
As you are baptised,
May you feel His love
And the love of those around you,
And may you always follow in His way.

Free scrapbooking design generated with Smilebox

Happy 4th of July!!

Summer Fun with Mia -June 2009

The Month of May 2009

Easter came twice this year:)

Today we spent the day at Grandma and Poppa Maccormack's, since Scot was in China on Easter we had Easter this weekend with his parents and the rest of the Maccormack crew. Mia had a great time on the farm and had a great time hunting Easter eggs.

HOME SWEET HOME...

I can’t believe we have been home for a little over a month already. The time is just flying and Mia is doing fantastic. She is adjusting to her life remarkably well and is such a happy child. I’m sure you can tell by the pictures.

After being off work for 7 weeks I headed back to work April 6th and what a tough day that was, I missed Mia all day and couldn’t wait to pick her up from daycare. We have been going for two weeks now just getting her use to it and she really seems to enjoy it. Mia has turned into a mama’s girl, though she gets really excited when Scot comes home from work. She has gotten used to our dogs, Tinkerbell, Tigger and Daisy which is quite a relief. They follow her everywhere; I think Tink thinks she is her mother-Sometimes she will pet them on the head ever so nicely.

Mia absolutely loves being outside. Whether it is a ride in the stroller, playing at the park or walking in the back yard watching the boats go by, she is happy as can be. She loves to dance to her music and play with her little people and puzzles. She is still a good sleeper and is taking naps now and sleeps about a 1 ½ hours. We are having no problems figuring out what she needs. She will belt out a “ma-ma” if I get too far away and she does a lot of finger pointing to let me know what she wants. We think she may be a lefty; she seems to always favor that hand when eating and drawing.
She also says (in Chinese) Ba-Ba /Da-Da. She loves to call our dog Daisy and she says pretty, ball and uh oh. She says uh oh a lot. She is also a pro at feeding herself, both with finger foods and a spoon and fork. Her favorite foods are noodles, rice, scrambled eggs, bananas and watermelon. Mia isn’t interested in television, though she will watch some Teletubbies off and on. Trust me, it’s worth it to get some dishes and laundry done or get food on the table.


We feel so blessed to have this beautiful, fun loving little girl in our lives and are enjoying every minute.

Happy Easter Mia:)

Mia and I had a great Easter together but we missed Daddy,he is in China for a few weeks working. Everyone on my side of the family went to my sister Cynthia's house for the day.Mia had her first Easter egg hunt and had a blast playing with her cousins.

Life is good...

Happy 70th Birthday Nai Nai (Grandma Penny)

Happy Birthday Grandma Penny! She's known around China as the young Grandma, I just nicknamed her Hot Grandma:) We are so glad she made this trip with us to experience this amazing journey. We love you and Happy birthday!