Welcome Brielle!

I just love the spring season! We are enjoying spring break right now and I am loving every minute of it with Longji! Everything is beginning to turn green again and I can't wait for an awesome wildflower drive through the Texas hill country.

As for the blog changes and new timeline (posted to the right of the blog), John and I had posted previously that we were looking into a second adoption...well, we would like to officially announce we are "pregnant!" A China pregnancy of course! We have been matched and have accepted the referral of a precious six year old girl. We are calling her Brielle and we cannot wait to post the beautiful pictures we have of her. We have to keep her information and pictures confidential for now, but I will keep everyone updated on our progress as it happens. Hopefully we will be traveling to meet our daughter in the fall and it would be such a blessing to have her here with us by Christmas. Longji is excited about having a companion around to play with, although he would prefer another boy in the house. Once I explained she would probably rather play with dolls than his toys he was fine with having a girl around. He is actually only about three months older than Brielle so it will be like having twins at home, which John never wanted. Little did he know...

So for now, we are planning for our upcoming homestudy visits, one for Brielle's adoption and another for Longji's 12 month post-adoption. Still can't believe it has been almost one full year. He has truly blessed our lives. Tomorrow will be our first visit to Fiesta Texas so I will hopefully have pictures to post soon. His birthday is just around the corner and it will be one to remember, that is for sure.

We have officially stepped right back into the crazy, blessed world of adoption and we cannot wait to meet our daughter. And the journey continues...

Adam at the Park

Chinese New Year

We decided this year that we would start a new tradition...celebrate Chinese New year. Our party was technically post Chinese New Year, but we still made it happen. Poor Longji missed an entire week of school with some sort of virus. He had us scared there for a while...his temperature reached 104.7 in the doctor's office. I think it was higher than that here at home with our thermometer.

Today, however, he was feeling much better and we decided the Chinese New Year party at the Laymon house must go on. Almost everyone made it to the party and we had a nice time together visiting and eating.

100 year B-day and Chinese school party

Another crazy weekend behind us. Unfortunately, Longji had to endure most of the weekend with a fever and now he is missing school for the first day this year. So much for perfect attendance.

We decided to skip the FCC luncheon Saturday because there was just too much on our plates and we were struggling to fit it all in. We instead headed out to LaVernia, Texas, for my great grandmother's 100th birthday party. We had a great time and it was nice to see some extended family that we had not seen for years. I found out that I have a distant cousin who just came home this summer with a little girl from China. She was precious! If I can do it, I will add her blog to my list. My great grandmother was very excited and I think she had a fantastic 100 year celebration.





Yesterday Longji was feeling a little better so we let him go to his Chinese school party. The lion dancers were there and his 1st grade class performed two songs. Yes, they gave him the microphone. He did great!






Right now he is trying to eat some banana and biscuits. He requested two biscuits, but he only ate half the banana and half of one biscuit. We are going to the doctor this afternoon. I am terribly disappointed because he is missing his first Valentine's celebration at school. He was so excited and very upset he was not going to make it to school today and probably tomorrow. Praying he feels better soon.

"Jesus put the Bible in my head."

Tonight Longji wanted to share a story about Jesus which actually was a long narrative about Jesus' life...from baby to the cross. He asked some tough questions and I requested the assistance of Baba to give accurate answers for a six year old mind. It amazes me the way he thinks sometimes. Longji then made the statement, "Jesus put the Bible in my head." Where in the world would he get this idea...wow! Nine months home and he can give a pretty accurate account of Jesus' life, let alone understand the significance of the Bible in our lives. He leaves me speechless sometimes! God is good!!

We worked on our first set of Valentine cards this evening for his class. I expected to hear him whining about writing everyone's name out, but instead he took his time picking out the perfect card for each member of the class, even the mean boy we tell him not to play with. Again, Jesus just keeps showing up. This weekend we have to decorate a box for him to collect his cards in. I didn't realize it was such a big "holiday" in elementary schools.

Asian Festival was fantastically fun and I ate way too much food. Jordyn invited a friend to come with us and we all served in the SACCI booth to help support Longji's Chinese school. We enjoy learning more and more about his culture and it is nice to serve together as a family. Looking forward to next year's Asian Festival already.

Monster Trucks and Snow Day!!

We went to the monster truck show for Jordyn's birthday in January. She and John try to go every year for a father-daughter birthday date, but Longji and I decided to crash the party this year. We had a good time, but Longji was ready to leave about 30minutes in to the show. It was too loud and he was restless sitting in one place for a long time. He actually fell asleep toward the end of the show.

Since January, we have officially decided to pursue the adoption of a second child from China. We have the opportunity to use our Dossier (a ginormous pile of costly paperwork) a second time before May 10th (Longji's "Gotcha Day" anniversary). We have decided to go ahead and take advantage of this and we are now on a list waiting to be matched with our next daughter. We are definitely looking forward to our second trip to China, possibly next year, and with Longji and Jordyn. It will be nice to travel this second time as a family and we can welcome our new member together.

Meanwhile, Longji is doing great in school, Jordyn is playing varsity golf and has good grades, Jennifer is getting married and Johnna is taking classes at NW Vista. A lot is going on and we are definitely crazy asking for more, but hey, why settle for average?

Oh and today is a "snow day" in San Antonio. This is why I am able to blog. We woke up to icy roads and a layer of snow which rarely happens here. Longji was excited because he has not seen snow before. He is such a homebody that he is loving this free day at home. We aren't going anywhere with these roads like this. Tomorrow is Asian Festival and we are volunteering at the SACCI booth for a few hours. We have a Chinese New Year luncheon on February 12th and then we are having a small Chinese New Year party at our house to celebrate Longji's culture. At the same time, I am doing my best to continue training for the Dallas Rock-n-Roll marathon in March. I am running the half marathon relay, 1st leg (7 miles), with a friend of mine.

Looking forward to the craziness these next few months.

Oh boy...China again?

Okay, so we had a fantastic New Years Celebration with my family and so far the new year has started off well for us. We have decided to hire a tutor for Longji to help with his Chinese homework and just to communicate with him in Mandarin. We will also be looking into a Kung Fu class. Hopefully we can do this one night a week too. We are pretty much officially half way through the school year and I just cannot wait for summer to get here again. Plans are already in the making for Longji's first birthday party with us and we will look into the re-adoption process over spring break. With all of that said...our hearts have been tugged on a bit with pursuing a second adoption. It is something we have discussed in passing, but lately I just cannot seem to get the desire of bringing home another child out of my heart. To think that Longji was considered too old and un-adoptable just breaks my heart and I can't imagine him not being part of our family. Call us crazy, but there is another child out there longing for their mama and baba and we believe that is us. We are not sure where to start or even have a clue how to finance the whole thing a second time, but I truly believe God is all over this thing and in some way or another he will provide for all of us. Anyone who has met Longji knows what a blessing he is and the fact that he and his sister, Jordyn, are adamant about bringing home another child...well, you can't ignore the stirring in their hearts as well. Longji has been praying every night and the words he shares with Jesus are the most precious I have ever heard. So with all of that said, I guess we are on to another journey...per God's request.