Meme's birthday

Today we were blessed to get to celebrate Meme's birthday! She and Aunt Janet came up yesterday to visit. We had a great time together. As we thought back to past birthdays we thought of the birthday gift that we all received on her birthday in 2003! Grace's referral! On September 9, 2003 as we were driving back from Huntsville, AL Bryan and I received the call from the adoption agency. "You have a daughter. Her name is Song Fu. She is in Bengbu, Anhui Province China!" What an awesome gift! We thank God for the precious gift of "Grace" that he so freely gave to us! Happy Birthday, Meme!!!

She's growing up!

My heart hurt really bad today! Don't worry, Rah, I'm not going to be one of your patients anytime soon, atleast I hope not. It was an emotional pain that I felt. As reported earlier, Grace started to school last week. She goes 3 days a week and she is really enjoying it! She has a really sweet teacher who's priority is teaching the kids about Jesus and then ABC's and 123's. There are 9 children in her class, 5 girls and 4 boys. Of course we win the "older parents" award! We've been there and done that and here we go again. Anyway, today was the first day to drop Grace off at "carpool". You see the school that Grace is going to is for K-4 -12, so she goes to school with the big kids. Well, we pull up to the door and a male teacher opens the door for her. Well those of you who know Grace well know that she is often very shy around men that she does not know well. Well she unbuckles and leans over to me and says, "mom, I don't know where to go!" My heart dropped because I knew that she must be nervous, but she did get out like a big girl. I told the nice man, "she's in K-4 and she doesn't know where to go." He took her to a safety patrol who helped her to her class. Of course Bryan pulled the van up far enough to be out of the way, but stopped so that we could see her walk inside! What a big step! She was so brave! How hard it is for parents to entrust their little ones to someone else's care! Wow, that must be how God feels everytime he entrusts us with a new child to raise! And he knows our weaknesses!
Praise be to God for his goodness to us!

Grace's first day of K-4

Well today was the first day of school for Grace. She is in K-4. She'll be going to school 3 days a week from 8 until 12. She looked so big today with her bookbag on! When I woke her she said, "mom, I'm so excited!" Last night after saying her prayers she said that she was excited, but she wished that I could stay in the room next door, so I was afraid that she might hesitate this morning - but thankfully there was no hesitation! I was so proud of her!
Of course, when we picked her up we found out she already had the standard answers for school children down pat. When asked what she did - "nothing" . When asked if she made new friends, she answered, "no". Of course as the day went on we heard more details and more about the friends that she made.
We are so thankful to the Lord for allowing us to watch this precious girl grow!

Words from Grace - summer '07

One Sunday as Grace was leaving to go out to the "preparation for worship" class at church, her dad pulls out his wallet to give her a dollar for the offering, she waves him off and says, "No, dad, I want your plastic money".

While eating lunch at her grandmother's house, Grace was eating ribs for the first time. I cut the meat off of the bone and Grace says "It tastes like chicken" . Upon seeing the rib bone, she asks "What is that?' I answered it is a rib bone, Grace then asks with fear in her eyes, "is it somebody's?"

When shopping with her sisters, she informed them that "Mom and Dad are in discussions about getting me a new dog"

Question from Grace, "Mom, when we have our 'new skin' in heaven will we have to go to the dentist?"

While in the process of waking from her afternoon nap after obviously dreaming about celebrating my birthday, she said, "Mom, I'm really glad we had your birthday, how old are you?" I answered "48". She then asked, "How old is Kelli?" I answered "25" She said, "wow, ya'll are almost the same age!!!" (Kelli doesn't agree!!!)

Gracerella

Gracerella... the names fits, don't you think? She is a such a blessing! She is a real life princess - a daughter of the King! If you know Grace you know that she loves to dress in "twirly" dresses and they are even better if they are pink in color. One of our favorite children's book is "Pinkalicious" It is about a little girls who loves twirly dresses and the color pink. One phrase from the book (the main character of the story has turned pink in color from eating too many pink cupcakes) is "Look at me I'm Pinkerella!" Hence the name for the blog "Gracerella".
In this blog the plan is to keep up with the goings on in the life of Gracerella and also to share some of the things she says to us!!