Headed to...

(I took this picture on the Great Wall on Dec. 10, 2006... the day before we received our sweet AnnaClaire!)

...China!

Sorry to leave you all hanging... I really hate doing this to you... (who am I kidding? I LOVE seeing your responses!) but I have to wait for a certain something before I can share more... so hopefully I can go into FULL detail (maybe a few more hints first!) about what exactly my crazy family is up to once I'm home.

Love you all! Prayers for my trip are appreciated! And remember, if you want to follow "live", go to http://www.187mill.blogspot.com/!

Thanks for the prayers and thanks for bearing with me :)

Is it just me?

Or does it look like a little someone is missing?!

187,000,000

I made a blog for my trip to China months ago, but finally made a header and actually posted to it! If I am able to, that's where I'll be posting in China... so check it out HERE.

Interruption~

I know, I know... how can I even do this to you?!

But I thought these pictures were well deserving of an interruption...

In case you didn't know, today was "Cow App*reciation Day" at Chick*fila! I'm sure if you have followed my blog for even a couple of days, you know we are HUGE Chick*fila fans... and so, I have worked on costumes, we found cow boots at Tar*get for $4 (and plus, the girls love to dress up in boots, so we didn't get them just for cow day!) All things said and done, we probably spent more on the outfits than we would've on the meal, but dressing up was the fun part. :) My friend and I dressed up, dressed the little girls up, put black face paint spots on, and went off this morning. The cow bells rang as we walked in and we all got free meals... free COMBO meals! It was sooo worth it. We had quite a few people taking pictures and were even declared the "best" dressed that they had seen all day. AnnaClaire was ALL over the cow. She loved it and walked around holding it's hand for soooo long. So different from the little thing that screamed out the site of anything big and dressed up when she was younger! Kate's starting to get over that phase... she does love the idea of the cow, but has to be held the minute it gets close! So anyway, it was a fun afternoon out! Plus, it was fun looking like a cow... and getting a completely free meal that would've cost close to $20 was pretty nice, too :)

The picture that started it all...

Three years ago on this day,

our dossier was somewhere in between NC and Beijing (Alaska to be exact), on it's way to the CCAA. We thought we'd be getting a "healthy" baby and we thought we'd be waiting a year. And then, not even 3 weeks later, God surprised us... with our sweet AnnaClaire Chenhui. (we were logged in on 7/22/06... we'd still have many months to go.)

Two years ago on this day, we had had our sweet AnnaClaire for almost 7 months and were paperchasing for a little sister for her...

Last year on this day, we were a few weeks into the wait for LOA for our precious Katherine MeiLing.

And today...

well, that's a story for another day.

Happy 4th!

My sweet little girls on the firetruck during our July 3rd festivities
Going for a walk together...
Kate is such a little party girl!
AC and Kate brought their balls and loved playing ball with Daddy!
Kate loved the chicken nugget tray that we had with dinner :)
Modeling.
All the girls!
Kate was smiling all night long! She loved the festivities!
As did AC... here she is with some chalk!
The little girlies enjoyed doing the chalk that Mrs. L brought for them!
Me and AC
3-D glasses/masks/fans
AnnaClaire thought it was a good idea that one little boy brought ear phones for the fireworks..
But covering her ears and watching in Mr. P's arms was fun, too.
Kate was soo into the fireworks. She just sat on Dad's lap and ohed and awed over them.
My sweet girls all decked out on the 4th of July! (we got their dresses at Crack*er Barr*el when we stopped for a bathroom break coming home from Texas... can you believe it?)
Me and my sweet sisters...
All the girls (well minus one!) on the 4th!
All the kids.. Will was working so he couldn't come and Drew was with friends.
All the moms and dads!
Dad and Kate churning ice cream!
beautiful little Kate with a sweet smile
AnnaClaire loved playing bean bag toss with all the big guys and dads!
Miss Kate with the bean bags!
S and I with the little girlies
Kate watching fireworks
AnnaClaire, with her ear plugs, enjoying the fireworks!

Well we have had an exciting weekend to say the least :) In between all the excitement we've had a couple of Fourth of July celebrations. Friday night (the 3rd) we went with a couple of other families to a symphony/firework show by one of our malls. We all brought different dishes and enjoyed an awesome meal, music, and fireworks. It was so much fun! The girls enjoyed playing ball, doing chalk, checking out the firetruck, just running around, and they both liked the fireworks, too! Kate was completely enthralled with them. AnnaClaire, who is terrified of anything loud, was a little scared but just kept her hands on her ears and enjoyed watching them. It was a late night but both girls were such troopers and had so much fun! Me and the other older girls who were there all went out for fried ice cream after and it was delicious!

Then yesterday (the 4th!), I had to work the morning/afternoon shift at the pool. AnnaClaire, Drew, and Dad came by and AnnaClaire loved had a ball once me and a few friends got off work... lets just say she had lots of big girls doting on her :) She even did a water balloon toss game with one of our neighbors! Once she and the guys got home, Mom, Dad, the little girls and I headed over to one of our neighbor's houses with some other neighbors (the same group from yesterday plus one other family and another friend) for dinner. We had ribs, BBQ chicken, squash casserole, rolls, fruit salad, baked beans, and a cookie cake decorated with blueberries and strawberries to make an American flag. We churned ice cream, playing bean bag toss, and just chatted. We had so much fun just catching up with some of these dear friends of ours! Then we went over to the house of one of the families who was there for fireworks and (homemade) ice cream sundaes!

We've had an awesome weekend... hope you all have had a fun 4th, too!

License!

Me and the girlies at B&J!
They loved their mint ice cream!
New Dora fishing polls!
Breakfast at Chick*fila this morning
Me and AC at breakfast
She loved having breakfast there!
First time at the movie theatre... watching Veggie*Tales with Bunny!
In front of the theatre/sign for the free movies!

In case you couldn't tell by my Wordless Wednesday post, I got my license on Tuesday! It's been so fun finally being able to drive without a parent in the front seat! I was quite nervous doing the driving test but was very thankful to pass first time :)

I think Mom might like me having my license just as much as I like having it... yesterday, between a lifeguard meeting and work, I took the little girls out for ice cream at B*en and J*errys! They both got "mit choca CHIP!" as Kate says. It's safe to say that they enjoyed it :) Afterwards, we went to Wal*Mart and I bought them both fishing polls! AnnaClaire has been talking about fishing for EVER and of course, Kate wants to be just like her. They both picked D*ora and are in love with their little fishing polls. Dad took them fishing while I was at work and they loved it... too bad he didn't bring the camera :( Today, AC and i headed to Chick*fila for breakfast before heading to the movie theatre! It was the first time Booie had ever had Chick*fila for breakfast and she LOVED it. She had "minis wif CHICKEN, hat browns and meelk" and loved every bite. I think we might have to go to Chick*fila for breakfast more often! I know all Re*gal theatres have free showings of some kids movies a few times each week. Today the Veg*gie Tal*es movie was playing for free. We thought that would be a perfect first movie theatre experience for AC... and it was. She loved it! She was actually following the movie, too, because she was asking me about certain parts of it. It was sweet. She sat soooo still and quiet and was very intrigued. I'm going to take her back to see U*p sometime soon and I promised her that we could get popcorn that time, since we didn't get any today.

So it's been fun. AnnaClaire loves driving with me... I mean it is pretty cool to be three years old and driving around with your big sister, isn't it? ;)

Oh and I promise, I'm a safe driver!