Happy 4th Birthday Evan!

How blessed are we to have this child in our lives, and to call him our own? SO VERY BLESSED! Today is Children's Day in China, and it's the birthday chosen for our son. It is likely his birthday was in January. However if we celebrated in January, then in April for "Gotcha" and now...well, he'd be super duper spoiled. :0) So, I relinquish my poor attitude in that Ch*na has changed his birth date, and will forever celebrate him on this day! Besides, we all know Jesus was not actually born in December right?! If it's good enough for my Lord, it is certainly good for my child.

So, today....Happy Birthday to Evan!!!



What are the stunning plans for his FIRST birthday in America, you might ask? Well after he wakes up... we'll go to Dollar Tr*e and get a birthday balloon that he gets to carry with him everywhere we go today. The kids LOVE this tradition!
And oh, the places we'll go too!

We'll go to the bank, and to the pet store, and maybe to Hobby Lobby for some watch heads for a fundraiser. Then we'll go to the hardware store to buy a drill for daddy (as he has to drill out two inches of cement on our bathroom floor tonight so that Roto Ro*ter can come back to morrow morning and snake the drain since we have rusty standing water in a once sparkling white bathtub) Perhaps after all of that we'll stop for lunch on the way to the ever fun, grocery store! Once we return home again, we'll all clean up our rooms and work on my favorite chore...laundry.

How's that for a super duper fun first birthday in America? I know...I was thinking "poor kid" too.


However, we have found there is fun in all the little things in life, which are really the BIG things in life. Family is one of them.




This weekend we drove out to Erie, PA for Craig's family to meet Evan. What a great time we had. We had so much fun! Evan met his other Nanny and Papa for the first time, as well as cousins and an Auntie and Uncle! Oh, he is in LOVE with his Nanny. It never seems to take him long to warm up to new people. He just seems to know which people are "his" people. I attribute this ALL to the Lord's doing. So many of you were praying for Evan for YEARS. For his physical healing, growth, his future, his forever family, and so on. We are reaping the benefits of all those prayers when we see him mold right into the family seamlessly. I know that is not the case with all adoptions, but God heard your prayers on behalf of Evan.



Evan played swam and splashed in 2 creeks, fished, ate smores and host of other junk, played hard, earned some scratches, scrapes and bruises, and swam in Lake Erie as well. He wrestled with Jack, ran with the other kids, borrowed his cousin Ellie's baby doll, and snuggled with Nanny. We had a cake and sang happy birthday! He received a few presents, and lots of hugs and kisses. On the way home, we even found a Chick Fil A in Indiana! There we met a family where the mom was Chinese and dad, American. He was SO tickled to hear Mandarin again. The mom knew right away he was from China and overjoyed he was here in America. It was really interesting to be able to talk to her about how Chinese-Americans feel about adoption and the difference in cultures. Evan didn't want to talk much as the playroom was waiting.. but did answer her back in Mandarin. He also told her he wanted a blue balloon...as there were balloons all over the place in the restaurant. Neat!

He even broke out in his first mild allergic reaction...to what I don't know, so much was new on on his skin. My guess is the peanut oil at Chick Fil A? Not sure. Could have been the 45 different sunscreens, bug spray, new food, and water too.



In the upcoming weeks, Evan's birthday will be celebrated by the other side of the family. We'll take him out to our local 'real as you can get in America' Chinese restaurant so he can eat all the dumplings, chicken feet and tuna fish findings his little heart desires. We'll have a super duper birthday party for him complete with an Elmo cake and some presents too. (He LOVES Elmo) I think we'll be ordering a mandarin Elmo video or two for him.