Shadow’s wild adventures!

We had a very eventful evening and morning. Our “teenage” kitty Shadow, almost 6 months old, had not been seen since about 6 pm. We turned the house upside down, and called her inside and outside, opened every door, closet etc but we could not find her. Sophie was pretty upset and I was worried sick. Of course, there’s always the threat that a raccoon could have gotten her, especially since she had pawed at one just days ago. The other possibility is that she would have been run over. The last, better, option is that she was hanging with our cat-loving neighbor, who must have a dozen house-cats and feeds every stray in the area. This brought back memories of when our beloved Murphy (a beautiful Himalayan, and Yoda’s baby) came missing. We never did find him. We suspect he was stolen because he was so beautiful and sweet. Of course, it’s very unlikely someone would still Shadow, she’s a just a regular black cat. I was up pretty much all night, hoping she would just show up. I had left the cat door open just in case. Well, this morning, still no sign of her. Finally as I’m getting ready to load the kids in the car, Sophie is screaming. We can distinctly see a pair of ears in my car. She must have jumped in when I unloaded Margaux. She was locked in there all evening and night with no food. I brought her in, fed her, and locked her in. No open cat door for her today! I am so relieved she was found safe and sound as she is the sweetest little creature! Now I have to make it through a day of work with little to no sleep! I’ll load up some new pictures this weekend!

First Family Day!

Today is our first family day. One year ago we went into the conference room of a hotel in Nanchang and met Margaux for the first time. Se was not nearly as impressed with us as we were with her. It's hard to believe it's been a year already. Time really does fly. I'm so happy she is with us and she truly has completed our family. She's a little bundle of energy and mischief. We are just planning on a little celebration with a cake this evening after work.

10 Years ago, 1 Year ago

Thursday was a big day for this family, the big fat 10 that is, our ten year anniversary. It's just so hard to believe it's 10 been years already. It's gone by so fast! Of course our greatest accomplishments are our two beautiful little girls. 9 years of of these 10 years were at least partly consumed with family building. We went through 3 years of infertility, including 3 IUIs, 1 IVF, and a failed adoption before finding out right before Valentine's day 2001 that we were expecting Sophie. It was a natural pregnancy, a total surprise. The pregnancy itself was a difficult roller coaster. I had just about every complication on the book. I had a dozen ultrasounds to check on Sophie and ended up being induced because she was IUGR (intra-uterine-growth-retardation). That was a scary word! She ended up totally fine albeit tiny at 38 week gestation and 4lb15oz. After Sophie came more infertility treatment including 3 IUIs, and more failed domestic adoptions. Finally we started the China process in January 2005, were logged in Sept 2005, and traveled to China on our 9 year anniversary last year.
So on the 21st 10 years ago we were getting married, and 1 year ago we were on our way to our beautiful Margaux!

To celebrate our anniversary, Chuck cooked a nice dinner on Thursday, and yesterday we went out for dinner and a movie (Juno, which was very good). We would have done more, but we are trying to save money for the summer to go to France since we have not been in 5 years!

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Valentine's day. I woke up to two beautiful cards from the girls. Margaux's had a panda mommy and baby (how appropriate!) and Sophie's had a fat cat. Both were very sweet. Daddy did a great job picking out the cards as usual.

A face that says it all

This is an out-take while trying to get Valentine-cherub pictures taken at Penney. I had these done several years with Sophie at picture people, but they shut down half of their locations including the one in Memphis, so I had to call around. Sears retired their wings and Penney has them but won't take pictures of baby girls without a top after a year old.. I was disappointed but I went ahead and did the pics with a little white dress.

This is Margaux showing her true mischievous side...


And this is my favorite, looking just too sweet...

For the actual Valentine Pics, you will just have to wait until Valentine's day!