Puppies, puppies, puppies

Just like I promised...pictures of the babies

I'll be with you in a minute

And I thought raising kids was a lot of work; try 5 puppies, 1 extremely protective mother, 2 teenager's, 1 who insists on getting behind the wheel of my car any chance he can and 1 pre-pubescent 11 year old who at the flip of any moment can bite your head off. Uuuggghhhhh! Oh yeah, forgot the incredibly loving and patient husband who just smiles and bears through it all.

Not a whole lot of time for blogging these days, but I do check it when I get a chance.

Just trying to hang in there! Will try to post pictures of the growing pups soon.

An Incredible Day!

Happy Chinese New Year February 7, 2008

Not only is it a day of celebration from the land where our daughter is from, but...

We Have Puppies!!!

Our sweet little puppy (again I must remember she is not a puppy, after all she is 3.5 yrs.) gave birth this morning to 5 incredibly healthy thriving puppies; 3 girls and 2 boys. 2 white w/ champagne coloring, 2 white with black spots, and 1 white with chocolate brown spots ~ the last one to be born. If you remember from my previous post, we were told to expect 4 puppies! Man were we ever blessed today.

You see, about a year and a half ago, we made the decision to proceed with breeding our little dog for the purpose of using the proceeds from her litter(s) to help fund expenses for our adoption. We had two (very disappointing) attempts at breeding her in the past 1.5 years and this last time (Dec 2007), I was skeptical that it actually "took". A few weeks ago when we began noticing symptoms, I wouldn't believe it cause I didn't want to be disappointed again. When we finally got the word from her vet that indeed puppies were coming, we were elated. This morning after the 4th puppy was born, Maisy still showed signs of contractions and labor. I had left to go into the kitchen for some tea only to have my oldest come and say "Um Mom, you might want to come into the bedroom, there's another puppy being born." Shock - utter shock. God blessed us with 1 unexpected puppy offering us more for our adoption fund. AND...when I realized that they were born today, 2/7/2008 on Chinese New Year, I cried. All the pieces are connected to beautifully.

Without further delay, I give you the puppies:

Matches are here!

Our agency has reported that they have received matches for families logged in on 12/20 & 12/22, yet they have not been able to find out for sure how far the CCAA has gotten through with this last set of matches.

I have visited one site who had a LID of 12/27 and they have their daughter's picture and information posted, so it is very likely that they indeed have matched through 12/27/05.

That means we are officially 1 month away (30 days worth) of lid's before ours. 8 days worth of matches is delightful news considering everything in China will shut down for Chinese New Year on February 7th. We are praying and hoping for a larger number of dates in the next set of matches in March!

A wrestling we will go...

As you know, the sport of choice in my house is wrestling with all three of my boys. Well, last Saturday our oldest was in a district league tournament with his high school, of which the top 4 qualifiers in each weight class would be eligible to move forward to this Saturday's Regional wrestling tournament.

It was a long day of sitting on school bleachers cheering on some really tough matches and I am happy to report "D" took 3rd place overall and will be advancing to the next round. He is absolutely ecstatic as this is his first year wrestling with this high school team and to make it through qualifiers as a sophomore, I guess it's a really good thing (and hard to do-unless you are good). We are so incredibly proud of him and the hard work he has done to make it this far!



So now we are gearing up for Saturday's Regional Tournament and are praying for his to finish in the top 4 for his weight class, and then he will have the privilege of moving onto the Washington State Wrestling Finals the following weekend at the Tacoma Dome!