Listen to Elaine on the Radio

I was given an amazing opportunity to share Chloe and Jazmyne's story on a national radio talk show. The interview took place on Chris Fabry Live!, Monday, Jan. 26th at 3:00pm Eastern time. You can listen over the internet with the link below:

http://www.moodyradio.org/brd_programtoday.aspx?id=18270

Just click on the 'Past Programs' tab, scroll down to January 26th, and click the 'Listen' button on the right.

Thank you for your prayers that God would be glorified through their story.

A Baby at Christmas Time

A baby and Christmas time can be such a fun combination. Chloe truly made our Christmas this year a special joy. To be able to see everything through her eyes for the first time was a pleasure. Greg and I were sitting in living room shortly after all the presents were opened and we were reminded that just a year ago there was no one to give Chloe a gift to celebrate the gift that God gave us in sending His son Jesus to Earth. How things have changed in her life. Wrapping paper scattered everywhere and so many new things that it was hard to choose which one to play with first. We were the blessed ones this year, to have special gift of Chloe in our family.

Chloe enjoyed playing with her new "cell phone" with Papa and Grandma

Her play sweeper was the hit of Season! She even moves the throw rugs and sweeps under them.

We've had lots of snow in Ohio this month, so Chloe got to go sledding for the first time.

Here's our "All-American" girl sneaking icing out of the tub.

Chloe's new friend Mya came to visit with her family. It's always great to get together with other adoptive families.

Chloe has discovered climbing and she does it all the time! She climbs on the coffee table, window sill, chairs, stairs. You name it, she's tried to get on top of it.

Chloe has begun pretending and one of her favorite things to play is babies. She rocks them, kisses them, and gives them a bottle. I even caught her today trying to get her baby dressed. Of course, she was sitting on top of her toy.Help Me Grow - our counties early intervention program -was back last week to assess Chloe and she's doing great! She is ahead developmentally in every category now. It's amazing to think what a little love can do. We were counting how many words and phrases Chloe is able to say and came up with over 35. Some of my favorites are: 'I love you' and 'we're home' when we drive up our driveway. She's also gotten pretty good at telling the dog what to do. :)

Chloe loves to ride on her rocking horse. She has only recently discovered that her sisters could serve as horses too.

Just a quick note on Jazmyne, Chloe's Jie Jie from the orphanage. Jazmyne was adopted as a special needs child at age 2 because she had 6 toes on each foot. She had surgery last week to remove them and is doing great. The casts come off next week. If you'd like to read more about Jazmyne's story, here's a link to their blog: http://jazzyrose.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas!

I didn't give you the gift of life

But in my heart I know.

The love I feel is deep and real,

As if it had been so.

For us to have each other

Is like a dream come true!

No, I didn't give you

The gift of life,

Life gave me the gift of you.

~author unknown~

Merry Christmas Chloe!

Chloe decided to wrap this present on her own.
She's had a great time helping in the kitchen this season.

Chloe is coming out with new words each day. Today, she learned that she is one.

Christmas is Coming

We just had to stop and thank God as we began decorating our Christmas tree this week. For the last 3 years as we celebrated Christmas we would say "this will be the last Christmas without Chloe." Finally, we can say "THIS IS OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS WITH CHLOE!" I pray that we stop for moment each day and just cherish how special this Holiday Season truly is for our family.

Chloe liked hanging the ornaments on the tree. So far they're all still hanging there.

Chloe loves to play "music" on the piano. However, last night she didn't think that 2 hands were enough sound, so she added her feet too.

Spagetti Anyone?

Chloe is making great strides in using utensils to feed herself. I just had to snap a picture today of what she looked like after her 3rd bowl of spaghetti. Obviously, she was feeding herself.

Chloe has always been a great eater, sometimes eating more than my older girls. Unfortunately, Chloe has yet to tell us when she's hungry. If she doesn't see food, she just doesn't ask. It's hard to think about how many times she must have been hungry and learned to ignore it. I'm sure that she will eventually learn to let us know of her needs, but until then it's a harsh reality of what she has been through in her little short life. There is hope though. When we first got Chloe, she didn't cry when she got hurt. She had learned that there was no point, because no one could come when she cried. Since then, as we comforted her anyway, she has learned that there is a good reason to cry when you get hurt. Now she tells us exactly where it hurts. So, we'll keep asking her if she's hungry and offer her food anyway. Eventually, the implications of orphanage life will wear off and she'll just be an average American kid who asks for food an hour after each meal :)

Meet Jazmyne

I would like to introduce you to Jazmyne Rose-Noel Rees, Chloe's Jie Jie. We had a special opportunity to share a couple days with this little girl who had such a lasting impact on Chloe's life.

Their first meeting was little tentative. Jazmyne was in a new place with lots of new faces. At first they just kind of looked at each other like "I think I know this person." As they spent some more time together, it was just obvious that they were familiar.

Chloe played and interacted with Jazmyne like she was an old friend and they had played many times before. This was very surprising, because Chloe doesn't really play with any other children. When she's with others, she just kind of ignores them. With Jazmyne though, it just seemed like the interaction between them was something that had happened often before.

Rick & Kathy brought adorable matching panda outfits for the girls to wear.

Jazmyne is still great at spreading love around and she shared it with our whole family.

It was quite a trip trying to get both a 1 and a 2 year old to hold still long enough to take a picture. I think someone should have been video taping we 4 parents practically standing on heads trying to get a good picture.

Obviously it was worth the effort, because some of the photos we got were just priceless!

Jazmyne with her forever Mama and Dada.

I was reminded just this evening that we prayed often specifically that God would provide someone to show Chloe love until we could be there to do it ourselves. I just never imagined that God would provide in the form of another little girl. We are truly blessed with answered prayer and now a new friendship with Jazmyne and her family. May God's blessing be always on her life and may she always be surrounded by love for love she chose to share with our little Chloe.

The Miracle of Jie Jie

I wanted to share a story today that is truly God's doing. The picture you see above is of Chloe and another little girl at the orphanage. Chloe has grieved and called for her Jie Jie when she is upset and in her sleep since the first days she was with us. We asked the orphanage director the next day if there was someone specific Chloe could be calling for and she just said that they call all the older girls Jie Jie (big sister) that play with the babies. Much to our surprise, when we got the pictures developed from the camera we sent to the orphanage, there were multiple pictures of this little girl with Chloe. She was hugging her, kissing her, and just loving on her. Chloe has been very affectionate with us from the very beginning and we have credited this little girl with showing Chloe love and teaching her how to bond. Unfortunately, we didn't have any way to get information about her. I often wondered if she was still at the orphanage.

Now fast forward about 6 months. I am part of an Internet group for parents who have adopted from Chloe's orphanage. It's a great way to learn more about the orphanage and understand our girls better. There was a family who have adopted from there and live in Beijing. They were planning a trip with their girls back to the orphanage. I emailed them to see if they could take the picture along of Chloe's Jie Jie along to get some more information. When they showed the photo to the nannies, they said that both girls were quite attached to each other. Her name is Qian Jiang Can and she had just been adopted to the United States in Sept. When I saw the name of the little girl, I could hardly believe it. I have been corresponding by email with a family from Michigan who adopted a 2 year old from Chloe's orphanage. We have emailed back and forth answering questions, etc. for months and I even spend an hour talking to them on Skype (Internet phone) the week before they left for Chongqing. Chloe's Jie Jie that she has grieved for is their daughter! Not only was this little girl that was so special to Chloe no longer at the orphanage, she had been adopted to a family that we knew. They only live 6 hours from us. Her name is Jazmyne. Her mom showed Jazmyne Chloe's pictures on our blog and she called her by her Chinese name and said Mei Mei (little sister). God has seen fit and cared enough to place these two little girls who have shared so much in homes just a few hours apart. We will be getting these two "sisters" together on Thanksgiving weekend.

Recent photos of Jazmyne.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine..." Eph. 3:20