The joy of Christmas pictures....

Well we have started taking our own pictures for our Christmas cards. I couldn't see paying an arm and a leg for pictures and to get enough to send to relatives without them having to use a magnifying glass to see who was who! So last night was the night!!!!! We got everyone dressed up in somewhat matching clothes. We are trying to let Phillip be somewhat of an individual. So I told him that the colors were red and green. Well he did good!!!

Off we headed to Bass Pro....I like their fireplace and their Christmas trees!!!! We proceeded to take pictures!!! This year was PAINLESS!!!! This will be the first year that Hope has smiled in EVERY picture!!!! We need to write that down on a calendar somewhere!!!!!!!

After we were done with the pictures...Stephen and I left Dad with the other two and headed out for a "date"! We do that every year. We take one night for him to do his shopping for dad and siblings. I will do the same for Phillip as well in a day or two. He is harder to squeeze in a date with because of his calendar!!! Then I guess I need to do the same with Fred so that we can finish!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU!!!!

We wanted to take just a minute from our family to yours to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with the richest of blessings!!! Enjoy our beautiful leaves we have had this year!!!!

Blessings!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Well we wanted to wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!!! We are just a few days away from Thanksgiving (yes I know...long time between posts...) and I wanted to share a few things that we are truly thankful for!!!

I am truly thankful for the gift of salvation that is freely given by our Lord Jesus Christ!

I am truly thankful for my husband!

I am truly thankful for my amazing children who are awesome inspite of their parents!!! Love you guys!!!

I am truly thankful for our family! We have an amazing family in SC that really makes a point to keep FAMILY alive by getting together each month to spend time together and keep family close! I have a family like no other!!!

I am truly thankful for my friends that have been placed in my life! A lot of them have become like family to us! We laugh together, we cry together, we spend time together......Each of you are amazing!!!

We are thankful for Children's Hope International...the most amazing adoption agency ever!!! They have become a very special part of our lives over the last 4 years!!! We are glad that they are our friends!!!

Our prayer for each of you is that you are truly surrounded by those that you love this Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Well Happy Halloween everyone!!!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe night tonight!!!! It has taken us a little bit of time to decide what we finally want to be tonight!!!! But after much consideration and looking through the dress up clothes...it has come down to....drum roll please.......... CINDERELLA!!!!! Although this morning, she is dressed up as a University of South Carolina Gamecock cheerleader!!! We had to do that because we went to see one of our friends who is a die hard Arkansas fan!!! Guess who plays one another this weekend!!! YOU got it...USC and Arkansas in Arkansas!!!

Tonight we are headed out to the church to the fall party there tonight and we will come home a little early to go see a few neighbors!!!! But she already has TONS of candy!!! Our Arkansas friend had a big bag of goodies for her this morning!!!! Enough smarties to hurt someone!!!! But those are Hopes favorites!!!!!

Well off to do a little bit around the house....

(Sorry no new pictures...camera is broken..... :o( ) Hopefully Santa will bring a new one for Christmas!!!! :o)

Band Sista!!!!!

Well here we are at the beginnings of marching band season. We are freshman parents so this is the first year of the next four years!!!!

Friday night was the homecoming game so the band played for just a little bit then had to start packing up for the big competition on Saturday. It takes such a long time to pack up 3 Ryder moving trucks full of band equipment so we just stayed and watched the rest of the football game. Hope is in her element as she is walking up and down the bleachers, helping to pick up trash that gets left behind and helping take bleacher covers off of the band seats.

Saturday was no different! We had to be at school at 8:45 Saturday morning. So Hope had her backpack ready for the day. We had enough snacks to choke a bird...which the color guard found very funny when I said that! Well Hope and Stephen became the official water kids for the band. Hope thought it was fun to sit on the cooler and when one of the band members needed a water bottle, Hope would hand them one. She took that on as her job for the day! At dinner time she and Stephen gave each student a water bottle. It was fun to watch. Some she would hand to personally, others she would hand to Fred for him to hand it to them. After the band competed in competition, she took back over her position at the water cooler! She and Stephen were such big helpers!!!! They made the day a little easier!!!!

After the band competed, she looked at me and said MOM....I'm ready to go home. I told her that we had to wait for the awards! She was such a good girl all day and it was a very LONG day! We didn't leave the competition until around 10:30 pm. It did hurt just a bit when I had to leave to get on the bus with the color guard and she looked at me and said...MAMA I want to go with you!!!! I told her she couldn't. That only took her a few minutes then she was happy to be walking around back to the car with Fred!!!

I am so proud of all of my children! They are truly amazing gifts from God to our family!!!!!

TOOOOOOO SWEEEEET!!!!!!

I was sitting at the computer doing some work this morning and Hope was reading one of her Beauty and the Beast books. Then I heard the sweetest thing:

Yes, Jesus loves Belle, yes, Jesus loves Belle! Yes Jesus Loves Pocahontas, Yes Jesus loves Cinderella, yes Jesus loves Mulan, Yes Jesus loves Gaston....She went through the entire princess line stating that Jesus loves them!!
I know that she loves to sing at church because we sing all of the time at home! But it was very touching to hear her sing that this morning.

Last night we were watching a dvd of Phillip's marching band playing and when they started to do the National Anthem...she can hum the ENTIRE national anthem!!! It was awesome! When she realized that we were all watching her instead of the DVD...she stopped...then went back to humming!!!!

It was awesome!!!!
We just love this girl!!!!! :o)
We are truly blessed to have her and our precious sons in our lives! We feel blessed that God has placed them into our lives!!!!

Hair Cuts and Football Season....

Hair getting long at Christmas! Of course the chin all the way up didn't help!!!!
Her new big girl cut!
It is now all the same length!
With Phillip at Friday's Football game!

Well just a couple of weeks ago, I took Hope for a haircut! She had all of these layers in her hair and it looked thin. So we had a friend cut off all 4 of her layers to the shortest one! It made her look sooooooo much older!!! I wasn't sure how to handle that! But she looks adorable (as always :o) .....ok I'm a little partial!)

Fall weather is on its way and it was awesome this past Friday night to go to the football game! You could wear the sweatshirts and drink hot cocoa and watch high school football! I love to watch high school football! They play because they want to, not because they are making millions to do so. But we have learned that at Phillip's school, you don't go to watch the team win...you go to hear the band play!!! Which was my plan all along because in marching band families, we all know that half time is game time!!!! The band goes and takes over the field at every game and does an awesome job of it!!!

Hope enjoys cheering for Phillip's band! She now has her "football clothes" as she calls them to wear to the games! Since they don't sell highschool clothes to fit toddlers...we made her an outfit! She of course has several different hairbows (don't want the outfit to get boring!! :o) ) She has also learned that football field popcorn has a lot of salt on it!!!! This past game I think she either had a little lip chapping going on or she had a little boo boo owie on her lip so she would be eating along and then look at me and point to her lip and tell me OUCH!!!! But she still mananged to polish off most of her popcorn!!!

I do believe that she is planning to be a drum major when she gets to high school!!! She loves to watch the drum majors on the field and she will move her hands and as she says..."deduct" the band!!! So we let her "deduct" all she wants! It is fun to watch!!!

Where are my brudders? Part 2

Today was a special day for the Kovach boys.....First Day of School! What does that mean for the little girl at home?????

Control of the TV for the first time in almost 6 weeks! She could watch her two favorite shows: Sesame Street and Calliou without having to tell someone to turn their computer game down or to stop playing their drums! She sat with her bowl of nice cold watermelon in the recliner enjoying her quiet time!

Then she realized that she hadn't seen Phillip today! Here came the question? Where's Phillip? He's at school today! Oh ok...back to the watermelon! She knew that Stephen was at school because she got up to go "catch the bus" with Stephen! We stood at the bus stop and waited with him! I almost got teary eyed when I told Fred "Do you realize that in just two short years, we will be standing here with Hope to get her on the bus for school?" Then we will have an elementry student, a middle school student and a high school student!!! That just about brought me to tears!!!

When the bus came, the lady asked if Hope was starting school today!!!! I quickly said no...in a couple of years. Happily was able to walk back across the street, we sent daddy off to work and realized...."HEY us girls have the entire house to ourselves once again!!!!" It was nice! We did a little bit of cleaning, watched Sesame Street and Calliou, ate watermelon, cleaned a little more, ate lunch, read a story and took a nap! It was nice!!!

They will all start filing back into the house shortly! And so ends the quiet day for the Kovach girls!

I will have to get my camera out and take a picture of the new hairdo for Hope!!! We went on Monday to have back to school hair cuts done! I decided to get her hair all evened out! She had about 3 or 4 different layers of baby hair in there! I'll wait to tell you more when I get the picture up!!!

I YUV ICE CEAM!!!!!

I have to share this story as it is very cute! Phillip is in marching band and they were having a parent preview night this past Friday to show their families that how much they had accomplished during the week at band camp.

Each family was supposed to bring a dessert to share to go along with the ice cream! So Hope asked me why I was making bownies (that's how she says brownies). I told her so that we could take them to school to go with the ice cream! So she asked when the brownies were done could she have some "ice ceam". I said no, we will have ice cream at school.

So off to school we went that evening. As soon as we got to school, she asks "Can we have ice ceam NOW?" I said no, we have to wait until the band comes. So when the band came on to the field, she asked..."Can we have ice ceam NOW?"....I said no Hope. Once the band in finished playing, then we can have ice cream! I do mean as soon as the last note was cut off...she came running over and said...not so quietly by that point.... "WE HAVE ICE CEAM NOW!!" I told her yes and she didn't hear the rest of what I was going to say...she just about took out grown people for her ice ceam!!!

I asked her if she wanted cookies to go with it, she looks at me, rolls her eyes and says no mommy I just want ice ceam!!! So needless to say she loves her ice ceam!

We went to do some back to school shopping and we saw some friends so she told them that she got to have ICE CEAM at Phillip's school! That I do believe was the highlite of her day! If you notice even on her shirt in the picture, it has an ICE CEAM cone on it! On Saturday, we went to the mall to get some back to school clothes for the boys since I can no longer just buy them clothes because they are so tall and seem to keep growing! After we were done shopping, we went to Chick Fil A and you guessed it...had an ice ceam cone! For the first time, Hope didn't want hers in a cup...she wanted a cone like everyone else! For the first time, she actually ate the cone. She thought that was neat to be able to eat the cone! She has never wanted to eat the cone before!

And yes, the band did a wonderful job!!!!

Where are my brudders?

Mom, Where are my brudders? That has been the question of the morning for the last two days!

Stephen is at camp and Phillip is already at band camp Hope! She has been a little lost these last two mornings!!! Stephen left for Kids camp early Monday morning and I don't know that she was fully awake to know that she was with me when we dropped him off!!! Phillip is at marching band camp this week! He has left the house by the time Hope wakes up these last two mornings! I think this is kind of preparing her for what happens in 22 days!!!! SCHOOL IS BACK IN SESSION!!!!! I know that she will be a little lost once school starts back because she has had a wonderful summer with the boys being home! She has enjoyed the frequent wrestling matches she has with Phillip, watching Cinderella for the millionth time with Stephen and the laughs watching each other be silly!

She has enjoyed having them play in the back yard to play in the little swimming pool although some mornings were so chilly I'm surprised that she and Stephen were even in the water! But I always got It's not really that bad mom!!!!

It seems like this summer is coming quickly to a close!!!! But not done yet!!!! There are still adventures to be had!!! So off we go :o)....

Reunion time!!!!!

What a wonderful weekend we had in St. Louis!!! Our adoption agency, Children's Hope International, had their 15 year reunion!!!! It was awesome!!!

We were also able to have a mini reunion of most of our travel group! We had 5 of our 9 families get together this year and have a time of getting together and letting our children have a wonderful time of playing together! It was neat to see how much the Fuling Spicy Girls have grown over the last 2 years!!! They are all just beautiful!!! After the first inital shock of getting together, it was awesome to hear the giggles and laughter, screams of delight, watching the hugs shared between Fuling sisters that share that common bond of Fuling as their home!

After the CHI reunion, we all headed to the hotel for some rest and time in the pool!! Needless to say, Hope didn't make it to the pool!!! She was wiped out! She slept from the time we got in the car from the reunion to the hotel, in her stroller for a while, crawled in the bed and slept for a little while longer. Then everyone came back up starting to get ready for dinner!!!! So she didn't get to swim, but had a wonderful time at dinner, eating mac and cheese and chicken fingers and let's not forget the vanilla ice cream that was quickly turned into a chocolate soup by all of the girls!!!! It was YUMMY!!!!

On Sunday 4 of the families headed down for breakfast and then headed out to the St. Louis zoo!!! It was fun!!! We saw all kinds of animals and a group of silly monkeys that seemed to follow us everywhere full of giggles and laughter!!!! Then we had to make to walk to the front gate and tell one family "Until next time" because they had a plane to catch. Then it was back off for more exploring and trying to find the missing elephants!!!! We had some lunch and stood in front of the cool air mister for a few minutes and then off again on the hunt for elephants!!! Once we spotted them, it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED for the Fuling Spicy Girls family!!! Then it was off to the gift shop and on to the car and on to the highway headed home. Hope was asleep before we got to the highway!!! I'm sure others followed quickly!!!

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for dinner! It was fun watching Fred try to teach Hope how to play checkers!!! She came up with her own rules for this game with daddy and lets just say they changed often!!! So she proudly came back to the table declaring victory over her daddy!!!

It was a wonderful time visiting with everyone!!!!
I'll get pictures up soon!!!!!

My funny girl!!!!!

Hope was sooooo funny yesterday!!! Every now and then, I will light a candle on the kitchen table. This one smells like peach cobbler!!! (reminds me of my mom!!) Now that Hope is catching on to the concept of birthdays, she came running up and asked...."IS IT PRESENT TIME???" I told her no, it wasn't present time....that I was just lighting a candle...it was no ones birthday. Then my sweet girl ran and got her playdough and made a playdough cake!!! She quickly informed her brothers that this was mama's cake!!!! I guess she knows that mama's birthday is next on the birthday calendar!!!! I don't know how she knows that...probably because she is soooo super smart!!!!

We have also gotten out the swimming pool!!! She is a tough girl...because the water was pretty cold! Yesterday she was walking in the water and she tripped and fell. She was worried as she was still in her clothes...no swim suit yet...so she went on playing. Then today she and Stephen went out this morning and got back into the pool!!!! It was very overcast and not very warm at all around 10:30!!! They both looked at me when I asked them how in the world were they able to stand it in that water???? Stephen says...Mom..it's not that bad once you get used to it!!! I guess once you go numb...it really doesn't matter how cold the water is huh???

Happy Birthday America...a little late!!

The beautiful Stars and Stripes coming in!
My handsome boy!
My Military Boy! He's planning on going in the Navy as a chaplin!!!!

Playing a fun game!

Riding in the wagon with her best friend!
Didn't make it to the fireworks!!!

Happy Birthday America!!!!


On Wednesday July 4th, America had a birthday!!! Our church has a wonderful celebration for America's birthday! They have games, watermelon, music and lots of fireworks!!! Just about the entire city shows up!!! This year there was over 80,000 people there! This was the 11th year that our church has hosted "I Love America!"

A fun time was had by all!!! We hung out with some of our good friends all day! Hope refused to take a nap because she was just afraid that she would miss something!!! Well I had to leave to go and sing...and wouldn't you believe it...she went to sleep and missed the fireworks!!! We brought in a picnic lunch and our shade tent and chairs, sunscreen and I think half the house!!!

The boys had a wonderful time hanging out with their friends!!! It was fun watching everyone have such a wonderful time! But we were alllll very tired yesterday!

We hope everyone had a wonderful 4th!

Mommy and Hope day!!!

Today was a mommy and Hope day! Both of the boys went to work with Fred today! It was a welcome break! Since school as been out, it has thrown Hope for a loop and her schedule!!! She doesn't think she needs to take a nap because "her boys" as she so calls them are still awake!!! So, there have been a couple of days that I didn't make her lay down!!! BAD MAMA...and a bad move!!! It got down right ugly in this house. She was tired, but didn't want to sleep, so every little thing got to her!!! She cried, she yelled, she got mad...so I would sit her down away from the boys and she would fall asleep!

Today we have watched Cinderella 3, colored, made peanut butter cookies for "her boys" for when they come home, had lunch, picked up a few things, played with the cat and now she is napping!!!!

She was thrilled to have gotten another "birsday" card in the mail! She has really enjoyed getting some mail these days! She has been singing the birthday song most of the day today! Her friend Zoe also had a party on Saturday and so today she has been singing Happy Birthday to Zoe and Hopey!!! It has been very cute!

Happy Birthday Princess Hope!

Happy Birthday to our Fuling Princess! On Sunday June 24th our sweet Fuling Princess will turn 3 years old! Just a few days ago we celebrated our 2 year Gotcha Day and on July 2nd we will celebrate our 2 years Forever Family day because that is the day that we flew home and Hope met her brothers for the first time!

My daughter is one of my biggest heros! She was born, spent at least 9 days with her birthmother, left in a park, found and taken to the Fuling Social Welfare Institute. There she spent close to the first year of her life. Then she was placed with people that don't look or talk like her, flown halfway around the world to live. She is an amazing girl so full of life and we are truly blessed to have her in our home! There are days that are more challenging than others, but that is so much a part of life.

Saturday we are having the party and I will post pictures after that of her in her new princess dress! She is planning to be Cinderella tomorrow!

Happy Birthday our Princess!

Where have the last 2 years gone???

riding in the wagon!
Dedication Day!
Valentines Day
Loving my bears!
Laughing with Mom

First Snow!

First Thanksgiving!

In the leaves with the boys!

Catching Bubbles!!!
Loving on my Uncle Michael!

The Referral Picture!!!

Swinging in my swing!

First Christmas! Trying to learn to walk!

I thought that I would just post some pictures that cover the last 2 years!!! Enjoy

2 years ago!!!!

2 years ago on June 19....Father's day...in more ways than one!!!! We took a bus ride through the countryside Chongqing, China to the beautiful city of Fuling! It was about a 2 1/2 hour bus ride. Our group was very excited some were to be fathers for the first time and it was a very exciting day for them!!! We were just ready to meet the little girls that we have only seen a picture of for the last couple of months!

We were handed a sweet little girl who had this puzzled look on her face and she sucked her thumb! That day we became parents of a sweet girl! We were missing our boys on that day!

A lot has happened over the last two years! Learning how to walk, talk, crawl, painting finger nails, dress up clothes, potty training, watching all of the Princess movies, moving from a crib to a big girl bed!!! Needless to say we still struggle with some issues of her getting overly frustrated at some things, but the good days far outway the bad!

She is truly a blessing to our home and we could never imagine life without her!!!! She is such a joy and can make us laugh with some of the things that she does or says! We are truly thankful for the special gift that God has given us in our children and we celebrate the completion of our family!!!!

JULY 2nd...WE ARE HOME!!!!

We got to the airport and told Simon farewell. He helped us get to the luggage check-in. The funny thing is we had to go through a process where they banded your luggage (for a small fee). Then you could take your luggage and check in for your flight!

We left around 7:30 am and we were happy to be on a plane headed home! The flights were good except for the long layover in Tokyo, Japan. They had a guard that wouldn't let people on the bus to go over to the next terminal...he kept saying it was the wrong bus! We waited for 1 1/2 hours to get to the correct terminal. Once we got there, the lady that worked with American Airlines was wonderful!!! She said that she had some better seats in the bulkhead that would give us more room for the flight home! She said that she would also make sure that Hope would have a bed for the flight! Well the bed was a little cardboard tote with a little cushion in it. Hope slept in that for just a little bit, but she was a little long for the box so her legs hung over the side.

The next leg of our flight took us to Chicago where Hope became a US citizen!!! We went through immigration and the processed us very quickly! I heard the one worker tell the other to please hurry, that they had a small child with them. I was forever grateful, because we were sitting on a bench with a LONG line of people trying to come into the US! They had us to the luggage claim area in about 10 minutes! We then went and grabbed our luggage and made the transfer from international flights to domestic flights! They guy laughed when he saw the bright yellow banding and didn't even want to search our luggage. He said no one would have been able to mess with it anyway, so he took our luggage and sent us through! By this time, we were hungry and had spent most of our extra money on the two extra days in China, so we found a hot dog stand, got one hot dog and 2 cokes with ice!!!! It was I do believe the best coke that I had ever had!!!! We then headed down to our gate and waited for our flight back to Springfield!!!!

The best part was seeing everyone once we landed and made our way around the corner at the airport!!! It was awesome to see their faces with big smiles on them! This group was the group that prayed us through and encouraged us the entire way!!!!

God has truly been faithful to us through it all! He has provided in many ways that we can never imagine! The most treasured thing to me is my friends and family!!! That's what makes my life complete....everything else is an added bonus!!!!!

July 1st...our last full day!!!

Well today is our LAST full day in China! We slept in a little, it was nice! We went down for breakfast and then we decided to go to the mall to get more goodies to bring home for everyone! Fred even managed to find a few shirts for himself! We were able to get some DVD's of some movies that we were wanting. Phillip will be thrilled to know that we got the new STAR WARS movie!!!! We had a good time just walking around! But I'm ready to go home!!!

After we came back to drop off our finds, we headed back to Lucy's (it became our favorite place to eat there!). We then went to the Carrefor and got a few things for the trip back home. We decided to get some sandwhiches from the deli at the back of the White Swan for dinner. We had to go back upstairs and try to pack and have everything ready for a 5:45 AM departure!!!!

Are we any closer to going home??? June 30...

Well the consulate got visa's to us late this morning...about an hour after our original flight left!!! Fred also talked to them about helping us find tickets for earlier than the 4th!

They put their travel person on it! It worked...we had tickets for July 2nd! It was an answer to prayer! We were on our way to walk down and pay for the new tickets when we heard someone call our name...it was Cedra from the consulates office. She came over to bring us the tickets. She was the sweetest thing! She kept telling us how sorry she was that this happened to us. Hope and I went upstairs to take a nap and Fred went with Cedra to pay for the tickets. When he got back, we went to dinner at Lucy's! We went strolling around and went to pick up our laundry at Jennifers! It is a very neat place right near the White Swan. They have all kinds of things. They let you borrow strollers if you don't have one...they have medications that other parents have left behind that haven't been opened so that someone else can have them. They do your laundry for practically nothing. The shops right by the White Swan are wonderful!!! You can find all kinds of wonderful things to get. I wish that we would have gotten more!!! After that, we met up with Kimberli and Scott and Mia, it was nice to still have them there with us. Scott said that we needed another massage, so he told Kimberli and I that he would pay for it because he thought we got jipped out of our last one!!! It was wonderful...it was a wonderful way to get rid of some stress!!!!

Even more pictures...

hope falling asleep in her mashed potatoes at Lucy's!!!
Hope taking a picture of Daddy after we were done with the medical exam
Autumn Moon Garden....Hope's finding place...She was left here when she was 9 days old!
Matt, Lisa and Emme our friends from Kansas City
Mike and Leighann one of our familes from CA.