My baby is THREE.....yes 3!!!!

Paul's birthday fell on Easter this year. We all got him really excited about his birthday on Saturday. If you asked him whose birthday was tomorrow he would start singing his version of "happy birthday." He loved his GeoTrak train that we got him. Be sure to scroll all of the way down. I did 4 post tonight!!!! My baby boy, how can you be three already!!!!
"Can you believe that I'm going to have another sister to put up with soon......these 2 girls drive me crazy!!!!"
Paul doing his "scary" face. He likes to come up to me and say "scare mom" and I say "oh your so scary" and then he tries to be even scarier. I hate to tell him that he is the CUTEST scary-boy that I have ever seen!!!!
All my boys after church Easter morning. I didn't get a picture of the girls. Natalie barfed at the church breakfast so she wasn't really up for picture time.

Pine Wood Derby

Andrew won first place in his den at his very first pine wood derby!!!! He also won a trophy for best design in his den. Oh....if you're wondering why Andrew has a funny look on his face it's because he is now the proud owner of a bionator (huge orthodontic mouth piece). I am so proud of how good he has been about wearing it and we are already seeing a big change in his lower jaw. Besides his 2 trophies, he also won two 3rd place ribbons (I forget what for....yes, I am a horrible mom!!)
Waiting to see whose car goes the fastest.
Audrey and Pastor Kelly weren't really paying attention to the races, they were too busy goofing off!!! Aunt Renee was even out for a quick visit. Andrew thought Aunt Renee had made a special trip just for the pine wood derby!!!

Families Untied Through International Adoption Winter Party

In February we had our 2nd annual FUTIA winter celebration. We had families from Mercer, Auglaize and Shelby county with children represented from five countries. Audrey always loves to see other Asian kids.....of course she thinks they are all Chinese so I keep using the term "asian" and tell her the name of the country that the child is from.
The kids made their own Chinese Cherry Blossom art work.
Elijah and Rachel......our 2 newest members. I really did want to kidnap Eli....he is such a sweet, beautiful baby boy!!!!
Even Ted got in on the fun!!

Chinese New Year

A couple of months ago we went to Dayton's FCC Chinese New Year. The kids had a blast and we had good, good Chinese food. We wrote Paul and Audrey's name in their home province on this big cloth map. What a cool idea. Audrey was the only Shaanxi kiddo but there were many, many Hunan kids there.
Jing Jing is helping Rachel find her home province of Tianjin (for you Chinese geography buffs you probably already know that Tianjin is one of China's four municipalities and not an actual province).
My ornery China girl!!
Fun entertainment.
The boys.......

And the winners are......

I want to send out a HUGE thanks to everyone who placed an order at my cyber show!!!!!! We made about $250. By becoming a lia sophia advisor I have made almost enough money for my first plane ticket to Armenia plus I have enough shows scheduled in April to hopefully make enough for another ticket. This has been a great money maker for our adoption, so please let me know if I can help you become a lia sophia advisor to help fund your adoption. I was thrilled that my 3 winners were all adoptive moms just like me!!! One mom is even a Chenzhou mom (she has also a child from Chenzhou....Paul's orphanage). So here they are....

1st) Majorie from MO won $100 her choice of jewelry
2nd) Laurie from TX won 1 item of her choice up to $100
3rd) Yvette from KS also won 1 item of her choice up to $100

Plus my Aunt Pam (who is going to Armenia with me on the first trip) received a special prize!!

Thanks ladies!!!!!!!

I am so glad to announce that this is the FINAL fund raiser for our waiting daughter!!! We still are unsure of when we will meet her. We are really hoping to go in May or June at the latest.....but God only knows. As most of you know we have been doing different fund raisers over the last 6 months to off-set the $34,000 adoption expenses (on top of the $45,000 we spent on Paul and Audrey's adoptions......without doing any fund raising). Here's a rundown on the blessings that we have received in the last 6 months:

$2000 from a garage sale
$1000 on our soup supper
$1000 on the sale of purses, rice bags, hair-bows. personalized scrapbooks, homemade jam
$500 on eBay items
$5000 on private cash donations
$4000 grant from Shoahannah's Hope
$2000 anticipated grant from the state of Ohio for adopting a special needs child
$1000 profit so far from selling lia sophia

So that brings us to $16,500 which is FABULOUS!!!!!!! but.....we still have $17,500 to go. So I am doing a Cyber lia sophia jewelry show. I have been selling this jewelry for about 6 weeks. It is high quality fashion jewelry that has a life time guarantee. 30% of all sales will go directly to our fundraising effort. So here are the details if you are interested in helping our family out. Thanks...Alison

It's All About Our Sweetie.....cyber lia sophia jewelry show. Anyone who places an order will be entered in a drawing to win one of 3 prizes. 1st prize.....$100 in free lia sophia jewelry...2nd prize...$50 in free jewelry...3rd prize will be $30 in free jewelry ( all prizes will be the choice of the the winner!!!) All you have to do is visit my lia sophia website then click on
http://www.liasophia.com/sites/alisonhoman

1. our jewelry
2. spring/summer catalog
3. how to purchase
4. hostess name "Alison"
5. then continue to select your items

If you do place an order be sure to take advantage of the costumer save plan which is buy 2 items at regular price and then your 3rd (and most EXPENSIVE) is 50% off. This cyber show will be open until March 19th. Anyone who places an order by the 17th will be entered in the drawing. I will notify the winners and ask them to make their selections by the 19 so I can close the show. Anyone who places an order should receive their items by March 28th. Remember Mother's Day is coming up so keep your mom or the mother of your children in mind when ordering!!!!! If you have the desire to help our family out PLEASE pass this email on....attach my info to your blog....print the email out and pass it out on the street (okay..I'm kidding, well kind of). Let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerly,
Alison Homan

Why we do the things we do......

Once again I'm sorry for the delay in posting. It seems I've been saying 'sorry' alot lately. I've also been dealing with some disappointments in my life too. BUT....I just had to post this picture of Paul from last night. This smile reminds me why Ted and I are choosing to do the things we do. As we set and wait and wait for our newest daughter I have been thinking 'deeper' about our sweet son. I will never forget how God truly convicted us that Paul was meant to be our son and that we were meant to be his parents. As I was crying to myself this weekend (I've done more of this in the last 2 weeks than I have in years) I reached out and scooped Paul up and hugged him until he was almost blue. I PRAISED God for giving us this desire to love the imperfect children of the world. I thought back to how he had set on his waiting child list for over 3 months with nobody reviewing his file. I continue to think about how our newest daughter has been in the orphanage since birth and will most likely turn 7 years old without us. Today, Pastor preached on the "Road less taken".......it is a lonely road at times, but the 'view' along the way is awesome!!!!!!! Thank you Pastor Kelly.....your message is what I needed today!!

Starfish Poem

Once upon a time there was a wise man
who used to go to the ocean to do his
writing. He had a habit of walking on the
beach before he began his work.

One day he was walking along the shore.
As he looked down the beach, he saw a
human figure moving like a dancer. He
smiled to himself to think of someone
who would dance to the day.

So he began to walk faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he saw that it was a
young man and the young man wasn't
dancing, but instead he was reaching
down to the shore, picking up something
and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer he called out, "Good
morning! What are you doing?"
The young man paused, looked up and replied,
"Throwing starfish in the ocean."

"I guess I should have asked, why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?"
"The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don't throw them in they'll die."
"But, young man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. You can't
possibly make a difference!"
The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it
into the ocean, past the breaking waves and said - "It made a difference for that one."