Guess who is leaving us next......

Today I have had such an excellent day. It is the days we live for over here and something that has only happened twice in 16 months with Laura Joan and Amanda. I woke up at 2 am (Sarah is teething what can I say) to the news that Nina's family is coming from Idaho to get her. They have been waiting for such a long time and have been counting the minutes and the days. Nina will be their first child and so they are so excited to see her. They are making travel plans at the moment, so I do not have the exact date yet, but it should be within the next week.

Nina has been so wonderful to have and if I have my way, I will never see anyone like her again. What!!! do you say? Well, I do not want to keep these babies for such a long time. I want their adoption paperwork to be completed soon after they are six months old and so they will be adopted quickly after that, so they spend their formative years with their families. Nina has been unique in so many ways. She is the oldest and at 20 months she is most assuredly the "leader". What ever she does the rest follows. The other interesting thing is that all the time and effort we put into her is beginning to show. She learned both Chinese and English and seems so confident in each language much to the amazement of everyone. She can find her nose, mouth, ears no matter in what language you ask her. She mimics the things you say like oops and ooh ooh. But I think the word she uses most in a given day by far...JoJo. That is Jonas. She plays with him, looks for him and sleeps next to him. He is so important to her. The next one is Baby, that is Olivia. I tried to teach her that Olivia was a baby but Baby just stuck. She really likes being with Olivia and likes to play with her. She also learned all the names of all the other babies can point to them when you ask her and still remembers Amanda and Laura Joan. She is also an ardent fan of the Wiggles and loves to dance and sing to their music and has her own maraca to shake. From the constant watching she knows the songs, sings to them dances, knows how to turn around, make like a duck and can count to three. She has also made up her own sign language. She learned "sleep" from Wiggles but she points to her diaper when she wants us to change it and she wants something to eat or drink she puts her finger in her mouth. She also puts her hands out palms up if she doesn't know. She just generally freaks out if she wants to watch the Wiggles song again. She also likes chocolate very much as you can see from this picture, my favorite of the last few weeks. We got a box from Robin with all these gifts and some chocolate chips. I also thought I would send a picture of Nina when she first got here, the day that changed my life Sept 13, 2005. Look how she has changed!! I am adding a picture of her during the operation you have an idea of what her neck looked like.

As much as we have loved her here and are sad at the prospect of her leaving, but we have done all that we can. I know that this will give the opportunity for another child to be helped and I am excited at the prospect of saving another life, if we can. I know that there is no better place for her than having a mom and a dad who are so anxious to get her home and to love her, with an extended family to welcome her and make her part of their family. There is nothing that we have here than can come close to this. She will truly become part of an eternal family. How happy I am that this blessing is Nina's.

I hope that she will never doubt the love that Heavenly Father has for her. Even in the time of being abandoned He had a plan and how grateful I have been to be a part of her life. I feel that as each one brings their part, we as whole we have an awesome power to make a difference in the lives of the children. What an awesome legacy that is! Thank for all that you do to support us.

I also want to especially thank Dr Lazareff and his wife, Nina's anesthesiologist from the UCLA Mattel's Children's Hospital who did Nina's Spina Bifida surgery in December 2005. They did an amazing job and Nina's scarring is minimal. All the people at Love without Boundaries: You guys rock!!! I admire all of you so much and I am so in awe of how much good you do on a daily basis. When I first started out, LWB sponsored the older six that was so helpful and it is how Nina's family found out about her and was able to adopt her.

Love and laughter and great joy,
Amanda
Foster mom to 14 soon to be 13 .....but there are more waiting in the wings