Merry Christmas!

Joshua took this picture of the girls. My mom Linda (right), Aunt Deb (left) Mommy and Maddie.
Joshua is so excited about his army stuff and Power Rangers Robot

This is probably one of the best "oh my gosh" shots! Our family got a Wii from my parents - ok so we are all loving it!

Maddie is fixing Dora's hair on her new vanity

After all the excitement of the day.

It is after a day like this that I look back and realize just how many blessings G0d has given our family. Christmas was a wonderful day for all us of. We got to see the excitement on Maddie's face as she experienced her first Christmas, we saw our 6 year old son jump for joy at getting the gifts he wanted. We sat down to a wonderful meal both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And most of all we celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It's so hard with all the hustle and bustle to keep the real meaning of Christmas alive but we certainly try our best. Christmas Eve church service is my most favorite of the year. At the end of the service, all the lights are turned down, only the candles we hold are lit and we all sing Silent Night with no music in the background. What a wonderful way to keep the Spirit of Christ alive at Christmas time and to remember why we celebrate this holiday.

Hope you all had a joyous Christmas and wishing you a very Happy New Year!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

Joshua and Maddie aka Mickey and Minnie
Joshua and Sarah....they are the best of buddies but she is NOT his girlfriend.....or so he says.

The four of us

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Joshua's Tree in his room

Maddie's tree in her room

Power ranger/hippie/princess in her PJ.s????

It's been a while since I have posted, let's see since that time what has happened? Last Monday Maddie visited the plastic surgeon who told us he wants to see her in a year then he can tell IF, yes I said IF she needs any surgery at all on her lip!! She continues to heal well and you can hardly tell there is a "booboo" as she calls it! She is completely speaking English now, although sometimes hard to understand she NEVER....did I mention NEVER stops talking. Her new things is "but mommmmm". Funny and typical three year old! She is getting very...shall we say.....opinionated about her attire for the day. She tells me what she wants to wear and what "accessories" she will choose for the day. Of which she is totally like her mother since I am always wearing jewelry, so shall my daughter, haha! Oh and we do not go anywhere without our purse, which of course holds our cell phone, car keys, chapstick and her new thing, gum! We were coming home tonight and Joshua wanted gum, I went to search my purse and I hear from the backseat "here you go Joshua".....Maddie pulls some from her purse!

Joshua had his Christmas program yesterday which included 1st-8th grade, all children....I would say about 400 kids. They fill the gym and along with 400 sets of parents, siblings and grandparents, it made for interesting seating....hince, not enough by far! We got there an hour early just to get a seat! Joshua did fantastic. They sang about 12 songs and he belted them all out, knowing all the words and sign language to them. All the children were dressed in their best Holiday attire...so cute! My pictures are very dark so I need to work on those before I try to post them! Joshua decided tonight he might want to play in the winter league basketball which is from January - March, one night each week. We are trying to teach him responsibility by committment so we shall see how this turns out! He continues to excel in school and we are so proud of him! Both kids are very excited about Christmas, although Maddie has no idea that she will be getting gifts....too bad it won't stay that way, haha! We took them to see Christmas Lights the other evening and they both enjoyed that alot!! Along with their parents :)

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Our Family

The Four of Us
Our kids.

We had our family pictures taken back in October and here are a couple of my favorites. I made the mistake of letting Madelyn take a nap first and of course the first 30 pictures or so she would not smile. They turned out well anyway, Joshua loves to have his picture taken!

Must tell you about our wonderful son, once again! Sunday night at Church was our fellowship Thanksgiving meal. After the feast, our Pastor opened the message to anyone who would like to give thanks for anything. After about 15 minutes of those giving thanks, he started to close when Joshua rose his hand. There were about 150 people in the fellowship hall and my heart starting beating hard....what was he going to say? Pastor Rick asked him what he was thankful for this year and he simply said "My sister"........ok so tears started running down my cheeks...and many others I might add, they even started clapping for him. What an amazing six year old son we have, can't begin to say how proud of him we are. And he is so right, we are very thankful for this past year and for God allowing our daughter to be home with us for her very first Thanksgiving and our first with her. We have been looking forward to this for almost three years now!

Madelyn's lip is healing more each day. It is more becoming more evident that at least one plastic surgery is going to be needed to rebuild the lip portion that is gone but really she looks just great! The pictures above were taken before the accident, by the way!

Joshua has been battling broncitus for about a week and last night Madelyn decided to wake us up numerous times coughing and crying.......seems the medicine works immediately so I am thankful for that. If it wasn't for her coughing you would never know anything is wrong with her, she is such a tough kid!

Thanksgiving is at our home tomorrow and we'll have about 14 for dinner. Looking forward to the Turkey and all the fixin's. Joshua's favorite is pumpkin pie with cool whip so he is excited to.

Wishing all of you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.
Matt, Jennifer, Joshua and Madelyn

GOOD NEWS!

Madelyn saw the plastic surgeon Monday morning at Childrens and he says in amazement that her lip IS Healing on it's own. THE POWER OF PRAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will go to see him again on December 3rd and he should be able to tell then just how well it is going to heal and cosmetically how it will look. We are still looking at the possibility of some plastic surgery but nothing to the extent we thought! Thank you for all the Prayers....as you can see she is walking proof that Prayers are answered! Now, to stop her and Joshua from fighting........hummm.........

Wonderful Weekend with Friends!

Joshua and Olivia
Joshua's first day at Panther Basketball Camp

The whole gang.

Heather, Mysty and Olivia along with

Matt, Jennifer, Joshua and Madelyn

I know it's early but Santa was uptown at Hallmark. Maddie wanted nothing to do with him, this is as close as she got......you see Joshua had no issues though :)

Playing at Giant City Park, Joshua, Madelyn and "livee" as Maddie called her.

Yes, they can be sweet............... sometimes........

We had a wonderful weekend! Our friends from Mississippi came to stay with us. Mysty and her husband Anthony and their three boys, Zachery, Cameron and Chase adopted Olivia Denae-Li Langley from China on August 20th of 2007. Mysty and I met two years ago on our adoption chat-group. Our families were both in Group #237 from America World. Since Matt and I chose Madelyn who was special need we traveled just abit before our regular group but Mysty and I talk weekly either via phone or e-mail so it was so exciting to meet them in person ( well 1/3 of the family). Heather traveled along with the girls to keep them company and Joshua seemed to take a liking to her right away :0). We had a great weekend filled with lots of talking and eating and just hanging out. After they left today and drove off Joshua turned around to me with tears in his eyes and said "It's sad they have to go home already". He really enjoyed our new friends as did Matt, Madelyn and myself. They felt like family..........we can't wait to visit with them again, hopefully soon!

Joshua also started Panther Basketball camp on Saturday. He goes each Saturday throughout the month of November. He went this summer too and he really likes it. He just picks up the ball and knows what to do. He loved our guests getting to watch him as well!!!

Maddie sees the plastic surgeon tomorrow so hopefully I will post some good news tomorrow night. Her lip looks fabulous!!!

Trick or Treat!

Look at all this loot!!!
You can see how well Maddie's lip looks!

Is this not the cutest scarecrow and Army guy you have ever seen?

Joshua's Big Day

I wanted to post these pics of Joshua's baptism yesterday. Aren't they wonderful? We are still so excited about his decision to follow Christ.

Ryan and Jeni are holding them up by their feet. This looks so funny, like Joshua and Madelyn have some really long legs....I love this picture!

Getting ready for the waters.

Is it 1969 again?????

Corn Dogs (yum, yum)

What a great weekend! Saturday was our city's 85th annual fall Mardi Gras Festival. After a week of rain the day turned out to be sunny and beautiful. We saw lots of old friends who come home for this event! The theme of Mardi Gras was "woodstock", thus explains the tye-died Wright Family above :0). We walk the mile long parade route filled with thousands of spectators and hand out candy. This is great advertisement for our business and is just plain fun! Joshua and Madelyn walked along with us too and they loved giving the candy out to the kids ( of all ages I might add).
Today (Sunday) Joshua was baptized. He has gotten to be so big just over the past few months. We had a family dinner for him afterwards and enjoyed some fellowship with loved ones.

Madelyn's lip tissue fell off today and we are amazed at how well the underneath looks. I will post a picture later, they are both sleeping now!

It has been a long but fun filled weekend and ol' mom is ready for bed at 9pm :0).

Until next time..............

Update and Some Great News!

Let me first start by telling you all that on Wednesday night Joshua accepted Christ. He had been questioning Matt and I for some time now and we did not feel he was ready before. He called us into his bedroom and told us what was on his heart and boy oh boy is he ready. He explained the plan of salvation better than I could have ever thought about it! He accepted Christ right then and there and told us he had "flurries" in his heart after he prayed. He will be baptized this Sunday. We are beyond words proud of our "not so little" guy!

Madelyn is doing extremely well with her "doggie boo-boo". Unfortunately the plastic surgeon did not have much good news for us on Friday. He said the lip did not reattach itself and is dying and will soon fall off. But......he did say the longer it holds on the more the underneath will heal! Madelyn will need some plastic surgery but at this point they are not sure of how many or how often. It could be as little as one or as many as 4-5 within the course of a year. The lip is a sensitive spot and is hard to reconstruct. The positive part of this is that Madelyn is physically healthy and is doing really good. She does not complain and acts as though nothing has happened! She is such a tough little gal!

We have a busy weekend coming up with Pinckneyville's annual Mardi Gras fall festival and then Joshua's big day on Sunday. I will post some pictures after this weekend.

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for Madelyn to heal.

Holiday Weekend Fun

We went camping this weekend just about an hour North of us in Godfrey, Illinois. Ok, so this is OCTOBER, hello.....where is the FALL weather, the beautiful leaves changing and the brisk cool weather?? Well, we had fun anyway and braved "The Great Godfrey Corn Maze". The first section was a breeze and the second......ok so we got lost but after about 20 minutes we did find our way back and did not even have to ask for help! The kids got to make some sand art and both thought that was fun. We visited a pumpkin patch but honestly it was just too hot for a wagon ride so we enjoyed some ice cold apple cider and let the kids do some fun games while we watched.
Back to work and school tomorrow, three day weekends are so nice! Matt should find out tomorrow if or should I say WHEN he has foot surgery so I will keep you posted! He stepped on a nail back in May and they believe the infection has gotten into his bone and spread throughout his foot :( He has been in lots of pain and is getting tired of not being able to walk more than 10 feet without having to sit down. It's been really hard on him since he never sits down!
Joshua gets to take his McLimo ride to McDonalds on Wednesday, he was so excited to be chosen for that. One kid from each class gets to do this! Maddie is doing well as always and gets more shots tomorrow:( The fun never ends!

Starting off Fall with cookies!

After church today I promised Madelyn and Joshua we would make some cookies, so yesterday I prepared the dough and today we had some fun! We rolled out our dough and Maddie chose a pumpkin cutter and Joshua chose a Ghost! We baked them and decorated with icing.....yum :) Maddie decided that after decorating two cookies she would just eat hers and had about a pound of icing to three bites of cookie. Beleive it or not she is Actually napping right now, even after all that sugar.

Madelyn was a trooper at the dentist this week. They used a mask to sedate her...it didn't work! But she did like to play with it so it kept her busy while he filled one of her teeth. She has another appointment this week and probably one-two more after that until all five can be filled!

Joshua got his first set of golf clubs this week and he is pumped! He is ready to hit the greens to hit some balls!

Hope these pics are easier to see!

The Next Tiger Woods?

Well, Joshua has decided that he likes Golf??!! Matt took him to hit some balls on Sunday and he loved it so we are looking on e-bay for a set of clubs for him. He can hit the ball hard and far so maybe he has already found his sport :) He is doing great in first grade and is reading up a storm already! Tonight he had two books to read and breezed right through them, we are so proud of him!

Maddie continues to pick up English each day. A few minutes ago she told Joshua and I to "be quiet, I have to do my humwork". And shooshed us with her fingers..too funny! She has grown a bit to and is starting to fill out more, her cheeks are not quite so chubby and her 4t clothes...sigh....are starting to get smaller. The fall ones seem to be fine though! A friend of mine at work gave us a dozen pairs of shoes, including 4 pairs of boots and Maddie is in heaven, she loves them!!!!! She goes to the Dentist on Thursday to start her first round of fillings. I think she will be just fine, she is a strong kid and our Dentist is great with kids! Maddie planted herself on his lap at the football game a few weeks ago, she gets along great with everyone!

Business is slowwww right now but the deer are beginning to run which means lots of business for us. God led us to open this business so we have faith He will provide, even during slow times, we have been just fine.

Here are some updated photos too.

Something New

Hi friends and family. I decided that with so many of you living far away I would start this Blog and try to update often so you can keep up with our family...if you want to that is :) I will work on it this weekend and try to add some photos and will hopefully keep it up to date with pictures and chronicles of our lives!

Tonight Joshua and Madelyn are "sleeping over" at nana Linda's and papa Alan's house. We'll see how that goes!!! This will be Maddie's first sleepover since we got home from China. Matt seems to think she will do fine....I am not sure!

Will be back soon with photos and more fun stories!