HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! Update from Mid Nov. till Dec. 4th!!

Best of Friends (Sometimes)


Courtney, Nat and Ronda

Ansley and Ashton with Aunt Di

Michelle Corley and me

(friends since 1993)



LiLi with Matt Corley


Terry, Courtney and Jeff

Alison and Chris

Dad and Terry



Some of the decorations at Dad

and Terry's

The kids and Mom with Santa

at James Island County Park

Me and my baby after all these years!

LiLi's favorite spot!

I LOVE this picture!

Before the Turkey Day Walk

Nat and me!

Family/Friend group photo

George and me with my cousin Chris

On the front steps of our house

Today was BEAUTIFUL!! Would have been much better if George was here..he is working in Tupelo, Mississippi until tomorrow BUT we have SNOW! Lots of it. It is still snowing outside and so far we have had close to 13 inches in the city. They say this is the biggest snowstorm since 1902.

Adoption Update: No news yet. Our agency will be closed from Dec. 23rd until Jan 4th. They are getting an update from Ethiopia on Monday..so hopefully we will get our court date then. I did go to the travel clinic and get my Hep A, Polio booster, and Meningitis vaccine a few weeks ago for when we travel to Ethiopia. LiLi and I will go in January to get the rest of the vaccines. I still need Typhoid and Tetanus and LiLi needs Typhoid and Meningitis. Please say a prayer that we will get a court date soon. This time the waiting is harder since Maura Genet is 5 years old and is aware that she is being adopted. Sone good news is that our friends, Kelly and Dave, will be traveling Jan. 23rd through Jan. 1st to Ethiopia to pick up their one year old son. Our orphange has given her permission to visit Maura Genet's orphanage and spend time with her. I have given her a list of questions to ask her since they will have a translator there. George and I also made her a care package for Kelly to take. We know a lady from Ethiopia and she was nice enough to translate a letter for us, as well as, label the photos that I sent her...mommy, daddy, and sister. I look forward to hearing how she is doing. :)

We were in Charleston Nov. 20th through Dec. 5th. We had a fun trip. We spent a lot of time out at the Wadmalaw house. We are currently getting a new roof and air conditioner units. George has great plans for the house and I think it will be a great place to raise our family. LiLi and Bella had a great time on the golf cart. I was driving the golf cart through the woods while we followed daddy on the BIG tractor. Definitely a different way of living from Center City Philly but oh so peaceful! We had a family/friend get together out at Wadmalaw. It was a blast!We had 17 adults and 17 children. Thekids had a great time throwing balls, riding bikes, playing pool, riding on the golf cart and much more.

For Thanksgiving we had my mom, natalie and her family, Chris and Allison over for dinner. It was delicious. George cooked two turkeys (stuffed one with oyster dressing) YUM, homemade cranberry sauce, rice and lima beans, sweet potato casserole and gravy. Mom and Nat brought green bean casserole and macaroni. Did yall see what I made...NOTHING!! Isn't my husband the best! :) George stayed home and cooked while Bella and I did the Turkey Day Walk. It was a beautiful day and I had a fun time.

LiLi's 5th Birthday was on Nov. 27th. George and I keep looking at her lately and can't believe what a big girl she has become. For her birthday, we took her to James Island County Park. We went with my mom, Anna and Natalie and her family. It was a lots of fun. The kids saw Santa, ate smores, rode the Merry go Round and looked at the displays. Bella LOVES Santa. It is amazing how she walks up to him and says , "Hello Santa Claus Ho Ho HO". We had a family party on Nov. 29th. It was great to see all my family together at once.

We also spent one Saturday with Dad and Terry. They had us over for an "early Christmas". They had the house all decked out for Christmas. The kids loved to walk around and push all the Christmas toys that made noise.

Well...I was going to update through today but I ran out of time. I will update more soon...especially if we get a court date!

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

FINALLY UPDATING!!

Bella and LiLi playing the piano at Wadmalaw

The Thornley Family

This would be the tractor that George just

purchased for Wadmalaw. He is super excited!

LiLi and Bella with their cousin Logan

Bella helping mommy fold clothes

LiLi at the Urban Farm

Bella LOVED this part at the fire station

This would be the morning ritual of fixing Bella's

hair. Yes, she always cries and I am so careful to be gentle.

She has to hold LiLi's or George's hands while I fix her hair.

How cute!

LiLi and Bella in their Ethiopian dresses!

Sorry for the long delay in posting. It had been a busy few weeks.

Adoption Update: We are still waiting on a court date in Ethiopia. We should hopefully hear something in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, our court date will be in December. We did get 14 updated photos of Maura Genet. A family with our agency traveled to Ethiopia to pick up their child. We sent a care package to Maura through them. We sent her a baby doll, a book, a children's Bible and several pairs of princess underwear. We received several pictures of her opening the care package..her face lit up when she saw the underwear. She is a beautiful child. I have decided to travel to Ethiopia to pick her up (rather than having her escorted home, like Bella was). George and I feel that it would be better for bonding if one of us traveled and met her at the orphanage rather than have her spend a few days with an escort and get dropped off at the airport with us. Anyone who knows me well, knows that this is a big step for me. I don't really like flying and the only other time that I have been on a long flight without George is when I traveled to Hawaii to visit him several years ago. Of course, George offered to go but I really have a strong urge to make this trip. George will stay in Philadelphia with LiLi and Bella. He is taking the entire week off from work to be "Mr. Mom." :) I probably will be traveling with the Ethiopia Director of the agency that we are working with. I feel very comfortable with this arrangement since she has traveled to Ethiopia before. She seems like a great person. Please pray that I will continue to be at peace with this decision. If we have a court date in December, we could travel as early as late January.

Since my last post, we have had lots of fun. At the beginning of October, we took the girls to a Philly's game. We had a blast. LiLi was really into it for about an hour and a half and Bella for about 5 minutes! :) The kids loved the ice cream that was served in a plastic baseball cap. They also had Build A Bear at the stadium. LiLi picked a bear and Bella picked the Phillies Phanatic.

We have made two trips to Charleston. One for the long weekend (Oct. 8-13th) and a shorter trip for my niece, Logan's 6th birthday party over Halloween weekend. It was great to see family and friends. For Halloween, LiLi dressed up as Princess Ariel and Bella dressed up as Holly Hobie (one of LiLi's old costumes). I guess in a few years Bella will be Ariel for Halloween. :) We went trick or treating in my sister's neighborhood. We had a great time.

Bella is doing great. She is in preschool 2 mornings a week and loves it. I chaperoned her class on both of their field trips...One to the fire station and one to a farm. At the farm, Bella was able to brush the animals, ride a pony, pick a pumpkin and feed rabbits. Her favorite thing to do is to go to a Mommy and Me class at Little Gym on Monday mornings. She wakes up everyday saying, "We go to Little Gym today?" She loves puzzles and books. Her favorite book right now is "Hush Little Baby". She is so precious and fits into our family perfectly. We finalized her adoption in SC. This is a requirement..so we are glad that this step is completed. She now has a SC birth certificate that states she was born in Bar Dahr, Ethiopia. This means that her adopoption is on file with the SC Vital records just in case any of the original paperwork gets misplaced.

LiLi loves her school. We are really going to miss it when we go back to Charleston. SHe has been on several field trips this year. I chaperoned the first one to a Urban Organic Farm right in Center City. It was really neat. We drove on a small school bus and had a great time. I couldn't go on the other ones because they had to take turns with the other parents. Can you believe that? :) They go on a small bus with room for only two parents. LiLi takes Mandarin classes every Thursday night in New Jersey. She is really enjoying them and has learned her numbers 1-10, some colors and some animals. There are about 6 girls in her class between the ages of 4 and 7. They have all been adopted as well. She also takes jazz and tap classes on Saturday mornings. She LOVES music and drawing.

George still loves his job. He is doing quite well and they have asked him to take on a couple of more projects as well. He does travel now one week out of every month. It is usually to either Tupelo, Mississisppi or Lakehurst, NJ.

I have been busy at LiLi's school. Right now I am working wih one other lady to coordinate the Scholastic Book Fair the first week of December. I am also on the Board for Families with Children from China in the Philly and entire Delaware Valley area. It feels good to be involved again and to meet some people. :) I am also a part of a woman's bible study that meets every other Friday. This group has truly been a blessing.

Anna is working hard her senior year. She has applied to a few colleges. She is working a good bit at Jim N Nicks. Not only is she a hostess but she caters for them also. I am enjoying collecting pictures for her senior ad page in the yearbook. She said, "Diana, their not supposed to be embarassing". I said, "Anna, let me handle this". HAHA no..seriously, it's really hard when we have so many pictures to choose from and can only pick a maximum of 12. Anna will be in Philadelphia with us for Christmas this year.

I think that sums everything up. Hope everyone is doing well and has a wonderful holiday season.

NIAGARA FALLS!! What a blast! and our REFERRAL FROM ETHIOPIA!!

I know that I am backtracking some but with the new school year and our new REFERRAL we have been busy! I will tell you about our new daughter after Niagara Falls! :)

We took the girls to Niagara Falls August 21st-27th. We drove there from Philly...it took about 7 hours...not a bad drive at all. We stayed at The Hilton on the Canadian side of the falls. We were on the 43rd floor and had a great view of the American and Canadian Falls. Two of the nights that we were there...they did a huge fireworks show over the views. It was great because we were able to watch it from the room.

While we were there, we did a lot of walking. We drove to Clifton Falls...which is like a mini Myrtle Beach strip. We took the kids to a lego museum, inside playground and much more. While we were there we had lunch at Rainforest Cafe..probably not the best pick for Bella since everytime it thundered she jumped into my arms. :(

We also went on a 5 1/2 bus tour of Niagara Falls. Believe it or not...the kids did GREAT. We went right up to the Falls on the Maid of the Mist Boat, Butterfly Conservatory, Journey Behind the Falls, and a couple of more places. LiLi tried so hard for a butterfly to land on her at the Conservatory and right before we were leaving a beautiful blue one landed on her..it made her day.

On our last day, we drove to Niagara on the Lake. It is a cute town with lots of stores, restaurants, and lots to see. We had such a great time that we already have our trip booked for 2010.

Our Referral: We are happy to announce that we have accepted the referral of our daughter. Her name will be Maura Genet Haile Thornley and she was born on August 24, 2004. She is a few months older than LiLi so they will both be in Kindergarten next year..same school but different classes. She is beautiful. LiLi is so excited that she will be "my size". She is currently 45 inches tall and weighs 42 pounds. Please pray for a smooth process..getting a court date, having all the info to pass court the first time and bringing her home.