The girls are growing quickly and both are blossoming into tiny little young ladies already.

Shayne loves to pick up pieces of paper and lint and put it in the trash can. She is growing quickly and though she is the smaller of the two sisters, she is mighty. It seems she can scale walls like Spiderman and open any container she sets her mind on opening. She eats everything in sight.

Norah loves to mop and vacuum the floor with mommy. She is long, lean and beautiful. She loves to talk whether it makes sense or not. She is a performer and thrives on making people laugh.

Both love to go "SIDE!" That means, outside. And nothing makes them smile more than the sight of daddy coming home from work. They always expect that he will turn on the "teewee" for them (T.V.) - something mommy rarely ever does.

They'd just turned one when we'd brought them home and now we're already looking at their fast approaching second birthday.

It's hard to put into words the awe by which we look upon these miracles everyday. They are the joy of our lives and we continue to wish that time would slow down a bit so we can savor their littleness.

6 month anniversary of our homecoming

It's been six months since we landed at LAX with our family number doubled. Tomorrow, we have the privelege of having the girls baptized into our covenant family. We'll share a brief account of God's faithfulness to us and our prayers for the girls:

Cameron and I recently celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary. We are the proud parents of our daughters, Shayne and Norah, who were born in China and given to us through adoption.

At the time that we had hoped to grow our family, God revealed to us that it wasn’t His plan to build it with biological children. Cameron had taken this opportunity to plant seeds in my heart regarding adoption. He had to plant seeds because though he was gifted with a strong desire to adopt even as a young adult, I’d had my reservations. Through prayer, Godly guidance, and the perfect circumstances, God allowed me to soon share this same desire.

Three years ago, we started down a long journey towards bringing home a daughter from China. This past October, God surprised us with a double blessing and a referral of twins. This past week, we celebrated the 6 month anniversary of our homecoming. The ease by which it has been to welcome these children into our home has been a total confirmation that Shayne and Norah were designed just for our hearts. We have been so blessed with what God has entrusted to us.

They were given the names, Qi Tuan and Qi Yuan by their orphanage in China. Qi – is the Chinese character for hope, or to pray. Tuan and Yuan put together, Tuan Yuan, means family circle. Or, if you say you’re attending a Tuan Yuan, you’re attending a family reunion. We don’t know the exact reason that these names were given to them, but we think the name-giver may have had a hope or assumed that the biological mother hoped that these two girls would remain united as family.

We find it appropriate to now unite them with our Covenant family through the sign of baptism. What a pleasure and great blessing for us to be able to do so here at Grace Presbyterian Church in beautiful Pasadena.

Here are the prayers that we will pray for them at the baptism:

We named one daughter after an attribute of God and the other after an attribute we would like them to demonstrate throughout their lives. Our prayers for each girl are certainly for both, but we’d like to share our desires as they are significant to each name

Shayne’s name means: God is Gracious
Our prayer for Shayne is that she would grow to understand and embrace God’s grace, lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding (Eph 1:7-8), the grace by which she is saved. That she would boast only in the Lord (Eph 2:8-9) and stand in His grace (Rom 5:1-2) As she becomes a woman, may she grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pet 3:18)