Rise Up And Call Them Blessed...

What a blessing these God fearing women are. They truly "get it" in the sense of God's plan for the world. They are ministering to the "least of these" and practicing true religion. Oh, that we would all be so willing!
Alea is the baby on the left, for all those wondering!!!

Babies, Babies, Babies

When you see these babies, pray for their adoptions to be finalized quickly and then pray for all the other babies, just like them in orphanages all over the world who are waiting for their forever family to come and rescue them! When we pray and act on this, we are fulfilling God's plan in James 1:27. (Alea is on the far left in pink in the second photo).

Busy, Busy Orphanage!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do to care for our baby. The Home of God's Love currently has 8 babies, all matched with new mommies and daddies--Praise the Lord, these babies will know forever love in a forever family!

More Pics of our Lil' Doll

Here are more pictures that were sent to us. The ladies in the pictures are all care takers.

They told us that they would send new pictures about once a month. We are sending a little care package now to Alea with a blanket, stuffed singing bunny, sleeper and bunny slippers. Braylen helped choose everything! We will send her another package in time for Christmas.

Alea Tyan-ling Grace Fleck

Welcome to the newest member of the Fleck family! We got a call at 1 a.m. this morning from Taiwan saying they had a baby girl for us! She was born on May 29, 2006 at 4:15 a.m. She weighed 4 lbs. 4 oz. and was very much loved by her birthmother. Her mother simply was not in well enough health to take care of her. She was given to the Home of God's Love on August 28th and just signed all the necessary papers yesterday. Ted and Bev called us with the great news and no, we didn't get any sleep afterwards!

We called Carmen's mom and Grandma in the middle of the night, but let everyone else sleep until this morning around 8 a.m. when we began making calls!

Right now, we are working on a power of attorney paper that we need to get notarized and faxed back to Taiwan. They will then begin sending us a great deal of paperwork for us to sign, notarize and take to the Secretary of state. We are anticipating being able to travel to bring Alea home sometime between January and March of 2007.

Braylen understands she is getting a sister and is very happy! She carries her little picture around saying, "my sister" and "she's so cute!"

We are so blessed. Thank you, Jesus! Pray for Alea's safety, health and for her to soon be joined into our family officially!

Happy Days Hoe Down

Wednesday night, we went to the Happy Days Preschool Hoe Down with Braylen. They served up campfire beans, dusty biscuits and creek water! The kids all square danced for us and we got to watch a real life cowboy show us lasso tricks. It was a fun night.

Happy 50th Mom!

We surprised mom with a Red Hat birthday party on Sunday. Everyone showed up in red hats and we had a big red hat, purple scarf and slippers for the honoree to wear. Check out the glow from all 50 whopping candles! The kids had a fun counting out 50! Our digital camera is messed up, so none of the pics of mom in the red hat turned out! Guess a new camera is in the future for us! For now, will need to go back to good ole 35 mm.

Happy Birthday, we love you, Mom!

Well, Blogger isn't letting me upload photos tonight--I'll try tomorrow!

Survivor

Brad and I are in a Survivor party, where we all draw a contestant's name and that is who we are throughout the season. We each put in $5 and at the end, the winner will win $100!! So, here is who you need to root for if you don't already have a favorite!!! Brad is Nathan and Carmen is Cecilia. We all challenged Brad to grow his hair out and have it put in dread locks like Nate before the final show!

Who will win? Oh the suspence of it all! That's why we love Survivor!!!

Gotcha Day--Adoption Day!

Today marks the third year that we have officially been the parents of Braylen. We celebrate Gotcha Day, or Adoption Day each September 12th, which is the date we officially signed adoption papers claiming our forever daughter.

While we were in Kazakhstan, we bought a gift for Braylen for each year until she is 18 to give her on this date. This year she got a dress like ones girls wear in Kazakhstan to parties. We also gave her a gift from America (Dora bath set), as well as Daddy has started a tradition of giving her flowers.

This year, we invited Mamaw to celebrate with us since she journeyed with us to get Braylen. She bought a jumper for Braylen. Braylen wanted a Curius George cake and after checking out a childhood friend's blog, I got the idea for her cake (thanks, Joellen!). Braylen also wanted pizza for supper. So we opened gifts, looked at pictures of Kazakhstan, spread the table cloth from Kazakhstan, ate pizza and cake and watched Braylen's adoption video.

What a wonderful day to celebrate Braylen's adoption. Our dream is that we can celebrate many more of these days with Braylen and future siblings as we continue to give more children a forever family.