Happy Birthday, my lil' China Dumpling!

the perfect birthday cake...by Becky, of course!

"Happy Birthday to you!"

have a taste!

opening gifts

feeding mama cake

a few friends-Sarah Beth, Cousin Wilson, and Remi.

New Year's wouldn't be complete without a little football

table decorations

good friends Rebecca with Sarah Beth and Carley with Evie

Ring around the rosy... in a birthday dress mama made from her red scrap box!

eggrolls, mmmmmmm

Grandan and LE goofing off for the camera...

So many friends...possible babysitters one day?

(Ruby, Sarah Beth, Grace, Tricia, & MaggieRuth)

Ruby's prayer garden...each family took a card home with a specific prayer to pray for LE

yummy party food...thanks mom for all your help!

more decorations

We celebrated the 2nd birthday of our youngest sweetie on New Year's and it was a wonderful day in so many ways! From the food & decorations to the friends and family that came to help us wish LE a Happy Birthday--it was all very touching and heartwarming. LE played nonstop outdoors with her friends in the front yard while we mamas chatted and the daddies played football. In attendance were people who held our hands while we did our adoption paper work, people who waited eagerly for her arrival, people who held our other children while we traveled around the world to bring her home, and people who blessed us with their prayers, good wishes, & encouragement when we cried tears of frustration. While the year has flown by and we can hardly believe we have celebrated our LE in every season and holiday now...we also feel like she's been here all of her little life.

This is how blessed we are...the picture could have been much different. I'm sure some of you remember that warning letter I wrote trying to prepare our friends for what the reality might be when we came home from China with LE: attachment disorder, sleep issues, physical therapy, speech therapy, even a possible heart surgery~! None of that came to pass and all is due to the grace and glory of God.

My "homegrown" children sometimes come to me frustrated with the amount of attention LE receives...she does stand out in our family of blond hair, blue eyes, & pale freckled skin, and she has a magnetic personality that draws people to her. But all of that said...I think it's her story that makes people want to be close to her...it's the physical reminder that she represents of God's ability to perform everyday miracles... To bring people from around the world together...the choices that were made by so many people for her to be a 'Clark'. Trully amazing! But most amazing is what she is already doing to help other children like her...she has already convinced at least one family we know of to adopt and bring another child into their family. God is trying to work through ALL of us...especially the little children.

So I tell the children that if our family can help other orphaned children in this world...either by our example, our prayers, our finances, then that is just icing on the cake because we are the ones so hugely blessed by a precious baby left in a ruby red hat on a cold January morning in a courtyard a whole world away. My faith is daily renewed by the four children I call mine.

Happy Birthday, Ruby loo...