Kate was kissing...

Her brother!

SURPRISE!!!!

Meet Addison, Kate's charming 2-year old brother. He's currently in Guizhou, China -- living with a foster mother who adores him, cares for him, and delights in him. (And who, thankfully, decided the BOY should not be wearing a barrette.)

We have a long paperchase and wait ahead of us, so knowing he's in good hands makes the wait bearable. Addison will need some extra medical care when he gets home -- he will need a prosthetic eye and perhaps a surgery on his eyelids. Some issues ahead? Yes. Any big deal? Nope.

So, provided that China will approve us to adopt him (and you never know with China), we hope to bring Addison home by Spring, 2008. Our family will consist of Kate with limited speech, Addison with limited vision, and the Lucky Parents with limited sense. We think we're a perfect match for each other.

More soon! Please keep Addison in your thoughts and prayers, and also keep your fingers crossed that CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoptive Affairs) is able to look into their hearts and see that Addison belongs with us.

Oh, and about the name? And how this all came about? Explanations coming soon....

For now, let me say this:

1) We weren't really planning on adopting again ("we" meaning "Scott" and Melissa had come to accept this).

2) We thought that, if we adopted again, we'd go for a little sister for Kate since that would be far more practical.

3) When we saw our little guy, we just knew he was our son.

With great joy and pride,

The Lucky Ones -- Scott, Melissa & Jie Jie (big sister) Kate

Big Brother

...starts in 15 minutes! I love this unreality show. And Scott likes it better than I do. Trash tv at its best: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/bigbrother8/

Oh? You thought I was talking about the little guy in the picture below?

Nope. Not 'til this weekend.

Stay tuned....

Mail Call Mystery

So, the Fed Ex guy delivered an interesting envelope to us the other day.




In the upper left-hand corner, it read:



And then to the right:

I showed the contents to Kate.


Here's what she did:

Just who is Kate kissing?

Post your guess to the mystery in the comments section. IF YOU ALREADY KNOW who this cutie pie is, please don't post and ruin it for others. Thanks!

The answer will be revealed in less than a week.

Win an iPod, Help a Friend

A friend of mine has a great fundraiser going -- she's raffling off an iPod nano. Scott has wanted one of these for a while, so we made a donation for a raffle ticket. $5 gives us a 1 in 150 chances of winning and it helps the Hoppe family adopt their next child AND also benefits AIDS charities in Africa.

If you are interested, here's the site: http://www.thehappyhoppes.blogspot.com/

Also, you've got to see pics of their beautiful little girl Piper -- adopted the same time as Kate. Piper is very, very cute and very, very smart -- a wonderful combination!

Happy 4th of July, friends!