One week home, and Christmas!

So, we've been home a week and we are SO thankful!!!  We had a rough time getting here as our flight was delayed from HK which caused us to miss our connecting flight in Newark; but, after a 6 hour layover we landed in Jax at 11:30 to an amazing group of friends and family to welcome our sweet princess home!
We stayed up WAY to late that night and the 2 middle kids got up to go to school Friday morning!  It was worth it though, and I can guarantee they'd do it again!
We have had some amazing highs over the week and also a couple of lows.  It's definitely an adjustment.  The time change alone is enough to kill anyone, let alone bringing home a precious treasure that is still learning to trust and on top of that she's 2, and let me just say that 2 knows no country lines!!!  2 is 2 is 2!!!
JG has thoroughly enjoyed spending time with her siblings.  She follows them around like a lost little puppy and calls for them constantly if they're not around.  It's how we get her up in the morning and after naps.  It's such a sweet thing, but it has it's down side.  Bed time is ROUGH!!!  She hates to say goodnight to them.  We are pretty sure she is afraid they won't be there in the morning, it breaks my heart!  But, it is a process.  She is learning that they will be there when she wakes up, and that is a good thing.
The 3 siblings are LOVING the time with her.  When we got our travel dates I was a little unsure of the fact that we would be coming home the last day of school for their Christmas break.  All I can say is I'm so thankful that God works His will according to His plans and not my one! (One day I will learn that that is always best...).  He knew that she would need them, and this time is something they will never get back.
It has been CRAZY, but it has been crazy GOOD!
God is so good and we are seriously so thankful to be so blessed.

I'm not sure what to even say about Christmas...  it was the same...  sure it was JG's first Christmas home and that was AMAZING, but it was also a reminder to me of all the precious ones that are still without.  Without families, without food, without water, just without. It was a reminder of how blessed we are and how much we have.  Even adding a 4th child we were able to get our children exactly what they asked for. We were able to bless our families with gifts and not even bat an eye. We started a tradition a couple of years ago where our children get 4 gifts under the tree (stockings are usually 3-4 items as well, but always just small things).  We know that they have so much more than they need so we figured this was a good way to dial the gifts back.  It started out feeling so "small" to me.  This year, as they were opening gifts, I often thought of the precious children all over the world that were without gifts at all, that would give anything to just have clean water, or more than 1 meal a day to eat.  And here we were with more than we could ever dream of, and wanting more!  I don't know, Christmas was so much fun to watch our precious new daughter laugh and play and open gifts and meet new family members and play with cousins; but for me it was a little bittersweet.  I thought often of the 23 other families that were with us in China celebrating their first Christmas with their newest family members.  I could only be so grateful for the sacrifice these families made to put a smile on these precious little ones faces, to give these little ones one of the greatest gifts of all - a family.  I could only pray that these little ones would learn the real reason for Christmas, that it was the celebration of Jesus' birth.  The birth of the Savior, King, Lord, the Lamb of God, the sacrifice that would one day be made for all of our sins so that we could have a relationship with His father.  Oh what a gift!!!!

Prayers that you all had a wonderful Christmas!