Hope For Children

We used the adoption agency, Hope For Children, to adopt our beautiful little girl. We are so grateful to this agency for all of their help and support during this journey. When I first moved to Atlanta 12 years ago, I was introduced to this agency through the church I was attending. Steve and I both volunteered at their annual golf-a-thons (and many of our family members pledged $...thank you), and helped in many other ways. Who would have known, that 12 years later, we would actually be using them to adopt our own child! We are grateful to Dave, the director and founder of HFC for his heart for children and especially adoption. Every time I look at Danielle, I feel blessed. I cannot tell you how well she is doing! Even though she has been with us for a little more than a month, it seems like she has always been a part of us. I am so grateful that God put adoption on our hearts - I can't imagine not having Danielle in our family...she is a perfect addition! It also warms my heart to see children who need families, to find one. I have posted a picture that is very dear to me - it is a picture of Danielle and 3 little girls that were all on the same Waiting Child list. All of these little girls were on "the List" that came out on April 30th, and they all have families now! Praise God! I write this, because I want you to realize how incredible adoption is - it is truly from God! Please, follow this link to our agencies website, http://www.hopeforchildren.org/index.htm and watch the video on the lower left corner of their homepage. Thank you and Happy New Year!

Check out my Slide Show!

Danielle is doing GREAT!

I am sorry that I haven't given any updates sooner...but life is definitely busier having 3 children under the age of 4! Danielle couldn't be doing better! She is such a delight and a wonderful addition to our family. She is sleeping in her own crib in her own room by herself! No more tears at bedtime, and she doesn't cry for her foster family anymore. We still let her look at pictures of her foster family, but instead of crying, she smiles and says, "Mama". I am her mommy, but her foster mom will always be her Mama. Meg (Steve's sister who was with us in China) is going to send a letter from us to Danielle's orphanage with updated pictures of Danielle and a request for pictures of the rest of her foster family. Please pray that we can obtain these photos - they will mean a lot to Danielle when she gets older. Speaking of Meg, she is in the States for a few weeks and we were able to spend a couple of wonderful hours with her and her boyfriend yesterday! It was so good to see her again...I really have missed her! What we didn't expect was Danielle's reaction...as soon as she saw Meg, she burst into tears! Not tired or angry tears, but sad and scared tears! We were totally surprised, but it makes sense...Meg was there when we first received Danielle, and she was the one who tried to comfort her by talking in Chinese. Also, Meg left us a little over 48 hours after we got Danielle, and she was at the peak of her grieving. Poor little Danielle! She was probably afraid that she was going to be taken away again. It was hard to see Danielle cry like that again - it was just like how she cried in Nanning. The good news is, she didn't cry for very long, and after only about 10 minutes, she began warming up to Meg, and by the end of her visit, Meg was holding Danielle and they were both smiling! Praise God!
Besides a wonderful time with Meg, we had a wonderful Christmas! We ejoyed spending lots of time together with family and friends. Danielle has been doing amazing! She is very social but still knows who her parents are and is really attaching well to us all. Last night at Nana's, she was looking at pictures of Stephanie, and was trying to say her name! She is smart as a whip! We have been teaching her signs and she picks them up after showing her only once. We are also seeing more of her personality. She seems to be use to being the little princess of the family, and she is having a little trouble understanding that we have 3 princesses here. She loves to look at pictures of herself and gets into everything imaginable. We thought that our house was childproof, but we are finding out that it is not!
We are so grateful that God has blessed us with such a beautiful little girl! She truly makes our family complete! We love how she fits right in with us - she is a blessing...all of our girls are blessings. We hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas! Our love to you all!

Tanski Family transitioning well!

Danielle is transitioning really well into her forever family. She is holding her own with her 2 older sisters and they are adapting to her. We have had some sharing issues, but what do you expect with a 4, 2 and 1 year old! Lots of toys are going into time out, but other than that, things are going well. Danielle is already sleeping through the night! For the first few nights, she woke up around 11 and wiggled in her bed and played her music box until about 1 am, but she has slept good otherwise. On Saturday, she slept in until 11:30 am until I finally had to wake her up! She still took a nap and went to bed that night - what a good girl. She still cries when we try to put her to sleep, but after a little bit of cuddle, she rolls over into her crib (which is next to our bed) and goes to sleep. She is kind of a light sleeper, but hopefully that will change after living in our loud house! We are truly amazed at the difference a few weeks make! I have often heard how resilient these little kids are, but I had no idea what a joy she would so quickly become! I mean, I have always loved her, but it was hard to see her grieving and I would not have imagined that she would accept us so quickly. I am so grateful, though - God truly answers prayers! We do have to work a little on her shopping skills - she is not too thrilled to sit in carts for a long time. Hopefully when we go to the store without sisters it will be better - on our first trip to Target, Danielle and Liz had it out a bit - Liz is meeting her match!! But Liz is also very sweet to her - I really think that they will all get along well. Oh! Yesterday, Stephanie informed us that she now wants a brother - she wants 4 kids in the family she said. Then, we had TLC on last night and she saw the show "Jon and Kate Plus 8" where a couple, through fertility treatments, had twin girls, and then 3 or 4 years later tried again, and had sextuplets! The show is about their life with twin 6 year olds and 6 3 year-olds!! Stephanie then changed her mind and said she wanted 8 kids!! Good grief!!! Even though things are going well, I am not sure that I could handle that many - right now I am completely content with 3!! I will be even happier when we get our schedule all worked out!! We are surviving, but are grateful that my mom is still here - we will see what happens on Thursday when she goes home!!!