The Good, the great and the ugly!!

The good: Vela had her 18 month checkup on Tuesday and is healthy and happy. She is growing up so fast! I can't believe what a big girl she is! She is the sweetest thing ever! Here are her stats: Nearly 35 inches tall (97th%), 25 lbs (50th%) and her head is in the 75th%. She loves babies so much! Here is a picture of her with a friend's baby.

She is such a sweetie! I don't usually let her stand on the counter, but I was trying to get a picture of her.

The great: We are finally approved for adoption again through LDS Family Services!!! We are so grateful for adoption and I can't even begin to describe how much I love my sweet birth mothers and what adoption has done for me and my family. We have added a link to our sidebar that will take you to our adoption blog. It is new and still under construction, but we will be working on it. We are online with LDS family services too! There is a link to our LDS profile on our adoption blog. Keep us in your prayers!

And the ugly: We went with our Katoa family to deliver some Tongan stuff for a family funeral last night. Tongan culture is very different for funerals. Families go and pay their respects and exchange gifts for several days before the funeral. It is a huge thing - so many people and so much food. The gifts from our family last night included the usual 30 quilts or so,tapa cloths, money, food, and all that and then there was this...

...I purposely picked a not to clear picture. Now how often does big truck pull up to a house and drop off a HUGE cow, skinned, cleaned out and ready to be butchered. I mean most people would really freak out to get a dead cow. Little Hema kept wanting to see the cow, I showed him and he said "no that is meat." Yeah, about 1,000+ pounds of meat! That cow was ugly !!! The Tongan culture that binds their families, however, is a very beautiful thing!!