Videos!

I feel so spoiled to have so many great photos of Kate, and these videos are the icing on the cake! Love seeing her little self in action and watching her personality unfold. These were taken by my friends who are in China now, and we are so grateful!

This one is dark, but so so special to us! In the little bit of Chinese we know, we can hear the nanny holding Kate as she reads the little labels I put on the photo album. She reads the cover where we wrote "Kate (Chinese name), We love you". Then when they look inside she says the words and if you listen closely you can hear Kate repeating the words! LOVE hearing her talk! She is tapping the pages of Ben and Noah saying, "Guh guh! Guh guh! (big brother)". Soooo happy she has seen our faces now! You can click in the bottom corner of the video to make it full screen.

*video*

Love this next one too! In the beginning they show her the photo album with her picture on the cover and listen closely - she says her own Chinese name a few times. Ooo, that little voice! You can really see her playful side here, waving, giving high fives, and swinging her toy around - the toy that we sent! My friend's daughter in the pink has a name very similar to Kate's and I can hear the nannies discussing which girl they're videoing for which one's mama and baba.  :)

*video*

Here is her spunky side, hee hee. Shaking her head no, yelling "yeh yeh!" and swinging that bear again! I like how all the kids want to see the photo album.

*video*

Eating her sucker, tapping our photos again. :)

*video*

And this one...oh my heart! My friend Amy took this one and when she tells Kate that her mommy loves her, I almost cry every time! And I could tell from photos and the other videos that Kate is small, but when Amy picks her up....wow. She is really tiny. Even when she touches her head I'm seeing how her hand is almost bigger than Kate's head. You can hear Kate say "bye bye" in this one.
Anna watched all of these with me and had the same reaction. Once she saw how Kate looked in this one she burst into happy tears crying, "She's so cute and tiny!". Kate looks much bigger when a small Chinese woman is holding her, but seeing her in Amy's arms gives me a true picture of her size. At the end she stands Kate next to her son in the black outfit so that's a good size comparison for us too.
Thank you, Lord for that fast LOA turnaround so we can get this girl home and fill her up! Definitely make this one full screen - the picture is much clearer than the others!

*video*

I am so thankful for these! When her 13 month old file said she was timid and quiet I thought about how sweet and yes, a little strange it will be to have a docile child. Then her 24 month update said she was more outgoing and liked to be with others. And I think it's pretty clear in these videos that we have another spunky one on the way. A perfect fit for this family!

*Read the next post if you haven't seen our paperwork update yet. Yahoo!*

Soft LOA!

Today I went out with my mom and sister and all the kids for the day. As we were standing in line I heard a phone ringing with that ring tone I have for my social worker. I saw a girl near me pulling out her phone and was telling my mom how she has that same ring tone, when eeeek! My purse is lighting up! That's MY phone! My social worker said hello and said, "I'm sure your fighting not to get your hopes up right now..." I said yes, and immediately wondered if there was some snag in our paperwork. She then said, "Well, you don't have to fight it. I can't believe this myself, but you are Match Reviewed. Your LOA is on it's way and should be here next week!". One day, people. It took ONE DAY when it was supposed to take at least a week. What we got today is called soft LOA, meaning it's showing up in their system as done but it's not in their hands yet. The hard copy of our actual Letter of Approval will most likely reach our agency in Alabama next week, and they will overnight it to us. We sign it, overnight it back to them, and they send it off with our immigration paperwork for the next step. And we're off! Into all those short steps that have nice (wonderful!) pre-determined time lines. No more of that awful 30-90 day stuff! 

I am still in shock. After she told me my heart was pounding out of my chest for at least 10 minutes. This is a HUGE deal! I am so thrilled that it went so quickly. Most definitely and answered prayer. So many answered prayers this week! Ahhh, I have so little faith sometimes when I should really know better! 

We won't have exact dates until we get a bit closer, but friends in the adoption community are estimating we might get Kate on June 9. Our 13th wedding anniversary is the 8th and it's looking like we will  be spending it in China. I can't imagine a better way to celebrate!

I forgot to add these photos yesterday and they are some of my favorites! Here is Kate looking at pictures of us! Eeek! I have video of this too. I love how she taps all of the pictures with her little finger. In this one I can tell they're on the last page - the picture of our dog Ruby. Kate is probably wondering, "What on earth is that?".

New pictures and videos!

Priceless gifts in my inbox yesterday morning. My 2 friends who went to Kate's orphanage were able to meet her, deliver our gifts, and get lots of new photos and videos! 

This is our first photo of even a little smile! Her hair has grown so much and look at the tight grip she has on that lollipop!

Hello there, tiny legs!

Even the blurry ones are adorable to me!

Here is the room where Kate sleeps every night. See her crib right under the heart on the wall? Remember that from this photo? In some orphanages the kids sleep on wooden boards for cleanliness. I am glad that's not the case here!

The other side of the room. Hurts my heart to think of all the babies without families who sleep in here each night.

A view of the playground out the window.

A class photo. This picture makes me sad for those kiddos. I know three of them have families coming for them, but I'm just not sure about the rest. It also makes me laugh - backdrop with a chicken selling hamburgers while a worried cow drives past on a scooter, two kids on those little bouncy horses, peace sign from the nanny.... Kate is in the back row, third kid from the left. Wait until I show Noah that she's wearing an Angry Birds shirt.

The pictures above are all from a Facebook friend who I've gotten to know over the last few months, since our daughters were always in photos together. The ones below were all taken by my friend Amy who lives here in our city. We already joke that our kids are going to grow up and get married and another friend pointed out that these photos can be the start of their wedding slide show, ha! LOVE seeing Kate in Amy's arms. Can't wait to see our kiddos playing together this summer!

Pretty sure Kate was trying to run away in all of these! Notice she's holding the bear we sent.

Look at the size difference here. Caleb is 20 months and weighs about 30 pounds. Kate is 25 months and weighs 20 or a little less. Amy said she seemed average height but is very thin. I can tell from the videos that we have that she is very tiny. Just makes me all the more eager to get to her ASAP!

Another wonderful thing we learned is that these kids are in fact part of the Half the Sky program. Both of them were given a CD full of pictures from the time the kids were newborns up until now! And the little girl that lived at the orphanage the entire time (Caleb was in foster care for a year+) also got a book full of photos and monthly updates on her development. They also gave them a copy of their finding ad that was run in the local newspaper after they were born. I've been praying that we will get those things for Kate, and it looks like we will!

You can read about my friends' orphanage experiences on their blogs here and here. Both posts made me cry.

Videos coming soon!

A New Day

When my oldest two were little, and Noah was raging with colic and reflux, things were rough. But I quickly noticed that God never gave me more than 2 awful days in a row. Of course Noah would still have crying spells for hours and naps may be nonexistent, but maybe the weather outside would be beautiful. Or someone would say something really nice to me during a public kid meltdown. I just had to look and I would see a bright spot in the crazy.

I've seen this time and time again in our adoption process. But today hasn't just been a bright spot, it's been a big giant spotlight! First of all I woke up to 8 videos of our sweet girl and 12 new photos! Such a thrill and I'll share them all here soon! Then I got online and saw some donations had gone into our Both Hands account. See the little bump in our thermometer? I was feeling so uplifted after feeling so low yesterday.

I went to Bible study and added our paperwork process to the list of prayer requests. Came home, had lunch with Benji, and was downloading those new videos when my phone rang. And yes! It was the super urgent social worker ringtone. Sure enough she had good news for us! Our paperwork has finished being reviewed!!! This is huge y'all. This means we should get Match Reviewed status in about 1 week. Once we have that China sends our official Letter of Approval to our agency and we are on our way to the rest of the little steps to bring Kate home! The downhill part of things! It is now highly likely that we will travel in June!

L.O.Arrrggggggg

So everyone wants to know when we can go and get Kate.. Right now we are waiting on our Letter of Approval (LOA) from China. We got Pre-Approval the day after we submitted our official acceptance of her referral, but the real deal takes longer. They have to translate our dossier documents, then review them, and then when they go into the Match Reviewed stage it means the deal is done and the piece of paper is on it's way to us. As you saw, we were finished being translated on February 26. We have been in the Review stage since then, and that part isn't finished yet. This wait is really the last big wait we will have. After this are a bunch of small steps that only take 1-3 weeks each. Here's a handy chart of all the steps. We are on step # 8...waiting for them to send us our LOA.

Today is 67 days of waiting for that letter. The wait for this has been the hardest one so far, for several reasons. First of all, we have seen her face. We know who she is and we know that she is getting older every day and we aren't there to share that with her. We know she's in an orphanage and we want her in our family as soon as possible! It's also hard because this wait has no rhyme or reason. There is no way to predict when it will come really. I said in the previous post that the longest step to this letter was translation. Ours took 39 days to be translated. Today we are at 27 days since that was finished, so I am praying that this stage won't get to 39 days. Once we are finished with Review it will take another week or so to be Match Reviewed, then another week or so for the hard copy to arrive here. So the first week of April is probably not going to happen.

There is nothing we can do to speed this up, and nothing we can do while we wait. We just have to wait. It's so hard to see people online get their LOA and then find out that their paperwork was logged in in February 2014. Ours was logged in on December 9, 2013. Someone on our agency message board posts prayer lists with all the names of people waiting for LOA. There is a regular list and a what they call a "long waiters" list. That list has the name of people waiting over 70 days, and we are guaranteed to make that list considering that's only a few days more for us. 

Foolishly I thought maybe we would go super fast through this step, as a sort of make up for that 83 day immigration approval wait. Back then people were getting approved in 55 days and ours took so much longer. Well, we are back in that place. Some people are getting approved in less than 60 days...just not us. But I knew before we even got to this step that this is how LOA goes. It's not a *fair* step. They don't get approved in any sort of real order, some just come before others. The good news is that we fully expect that we will be approved when that time does come. Waiting is just no fun.

So our faith gets tested a bit more. I can already look back and have a glimpse of understanding on past delays. This one is harder to understand since we are so eager to be with her, but we know it will all happen in God's perfect timing. Maybe we are being given more time to fundraise, or maybe it's something in China that we don't even know about. I prayed for summer travel and we will have that, whether it's the first week of June or mid-July, so I really can't complain. I just want our girl home! Will you please pray that paperwork moves on through the system? There is talk of December people (us) being "stuck" while newer files glide on past, so please pray that we get un-stuck and start moving again. Even though this wait feels terribly long, I know others have waited longer in the past, so we still appreciate how far we've come already.

Tonight is when our friends visit Kate's orphanage. Praying they get to spend some time with her!

THANK YOU!

As you may have seen, we've added a little fundraising thermometer to the sidebar of this page, just below the yellow donate button. What you may not have seen, is that today that little thermometer passed the $2500 mark! Do you know what that means?! That means the Orphan Care Alliance through Lifesong for Orphans will now match what we have raised. That $2500 just became $5000!!!! That is one fourth of what we need to travel to our girl, and we are so thankful to everyone who has donated and who has helped spread the word about our project. Once I get the okay from Lifesong I will bump that thermometer up to show what you guys have done!

I won't lie, this project has been stressful so far. We've had a hard time getting some companies to follow through on donations of materials and as the day gets closer we've become more and more worried that it might not work out. But time and time again we have been reminded that God funds what he favors. He loves Kate even more than we do, and we know without a doubt that he wants her home in her forever family. The other morning I was feeling so anxious about not having the materials yet. I was worried about Ms. Veronica (the widow we are serving) and how we were going to finish everything we promised we would do for her. Literally 5 minutes later the phone rang and it was a local Chick-fil-a offering to provide lunch for our team on the second work day. Right after that I saw that several donations had gone into our Both Hands account overnight.

I just had to laugh at myself. How silly of me to think that this would fail. God provides. Always. Whether it's money for adoption costs or sheets of drywall and buckets of paint. He provides. Nathan was able to secure donations of materials from several locations of Home Depot and friends and family are at Ms. Veronica's house with him right this minute doing a full day of prep work. On April 5 we will go back and finish up what the first team started. The rewards of this project are so much more than financial.

Asking people to help you fund raise is very hard. But we have already been so blessed by everyone's willingness to come along side us and fight to get our little peanut home. It's so humbling, and so appreciated! We will have photos and updates from the project soon!

An old photo now, but I will always love her stick-up hair.  ;)

Special Delivery

Such an exciting day. My dear friend Amy and her husband are on an airplane right this second headed to their sweet baby boy in China! Wrote this yesterday, hopefully they are there now! This is the little cutie that we thought was living in the same orphanage as Kate, but we later found out he was in foster care. Once they are home I will ask her if I can share his photo because seriously, he is the smiliest happiest cutest boy ever! I think he's smiling in every photo I've seen of him! Amy and I have been friends since both of us were just a few months into the adoption process, so it is a real thrill to watch them take off on this journey. I keep saying to her, "It's all happening!". All this stuff we've been talking and dreaming and praying about for over a year is happening this week! Ahh, so excited for them. I know I'm going to get zero sleep this week as I stay up to watch their pictures pop up online in China time. Can't wait to see my new son-in-law with his new mom and dad.  ;)

Another happy part of their trip is that they will be going to the orphanage he lived in for his first six months. Yes, the orphanage where Kate lives! Can I ask anyone reading this to please pray that they let Amy see Kate? That they would even let her hold her and love on her a bit? You would think I would feel jealous that my friend gets to see her and I don't, and of course I wish it was me. But I really am just so grateful that she's willing to try and love on Kate for us. I can't wait to see her in Amy's arms and know that she got some affection that day, even if it's just a little pat or two. Praying also that the staff will let her take lots of photos and maybe even video of Kate. As much as I hope for all of this, I also know that this trip is their trip to get their son, and I fully expect them to do whatever is best for him. If he doesn't want his new mama holding another child, then he should get what he wants! I just hope it's a happy day for all of them, because I know orphanage visits can be rough.

Amy was sweet enough to offer to take some things to Kate for us. Lots of adoptive parents send care packages and while the thought is definitely sweet, the reality isn't so rosy. Almost always they don't let the children keep the items you send. They usually put them away so that they will stay nice, and then they return them to you once you pick up your child. Many families report getting back clothing and toys in pristine condition with the tags still on them, obviously never touched by their child or any child. So as much as I wanted to send her outfits and hairbows and books and toys, it just didn't make sense to do that. I had to send something nice, but also something that I could be okay with never seeing again. I also had to be mindful of Amy's packing limits!

The most important thing we sent was a family photo album. Please pray that they show this to Kate, more than once! It would be so helpful if she were even a little bit familiar with our faces on the day we meet her. I didn't put our names because I knew they probably wouldn't know quite how to say them, and because, well...she's two! She wouldn't remember our names even if they did get them right! So we went simple. Just immediate family and plain labels in English and Chinese.

Mama and Baba (how the Chinese say dada). Pronounced exactly as it's spelled.

Big sister, pronounced jeh jeh (sort of) in Chinese. Friends have told me that their new child called the big sister jeh jeh for months after they came home. Cute!

Big brother is pronounced guh guh, and Kate will have 2 guh guhs!

We only had 6 photo slots inside the book. I asked people on my adoption group if the last shot should go to the dog or a photo of our house, and everyone said dog. Many kids that come home are terrified of the family dog because they've never even seen a dog, much less interacted with one. Hopefully this blind, 15 pound beast won't be too scary for her!

The front cover had a small photo slot, so we added little peanut girl. Friends said this would help the nannies know who's family it was inside, and it may also help us get it back when we go to China.I blurred out her name here, but we wrote that in English and Chinese as well. 

I wanted to send something lovey, but again, it had to be something that I wouldn't too sad if it never came back to us. This bear wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I thought it was cute and it is super soft. People often suggest sleeping with the item so it has your scent before you send it. We had it in the house for a few days and I rubbed a little bit of vanilla lotion on the underside. I will wear that same lotion when we meet her. I know that's probably silly and she may never even get the bear, but I'm trying!

Hopefully in another week or so we will have pictures of Kate looking at pictures of us! I got pretty emotional while I was putting the little album together. This whole experience is so different than anything we've ever done before. We've never had a child living on the other side of the world with no idea who we are. We stare at her sweet face so often, and it amazes me that soon she will see ours for the first time. It's my prayer that one of the nannies will try to help Kate understand (often!) who we are and that we will come to her soon. I know she's only two, but I hope she feels special and loved when she sees our photos. Because she is so very loved already!

Painters

We didn't go anywhere for Spring Break this year. We considered doing an overnight somewhere close, but ultimately decided we just had too much going on this week. Also we're hoping to be booking a trip to China in the next few months, so that will be our big trip this year! Another third grade mom organized this outing for kids who were still at home this week, so the kids were happy to meet up with some friends and try a little painting.

Anna needed her picture taken with this cat, and Ben was just cute in his apron. There were 2 cats and a giant tortoise that lived in this business. By giant I mean Ben could have ridden on it.

The kids each picked a painting off of the wall above that they wanted to try and replicate. Noah originally chose a blue ninja, but then he decided he wanted to make his own version. First it had spooky red eyes, but later he changed that. By the way, how cute is he with his missing front tooth? It fell out a few days ago after dangling for weeks.It's his fourth lost tooth, but the first one on top, and the one right next to it is loose too, hee!

Anna and her BFF.

Anna's choice was Birds on Twigs, while her friend did a free hand Olaf  the snowman from the movie Frozen.

And look at this sweetie and his version of a snowman.I held his hand and helped him put the face on. He kept the face until the end, but the body changed many times because he just wanted to paint more and more. Those arms didn't last. I thought we were finished but then he blobbed some blue on top and told me it was the snowman holding candles. "Candles, candles, candles", slap slap slap with the paintbrush.

When we all got settled only me and 2 other moms were painting, while the others just talked and helped their kids. A friend told me that when she saw me come in with 3 kids she thought there was no way I would be able to paint anything, but hello? Look at this fabulous chicken I was able to produce. Try not to feel inadequate because of my amazing painting skills.  ;)

This is where Noah went back to his ninja and repainted almost all of it. Once we got home he added new eyes and some different arms. It came out pretty cute...if ninjas can be cute.

The finished products! Ben didn't want to be in this photo, but he was happy to show his painting to daddy once we got home.