In Honor of Lindsey

In honor of my

cow lovin'

hard workin'

carhartt wearin'

gal!

Cora HAD to get this picture for Lindsey

In other news:

I've been workin' on her for about 6 months.

Friday was the day.
This is what I had to work with.
She has beautiful hair.
The moment of truth.
We are committed now.
Seriously? 12 inches. Yikes!
The result?
Not bad for a Mom haircut, eh?
And the price is right!

Humbled

I found his picture on Jean's blog.

She hopes and prays for the least of these.

This photo was the one that caught my breath.

A pivotal moment.

I never felt like that....

about a picture.

Jean knows first hand about adoption. She and her husband have adopted 6 precious kiddos from China. She asked me if she could let her readers know about our story.

I am humbled that people around the world would pray for our boy, for our family, for our adoption.

And I am thankful.

We pray for healing for our boy's heart both physically and emotionally.

We pray that his heart will be prepared to open and accept the love of our family.

We pray that he will come home soon so that we will have as much time together as possible.

Shangri-La

Meanwhile, back at home.....

Heading Towards Sunshine

God, in His providence, put all the pieces together for us to get our fingerprints done on the same day we were going to the airport. The fingerprint place and the airport are a few miles apart from each other and both are 2 hours away from our house. What a blessing to not have to make a special trip. Bob had already planned on taking the day off to take us to the airport.
The plan? I took the 6 younger kids to sunny Arizona for a wonderful vacation which included my birthday and Easter. The richest blessing was that we got to spend that time with my parents while Bob and Jerrod went to West Virginia on a mission trip to work with World Vision. Dearest Lindsey stayed home and held down the fort. College sometimes gets in the way of all this fun.

Our preferred mode of travel.
Practically painless.

Okay, Sandra, so shoot me now. We had a 6 hour direct flight. I was sure we needed every trick in the book to keep 6 kids including a 2 & 3 year old busy on the plane. Sandra is my amazing friend who traveled for 2 weeks with 2 kids and only a backpack. I kept that in mind while I was packing....oh boy, it could have been so much worse. Only 7 bags and 2 strollers. Um, this is what we carried on the plane, we also checked a few bags. I think I need to work on that simplify thing.

I begged Bob to get a gate pass and come see us off.

We had strategic assigned placement on the plane. Instead of counting sheep, I spent hours coming up with the best configuration in seating that would promote the maximum amount of harmony.

We went to see these wonderful folks,
Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Jere.

We had a fabulous vacation.

Other posts coming with pictures of all the fun in the sun. The only thing that could have made Easter in Arizona better was if everyone was there. But Lindsey was home being the best college student she can be and Bob and Jerrod were doing good work helping people and sharing the love of Christ in West Virginia.

I learned my lesson.
Only 4 bags on the way home.

I could write a whole post on my lack of "grace." If I had a nickel for everyone who told me I had my hands full... Here we were having an idyllic moment sharing Cinnabons in the airport and some guy gave me the "line." He was young and had not yet experienced the pure joy and love that we have been given.
By the time we got home, I was utterly convinced that I have the BEST kids in the whole world. They were great on the plane and I would travel anywhere with this set anytime.

Hello Mama and Baba

Ni hao bao bei.

Ni zhen ying jun.

Wo shi ni de ma ma.
Wo shi ni de ba ba.

Wo men hui hao hao zhao gu ni.

Wo men fei chang ai ni!

Hello Treasured Child.

You are so handsome.

We are your Mama and Baba.

We will take good care of you.

We love you so much.

Today we got to send pictures to our boy in China.

We received an update that said he was told about us early this year.

HE.KNOWS.ABOUT.US!

He knows we want him and are coming to get him.

Since we have received our I800A, the orphanage director
has requested pictures of our family.

I sent the picture at the top of the blog and the one of Bob and I.

I would love to see his little face when he looks at his new family.
I hope he doesn't faint when he sees the crowd.
Just kidding.

Hopefully, our dossier will go to China next week.
Waiting on one last document.

Lesson learned.

Patience is definitely a virtue.

Approved!!!

Yeah God!

I received a phone call on Monday morning from an NBC officer telling us that our case would be expedited. She wasn't kidding. Only God could have hooked us up with this particular officer, Ms. J, who happened to randomly answer the phone last week when I called immigration.

She put everything into place on Monday and we got our I800A approval Wednesday morning. This included a homestudy addendum which our agency got out on Tuesday and our fingerprints done on Tuesday. We found out that in our state we would NOT have been able to walk in early and would have had to wait for our fingerprint appointments in MAY. But Ms. J made a phone call and allowed us to go on Tuesday. AND she was willing to do all this through e-mail so our agency got our approval yesterday as well. No waiting for USPS.

Getting our fingerprints was quite a trip. All 6 younger kids were with us. We had to go through security and Kloey was whispering very loudly, "Is that a real gun?" Yes, dear, it is! Climbing on chairs and getting a little antsy they were as we waited. It was hard to explain the solemnity of the situation. And 15 minutes later, we were fingerprinted.

Basically, the United States said it was okay for us to adopt a special needs child under the age of 10 from China.

Just what we wanted and asked for.

Yeah God.

Miracles Boggle My Mind

The red thread is boggling my mind.

* The missionaries that stayed at my parents house, from China. Fluent in Mandarin and had lived there many years. We were able to skype and ask lots of questions.

* The money that showed up after we joked about adopting a kid from China.

* A doctor's appointment within 2 days with a pediatric cardiologist, at a satellite office 20 minutes from our house.

* The project that Bob was asked to work on in the SAME city as our child.

* AND today, I was talking to someone at our church who had been to China last fall. I asked her where she had gone? She said Hangzhou, the SAME city. Come to find out her son lives there and works in banking.

* A woman in our church is Chinese and fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese and is willing to help us when our boy comes home.

* VBS at our church this year is about panda bears and where do they live? China.

* A blog friend lives not too far away from Hangzhou. How cool is that?

Are you kidding? China is a huge country. Humongous.

Too many signs for me to ever believe in coincidence again.

My daughter said I should stop being surprised.

I marvel at miracles.

I can't help it.

Amazing God.

China in the Fall

Adoption update:

Our I800A form went to immigration on March 28, 2011. We received notification of receipt on April 5th at 1:37 am. Bizarre. Didn't know they worked in the middle of the night. Our agency called immigration to ask for our case to be expedited and forwarded some information to us.

Only cases that are aging out or have medical urgency are expedited and that is rare. I immediately called our pediatric cardiologist who has the best office manager in the world and they got a letter out which was strongly written requesting high priority based on the medical condition of our guy.

I e-mailed the letter and an explanation to immigration last night as instructed.

We are PRAYING that our fingerprint appointments come in the mail on Monday or Tuesday as we will be driving right by the place on Tuesday afternoon. Wouldn't that be only GOD if that all fell into place? After that, people will be in several different places at different times and we won't be able to get them done until May.

Please pray that our case will be expedited so our dossier can go to China very soon.

11 of our documents are back from the Chinese consulate in NY and they are waiting for one more from Houston, the Oklahoma birth certificate. Three guesses who that is?

Our dossier is close to ready.

And he is waiting!
I am having strange dreams and thoughts. Chalk it up to "pregnancy." It is odd having a child on the other side of the world.

Of course he isn't actually ours yet but don't tell my heart. It's too late.

I was reading another blog and was quite comforted when I read that someone else felt like they were in suspended animation during the adoption process.

Feels like everything else has stopped or is a struggle.

There is such a thing as adoption pregnancy. It has just as many ups and downs as biological pregnancy. There is no escaping the sacrifice.

We know the end result is worth it!

Weekend Visitor

Look who is visiting this weekend?

The three musketeers rule the house again!

I have been waiting all week.
Her smile is infectious.
We get to visit for the whole weekend.

The boys are thrilled.

A Spoonful of Sugar

I looked over and Erika was getting creative again.

This is how she got Micah to take his medicine tonight.

Sometimes they love her more than me!

She will be a wonderful mother someday!!!