Such a Handsome Guy

A wonderful family was just in Hefei adopting Haley, Jack's friend. This morning they sent us some great pictures of Jack taken yesterday. Today is day 29 of our wait for our Letter of Acceptance for Jack. The time is going both slower and faster than we thought. We are so anxious to get to the next steps so we can bring him home!

Annie is 7

Three years ago in April, Charlie and I started our adoption journey when we filled out an application with Heritage to adopt a 4-6 year old girl from China. Shortly after that, I was going through the Heritage website and ran across the Waiting Children progam for kids with minor medical needs. I am not sure why we had not considered this program before, but there was one little girl on the list named QiuQiu. She had the most amazing smile that I just couldn't forget. I kept looking at her picture and showing it to others and we finally decided to ask Heritage about adopting her.

Well, it turned out that another family had found her. We were sad but knew then that we were going to pursue a SN child. At that time Heritage got a new list of SN kids every few months. The next list was due around the first of August. We got to work on our dossier and were close to being ready to send it to China. I had been logging into the agency site daily to check for the new list and one night (August 2 2005) I saw an email that QiuQiu was unexpectedly available for adoption again. I had somehow missed the first posting and there were numerous emails after it from people who were interested.

The next day I was on the phone to my friend Laura (grandma to a little girl from China) bemoaning the fact that we had just missed out on the little girl again. At tha tmoment, my other line rang. It was Vicki from Heritage. She said "Do you remember QiuQiu?" I said "of course." She then said "Would you stil be interested in adopting her?" It was August 3, 2005 - but in China, it was August 4 - QiuQiu's 4th birthday.

A little over three months later we met our Annie QiuQiu for the very first time. She is the most amazing child. She is bright, imaginative and very sweet. She makes friends easily and loves to draw and write. Last year in first grade she was invited to read one of her stories at the school's monthly Author's Tea, with her proud parents in the audience. She is very senstive, which sometimes leads to more meltdowns than we would like to see but those are getting few and far in between. She loves to put together her own outfits (sometimes the combinations are very interesting) and try out different hairstyles with her long, gorgeous hair. When we met her she had extremely short hair and she loves her long hair very much. She is a great big sister. She and Bethany have their share (and maybe more) of squabbles but they love each other very much.

Yesterday we had a party at Chuck E. Cheese for 10 kids and 12 adults to celebrate her 7th birthday. She'd been dreaming about this party for months. She was nervous about being the center of attention but did very well and everyone had a blast.

Annie blesses us every single day with her love and sweetness. We can't imagine life without her.

Jack is Five!!!I

It's the morning of August 1st in China right now and Jack turns 5 years old today. Sometime today he will be surprised by a birthday cake, along with a stuffed panda, some candy for his friends and a letter from us. There's also a camera so we hope to see pictures of this someday.



We sure wish we were there with him to celebrate, but are so happy he will be with us for all the rest of his birthdays. I am also thinking of his birth parents today and how they must be wondering how and where he is. I know it must have taken great courage to do what I am sure they did - give up their beautiful son so that he could have the medical care he needed. I wish them peace and wish they could know how much we already love Jack and that he will always be taken care of.

Our Annie (to listen to video, turn off the music player on the bottom of the page)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We were so blessed to get a disc with many pictures of Annie from her orphanage in Shantou. These pictures of her are something we will treasure always. She has been home for 2 1/2 years now and what a change. She is such a joy and blesses the lives of those around her every single day.

Name That Tune!!!!

Okay, Jeopardy fans, today's Final Jeopardy category is "Lyrics from Famous Children's Songs."

The answer is:

"Jesus Loves Me" (2008 Bethany B. version)

The Question:

In what what well-loved song do the following lyrics appear? "Diarrhea, he is drunk."

Now you may have forgotten exactly where these lyrics appear in this song. Sing along with me.. "Little ones to him belong, Diarrhea, he is drunk."

Bethany is very fond of singing this song, at full volume, whenever the urge strikes. She also enjoys adding her own dramatic flourishes to her rendition, so this line usually comes out "DIE-ah-RHEE-ah....he....is....DRUNK." Very entertaining to all those in earshot.

A video of our family--please watch and listen to some great music! (please turn off the music player at the bottom of the page)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I made this to take with us to China to show Jack :)

LID and flip flops

Today we found out that our dossier was logged into the CCAA on July 9th. This means they've acknowledged our paperwork and the actual countdown can start!




Annie has so wanted to wear flip flops ever since she came home. The problem is that one of her feet is about 1/2 length and has no toes and the other foot has a little toe and the rest of her toes are fused. So flip flops have never seemed to be an option and we've never had them in the house so as not to make her feel bad.

Today when I went to pick the girls up at daycare, the dramatic play area had been set up as a beach. There were towels and beach toys--and flip flops. As soon as I walked in the door, I could hear Annie yelling "Mommy, Mommy, come see!" from the other side of the room. Lo and behold, she had a pair of flip flops on and they were staying on! Honestly, I think she holds them on her feet through sheer will. So our next stop was Walgreens and we came home with lovely pink flip flops for Annie and Bethany both. Annie is loving walking around the house making flip flop noises. Her determination (and love of fashion) are just amazing.

Wow - and a video of Jack, too!

A gift from China

Our friends Ruth and Troy Clark are in China right now to bring home their little boy AJ. He and his sister are both from Jack's orphanage. Today they actually visited there and were able to give Jack a small package we'd sent. They just sent us these pictures that were taken just a few hours ago. They are even more wonderful because they show him looking at the photo album we sent. Now we know for sure that he knows he has a family waiting for him. These pictures are such an amazing gift!

More video of Jack

DTC Today!

Happy day today!! We were expecting this to happen late this week or early next week, but our agency called today and our last document showed up, so our dossier is on its way to China!

So now the real wait begins!

A video of Jack

I've been trying to get this to upload forever, hopefully this time will do it!

I got, I got, I got FIVE Fingers!

Today Bethany got her cast off, 4 weeks post surgery on her hand. The poor girl is so scared of doctors. Even though we've been telling her about the cast coming off for quite a while, when we talked about it last night, she had a total meltdown, and said she wanted to keep the cast forever.

This morning she figured out where we were going when we were halfway to Shriners and the crying and wailing began. It continued up in the clinic and they took us back the the exam room really quickly since she was upsetting all the other kids in the waiting room.

In the cast room, she continued to sob and scream, but she was so very brave. Even though it didn't hurt, the saw and the scissors were scary. The cast person, Destiny, was really nice and talked her through it. Destiny said she was so impressed as she'd never seen a child of this age steel herself to go through with the procedure when she was so obviously terrified

So after the cast came off and she soaked her hand to get some of the really gross dead skin, etc off, she suddenly remembered why she had had the surgery in the first place. She marched all the way down the long hallway to the exam room singing "I got, I got, I got FIVE fingers!!!" She wouldn't let the doctor even look at her hand until she showed him she could count to 5 on it. The doctor said he is happy with the results. It's all wrapped up again so I didn't get much of a chance to see it yet, but having 5 fingers is a very cool thing! She is such an amazing kid!

Just chugging along

Here's an amazing picture of China I stole off some other blog.

Nothing new to report on the adoption front. We are still waiting for that final piece of paper. Sending prayers that it will be here by the end of next week and I can post that we are finally DTC.

Tonight we had a very nice dinner with Ruth, Troy and Annalynn Clark. They are leaving on Saturday to bring home their little boy AJ. Both he and Annalynn are from the same orphanage that Jack is in and so we are hoping the Clarks will get to see him when they visit. They actually met him last year when they were there with Annalynn, though I guess he spent the time running around the playground. They were nice enough to take a little package for him. We had a couple of small toys and the girls decorated a litle photo album. We will be sending him another package in a couple of weeks since his birthday is on August 1 - 5 years old already. And it will be his very last birthday without his family!

Well, a little delay

We had hoped to be able to send our dossier to China by next Monday but there was a mix up at our agency and one of the documents we need wasn't sent the expedited route.So it's sitting at the NY Chinese Consulate waiting to go through the normal process, which is taking around 2 weeks. "Around" is not actually a good word here, as in our experience, around actually means "more than." And of course, this happens to be the very last document we will need.

Our agency is the best there is and these things happen, but it's pretty disappointing all the same.

Finally

Haven't posted too much about this, but one of the requirements that China put into effect in May 2007 was that both parents had to be under a certain BMI (Body Mass Index). Charlie was fine, but I was waaaayy over. Our agency allowed us to put together our dossier while I was losing weight.

About 3 weeks ago, after finally hitting the right number on the scale, I went to the doctor. It was mid-day and by that time I had managed to gain five pounds from that morning's weight and it turns out their scale weights 5 pounds more than ours. It was just awful.

So back on the diet, though I derailed a little bit with Bethany's surgery. For the last week I really hit it hard and this morning I went in and I am under the BMI!!! Just a little but it was enough. Total of 61 pounds lost. This is a huge deal for me and also means we have the last piece of paper needed to send our dossier to China. It was pretty overwhelming and I started sobbing (possibly the lack of food recently had something to do with it) and the receptionist came over and hugged me.

So Charlie drove the medical form to our agency and it was sent off to be certified. All the paperwork has to go through various Chinese consulates to be authenicated, so we are waiting for that to come back as well as one form that had to go through New York. Then we can be the magic DTC!!!! Maybe as early as June 23rd.

Then we wait for China to issue our Letter of Acceptance in a few months, which we sign and send back saying, yes, we really, really want to adopt Jack. A few weeks after that we should get Travel Approval and then we can go to China!

Happy, happy, day!