Fun Pictures

Christmas Morning

Cheeezzzzyyy.....

On our way to mass

"Sword" Fight

Whew....Christmas is tiring

Our Precious Angel

Merry Christmas

Hail and Blessed be the hour and moment at which the Son of God was born of a most pure

Virgin at a stable at midnight in Bethlehem in the piercing cold.

Got or LID (Log In Date)

December 4th is the day our dossier was logged into the system in China. Now, we can make projections. The next step is our LOA (Letter of Acceptance). We will receive a letter from the Chinese adoption officials asking if we accept this precious little boy as our son. We sign it an send it back to China and await the next step.

The average wait time for LOA is 80 days. 19 days done and about 61 to go.

Please keep praying

My "baby" boy is 4 today!

Jacob, 8 days old

Jacob, 1 year old

Jacob, 2 years old

Jacob, 3

Happy Birthday Sweet Jacob

It's there...but no date yet...

Our dossier is in China, but we haven't been notified of our "official" Log In Date....waiting is the name of the game with this adoption. A true test of patience.


In the meantime, my boys have been having lots of fun.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Nice, Quiet, Relaxing Weekend

Did a little Christmas shopping

(He sleeps with this sales flyer)

Spent some time with my cousins

Jacob and I had a very nice weekend. Dad was in New Orleans for his "weekend a month" for the Navy. We had a nice time with our cousins (their twins) and Jacob loves them so much. Next year they will be at the same school. The boys say that they will watch out for Jacob in "big boy" school.

Our dossier is either DTC (Dossier to China), or very close. Had our INS approval authenticated by both the state and the Chinese Consulate in Houston. That was the last step before DTC.

Please keep praying for our family.

This kind of courage comes from God

ONE STEP CLOSER.....

USCIS (INS) APPROVAL!

87 DAYS AFTER FINGERPRINTS

NOTARIZED & AUTHENTICATED ON MONDAY

OFF TO CHINESE CONSULATE IN HOUSTON ON MONDAY AFTERNOON

ALMOST DTC!

PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!

Boo!

Just Cute!

Our soccer star is on the top row 4th from the left and barely visible

Happy Halloween!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Waiting, Wondering, Worrying .....

Yep, still waiting on our INS approval. It seems to be taking forever to get this last state clearance.

Wondering what this precious little boy's life is like.

Worrying about his well being

Faith that his little heart is being protected by my constant prayers.

What happens at soccer, you ask?

Gotta sleep in your soccer shirt to prepare

Meet your coach

Do some streching

Cheer on your new friends

Finally, play some soccer

Celebrate your accomplishments as a team!

When it's all done, you relax with an old friend

Soccer

Starts tomorrow! We got his uniform Monday and every morning are greeted with the question..."Is today the day I meet my soccer friends?".

Only one more sleep baby boy!

Three years ago.....

God gave us this precious little gift
God made sure that our precious little gift was well cared for by someone very special and loving

Our baby boy, we love you so very much

CORRECTIONS....URRRRR!!!

We thought we were getting our approval from Immigration, instead, we got a request for more information...URRRR!!

Apparently some items in our homestudy were not worded exactly as required. Our social worker isn't in her office on Friday afternoon, so we wait until Monday.

Our adoption agency said it should be an easy fix and our dossier should be in China in the next couple of weeks. They also said we should expect to be approved and in China for pickup before his second birthday!

We have been concerned about a TB test that is required (for all children over the age of two) in order to issue their visa to enter the United States. If the adopted child tests positive there is a regimin of treatment that takes from 3-6 months to complete before the visa can be issued. That means that your adoption is final, but your child is not permitted to enter the United States. Therefore, you have to either stay in China with your child for treatment or arrange for care and leave your child in China and return for pickup when they are deemed clear. There is much concern about this because there is a required vaccination that causes the TB skin test to appear positive. If the test is positive a chest x-ray is done to determine if the child has TB.

We would like our son home ASAP and it sure would be nice to avoid the stress of having to comply with this requirement.

Thanks for following our story and, as always, your prayers mean the world to us.

Done

As soon as we get our approval everything is off to China!! Yipee!

Happy Birthday...to me!!

Jacob insisted we make these Ming Ming cupcakes. When the lady on Noggin demonstrated how to make them, it looked so easy!

Thoughts

This week we were given the Vocation Chalice and asked to fill it with our prayers for all vocations. This includes those called to married life, single life, the consecrated life, etc. It was such an honor to pray for all to hear the call of our Lord for the plan He has for their lives.

Have you ever felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit working in your life? I'm not sure I always knew it at the time, but certainly in retrospect I can clearly see His work in my life. I was born to a wonderful mother and father. They, however, weren't so wonderful to each other and were divorced when I was 6 years old. Therefore, I didn't live in an environment of life-giving love. Sure, my mom and dad loved me, but I wasn't able to witness the daily sacrafices of married love. I believe that this fact gave me distorted expectations of what married love required. I was married in a civil ceremony at a very early age.

The Holy Spirit was calling me to married life, but I wasn't fully listening. My first marriage lasted 14 very difficult years, in which I had suffered 3 miscarriages, much verbal abuse and financial ruin. I lived the single life for a while, but the desire to have a family was overwhelming. I began to realize that I COULD NOT be the author of my life, I had to let Him do it and I began seeing the world and relationships in a whole new way..through Him.

Today I am the wife of a precious man who loves me in a way I have never been loved in my life. I am also loving in a whole new way. Our lives are so richly blessed. Our son is the center of our universe and we are so blessed to be able to live our vocation of married life as He intended.

I hope that after I am gone that my sons have beautiful lives. I hope that they remember what brought their mother and father strength. In other words, my prayer is that the way we answer the Holy Spirit in our lives gives them the courage to hear the call of the Spirit in their lives.

It's been a lonnnnngggggg time.....

I just realized it's been a very long time since I've posted.

I am having the vacation blues right now. EVERYONE is going somewhere :(...we have decided to forgo vacation this year as we need to conserve our $$ and our time off for baby boy). We just have to keep focused..they are going to places near and far, but we get to go to CHINA and we will receive the best gift of all!!

Baby boy's adoption....homestudy done, all dossier documents/pictures, etc submitted, fingerprinting appointment requested and granted!! We will travel to New Orleans on August 7th. Once we get our UCSIS approval our dossier will be sent to China (DTC) and then all we'll have to do is wait (the hardest part).

We've also sent our precious son a couple of care packages and received some updated pictures of him. I think I'm ready to share them...I happen to think he is the cutest little thing! So does his big brother!

Enjoy

Referral Picture...yep, he's a boy....love the pink shirt! Beautiful soulful eyes!

His eyes alot like Jacob's

We weren't sure this was the same baby, he's grown up so much. But, there they are, those precious eyes. He looks so big in here, but actually he is a tiny boy.
Here he is at about 15 months old. We can't wait to get him home!

We're coming baby boy!!

We hope you've enjoyed the pictures of our son. Please keep praying for our family!

Fun

On to a better place

A couple of months ago we decided that Jacob needed a dog. Well, actually, DH decided that Jacob needed a puppy. He had done his research and decided that a female, yellow lab was the best puppy for a little boy.

Jolie Blonde came to live with us at the end of February as a sweet little puppy. Well, 3 weeks later she was a dog....a big dog...that is very happy and content. She loved to play with Jacob. The only problem was that she weighed more than Jacob and when she liked to jump. After much consideration and Jacob being hurt, we decided Jolie wasn't right for our family.

We posted a message among our friends that Jolie was available to a good home. We didn't want to give her away to someone we didn't know. After a few weeks Jolie has moved on to her new family. She now lives with an awesome family that has a large yard (like ours) and two older kids. They love her so much and have promised to keep us updated on her.

We'll miss you Jolie, you are a good dog!

Imagine

Moving right along.....

Monday we had our physicals and our last home visit from our social worker. Now she has everything to start drafting the homestudy report. We're trying to get our dossier to China before July 31st. We humbly ask for your prayers for a smooth process and especially that our son is loved and well cared for in China.

Bedtime is very special for Jacob and his daddy. Daddy has been working out of town for the past two weeks, so mommy has been putting Jacob to bed. HE SAYS HIS OWN PRAYERS! It's so cute! He blesses himself first, then mommy, then birthmommy....etc, etc, etc. When I ask about blessing daddy he says, "oh, yeah, I forgot cause daddy's not here mommy".

This weekend was all about picnics! On Saturday was our company picnic and crawfish boil. The crawfish were big and very YUMMY! On Sunday was our "good old fashioned" church picnic. There were sack races, simon says, volleyball and many other "non-electronic" forms of fun! :)

Devon company picnic and crawfish boil

Jacob and his new friend Oscar


Oops, is it ok for Oscar to have ice cream?