we have news!!

Yeah!! We finally recieved our PreApproval letter for Sammy!! (Click on it to enlarge it so you can actually read it!!) Basically this "locks" him for us in the eyes of the Chinese Govt. We were already matched by the orphanage but now we have the approval from the CCAA!! This is very exciting for us since we have been waiting since July for it! ALSO....Our homestudy Social worker told the agency that she will have our Homestudy done for us tommorrow! It has taken 4.5 weeks!! :-( Instead of the one week initally promised. But it will be done tomorrow YIPPEE!! This means as soon as it has been proofread several times our immigration paperwork will head down to the National Benefits Center in Missouri and we will begin our long wait for immigration approval! (as of this writing it has been taking 90 days to process this but hopefully things will speed up for us!) God has blessed us beyond measure today! I have been praying for patience with the homestudy delay and been trying hard to remember that His timing is always perfect so this was a gentle reminder! Especially since I had been frustruated today and unable to access my computer since I was in a training class, and came home to the message left at 9:30 this morning!! I am sure that was perfect timing on Gods part because he knew I would be worthless at work the rest of the day! We also were blessed with pictures today as well..What a wonderful day!! The family who took them were visiting the SWI at naptime but of course my little guy was the only one of the kiddos not sleeping that they needed pix of!! He does however look like he did need the nap....






Of Course Food ALWAYS helps...(he will fit right in here...)





Ok...So now here is my cutie pie...with a jello cup stuck to his face






All in all I think this is the best day we have had in a while...Also, the ornaments I preordered to sell are in and they are just gorgeous!!! Hopefully they will be a good fundraiser for us! I also can start to apply for grants now that my homestudy is done and I am still being able to work overtime at work to help with the financing. All is working out so well for us, we are so very blessed and are so grateful for that!
Please keep us in your prayers for guidance and patience in our journey
Blessings,

More Updates

I got a wonderful surprise today at work!! We recieved an email from our adoption agency with new updates of our little guy!! He weighs 28.6 lbs and is 35.8 inches tall!! He is getting so very big! We didnt get a smile this time, but atleast a smirk :-) It was a great bit of news since all we are doing right now is waiting for our homestudy to be complete so we can go and do our fingerprinting then it is waiting waiting waiting until we can bring him home! Please keep us in your prayers, we applied for our first grant this week as well with an organization called Ava's Hope. They took applications until yesterday so hopefully we will know something very soon. I have been selling things on ebay as well as hopefully getting a garage sale together for this weekend! I should find out if I can work extra hours doing flu shot clinics soon and we have more grants that we can apply for as soon as our homestudy is complete!! God is blessing us more everyday so we are so grateful for that!
Love






Isnt he a doll???


What a Smirk!!

we recieved new pictures!!!!

We were so very blessed this week!! I was so excited to open my email this morning and have fun new pictures of my little guy!! How cute is he??? There was a very kind family in Arizona who went to get their little guy (he is the one in the picture with Sammy) who graciously took some stuff from us for him since it is SOOOOO expensive to mail overseas! That ball he is playing with is one the kids and I picked out for him!! How great is that! I have no idea what the green stuff is that he is eating for lunch though! We have had a pretty good week adoption wise...Our homestudy was done on Monday, all of our lab work and physicals are complete and I got together and met a group of Moms who have either adopted or are going to adopt little ones from the same orphanage our guy is at!! What an incredible experience that was just to sit and talk with Moms who have been there done that!! It is such a long and complicated process it was such a blessing to sit and share with them...I am learning so much from all of them..thanks guys! and what fun it is that Sammy will have lots of little playmates from the same orphanage he was in. We also have officially started our first fundraiser for bringing home our little one...the ornaments are beautiful and we are excited to recieve $7.00 from each ornament we sell! We are also going to be submitting grant applications to help with our expenses as well. The cost of international adoption is about 27,000 including the travel expenses and we are exploring all options to help cover the costs of bringing our son home to us!! We are also excited that our first baby is turning 14 tomorrow! Taylor is having her party on Saturday so it will be a busy weekend!! Please just keep us in your prayers this week....
Love,


PS...take the time to listen to the words of the first song that plays...When love takes you in....it is a song from Steven Curtis Chapman specifically about adoption!!! It is an awsome song!

What a busy week!!

Wow!! First week of school done...how many more to go? UGHH Summer is over and school and activities started again with a vengance! We did have some great news this week. We were blessed enough to receive all of these new pictures from a family that just returned home with their little girl!! What a generous thing to do for several of the families that are adopting from the orphanage. You dont realize how precious a photograph is when it is all that you have!! It looks like one of the orphanage workers were really trying hard to make him smile and he was having none of it. It was great to recieve these pictures!! There is another family who left today who are taking items from us for him and hopefully will get happier pictures of our little guy!! We have been very busy on the adoption front this week as well...all of our police clearances have been recieved, and all of our passport pictures as well as Tims passport is in! The kiddos all had their physicals last week and Tim and I had ours on Thursday! We are waiting on blood work results so we should get that next week. The social worker called and we have our homestudy on Monday at 1:00. Tim actually has to work all weekend so he has Monday off and I am taking off early!! That is our last step before filling out our immigration paperwork so we can get an appt to be fingerprinted in Indy. After that is done, our dossier goes to AZ and the agency will notarize and translate all of it and assure that all the paperwork is complete. Then it will be delivered to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) where our dossier will be matched with our little guys dossier. So we are entering our final stages in what we have to do before we wait, and wait and wait ... We are trying to remember that Gods Timing is Perfect Timing and have faith in that. We also will be busy with Taylor's 14th birthday party this week as well so this week should fly by quickly...if only all of them did! We also recieved a financial blessing this week. I am still working out the details but there is a mom who owns her own business and has adopted 2 kiddos from China herself and helps a certain number of families each year with fundraising. There will be more info to come, but she chose us as one of the deserving families!!! Yeah! God is certainly providing for us. Keep on praying for all of us,

Love

Amy

still waiting

Hi all,
Just had realized it had been over a week since I have updated on our site. We have been really busy with the first day of school (thursday) as well as getting ready for our homestudy. We found out that we did pass our Psych evals (yeah), Tim applied for his passport, we sent in the last of our paperwork, we met with our pastor to get his recommendation letter and the kiddos had their physicals....and we finally got our new fridge! Our social worker has recieved our autobiographies and hopefully will be contacting us very soon! We have been busy baby proofing and cleaning and found out (from Andy and Anita who are adopting as well) that we need to go out and purchase 3 fire extinguishers as well as 3 fire ladders for our rooms...so guess I will be going and doing some shopping today! We are hopeful to schedule the homestudy for next week (along with our physicals) so then all we have left to do is our fingerprinting in Indianapolis. All in all it has been a busy week with Zach starting soccer again and Emily getting the lead the new play she is doing(She got Alice in Alice in Wonderland...112 lines!!!!) Volleyball tryouts start this coming week too!! We have started back to school that is for sure! There is a family who is in china right now getting their little girl who was going to take some pictures of our little guy when she was there so those should be coming next week. We also have a care package that we are sending out on monday to a family who is leaving on the 22nd. So hopefully they will take pictures for us as well! This week was hard for me since Monday was his birthday! I take comfort in the fact that will be the last one he has to spend alone!! We have been very blessed and just pray that God gives us (ok ME) patience during this very long wait. I think that is what I am struggling with the most. We have done all of our work that we can do and now we are waiting on others so we can go and get our little guy! Anyway, back to cleaning :-)
Love,
Amy

Wow,
I recieved the monthly newsletter from our adoption agency last night and was just overwhelmed with Gods Timing. This is the section I am talking about:

CHANGES IN OUR UNITED IN HOPE PROGRAM
Our coordinator in China has advised us this week that in order to bring our special needs adoption program into compliance with the Hague requirements the following changes are effective immediately:
· There will be no more new case studies for our families to review. This part of the program is like the regular program now.
· She will only work on cases where the dossier is finished and is in her possession or in China logged in at the CCAA.
· Cases where the dossier is at the CCAA can be readily transferred to the Jiangsu Special Needs Program.
· The family needs to be very clear on the type of child they desire, i.e., boy or girl, age and specific special need they will accept. This should be consistent with the Type of Child section in the home study. Indications are that she will be able to find young girls with minor special needs. She will forward the child's dossier to the CCAA with the adoptive family dossier.
· The CCAA will make the match forwarding the acceptance form to the agency for the family’s acceptance or declination. Once accepted it will be returned to the CCAA for issuance of the permission to travel document.
· For families who have already selected and accepted a child, we will proceed as normal, though hopefully quicker.
· Our staff in China and the US is really committed to moving the program quicker, which is consistent with the desires of the Orphanages.

Basically what this is saying is that from now on they are not going to match first with the families like they did with us. If we would have been just a few weeks later then we would not be getting our little boy! With us, we submitted our medical checklist and then they offered up Baby Dini....now we would have to submit our entire dossier before being matched and the agency would no longer do this with the parents like they did before!!!! I did verify with Vickie (our Godsend at Hand in Hand) that we still are going forward with getting our little guy and she reassured me that everything is fine as far as our adoption is concerned however any new families coming in would not be able to do this. Yikes!! The Lord surely has directed us to our little guy!! The funny thing is is that the Hauge compliance that they are talking about was in effect starting several months ago and they are just now changing the United in Hope program? Just after our acceptance of our little guy! It is just another reminder that His timing is always perfect even though we may not agree! I did however like the little part of the program moving quicker!!
Love
Amy

UPDATES!!!!!!!!!!

We finally got the updates we have been waiting on!!!! I am certain everything has slowed down in china due to the Olympics starting!!! Isnt he such a doll??? We got lots of new info as well. He now weighs 25.3 lbs and is 33.9 inches tall!! He has 18 teeth and is walking on his own already!! He is going potty on his own as well! He is pretty small for the american growth charts but in the 75th percentile for both height and weight for the Asian Boy growth chart. His nickname is Yangyang and he loves balls and cars (typical boy)
He has 2 favorite Nannies and a best friend named yan xiao yu. The nannies say he is fairly extroverted, active and easy going. He isnt picky on his food but likes snacks (will fit right in with our kiddos!) We are so very EXCITED!! God is so very good! I was really getting worried that something had happened to him or that we werent going to be able to get an update but God has blessed us yet again!!

We are just on cloud nine today!! Just wanted to share our joy!!
Love
Amy