Vacation week

This past week the kids and I took a trip with my Mom up to Washington to visit family and my hometown.  We had a busy week and loved getting together with part of the family that we rarely get to see.  We visited the beach, went swimming multiple times, walked down memory lane in my hometown, and just enjoyed a few rare days of sunshine in western Washington!  It was a long week with a lot of traveling in the family van so it was also nice to make it home yesterday and reunite with  Daddy!!!

Cade, Jack, and cousin Haily

Boy (superhero) cousins

Girl cousins taking a break from the trampoline

The kids getting their snuggles in with their favorite furry friend, Jack!

I had an inbox full of email when I got back and in the middle of the all the messages, there was a  super exciting bit of news from Lifeline...we are out of translation!

Our dossier documents have been translated into Chinese and are now in the process of being reviewed for final approval!  These last few steps have moved very quickly.  Translation only took 10 days!  I've recently heard of people waiting more than 40 days for translation.  We are praising God that things are moving right along.

We also have a great fundraiser planned!  We are calling it "Chinese Dinner for our China Adoption".  We are working with Panda Express here in our town to hold a fundraiser on August 1st!  This one is pretty simple for those wanting to support us.  Just get a support flyer by clicking on the picture here:

Show this flyer (either on paper or on your phone) at the register when you place your order for drive-through, dine-in or catering on August 1st.  20% of the proceeds from those orders will go toward our adoption fees at Lifeline Children's Services.

Logged In!!!

I took the kids swimming yesterday so we could cool off a little from the HOT weather we have been having.  Amidst the splashing and laughing, I heard my phone ring and saw that it was our agency calling!  Great news!  We are "logged in" in China (LID)!

Our dossier paperwork made it safely to the central authority in China and they have entered our information into the system.  This begins our wait for a Letter of Approval (LOA) that grants us permission from China to adopt Emsley.  The LOA is the last major step before we can book flights and go get our girl!

The very first part of this process will include translation of our documents from English to Chinese and then the review of every little detail will begin!  This is both a nerve-racking and exciting time.  The wait for LOA can be up to 90 days or more.  This wait will be a great time for John and I to do some more training with our agency about attachment issues.  We'll be able to get through more of our reading list and prepare our family and home for Emsley's arrival.

We have also sent more questions to Emsley's orphanage to ask about her daily life there.  We hope to have some of those questions answered in the near future.

That's all for now.  Get out and enjoy the sunshine!

DTC!!!

Wednesdasy we received the exciting news that we are DTC (Dossier to China)!  This simply means that our official paperwork for the adoption (our dossier) has made it through all the official signing, stamping, approving, authenticating, notarizing, etc. on "this end" and has been sent to China for approval on "that end".

The kids put this together while we were camping last weekend in
 hopes that we would receive the good news this week!

I can remember when we first started on this journey back in November and I began learning the "language" of international adoption.  I felt like it would be ages before we would get to celebrate this milestone of DTC.  It has been a long time getting to this point, but we have learned so much along the way and have had opportunity to learn more about Emsley and how best to prepare for her homecoming.  This waiting is really difficult, especially since we have known Emsley's face since early on.  Things were very manageable before we saw that sweet face but ever since laying eyes on her, things just can't move fast enough.

We have been told by our agency to plan for travel in November.  This is not set in stone as the timeline from this point forward can vary significantly for no real understandable reason.  Some couples wait longer than others for approval and some couples seem to be approved very quickly.  There isn't any real explanation for the difference but we are continuing to pray for God's timing.  

The next milestone we will reach is our LID (Log-In Date).  This is the date that the central authority in China puts our information into their system and begins processing our request to adopt Emsley.  LID usually comes within about 2 weeks of DTC so we hope to share the good news soon!

Also, when we receive our LID we will be able to request another update on our girl.  We should be able to ask 8 questions of the orphanage staff and request pictures and video too.  When we requested our first update it took over a month to receive it.  We are praying that the orphanage staff will look favorably upon our request and send it back quickly!  We love seeing new pictures of our girl and learning more about her personality and likes/dislikes.  

We have been working hard on grant applications and now have about 4 of them almost ready to mail.  Please pray with us that we will receive some grant funding.  As you can see from the fundraising thermometer on the right-hand side of this page, we are just a little less than half way to our goal.  God has been faithful to provide what we have needed at each step along the way and we know he will provide the rest of what we need to travel to China.  

Birthday Surprise!

Today is our oldest son's 9th birthday but we woke up to a special present for the whole family!  Here is what we found in our email inbox this morning:

Our adoption agency works with a sweet woman in China named Helen who puts together care packages for adoptive families to send to their children during the long adoption wait.  We were able to send Emsley a new pair of shoes, a xylophone toy, and a photo album with pictures of our family complete with captions written in Chinese characters.  We ordered the package a week ago and it arrived yesterday.  The orphanage staff took these pictures and sent them back to Helen that same day!  Thank you, Lord, for this special gift.

I can't express the feeling of joy I have at seeing our little girl looking at pictures of her new family.  I pray that she has an understanding of what it means to have a family.  I pray her nannies will explain things to her in such a way that she will understand that we are coming for her soon and that we love her deeply.

Cade agreed with us that this was a very special birthday present!  When I woke him up this morning and told him he had a present from China waiting for him, he jumped out of bed and ran for the computer.  We are all just a bit crazy about this little girl!

I-800a Approval!

We received our I-800a approval in the mail today!  This means that we have been approved by the US government to adopt from China!  We are now able to start the authentication process for our dossier (usually a 3 week process).  After that, we send our paperwork off and wait for approval from China.

We were originally told that approvals for I-800a were taking between 42-46 days but ours came in 38 days!  Praise the Lord!  We are trusting in His timing.

Update!

Today we received an exciting phone call from our agency telling us that they had received an update on Emsley and would be emailing it to us in the next few minutes!  I opened the email to find this adorable face looking back at me:

I was so excited to see a near smile on her face as the first few pictures we had received with her referral showed no signs of a smile at all.  Emsley has grown a lot since the first photos we saw of her.  She has so much more hair too!  How I wish I could reach into this picture and scoop her up into my arms!  We're coming soon, sweet girl!

We also received a couple more pictures:

and

I love this one because I can see the same expression on her face as when she was younger:

The final part of the update included some information from the orphanage staff about Emsley.  They reported that she is gentle and quiet.  Oh my heart!  She also likes to play with other children and is not a picky eater!  Let's pray she can teach her older siblings a thing or two about that!

Receiving this update has been like a refreshing spring to my spirit.  This adoption process can be so very hard at times and can feel so very slow but receiving these pictures and tidbits of information is just......wow!  Thank you, Lord, for this encouragement today.  Thank you that Emsley is growing well and playing with toys and (almost) smiling for her picture!  This Mama and Daddy are ready to have their girl home!

I-800a Fingerprinting!

This morning John and I made a trip to the Dept. of Homeland Security to have our fingerprints taken for our I-800a approval.  This is the last step before we can prepare and send our dossier off to China!  

We actually tried last week to go in a week early for our fingerprinting but were told that they no longer allow people to walk in early.  We were thankful that our actual appointment was only a week away rather than a month or more!

We are still waiting to receive an update on Emsley.  We've been told there is one coming soon!  We can hardly wait to see her sweet face again and to hear more about her personality.