A sign

I'd say we've recieved our fair share of "signs" that we are on the right path with this adoption.

Here's the latest...

Last week I brought the three kids to the public library. Of course, they all want to pick out books. D (our three year old) goes to one of the many shelves of books, grabs the first one he sees and requests to take it home. I don't argue... I don't even look at it, I grab it, put it in the pile and head home.

We don't read any of the books for a whole week.

S sits down to read to the kids last night, all three of them ready to listen. One of them hands him the library book that D picked out "The Coffee Can Kid". He starts reading. I'm listening (barely) from the other room as he is reading. I realize that the book is about a little girl adopted from China. She is asking her parents about the only picture that her parents have of her as a baby (her referral picture) and a letter that was left with her as a baby.

I run into the room... "What are you reading?" Steve looks at me sideways with a look of "You picked it out" and K says "It's the book D picked out at the library last week".

I then tell Steve (who thought I had purposely picked out the book) that D pulled it off the shelf and I didn't even look at it before I checked it out.

We are in awe. I mean, there are literally thousands of books on the shelves... and he picks THIS one?

Here is what S continues to read....

"This is a letter from your birthmother. She wrote it the day she said good-bye."

"What does it say?"

"It says that she loves you, and not a day will go by that she doesn't think of you. It says she hopes you are happy and strong and in a home where there is enough to eat. She hopes that you are with people who love you as much as she does"

S barely got through the words... and I had a tears streaming down my face.

I think God wanted us to read this book. How about you?

We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.

A little girl and an envelope

This here is a story of a plain white envelope and a little girl with a beautiful giving heart.

I received a delivery today from a very good friend who shared our blog with her 7-year old daughter.

This delivery wasn't the usual bag full of hand-me down clothes that I am used to receiving from this particular friend. But... OH... it was worth SO much more.

It was an envelope with 5 words beautifully inscribed in 7-year old handwriting...

"For Grace, Love, C**** S****"

The envelope clanged when you moved it... heavy with change (and a few dollars too)!

A weeks (more?) worth of allowance?!

All. For. Grace.

Now THAT is amazing.

The beauty of one little girl's soul was revealed today.

So far, this adoption has touched many lives and stirred feelings in my heart I hardly expected.

Thanks CS. I already knew you were a sweety but WOW! I can't wait for you to meet G! and I can't wait to see what your generous heart is going to do for this world as you grow.

Priceless

I'm sure you all can imagine... adoption - it ain't cheap.

But, we're pretty sure that G is worth it. :-)

We have to come up with a large sum of money in a relatively short period of time (12-18 months). We don’t have lots of extra income that we can just stash away. It’s not going to be easy. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t say… how are we going to do this?

I worry less about the future. I know that sounds strange. NOPE… our kids won’t have everything. They won’t have weekend ski trips, unlimited after-school activities, yearly extravagant vacations, or fully-funded college accounts.

They WILL have what we can provide. Love. It’s not everything, but it’s a lot… I can assure you of that. Oh and don't worry, they'll have food too.

So, how will we come up with the funds to complete this adoption?

We've been tightening our belts and working hard. In addition to our full-time jobs, S has spent two or three nights a week all winter plus all day on Saturdays officiating basketball games and I've picked up a little extra side job. I spend ½ a day on the weekends shopping all the sales, at all the grocery stores, to cut our grocery bill in half. No more coffees from Dunkin Donuts (or Starbucks), no more eating out, bring your lunch or go without. Golf… yup that too. And, if any of you know S, you know that is quite a sacrifice. But, you also know that there isn’t anything S wouldn’t do for his kids. There's more but I won't bore you with the details of our Dave Ramsey style budget.

We’re managing to put some money away. But, it’s slow.

The one thing we do have is faith. Faith that this will all come together.

So, dear reader (all 7 of you), you might get an invitation to a “sell-your-gold” party, or asked if you would like to buy a REALLY COOL t-shirt… you’ll understand why we are asking. It’s a GREAT cause.

Not every person is able to welcome a child into their family. But every person can help care for orphans by helping those who are...by praying for them, by encouraging them when they're exhausted, and by helping with the financial burden of bringing the child home.

Will you join with us? Will you help us bring Grace home? Details coming soon...

Until then (and because I HATE talking about money), here's a picture of our cute kids (minus one)...

44 pages

I thought I was prepared.

I was so NOT prepared.

We received access to our agency's "dossier guide" today. It gives step-by-step instructions for completing and authenticating all the paperwork. It's 44 pages long.

I'm keeping it real here folks...

I'm completely and totally overwhelmed. Like...."I'm not sure we can pull this off" overwhelmed. It seems like this could be a full-time job for a good two or three months. I'm NOT exaggerating.

What if we screw it up? What if the dossier gets all the way to China and they say "sorry... your I -something or other -form is messed up... you're out of luck"? What then?

OK... focus...get yourself together. Our little G is WAITING for us to do this.

The burning questions...

When?

It will probably be at least 12-18 months before we travel to China and welcome a new little one into our family. But this question is tricky... there are many, many factors that contribute to how long it will be.

Who?

We have requested to be matched with a little girl between the ages of 15 and 36 months.

Do we have a picture yet?

Not yet. Our agency will match us with a little one in a year or more. God certainly knows who she is, we can't wait for Him to let us in on the big secret!

Why?

Ah, now that is a question that requires a whole post in itself. I'm not really blessed with the gift to write what the heart feels so I'm not sure I have the words to answer it.

I'll say this... the question really has become for us - Why NOT? How can we NOT do this?

Accepted!

We received a call on Thursday afternoon from our adoption agency (CCAI). Our application has been accepted!!!

I didn't think we wouldn't be accepted. I had gone over the eligibility criteria about 500 times...so I was pretty confident we were OK. But on Wednesday I received an email from a friend ALSO going through the adoption process (YAY!) asking if we had heard anything yet. It wasn't until that moment that I thought... WAIT... what happens if they don't accept our application?! GASP!

I guess I would have had to delete my freshly created blog.

And cry.

BUT... no worries... we are MOVING FORWARD!!!! Today, we are off to get a document notarized and starting our home study paperwork.

Thoughts of princesses

Last year at this time we were preparing for a big family vacation to Disney. It seems that the nice spring weather is bringing back memories of our preparation... all the kids have been talking about are memories of our trip and thoughts of future trips.

I know K is going to love having a sister. Today, I was even more convinced.

"Mom, when G comes home are we going to be able to take her to Disney?...... because I think she is going to REALLY love seeing the princesses".

I love that she is thinking about sharing these special things/times with her mèi mèi (little sister).

It's official

And off it went... Fed Ex'd away to our adoption agency in Colorado.

Just a few pieces of paper (ok a little more than a few)... but those pieces of paper carry the hope and future of a child alone in an orphanage in China and the love of a Mom and Dad far across the globe.

We don't know her yet, only God knows the child that will soon join our family, but we know she is out there, living in an orphanage, among hundreds of thousands of others like her, without a Mom and Dad to tuck her into bed tonight.

So, no one can blame me when I got a little teary eyed at the fed ex counter as our official adoption application was sent away.

Someone missing?

We used this picture for our Christmas card this year, we can't look at it without thinking...

Someone is missing.

Welcome!

Join us our on journey to China as we become a family of six.

And while we will share with you the ups and downs of the adoption process - mounds of paperwork, fingerprints, interviews and more paperwork...

We will also share the giggles, tears, and chaos that is our home.