December 31,2006

Tonight as we sit and wait for the New Year to come, I am thinking about what the New Year holds for our family. In 2007 our family will be complete. We should be making a trip to China to bring Grace home.

We are still waiting for the homestudy to be done. The social worker is coming one last time on Tuesday night. We are still waiting on one reference. Once that is done we can send in our homestudy to CIS. Hopefully by the end of the week.

When we arrived back home in NC tonight we found what Santa had left for Grace. She had an Asian cabbage patch doll, Fisher Price peek a boo blocks, a Tinkerbell pillow and frame, a Dora the explorer China doll, and a Snow White beanie. Now if we could bring her home to play with them.

Next year Grace you will be with us. Everyday is a step closer to bringing you home. This is the last year you won't be with us. We hope someone is taking good care of you and giving you lots of love.

Christmas Night

What a busy day we had! God is so good! We had a wonderful dinner with our family. You were never far from my thoughts, Grace. I couldn't help but wonder what you did today.

Your Aunt Debi, Uncle Ron, Maribeth, Leigh-Anne and Chett gave you an adorable Tinkerbell Ornament. Miss Alexa and Nijel gave you a Humpalumps pocketbook.

Our favorite song this year is about you. Your brother N even wants it on his mp3 player. He calls it Grace's song. I posted the words below so we will always remember them.

Merry Christmas By Brad Avery of Third Day

There's a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma's armsAt an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are
But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine
It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas
As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I'm warmed by the fire's glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,Make angels in the snow
But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven's angels come to carry you hereI
t's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas
Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
and we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life
and prepare a place for us so we could have a home with him above
It's Christmas time again and now you're home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I'll hold you in my arms
And I'll tell you from my heart, and I'll tell you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas

Goodnight, Grace! Next Christmas you will be home!

Merry Christmas. Grace!

We missed you this morning, Grace. We pray you are safe, happy, and well! We are working hard to get you home. This will be your last Christmas without us. Next year your day will be filled with laughter, love, and family.

Santa brought you a blanket and a Tinkerbell pillow. He must have known we are planning to do your room in Tinkerbell. I think he may have left you some things in North Carolina. We will know when we go back home.

Merry Christmas, Grace! We love you!

Progress

We have accomplished a lot the last few days. We have our medicals, the kids medicals, 6 more documents certified, and are online classes completed. We have 2 documents to complete and then we are just waiting on our homestudy and 171H. We have our third homestudy visit tomorrow night. We are eager to get this show on the road. The two major things-homestudy and 171H are out of our control. If we could just get those two we could get our dossier completed. Let's aim for the end of January.

2nd Homestudy visit

Well, today was the second homestudy visit. The kids talked to the social worker. Their interview was short and sweet. Then it was my turn. I don't do well one on one. I answered the questions but not as well as I would have liked. I guess there is no point worring about it. I am who I am.

First Homestudy Visit

One down, three to go. We met with our social worker today. It was about 1 1/2 hour visit. Tomorrow she will just be talking to me and some of the kids. Thursday night it will be Dallas' turn. She is really great. I am so glad we found her when we were looking for someone to do J's 3rd PPR.

We got our China physical form completed. Now we just need to send it to CHI to make sure it is O.K. We are getting there.

Still looking for PreApproval from China. Hoping it will come in the next month. Once we get that we will start decorating Grace's room.

The boys got their physicals today. After 3 1/2 hours total today in the doctor's office Julia and I were glad to be out of there. Hopefully the papers will be ready tomorrow. Good news is our physicals are ready and we can pick them up tomorrow. We, also, sent 6 more documents to be certified. We are hoping to have all of the documents done by the time the homestudy is completed.

Still not much happening on the adoption front. We did get our first document certified today from a different state. That gold seal is very impressive. Tomorrow we are going to try and drop off some documents to be certified in our state. I am concerned they are going to say they have the wrong notary stamp. I hope not because it will be a hassle to get the right stamp. The boys have their physicals tomorrow. We should be getting our physicals back Friday. Then the homestudy starts Saturday. We are making progress it is just slow.

No news

No news as far as the adoption goes. Today, Z's 8th birthday. We are going to Williamsburg for the weekend. Indoor waterpark should be lots of fun. Last weekend I took lots of pictures of the kids for Christmas cards. I will attach a couple of my favorites.

Physicals

Forgot to mention that we had our physicals, December 5. Glad to have that out of the way. We should be able to pick up the paperwork next week. We have to wait for the HIV test to come back negative.

Trip to Charlotte

Dh and I had a nice overnight trip to Charlotte. We arrived at the hotel at 11:30 last night and we up by 6:00. We went to the Application Support Center for our fingerprints. We did get our fingerprints but I don't have much faith in mine. The lady had difficulty getting good prints of my fingers. I am really hoping I don't have to go back. Plus, we were told my name could be changed when I got fingerprinted. No, the lady wouldn't do it under any circumstances. She wasn't even happy about me asking about it. So now our 171-H will probably come back wrong. You can't seem to get simple answers from people working for the government. Actually you can't get answers at all. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

We are doing the Happy Dance!

Yahoo! We are happy today. We are being fingerprinted Wednesday, December 6 in Charlotte. I can't believe it. That is exactly a week after we sent in our application. God is so good!

Peace

I was really upset yesterday about our dumb mistakes. I have peace now. It is all going to happen in God's time so getting upset doesn't do any good. If and when we get Grace is all up to God so I need to just chill and let him take control. Sometimes I get too uptight about the process and want everything done now. It just doesn't work that way. God has a plan for Grace and us. We just need to let it happen. Our homestudy probably won't be completed until the beginning of January. As long as we can still get fingerprinted in the next couple of weeks we will be fine. We may even be paper ready before we are mentally ready. But if God wants us to get Grace sooner than later than we are all for it, too.

Stupid mistakes

We have made so many dumb mistakes already. In our state it is very difficult to get the 171H quickly. It takes 2 months just to get fingerprinted. Well, we got a call today. Since Grace needs surgery they were going to do our fingerprints Dec. 6. They have only had our application a couple of days. Dumb us, we sent in the wrong amount. So now they have to return our application and we have to reapply. We tried to put a stop on the Fedex package going there but they never did stop it. So now our process is going to be delayed who knows how long because of our dumb mistake. Plus I didn't get the message until tonight, it was left this morning, so now I have to worry about this all weekend. I just hope they will quickly reissue us a new date. It really is unheard of to get one this quickly. I was in shock when I listened to the message. It is going to be a long weekend. I could just kick myself and dh.

We found out our LOI should be headed to China tomorrow. I can't wait to get PA. Once we get that I will start decorating Grace's room. Maybe PA will be our Christmas present this year. I can only hope and pray. If not it will be our New Year's present. Either way I can't wait. Then it will all seem more real. J is already talking about sharing toys with her little sister. She also says she won't push her. We were cleaning junk out of Grace's soon to be room today so J was asking lots of questions.

Another busy day of paperwork. Ended up having to just remail the application to CIS. Hopefully they will figure it out. We, also, wrote the check for too much. Praying it doesn't slow us down. We got our FBI fingerprints done and our local background check. We have sent away for certified copies of our birth and marriage certificates. We were also able to schedule physicals for the kids. Wish we could get all the paperwork done so we would be able to just wait. We don't start the homestudy until December 16. It will be a relief to have that done. DH is off to the beach for a few days so we were both relieved to get everything we could get done completed before he left.

Oops! Our first bump in the road...

I can't believe we made a mistake. This isn't the first time we have filled out this form. You would have thought we could get if right. At least we caught it before it was delivered. The document we did wrong would be the I 600-A. They are supposed to stop delivery tonight and return it do us tomorrow. DH is going out of town so lets hope it gets here before he leaves. We need to immediately turn it around and get this process started.

Whew! What a busy morning we had. The LOI and Agency packet are now headed to Utah. The I 600-A application is on its way to Charlotte. The Homestudy application and packet is going down the street to Raleigh. What a relief to have all that done. Now if we could just get PA, homestudy approval, and our 171-H we could be headed to China in no time. We also completed the first document that will go in our dossier. In an adoption you always seem to hurry, hurry, hurry to wait, wait ,wait. It is all worth it!

Poem for Grace

When we accepted Grace's referral, the China program director at our agency wrote this poem for her. Thank you, Stefani!

Its exciting to believe that dreams really come true I hope such a thing
happens to you It happened they say to lucky Maizie Long Fu

She was triking one day
At the photo shop, what? Unusual you say?
They snapped a great shot of her cute impish grin Trying to show her pure
charm deep within Something quite magic was starting out there....
So a family could see her, stand up and cheer!

Beside her was standing her kind foster Mom Sad the family finding was
taking so long It hasn't made sense! Why, has this been so?
Alone is no way for a child to grow!

Nobody loved her...? Poor Maizie Long Fu?
No! No! No! Such a thing is plainly not true!!
She had aunties and uncles and a foster family But she needed her own space,
her own place to be

Over and over again in her head
These are the words that sweet Maizie said, "I can surely find home,
Somebody see me.
Somebody love me. Somebody choose me."

Don't worry now little Miss Maizie Long Fu Somebody saw you, loved you,
and has chosen YOU!
Mom, Dad, sister and big brothers three
All together, oh my, how happy you'll be!!

Thats how it happened. Maizie is happy today.
The last girl to be placed from Group 16A.
And we are all pleased and shouting with cheers Because the wet on our
cheeks are from such happy tears!

The Beginning

On Tuesday, November 21 we decided to adopt Grace. She was born on March 20, 2005. We have officially begun the paperchase. If only we could just snap our fingers and have her home. We are trying to decide on the perfect name. We really want her first name to be Grace but haven't found a middle name to go with it.

Today we recieved the information from the adoption agency. I sat in the car for an hour reading over it. I can't believe I am going to have 2 girls. It was so exciting to see printed pictures of our little girl. She has the cutest smile. I can already tell her sister and her are going to always be up to something.