the sheep that sheared itself in church

Anna and Abbie were in our church's Christmas play this past week. It was a very cute take on the Christmas story as told from the animal's perspective. Anna and Abbie were sheep dressed in white flannel zip - up outfits with matching hoods, black mits and black boots. They were very cute! Anna was the perfect little sheep - very shy and polite and right on cue. Abbie started the play out by running down the church aisle to her Uncle Steve, Mike's brother, to tell him he couldn't have her crown (long story) and then ran back up to the podium. Then 2/3's of the way through the play, she declared she was hot and began to strip off her costume as she came running down the aisle to me. Thank goodness Grandma had dressed her in shorts and a t-shirt underneath the costume!!!!!!!! Once sheared of her "wool", the little sheep skittered back up to the podium and proudly sang the final song with the group.

Curious Abbie

My inner perfectionist as of late has been stretched by one little pint sized dynamo who could be cut from the same cloth as Curious George (animated adventure on Public Television). I am beginning to believe that part of Abbie's purpose in life, while she is young, is to stretch those of us around her to experience a life with fewer boundaries. As Rick Warren would put it, "the day you resign as General Manager of the Universe, you're going to find that life doesn't fall apart. You can relax in faith, trusting that God is able to run things without your help." I have news for Mr. Warren...yes, the universe doesn't fall apart, but it sure does get a whole lot messier. My little dynamo has recently locked Anna and I in the basement (and has not been able to let us back out), has attempted to climb over the balcony banister at church ("Mommy, you would have caught me. It's OK"), has broken Mike's computer by banging on it(don't know yet how broken it is), fed the cats her Apple Jacks and milk within minutes of me collecting 4 of them for a 35 minute long ride to the vet (I will never eat Apple Jacks again), has picked Styrofoam packing apart tiny piece by piece to get to the Christmas ornament stored in the box (think "snowstorm" effect in the Rec room), has prayed at the lunch table that God would not let Daddy, Mommy, KK, Rodney and Anna die because she likes us (where does she come up with this stuff?) and at one time or another has taken every object she lays her hands on and after using it correctly, decides to experiment with it to see what else she can make it do (like the time she washed her hands after going potty at Grandmas, then decided to leave the water running with the sink plugged. We discovered the waterfall and flood a hour later [think water in the duct-work].) She is very quick and very curious so it seems I'm always a step behind the little tornado as she moves from room to room. My consolation is that in all this I am witnessing that she is very, very bright and that I am being shaken loose from my comfortable place of being "in control". My house stands in mute testimony to the fact that I have been stretched out of my comfort zone. Which leads me to the tiny little question nagging me lately - will Wyatt tip the scales to the inmates having total control of the prison?

Anna & Abbie's wish for you

We are DTC!!!!!!

Woo hoo! WE ARE DTC (dossier to China)! Wow, I can't believe it! The countdown has begun - I'm not sure exactly how long to count down but I can start counting!!!!

Trick or Treat

We had our own version of CATS on Halloween. As you can see, Abbie has a smile which now matches her personality. She fell in a grocery store in August and shoved that tooth up into her gum. It came back down and all seemed fine within a week. Then a couple weeks ago I noticed she had a large abscess above that tooth and off to the dentist we went. Long story short - the tooth had to go, the tooth fairy paid a visit and Abbie took it all in stride.

Good news!

We got a bill from our international agency! Normally I wouldn't be too happy about a big bill but I'm ecstatic about this one because it means our dossier will be winging to China next week!!!!!! Wooo hooo! Let the count down begin!

Good news and bad news

First the good news...our paperwork has gone through the state and federal seal process and is now in the hands of our international adoption agency, Harrah Family Services. Hopefully this means that our dossier will leave the U.S. soon and head to China.

The bad news is that then we have to wait up to 3 months for official approval from China and then upon receiving that, we have to submit another application to the INS for approval. Based on our experience with the INS this summer, no one is willing to hazard a guess as to how long that will take. I'm not even sure what this second application is or what it pertains to. All these changes have come about because of the Hague Convention so this is a new ballgame for us.

Nutshell: we're still moving forward (albeit at a snail's pace).

Our I 800A was approved!

On Monday, Sept 22, our I 800 A petition to the INS to bring a foreign born orphan to the U.S. was approved. Now we're waiting for the paperwork to arrive

Fingerprint appointment scheduled

We finally have our fingerprint appointment and its this week! Our I-800A revisions are back to the INS and we're waiting for their approval. PTL, things are moving along! We've been enjoying the Olympics many nights. Everytime Abbie sees a little Chinese boy on TV she excitedly exclaims, "There's Hai!"

Horse play

Topper (19) and Chippy (23) are still my best (almost human) buds.

Anna is taking riding lessons from a wonderful teacher who is our neighbor down the road.

Living in a girls world

Mike is looking forward to having another guy around the house! Abbie decided Daddy should babysit her baby while he was sleeping.

Finally some forward movement

We have a new agent from the INS now and she's really moving on stuff! PTL! She sent us her revision requests yesterday and we have 45 days to fix things and return them to her. I faxed my changes in yesterday but my social worker has a lot to do on the homestudy to meet the Hague Convention's guidelines. I'm so excited and relieved that we're once again moving forward though!!!!!

Big scare this week

I received an email from our Texas/China agency talking about Special Needs children's adoption, the process, the timing involved, etc. - kind of an overview of the new process. One of the statements in the email was that if you were matched with a SN child prior to completing your dossier, you would only have 3 months in which to complete it or you would loose your match with the child. I felt like I'd been gut-kicked when I read this because we've already been at this for 3 + months and still don't have a completed dossier (thanks to the INS). Of course I read this email from the agency at 6:10 Eastern time so was too late to call them and ask if this truly affected us. Mike and I waited with our stomachs in a knot until 11:30 the next day when the agency emailed me back to say we were a part of the old system and Hai was ours - we were ok. I laid my head down on the desk and cried for a couple minutes from shear relief. Its strange how attached you get to someone you've never met while you're waiting for them to show up. Kind of like pregnancy I guess...

Another answer to prayer came in a miraculous way. One revision to our I-800A application was that I had to have criminal background checks for every state I'd lived in since the age of 18. I remembered my address from Illinois, but did not remember my address from Iowa and really had no way to find it. I called my Mom who also didn't know how to find this address. She went into prayer about it and heard "go look in the filing cabinet under Kim's old medical files." She thought that was silly, that it wouldn't be there, but she went and did it anyway. Even as she was looking through the file, she wondered why she was looking in that particular file. And there it was - my old Iowa State U. apartment address. The power of God at work, a prayer request, a listener and another confirmation that this is God's call, His journey, His provision. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you God for your provision.

INS update

I called the INS I-800A department yesterday and was plunged into the I-800A black hole. No updates have been made to our file although we have been assigned an agent. I called our social worker who said that 100% of the I-800A's were being sent back for revisions and that to her knowledge, not one I-800A in the nation had made it through yet. As a result, there is a huge backlog of I-800A's to be processed by the government. To think we are caught in the middle of American red tape when we're going to a communist country is indeed ironic.

Kid pictures

I caught Mike and KK unawares last summer. Too cute that they were posed alike!

Anna and Abbie at soccer this Spring.

Thank you for your prayers and comments

As I struggle with this time delay, I am bolstered up by your prayers and words of wisdom. I know that though this was a surprise to us it was no surprise to God. Thanks Lisa for reminding me of that in a fresh new way. I rejoice with Kate today on her receipt of her LOA (letter of approval) which now opens the door for her to go get their new little one. I rejoice with each of you who are allowed to experience the fullness, chaos, exhaustion, boundless joy and God moments that come in the midst of family and friendships. I wouldn't trade this craziness for anything!

I-800A update - news not so great

I called the INS Monday and found out we had just been assigned an agent, however its taking 30 days to process each application and most of them do not have the correct wording required for a fingerprint date to be given. So most of them are being sent back to the social workers and applicants for revision. If its sent back, there is no time estimate currently for how long the whole process of waiting for a date and getting fingerprints is taking. So where are we at right now? We have to wait 30 days to see if we get an appointment for fingerprints or not. Ugh! With this development, we may not be traveling till early Spring. Please pray that Wyatt is being loved and is learning to love. Please pray that he won't have hearing damage from his cleft palate issues. Thank you so much for partnering with us on this! - Kim

Kaylyn's graduated from highschool! She goes off to college this fall to major in athletic training. Wise choice given all the personal experience she's had with sports injury (ahem... 2 MRI's, multiple x-rays, crutches, splints, braces, wraps, ices baths, rollers, etc. , etc.) We'll be missing her!

recent family pictures

Abbie just had her 3rd birthday which she anticipated and enjoyed immensely!


Anna and Abbie pose in the pool for Mommy

where are we now?

If you're wondering where we currently are in the adoption process... we are waiting. (That happens a lot in adoption.) Our I-800A form has been received by U.S. immigration and we are waiting for word from them. It didn't take this long last time but the U.S. has joined the Hague Convention and has thus changed forms and procedures as of April 30, 2008. We're among the first month's filers in the new system so everyone is learning the ropes. We're hoping they will give us our fingerprint appointment, but they may request more information if they feel we did not adequately meet the new filing requirements. After fingerprints, we can have our dossier sealed, translated and sent off to China at which point the countdown to Hai begins! At this point, the earliest we could travel is probably Thanksgiving. We hold to dates lightly though as we've found time estimates change often in international adoption.

Some of the particulars

Hai is located in mountainous Nanping City, Fujian Province, China. He was born in April of 2006 having a bilateral cleft lip and palate. His lip was surgically repaired while his palate will be repaired when he comes home with us to the States. He is said to be active, easy to smile, plays with toys, quick in reaction, extroverted and energetic. His favorite activity is going outside to play.

Update pictures

A secret desire in my heart was that Haohai and his nannies would find out that we were trying to adopt him before his 2nd birthday the first week of April. How excited we were to find out that another family from our agency traveled to Hai's institution around that time and not only told them, but took pictures of him for us! How amazing is that!

The beginning

Mike and I had felt the urge to continue adding to our family even as we made the flight home with Abbie in October of 2006. Boy were we tired though! So we let the idea lie for a while. We would take the idea out every so often and pray about it, discuss it, consider directions to go in and then since the "call" was not strong yet, we would put it away again. During the new year of 2008, my nights began to be haunted by some encounters we had in China. Encounters involving children who did not yet have a forever family. One such encounter was most haunting to me - eye contact with a desperate woman outside a restaurant who pushed her baby into Mike's arms while begging us to take her. We could not take the baby legally and she could not give her to us that way legally so we turned and walked away broken hearted for her and for her baby. I began to pray for her and the others but the dreams would not relent. So we asked God "what do you want us to do?" Immediately small pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place leading again toward adoption and we began to research various options. Mike and I decided to contact our old adoption agency as part of this "research" and asked to see their waiting child list just to see what kind of children were "out there". As picture after picture of waiting children popped on my screen, I felt I was just again gathering information until Hai's picture popped up. I stared! His picture seemed to jump off the page! With shaking hands, I downloaded his information and began to read becoming more excited by the minute. We knew we had to go after Hai... and so we did. We thought, "If this isn't right, the doors will close and the process will stop." Every door opened and the process continues to this day. This journey is in God's hands, with His timing and His results in the end. We've stepped out on this journey knowing that in life nothing is guaranteed, but also knowing that God is good and will be with us no matter what. As such, we hold our hearts in our hands seeking the face and warmth of a little boy we will name Wyatt (little warrior).

Haohai in June 2007