Fabulous Friday!

As you can see from the billboard, we are now less than a month from boarding our plane to China and only 30 days until we meet our precious new son for the very first time--that definitely makes it a Fabulous Friday!  The kids also think it is a fabulous day because they woke up very late this morning for school to hear the great news that it was a SNOW DAY!  Gotta love it!

Check out our blog over the next couple of weeks as I begin posting about our trip, itinerary, facts about the areas we will be staying and visiting while in China, facts about Jax's early beginnings, and our story of how God literally placed an email in our Inbox that has forever changed our lives!  Stay tuned!

Build-A-Bear Outing for Jax!

Today after church, the six of us decided to go to Build-A-Bear Workshop to build Jax a stuffed animal for Shon and I to take with us to China.  I got this idea from a friend of mine who is in China right now adopting two children!  I thought this was a fun idea and it proved to be a great bonding excursion for our entire family.  The kids all worked together to find just the right animal to stuff and the winning animal was the PANDA BEAR-which is kind of ironic, since the Panda is native to China!  He is very cute indeed!  Pictures will follow this post.

After choosing the bear, filling him with stuffing, placing a heart with our love inside, and sewing his back closed...we went to choose an outfit for him.  We wanted him to show his American patriotism and with the winter olympics this year, the kids chose a hoody with USA and the olympic rings on the front and a pair of jeans to match.  It is so cute--the hoody has two holes for his ears and the shorts have a hole for his tail!  They thought of everything! 

Now, it is time for a name.  We couldn't think of anything in the store of course, but after getting to the car, Shon thought of the perfect name.  Jax's new panda bear is named "Mao."  So, the bear is technically named after Jax's last name in Chinese, which is Mao.  Every child in Jax's orphanage is given the last name Mao because they are from Maoming, China.  Ironically, after getting home we looked up how to say panda in chinese and it is "xiong mao" meaning "bear cat," so his panda is actually named somewhat correctly! 

We had a lot of fun making this for Jax and we just hope he enjoys it and that it brings him some comfort during his first few days with us that may be so very difficult for him!  Enjoy the photos!

 

Testing...Testing...123

Just checking to see if this post will work via email, which is how we will have to post when we are in China as the blog sites are usually blocked.  Here we go!  I have attached a photo of the most recent care package we sent to Jax!  It includes a traditional Chinese outfit for him to wear on Chinese New Year, candy for him and his friends, a toy car, and a letter from us letting him know when we are coming for him and how excited we are that he is going to be a part of our family! 

We are now at “T minus” 36 days until we leave for China and are getting more excited by the day!

Have Approval...Will Travel!!

Well, it is official--we are going to China to bring Jax home!!  We received "THE CALL" yesterday from our agency informing us we had travel approval and our Consulate appointment in Guangzhou, China for Jax's Visa is scheduled for Monday, March 8th at  9:00am!  So, what does all of this mean you ask??? 

It means our travel dates will be the following...We will leave Wichita on Thursday, February 25th and will return home from China on Friday, March 12th.  Our "Gotcha" Day for Jax should be Monday, March 1st or Tuesday, March 2nd!!  We are getting closer to holding that little boy of ours--oh, that is if he wants to be held by his new strange parents!  We pray that Jax will adjust easily to us, but we are prepared for a longer adjustment period than with Jaida because he is so much older than she is and we are also expecting that he might grieve quite a bit while we are in China.  Can you imagine being almost 5 years old and just one day being handed over to complete strangers with all you've ever known just completely stripped from you--oh his precious soul--I have prayed many times that God will prepare his heart for his acceptance of us as his new family! 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it has been a long 11 months since we first saw Jax's sweet face, and we never knew if this day would ever come and even though there were many times of impatience on my part, it is amazing how PERFECT God's timing is once again!  Even though we would have loved to have been traveling sooner to get Jax, these dates that were chosen for us are perfect as they work out for those who will be watching over our four precious children while we are gone, it allows for the kids' sport activities to come to an end, and it allows us to be here for our daughter Mikayla's cataract surgery and to have that completed before we leave.  God is GOOD!  We have a lot of packing and preparation to do now, so will help the days to move by a little quicker and before we know it, we will be on that dreaded long flight to China!  Thanks for following along on our journey and we will keep you posted as time goes along.  We look forward to posting to you all from China!

Trish

It's My Blog and I Can Cry if I Want To....

Or yell, scream, have a temper tantrum, or eat too much chocolate....you've probably guessed from Jaida's expression (exactly how I feel) what happened today--that's right--No Travel Approval yesterday or today!  Some other agencies did receive their Travel Approvals yesterday, so many of those adoptive families will be leaving for China in less than 10 days.  Oh, how I wish that were us!  The unfortunate thing is that I can't even find out from our agency if they received any TAs, so I can at least know that they just haven't received any yet this week and that there is still hope for some to come later this week.  Or did our agency receive a batch of TAs and ours just didn't happen to be with those and it will be another week or more???  That is the question of the week that is going to drive me to the edge :)  I love roller coasters, but this is not my idea of a fun RIDE!  I want off the roller coaster and on the plane......to Maoming, China!  Thanks for hanging in there with us!

Blessings,

Trish   

No TA today, but Monday's a Coming!

Well, it is Saturday morning and I am up before all the hub bub begins. It is so quiet and still, which is quite unusual for our home and I am going to enjoy that for a few minutes while I write this update.  As you can tell by our fortune above, we didn't receive our Travel Approval last week so in order for us to travel before Chinese New Year, we will have to receive our TA by Wednesday of next week and I am trying to remain hopeful!  In the adoption community, we live for a weekday because we know that China is at work and hopefully getting all those TAs ready to be sent out.  It is so hard when another week passes without some type of word from our agency and then we pray for the weekend to go by fast so we can get to Sunday night because we know that Sunday night is actually Monday morning in China and they are back to work again working on all of those approvals--crazy how us adoptive Moms think isn't it?!

Truly, I know that God is good and faithful and everything will happen at the right time and in His timing, which is always perfect beyond measure.  Last night at dinner I have to wonder though if God were trying to give me another sign because as we were eating our Baked Ziti for dinner, I went to take a bite of my Ceaser Salad and happened to look down before I put it into my mouth and there was a ladybug on my lettuce.  Not quite sure how it got there, although it did appear to be dead.  I am quite sure that ladybugs cannot survive in subzero temperatures like we have been having all week, but nonetheless, it was in my salad.  We all had a good laugh about it!  Ladybugs happen to be a sign of "good luck" in the adoption community, so I am hoping that means our TA will be here on Monday or Tuesday as these are the days that our agency typically receives them from China. 

Well, enough of my rambling for today.  I hear some footsteps coming up the stairs so that means the day has begun.  Shon has guard drill and will be gone for the day; the twins will be meeting with some friends at the church to begin working on a leadership course; the house is clean from my major cleaning endeavors last night after taking down all of the Christmas decorations, so Josh, Jaida, and I will hang out together for the day doing anything we want!  Still too cold to really do anything that would require me to leave my warm car for more than a few seconds!  Have a wonderful weekend and we will keep you posted on any news this coming week.  If you are of the praying type, please lift a prayer up for us and our Travel Approval!

Trish

New Photos of Jax and Updated Information

More good news! As I was fretting about our Article 5, I decided it would be good to send Jax another care package and letter to remind him that we are still coming and to tell him when we will be there for him. This was yesterday...well, this morning what happened to appear in my Inbox from Ann at Red Thread China, but updated measurements and eight amazing photos of Jax!

Oh my goodness, my big little boy is growing up! He is so cute and has an amazing smile! His smile really reminds me of Jaida's in so many ways. We just can not wait to go get our son! I love his longer hair and I hope they don't cut it before we get him--he has definitely got some styling going on, don't you think?! So glad we will get to celebrate his 5th Birthday with him in March--no more birthdays for him without a forever family--yeah! Hope you enjoy the photos and we will keep you updated on our Travel Dates in the next few weeks.






Till then,

Trish

Lots of Good News!

We've had a little bit of good news this week and wanted to share it with everyone. In my last post, we were wondering when our Article 5 would be issued by the US Consulate in China and were worried that it was taking much longer than the "average," which there typically is no average when your dealing with international adoption, but nonetheless, I was starting to frett. Well, after making some phone calls to the Visa Center, sending some pleading emails to our agency, and emailing the Consulate we finally received an update from our agency yesterday and it is better than we had hoped. Our Article 5 was actually issued a few days before Christmas and sent to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) in Beijing. So, what does this mean for us?

We are now just waiting for Travel Approval and then we can set up our flights, etc and will be on our way to bring Jax home...finally! And we are also already at least two weeks into our wait for Travel Approval and the average to receive this from Article 5 is anywhere from 2-4 weeks. We could be getting travel approval any day now! Oh my gosh, I really need to start packing. I have really done nothing in the way of preparing for our trip yet and I still need to get all of our Christmas decorations and tree taken down and put away.

I am trying not to get my hopes up too high because if we don't get our Travel Approval by next Friday, we will definitely have to wait until after the Chinese New Year to travel, which means we wouldn't be able to leave until the 20th of February or around there. I know I have likened the wait during adoption to the pains of actual labor and having done both more than once, I can definitely say that the adoption wait is so much worse and it is like "let's just give birth already!"

In all honesty, I am truly praising God for this news we received yesterday. I have praying since Monday that He would just give us a little sign that things are progressing, that He would give us just a little glimpse of HOPE. God is so faithful and He answers prayer! I'll be posting again for some more good news--check it out!

Trish