Grant's Birthday Party!

Today I received Grants's birthday party pictures. It looks like they got him up from his nap and the celebration began. I LOVE the cake complete with a firework on top. He looks a little frightened - at almost 40 I too might have been a little nervous about the flame.
I wonder if it is as good as it looks? Have to try it out in China."Mmmmmm"

Any ideas about the red dot?
It is amazing how this girl can feed a two year old frosting and not have a lick on him. How did she get him to keep his hands on the table?
"Whew, sensory overload, can I go back to my nap?"

Article 5 - Visas - The Flu

Today started out to be such an exciting day because we found out the only thing we are now waiting for is the CCAA to sign off on our papers. Once that is done they will send us our TA. This is great news and perhaps/maybe we will travel around the end of November. It is all becoming so real and I go from being so excited to scared to paniced about the 5 we will leave here.

We also received our VISAS today!!!!!

And then Grace came home with a high fever and other symptoms similar to her sister, Olivia. Olivia is just now getting over the flu.

Fortunately, after our 3 day weekend last week we have a semi-cleared out bedroom to for quaranteen. We decided to move Olivia and Annabel upstairs. They were in a little room off the kitchen - very far the the rest of us. The transfer involved reshelving and paint two closets, moving Grace from her own room to share a room with Amelia and moving Annabel and Olivia to what used to be Grace's room. (confusing I know) I also transfered the children's clothes from summer to winter - CHAOS! DISASTER!

The rooms are almost finished and they turned out really cute as our girls are quiet the decorators! :)

Quinn and Grant will share a room - I hope. I have never had a toddler and a child share a room and I pray it works. The last three days with Grace and Amelia together have been okay, although Amelia is a talker! I have a very dear friend that has promised me for years that it will work - Amy it rest on you! Anyway, we will use the room down by the kitchen for guests and sick children - Gee wanna come stay with us?

So for the next few days, Grace will rest on mattress sitting on what used to be Olivia and Annabel's floor. The guestroom/sick room is our next big project! and the list goes on . . . praying we can finish most before we travel.

It Is All About Perspective

"This is my daddy and mama!"

When Quinn's teacher asked him to search through magazines to find a picture of his parents this is what he picked. I cannot quite put my finger on exactly what is so funny about his choice!
What do you suppose this this an advertisement for?
It made my day!

Happy Birthday Grant!

Little Yinan is two! Oh how we wish we could all be there to celebrate with him. I have sent gifts and hopefully he will have a cake delivered today. We are about to go to bed - he is about to celebrate his big day - half a world away. My heart is very heavy. I do wish we could have brought him home by now. I am trusting His timing, some days are just more difficult than others. I am also sad thinking about all the orphan's lives that are not celebrated.

Birthday blessings sweet Grant!

Kissable!

Almost Two Years Old!

After a longgggg day of home schooling I received such a wonderful gift - Updated pictures of Grant!!!! There is no greater gift while you are waiting to adopt your child. I am shocked at how he has grown, well let me say grown hair. We received a medical update on him last week that made me sad. He has not gained any weight, but he has grown 2 inches. He is so small for his age and he should be putting on the pounds. I think he has left his foster family and returned to the orphanage and perhaps that is the reason for the lack of weight gain.

He looks adorable in these pictures and seeing them has really calmed my heart. I have heard so many wonderful things about his orphanage and I believe they are taking good care of him.

We are so hoping that we are about 40 days away from receiving a travel approval from China. My heart will melt when I am able to kiss those precious cheeks.

"Isn't She Something?"

One time, only one time, an adult friend of ours made this face at Amelia. She now loves it! When she sees a camera this is now Her face. Amelia's teachers have tried almost everything to get a "good" picture of her, often commenting, "Isn't she something?" They have finally given up and posted a picture on the classroom door similar to this one, only in their picture Amelia is wearing a big beautiful bow and a smocked dress. She makes me smile!

Is 60 Days A Long Time?

Grant's Social Welfare Institute in Chengdu

I have been reading adoption packing lists from other families. I have to laugh because when you combine more than one list - the list soon gets much larger:). For some reason, I have spent too much time reading about the best bottle to take. I can so easily get focused on one thing and take it entirely too far. I really CANNOT wait to feed Grant a bottle! Even if he no longer use a bottle, he is going to get it back. It doesn't even have to be milk - I think I am taking just about every kind - (I am not kidding), except Dr. Browns ( too slow), I thought that one would frustrate him.

We are at least 60 days out from China sending us an invitation to travel - best case scenario. This next letter is called a TA. Once we receive our TA, we will schedule an appointment with the US Consulate in Guangzhou. So we are a couple of months away and I almost have Grant packed.

Skip and I will travel to China. The older girls really would like to go, but I really think this time should just be for Grant. Recently, I have had dreams about traveling with them. The last dream one of the girls was brushing their teeth and using the tap water - Because I forgot to remind them to not use the tap water! Nightmare! Anyway, I am so looking forward to traveling with Skip as he is a bit more responsible (LOL)! and it has been a very long time since we have been on a trip together.

As we look into traveling, we have found that adding Beijing to our travel will cost a bit more money. The more conservative trip for us would be flying into Hong Kong, going to Chengdu then to Guangzhou. I do think Hong Kong would be wonderful to see, I just have had my heart set on going to Beijing and New Day for a long time. God will work out that detail.

I am also am wondering if we need to take a video recorder/cam recorder. We do have one, from about 10 years ago. My father gave it to us before Olivia was born - ALMOST 11 years ago! It works great, but the battery has issues. We had to replace the original battery and the new one has to be forcefully but carefully rigged up to the charger - there is a 50/50 chance that the battery will be charged after 12 hours. It is very unpredictable. ? would I regret not having a video tape?

Embracing Grant

I still cannot believe our LOA arrived last week. I cannot believe China said YES, that we could be Grant's parents. The days that followed I could not help in the wee morning hours going over and over our adoption journey in my mind. I also could not get my arms around why I had been so hesitant to believe that Grant was indeed our son. Slowly I have realized how much I have guarded my heart. This journey has been one of the most difficult and moving times we have ever had. I will never know the whys or the difficult forks in the road we encountered. God had lifted the veil on some of the heartbreaking times and then there are others that we are
other times that are still unclear and hurt as deeply as they did the day they happened.

In these wee morning hours I can circle the mountain and wonder - what if I did this or what if we would have had more faith or what if . . . it all comes down to me not wanting to feel pain and needing to trust that just because I did not get what I wanted, He is still good. I do not want to hurt and quite honestly I know that God does not want me to hurt. But if this was the path to our son, I would do it all over again. When God so graciously put adoption in my heart, I had no idea what He was up to. And despite the trials, there has been so much victory! I have been set free, places that I had pretty much given up on. Praises! I am so glad I poured my heart out and the blessings certainly outweigh the pain.

I am so thankful that The Almighty's ways are higher and so much grander than I will ever know. His blessings are abundant and take our hearts to places we do not know even exist.
I would not change one second of this journey if I had to go back. I am so utterly grateful for the way it all turned out. And without any doubt in my mind, I know Grant Yi Nan is my son - I will never look him in the eyes and wonder. He is no longer an orphan, he is my son - And during those early morning hours, I can hardly imagine what holding him is going to feel like, as I hug him with absolute joy and praise - as he cries in fear and uncertainty. I get to love him! And I can say, I know you are scared, but trust me it is going to be good sweet Grant.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY!!!!!!

91 Days Closer

I can hardly wait to see Grant - will he look like his pictures? Will we scare him? Who will he initially want to be with? Skip? Me? It seems like we have been looking at his sweet picture for so much longer than 91 days.

The New House

Before

After

These are the before and after pictures of our house. We are settled in now - Whew!!!
We do have a lot of painting left, but for the most part all of the major work is finished.

The tropical depressions have come through our area and we have had a lot of rain, which introduced us to some leaks. Off the back of our house we have two sun rooms; one upstairs off of the kitchen, and another one below it downstairs. Both of them (upstairs and down) are leaking. In addition to leaks, we have a horrible ant problem. I really think that because the house sat vacant for so long, these little critters settled in. Last week I opened my car door and it was full of ants! I will say we do have crumbs in our car, but for the most part it is clean. We are trying to overcome these tiny little beasts - very difficult! I do not like ants at all and our two younger girls use to scream at the sight of one - now we just take turns smashing them. If anyone has any ant advice, we welcome it! We are in the process of mapping out a plan with our exterminator - Perhaps we live on an ant bed, I really do not know?

Notwithstanding the leaks, we actually love the sun rooms. One positive about the sun room upstairs is its roof... it is aluminum and glass. I have always wanted a cabin with a tin roof because I love the sound of the rain hitting it - not a downpour - but just gentle rain. It is such a soothing beautiful sound. The last few weeks, the rains have been very hard and when it hits the sun room roof it can be pretty loud (in addition to the aluminum and glass, the floor is tile without any rugs.) God does have a sense of humor and I use it to remind me of how far we have all come. Two years ago it was frantic when the weather changed and now everyone always knows when the weather is changing because you can hear it AND praises! there is no fear!!!!! everyone just moves to a quieter room. He blesses us beyond measure!

Day 77 Waiting For LOA

So Absolutely Adorable! (20 mths)

A couple months ago we asked Brian Stuy if he would try and find the newspaper with Grant's finding ad. He did find it and oh what an adorable picture! The picture is grainy, but you can make out Grant at 3 months old - PRECIOUS ! He is very tiny and has big round eyes. The newspaper is so sad. There are about 30 children on the page - infants through 8 years old - all abandoned. It is such an honor to look at Grant's precious face knowing God chose him to bless us. There are millions of orphans in the world and this particular one will be our son. It is really overwhelming to think about.

Anyway, one of Grant's characteristics listed in his finding ad was he had an umbilical hernia. In all of our paperwork, we had never read he had a hernia. We were totality fine with him having a hernia, however, in order to get Grant's visa in China, our home study report has to list that we are able to handle Grant's medical condition - each condition listed, and this one had not been listed - OH MY! To list it we would have to file another addendum/Supplement 3 AND pay for another home study update.
We called our WONDERFUL China agency coordinator asked if she could ask about Grant's umbilical hernia. She contacted her China representative and he send an email today a saying that when the orphanage received Grant, it looked as if he had an umbilical hernia and they felt that was important to include in the ad. He did not and does not have a hernia. That was great news, but they actually spoke to the orphanage! and that was all that was said?!?! Yes, that was all that was discussed! - did they did not say anything else about the most adorable little boy in all of China -

I am just flat out chatty, because there is no way I could make any call and just ask one question.

As time goes by my heart aches for Grant - I would love to know every tiny detail about his life - I would even take one detail from the week - or month for that matter. When our coordinator realized how badly we wanted any additional information, she kindly offered to get a full update - we decided to wait until closer to travel.

Here is what we do know about Grant:
He smiles.

He loves sweets. He is a Perkins!

height 75.5 cm (29.7 inches), weight 9.2 kg (19 lbs) - I have no idea of his clothing size

He was sent to a foster family out of the orphanage when he was 11 months of age.

Nan Nan (his nickname) has four other foster siblings. He loves to play with them all. PERFECT~ how about one more to play with!

He can walk now, but he prefers to have one hand holding while walking. I get to be THAT person!

I cannot wait to know so much more about him!

Anyway, If you are new to China adoption process, I highly recommend you watch National Geographic's documentary called China's Lost Girls. It is very moving and does a great job discussing China's one child policy. Lisa Ling follows a family through the great adventure in China adopting their daughter. They are even from Atlanta! It will show you what the process will look like for us in China.

You can view this documentary for free on www.hulu.com. In the search box type China's Lost Girls and then chose the picture of Lisa Ling with a little Chinese girl labeled China's Lost Girls.

Supplement 3 Approved!

Wow, we just had great news delivered. I will have to back up to explain. As soon as we closed on our house, we had to send Immigration a home study addendum/Supplement 3. Our social worker had to come and visit our new home and rewrite certain parts of our home study. Immigration has to know our exact address and if our house meets certain standards - considering the condition of this house, our Social Worker had A LOT of confidence in us. I really think they want to know that everyone is not living in one room (although we were at one point :) and that it is a relatively safe home- also qustionable at times. Our wonderful social worker quickly wrote the addendum/Supplement 3. Anyway, Immigration approved our move and new home study addendum! Yesterday we found out that it was not delivered to Immigration until the 10th by FedEx overnight. I have been checking for a week to see if they recieved it - NO one could find it. Yes, we mailed on the 3rd and they received on the 10th?? God is grand and much bigger than extended overnight service! Our move has had no effect on Grant's adoption, I am so thankful and THRILLED. We are on day 71 waiting for LOA and totality trusting God and His timing.

Sweet Grant I love this house because it is where we will be bringing you home. It will not be long.