Emotions

"Where is the LOA for my Ruthie WeiHuan?"

"Okay, if that does work, I'll try this!"

Pleeease CCAA send Ruthie Weihuan's LOA!"

Happy Fall Y'all

We have really been enjoying the fall. It is beautiful here this time of year and the temperature is amazing. It is nice to spend more time outside and the colors of the leaves are spectacular.

These are some fun pictures from a festival we went to this past weekend. We joined some good friends for a day of fun and a night of roasting hot dogs and marsh mellows. All the fun of camping and no sleeping in a tent! (LOL) It doesn't get any better!

brave

sweet

free

joy

kind

life

love

missed

Day 61 waiting for LOA. We are soooo close!

Happy Birthday Grant!

first day ~ December 2009 ~ Chengdu China

now

Sweet Grant is 4

he is

busy smart brave
highly capable
strong character quick extremely observant
Passonate about sweets funny
Joyful beautiful
easily excitable
full of love

My precious gift that only God could have hand picked just for me. I love you with a love that is much greater than anything I have to give. I am grateful for you. Happy happy birthday!

I LOVE ladybugs!

In the China adoption community there is a belief that if you spot a ladybug, then good news is coming soon. We are on day 57 waiting for our LOA (second to last approval to bring Ruthie Joy home). Yes, we are counting every single second. My sweet dear friend, who is also waiting on LOA for her daughter Willa, delivered this to my door step. We have both been looking every day for some good news. Hoping and praying we get our LOA news at the same time! This really brightened my wait!

It will be here soon and I cannot wait!

Opps . . .

I forgot to post the update of Ruthie Joy. Busy, busy busy is my only excuse. We are now on day 40 waiting for our LOA YEAHHHHHH!

Anyway, back to the report.

I love reading this report. God's plans are perfect and wonderful!

She can sit up and crawl, stand up with support, can hold on to railing when held under arms, she may walk alone in the future, yet very likely the deformity of her feet would affect her walking and motor function. (We believe she will be walking before we get to China. I will post this week about why Ruthie is considered special needs).

She is in rehabilitation at present time and is using diapers all day long. ( I am so thankful for her therapy)

She gets along well with caretakers and other children. She likes being held and every time when held, she would hold on the caretaker's neck with cheek to cheek. (Oh my, I cannot wait to be cheek to cheek with sweet Ruthie!)

When playing together, sometimes she grabs other children's toys while sometimes hers may be grabbed by others, however, she will try to grab them back as otherwise she will cry. (Perfect fit!)

Her nickname is Huan Huan which means Joy Joy. SMILE

She loves cookies and candies and uses a bottle. (Sweet tooth ~ just like daddy and Grant)

She cries when she is upset, hungry or being bullied by other children.
She stops crying when comforted. She will cry if she is not the first one to get her meal. (happens just about every meal here at home with at least one child)

She is very bright. (Just like her mama ~ LOL)

I just adore her! and do I really have to wait? Are we almost there?

Camping

This past weekend my family and I went tent camping along with some other families. Everyone was very excited about adventure except for me. For the last five years, Skip has taken the older children camping with a group of other fathers. I always gladly stayed home with the little ones. When this group invited us to come along and the thought of how much fun the fellowship would be I eagerly said YES! I really did not have an excuse this time because our youngest, Grant, will be four on Monday.

Over all, the fellowship was such a blessing and I loved spending time with these families. I wish I could say I LOVED camping or that I did it well. When we first got there the smell of the campfire brought back wonderful childhood memories. The temperature was perfect and the children were full of excitement and after 5 hours of running around and endless burnt marshmallows and chocolate (they skipped the graham crackers) they all crashed hard!

After a sweet time sitting around the quiet campfire with our friends, it was time for us to go to bed. I crawled into the tent for 8 and slid into my new sleeping bag atop the large blow up mattress. In that moment I could not take in enough of the sounds and fresh air, being surrounded with my precious children and wonderful husband. I praised God for the day and how the bright moon lit up the tent and the beautiful sound the wrestling of the trees made. Skip fell asleep fast. A little time went by and I was not falling asleep, more time went by and slowly I slipped into discouragement and dread because I could not fall asleep. Two hours went by and I was beginning to become more and more fearful, the wind picked up and I could not fall asleep and my heart began beating faster and faster. Every loud noise would startle me and as much as I tried to pray (which usually lulls me to sleep) the more awake and fearful I became. Afraid a tree would fall, afraid I would be too tired the next day, a child would drift off into the woods, spiders, snakes . . . It was not long and Grant began to cry. He joined me in my sleeping bag and we both drifted off to a shallow sleep and morning came very quickly.

We arrived home around 9:45 PM last night. It was fun and the children had a wonderful time and I did it! I made it ! I will enjoy it more next time and eventually I hope that by going again that I will eventually become a "camper". The other families we were with were "real campers" and I did learn a good bit from them.

After a 3 hour nap today, I am looking back more fondly on our adventure than I was last night at 10:30 as I pulled ticks off Amelia's tiny little body. Grant only had 5 and the other children did not have any. I am very perplexed by only the little ones having ticks. I enjoyed tucking my clean sweet little ones in bed late last night and we all slept peacefully.

Ruthie Joy Pictures!

She is sitting up,

standing while holding on to something,

full of joy ( I LOVE THIS PICTURE!),

and crawling!

Oh I love you my precious little girl!

I have been in northern Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau for the last seven days without internet and cell phone service.(truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been). Once we stopped for lunch on the way home today, I was able to check my emails. It was such a gift to open an email and see pictures of Ruthie and hear about how well she is doing. Thanks to the suggestion of my dear friend Sara, last week we ordered an update of Ruthie from Isabel at China Adoption Help. Just to see her face warms my heart.

When we accepted her referral in May, she did not sit up nor did she crawl. One IA Dr. suggested that because of her head size she perhaps was mentally delayed along with her motor delays. Five minutes after Skip and I discussed the possible grim future of our Ruthie according to this doctor, we heard from our pediatrician who had just flown in from a cruise and just happened to stop by the office at 5PM and saw Ruthie's referral sitting on his desk. After reviewing her file he called and his perspective of Ruthie's medical report was much different and more encouraging. It is so difficult to have such conflicting reports, but we felt a peace accepting her referral and believed God did not want the IA doctor's view to be the last consideration.

I am so proud of sweet Ruthie and I can tell she is such a strong and courageous little girl.

Along with the pictures we also received an update. I will share that tomorrow. Time to unpack and relax from a 7 hour drive. I am so happy, now it is time for her to come home.

Happy Birthday Gracie!

I cannot believe my precious baby is EIGHT! Gracie I am so thankful God gave me the gift of having you as my daughter. I remember thanking him over and over when you would wake up at 3 AM for a feeding as a tiny baby. We would rock and I cherished every second you were in my arms.
At 2 months we were told you would never have any vision. God had other plans for your life because by 5 months all of your vision was restored. A miracle. I love the way you embrace life and the strength and determination you enter into any challenge. God has such great plans for your life. I will be very surprised if you do not become an attorney like your daddy ~ you have mastered the gift of holding on strongly to an opinion. You are grace and beauty!

I love you precious girl.

EIGHT!

11 Days and Counting

Our New Kitten ~ Atticus

On Labor Day we heard that our LID (log in date) was September 2. China has all of our papers and we are now waiting to receive our LOA from China. This is the most difficult wait, next to being matched. There is no rhyme or reason to when it will be. The wait has been as short as 30 days or 100+. It could happen with the group you share the same LID with or not.

I pray we will travel with my two dear friends who have very similar time lines. We would have so much fun bringing our girls home together.

Home schooling is going great. It was VERY difficult the end of last week and we hardly finished our weeks worth of work. This week will be hard, but all things considered we are having fun. I did not know how it would be having Grant and Amelia home, but I really do love teaching them. The fighting between them is not as bad as I thought it would be. I so badly want them to really love each other. It is going to take some time.

Grant is really talking! He can carry on such a sweet conversation. I can understand almost all of what he says, if I cannot, someone in the room can. He keeps calling for Annabel when it is time to go to sleep or timeout. I will say to him, "I am your mama." For a long time he would say, "I am your mama." I would say back, "you are my Grant." Today we were headed to his room and he asked, "I am taking a nap?" After I told him yes, he cried for Anna and then daddy. I looked him in the eyes and said, "I am your mama." And he said, "And I am your Grant." Isnt that sweet. I have no idea how to pour into him how much I love him. I pray my love reaches the place where it can really change his heart and allow God to heal him from such a hard start in life.

My last post I said I loved reading 100 Dresses and I am changing my mind. It was a terribly depressing book. I do believe it was an important book for Grace to read, I just wanted a different ending. It made me very sad. I think we are going to rewrite the last two chapters together.

Summer Is Offcially Over

I am actually excited about moving into homeschooling. We started back on Labor Day; felt like the celebration was a perfect day to begin laboring over our studies. The kids felt differently. Skip had the day off, so he could help me with the little ones while we tried out our first day.

Grace and Quinn are my younger elementary students and Amelia and Grant are my preschoolers. I cannot tell you which group I love teaching more. I LOVE reading 100 Dresses with Grace! and Quinn's math is coming alive for him. Together we will study Countries and Cultures by My Father's World. This will be the second time I have taught Countries and Cultures so hopefully it will be easier. The first year was when I first began homeschooling (a great big blur).

Preschool is sweet! Amelia and Grant are so much fun ~ a big gigantic explosion of personality! This week is A week. Today they loved marching to "The Ants Go Marching One By One" . Grant kept saying, "Do again, Mommy! Do, again!" with a big toothless grin on his face! I love his little eye teeth! Yesterday when I pulled out the shaving cream, oh their faces! They played and played ~ giggling. The lesson was to practice writing their As, but I think the shock of me allowing such a mess distracted everything. The older children begged to practice writing their As too. I just responded, "the rules are no fun will be had by anyone over 4!"

My junior high school girls started a Christian Classical school that meets once a week. They go to school one day a week, get all of their assignments and report back the following week and had in their assignments. They are still home with me, but it is nice to have most of their teaching done by someone new. They are learning the important lesson of how not to procrastinate. They actually started school a few weeks back. I am very proud of how hard they are both working. The work is a lot more challenging than what they were used to. Annabel came home the first day of school and said, "Mama, Mrs. N makes learning so much fun!" (never mind I have been her teacher since 2nd grade!) With all that aside, it is going to be a year of growth for both of them ~ really for all of us.

I am very thankful to be able to spend this time with the children. I am learning so much about who God has designed them to be and even more about myself. Still cannot believe he made the all so different! LOL

Great News!

DTC! (Dossier to China)

Today we are one step closer to our sweet Ruthie Joy.

Exhale

Wordless Wednesday

I-800A Approval!

I called today and found out we received our I-800A approval! I should be over the moon, however, I am a bit embarrassed. I just knew in my mind we received our approval last Wednesday, because that was the day that worked (best for me). That would have made our approval letter arrive last Saturday or today. Well, our mail does not come until 4:30 and that was too late. So, I found our mailman making his deliveries and I asked him for our mail around 12:00.

I am glad I did this because after living here for 2 years I have never formally introduced myself. He is such a kind man. In the 5 minutes I spent with him he told me about his 82 year old mother who just had knee surgery and how difficult her rehabilitation has been. I am thankful to have met him. He did not have my approval and I got back in my car with a very heavy heart.

I really wanted that piece of paper called the I-797 today. It worked for me to have it today so that I could get it all ready to send. It was all about ME. I did call the USCIS later and found out we were approved today. This is a big celebration, but I am embarrassed and disappointed. Embarassed because I was so head set on getting what I wanted regardless of who in slowed down and I am disappointed because I allowed this one piece of paper to become more important than pretty much everything. It is hard to trust that the God who created the heavens and the earth has dominion over all! WHY do I forget who He is?

Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. Psalm 86:3-5

They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the LORD.

Psalm 112:6-8

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

Philippians 3:12-14"

Hopefully our letter will arrive sometime this week and soon we will have our dossier sent off to China!