Grant

Thank you Danielle for adding Grant's precious picture!  I cannot wait to have a picture of ALL six together.

Grant's Surprise!

Our agency helped us send a care package to Grant. The only stipulation is it has to fit into a Zipl@c bag. I had a very hard time fitting everything I wanted to send him into a Zipl@c. I will say I hope the bag did not explode on its way to our agency in Washington.

We sent Grant clothes, two cameras for his foster family to fill with pictures, a photo album with all of our pictures, snugly blanket and two small squirting animals.
I also made him this blanket to hang in his crib. I must say it is very strange to have a child so far away. I am thankful for this summer, which has kept us quite busy. Grant should receive this surprise this week.

I over heard Quinn telling his swim teacher about his brother. She asked him his name and Quinn said, "His name is Grant, because Grant is a very strong name." We pray for Grant's strong heart and strong growth.

Wordless Wednesday

Blessed with a House to make a HOME!

Abundant Blessings

They accepted our offer today! I am beyond words with this blessing - it is something we never dreamed of, though it was deep in our hearts. He is after our hearts!

We are coming sweet Grant, just ironing out a few details!

I Think We Have A Home!

Last week was crazy. We know we are closing on our house at the end of the month, so we began packing and looking for a house. We decided the closing date because of all of the paperwork we need to resubmit about our new home for Grant's home study. We do not want to waste one minute of time away from Grant if WE can help it. Anyway, we looked at a few houses to rent - one was on a lake without a fence - NO, another one we took too long to respond back-we lost it, another was twice as much as our mortgage now! We became a bit unsettled about where we were going to live, all the time praying that we could have a comfortable home for our family. Honestly, I was very discouraged and had a lot of tears.

One afternoon, Skip drove around neighborhoods and called several Realtors that had vacant houses for rent. The thought of not finding a house to rent NEVER entered our minds. There are so many houses that have been on the market for a long. Anyway, Skip called about a house and the realtor referred him to the bank owning the house. When Skip asked the banker about renting, the banker asked Skip why he wouldn't just buy it. Skip said because I feel like we should rent and renting is safe with this economy. The banker told him to think about buying the house and Skip asked the banker to please think about renting it. Skip came home that night and told me all about this great house, on a cul-de-sac, great neighborhood, lots of space, on a little bit of land and about his conversation with this banker. He said it was a great price and something we could afford and he wanted to pray about buying it. In my mind that was not the plan - In the midst of where I thought God was sending us, was He now asking us to switch gears?

My verse: Trust the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowldege Him and He will make your paths straight.

The next day we went to see this house. This house would be perfect for our family. It needs some cosmetic work and cleaning up, but I think this floor plan is even better for us than the house we are leaving.

We have put an offer on the house and every day while we wait, we drive out to see it. The bank is having a board meeting on Tuesday and they will let us know then if they officially accept the offer.

I would so much rather buy a house rather than rent. Transistion is such a difficult place for me to rest and although God is teaching me so much about what a true home is, I desire a place of our own. God does know the desires of our hearts and I am so grateful that as time goes by, I am more and more comfortable trusting Him with mine. He is faithful and good - always.

Just Enough Light

I do believe that any observer would have diagnosed me with ADD today. There is so much going on in this house! Besides packing to move, Olivia and Annabel are leaving this weekend for their two week summer camp. We washed clothes, packed boxes, collected camp supplies, folded clothes, cleaned up a large glass of spilled water from the kitchen, organized messy drawers, counted socks, went to buy more socks, measured the length on shorts, cleaned up after Amelia . . . you get the idea. At about 4:00 Skip called to tell me to check my emails because we had received Grant's update. I could not open the email fast enough. Oh what a wonderful surprise to see our precious boy! AND he has hair! It did make me very sad to see how much he had changed. He went from 8 teeth to 16, gained 3 lbs, and is walking. What a blessing he looks so happy! They also told us that his family fosters 4 other children and he loves playing with them- I think that is unusual for a family to foster so many children, but so perfect for Grant. We have been praying that God would prepare Grant's heart to enter into a large family. He has many siblings that cannot wait to love on him. Olivia, his older sister, keeps telling everyone that SHE will be the FIRST to hold him. He is such a loved child already even he though he is so far away.

Grant's eyes are so full of life - I am so anxious to see his sweet personality and how God has shaped him. Like each child, Grant will have such an important place in our family, uniquely gifted beyond anything Skip and I could ever nurture. One of my biggest prayers is that I will be able to look his foster mother in the eyes and thank her for loving and caring for our son.Grant Yinan at 20 months old, smiling for his mama!

This wonderful gift was followed thirty minutes later with a call from Skip telling me our rental house fell through. I am so sad that we will not be living next to my friend, but I am believing that there will be a place for us. God is always faithful.

It Sold!

A few months back I mentioned that we felt led that God was leading us to sell our house. I think deep down inside I did not feel like it would sell, I thought it would be one of those places in our lives where He wanted to see if we were willing. Could we surrender all? My mind was on board - it is only a house. Last week in church I was talking to a friend who had also been in the process of trying to sell her home. She told me about the big celebration they had when they pulled up their sign because it had been 6 months and they felt like God had told them to stay. Her husband's business was really suffering and at the time they really need to cut all corners. They are doing much better now - praises. After church I told Skip that now we were getting closer to the fall and going to get Grant that perhaps we should reconsider selling, he felt the same way. I even asked him to pull the sign out of the yard, that God could sell this house without a sign if He was going to. And surely He would have done it by now.

I was so excited because I just knew we were staying, we too would have a celebration - and then I got a call on Monday from someone who wanted to see the house and for some reason I just knew this was the call. We did sell the house to a beautiful family on Wednesday night- and now if my heart and my head would just line up and be in agreement, I would be fine.

My head knows that financially this house is a lot for us in this economy and there is a lot of freedom from bondage with less debt. In all of our married life we have never been debt free. It knows that God always takes us from better to even better - even when it doesn't look like it. This is an answer to our prayer that we wanted to live an extraordinary life in Christ - however he chose to use us. And only God could have sold this house in this economy.

But, my heart has felt the laughter and tears cried over in this house, the scriptures we wrote on the 2x4's as we rebuilt and reflected on the might hand of God that saved us, the shelter the walls provided as God healed and strengthened our family and marriage, the contentment we had finally reached and every physical detail . . . my house. It is very difficult. I have really come to better understand why Abraham's father decided to stay in Ur.

We hope to move the middle of July in order to quickly get settled. Our social worker will have to write an updated about our new home and we will then have to file the update with immigration. We are praying every step of the way that this does not delay Grant's homecoming. In all the craziness of looking for a home and packing, I have moments when I rejoice because of the reality that we HAVE A SON!! God has blessed my heart's desire abundantly! I look at Grant's little picture and it doesn't seem real. I cannot wait to have him in my arms. God is always so good! and His ways are so much higher!

One day I want to go back to having the outlook of a child. The children are so excited to be able to live in another house with new neighbors! and all of the new neighborhood pets!!!!

Oh we did find a great house to rent for the next year. It is right next door to a very dear friend and I am so excited to share this season of our lives together! It IS going to be good!

Grant Yinan

Precious
Grant Yi Nan - 11 months old

On June 8th, 2009 our adoption agency sent us Grant's file and 6 other files of beautiful precious children. My heart was racing because I knew we had only a few minutes to lock a file as they were on the Shared List - many agencies have access to the Shared List and these files had just been put on it. I called Skip at work and we quickly discussed the files. Yi Nan's file and his big beautiful dark eyes especially stood out. We read over his special needs and all 9 pages of his file :). Fortunately, we have already studied his special need for the past 3 months - we have done extensive research and spoken to many families who have children with similar conditions. We decided we were very comfortable with his special needs. We quickly had our agency lock his file. Once the file was locked so no one else had access to it, we had 48 hours to have his file review by doctors. That night we kept looking at his picture, rereading his file and soon we fell in love with this precious boy and his amazing spirit, which was written about in his file! His beautiful big eyes and precious smile and tiny teeth captured our hearts. We remained in constant prayer and very as we continued to ask, :Could this be our son? After dinner I researched the meaning if his name on the Internet. I typed in Yi and it said, "Yi: second; as in second son." We had emailed his file to a specialist in Boston and that night at 11:30 P.M. we received his response! Skip sat down on the bed and pulled up the email and before I could get there -it took was seemed like forever to get around the pillows in order to sit next to Skip. He was going to read it without me! We read it together and it seemed like the world was put on hold - it really was surreal and so gosh darn exciting! We read it as fast as we could, read it again - WOW! his opinion about Grant's special need was truly something our family could handle. Peace, a peace that was so new to reviewing a file. We went to bed praying that we would like to submit a request to adopt him - and praying for God's wisdom and direction. It was very difficult to fall asleep! The next morning I turned to my assigned reading - June 9th in my book "read the Bible in a year" - Psalm 127. God is so good!! We wrote our Letter of Intent (LOI) and emailed our agency a LOI on behalf of Grant Yi Nan! Our second medical review came the next afternoon in full agreement with the first opinion. June 9th, 2009 we officially asked China if we could adopt Grant. Whew! that was quite a incredible 18 hours! God is so good!

It's a BOY! It's a BOY!

We are absolutely on on knees praising God for this indescribable gift! And that yet again He would bless us with one of His own!

Our son, Grant Yi Nan Perkins!11 months old

Grant is in the Sichuan province in the city of Chengdu. He is 19 months old. We received PA for Grant only 6 days after we wrote a letter of intent to adopt him (LOI)! Please pray for a smooth process from here on. We would love to be with Grant on his second birthday in October!

I will post more about how exciting the last two weeks have been. I am manning the fort alone right now - not a lot of leisure time!

Happy Birthday Annabel

Pink or Blue?

This is day I delivered Amelia, standing in her BLUE nursery.

Anticipating the arrival of our next child is very exciting. I am one of those people who love surprises and everything leading up to them. We found out the gender of our child the first four times - everything HAD to be just perfect. That was when I was in my prime as a perfectionist. The fifth time I was okay to just let it go, it was a complete surprise. Please do not be mistaken, I did have a boy and girl wardrobe all ready to go just in case. I am not sure if anyone believed we did not know what we were having - the nursery could have been that indication. I tried so hard to do a neutral nursery, but I think deep down inside I thought it was a boy. I had many ultrasounds so if tempted, I could have found out. Although I thought it was a boy, I did not have a preference. I cried tears of joy when they said, "It's a girl!"

Amelia Ashley only minutes old

The truth about me is deep down inside there is a part of me that is quite intimidated by mothering a boy. I grew up an only child somewhat a tomboy, but I have never seen a son mothered. I understand girls and although mine are all so different, on most days I get where they are coming from. The older girls are a lot of emotional work and there are many days I am also emotionally challenged - those are difficult days to say the least. The girls tend to need a lot more praise and validation - am I pretty? did I do a good job? am I special? how am I special? Where as my son is so okay with who he is. His ability to receive love is not based on any condition. He is secure. Quinn needs affection, one on one time and a sword fight here an there, but other than than, he is very content - unless it is nap time.

The reality is I enjoy the challenge and the reflection of myself with the girls and the easy and adventure of my son. God's creation is beautiful!

Boy or girl, I just cannot wait!! I pray for patience.

Happy Memorial Day!

Annabel loves that she is old enough to have oven duty.

Grace is such a careful and tidy cook.

Olivia is a taster.

This is what Amelia's pizza looked like before she took it all apart.

A good cook is a messy cook!

The rain has not let up in the south. We had big plans to spend the entire weekend at the pool, but instead we were able to clean out the children's closets and drawers! It feels wonderful to have things in order and drawers that close! With 5 children this task tends to take a couple of half days and this time I let them in on the fun. We would all tackle each room and closet together - cannot believe I did not think of a group effort before. Even little Amelia was a help at times - if you do not count her pouring liquid Tid@ into the dog's bowl while sitting on the stairs. She was at a very bad angle, which resulted in the liquid missing most of the bowl. Concentrated laundry detergent is very difficult to get up.

Today I could have kept going, but being the sweet mama that I am (LOL) I decided they could help make their own dinner. We did end the day in the kitchen together making pizza and strawberry shortcake.

We are planning on leaving for our annual "spring break" trip to the lake very soon. I think that is how I justified such a chore filled weekend.

Logged In!

We were officially logged-in with the CCAA on May 21st. It was very difficult for us to take this step for many reasons.  One reason was that we can no longer look at other agencies' private lists of waiting children.  Even though we love our agency, we have been looking at children (one in particular) held at another agency.  We will now look at only our agency's private list.  If there is not a good match there, we will have to wait for them to receive their next private list, or they can try to match us from a shared list that comes out about every month.

Our agency is waiting on their "private" list right now and it should arrive any day. Their list will have about 25 children with major and minor special needs. The great thing about this list is we will have plenty of time to have a specialist review the files if there is one we are interested in. The "shared" list is a whole different story. The shared list is a large list of children with anything from minor to serious special needs.  This list is posted just about every month by the CCAA. The problem is that it is basically unannounced.  Once they start posting the names, they begin to trickle out around 6 - 7 PM PST, and this continues until around 2 AM PST. So, assuming our agency coordinator even knows it is happening, she would have to work very late in order to see if there is possibly a file they would want to "lock" for us.  There are many other agencies around the world anxiously awaiting the release of these files every month, so when the list starts trickling out everyone around the world is competing for the same files. It is crazy!!!  To make matters worse, if you lock on the shared list, you have to decide IN 48 HOURS if that is the child you want to adopt.  It is quite a difficult process.   Through both their private list and the shared list, our agency will be looking for our baby.

We are open to a boy or a girl, which to some may sound a bit crazy.   Our arms are wide open to what ever God has for us.  Whether boy or girl, we are praying we will have a face to see soon!  Skip has commented more than once that I am behaving like I am seven months pregnant.  Somedays I feel like I can not wait any longer!  Some weeks are endless without any signs, lots of false labor thinking that today is the day.  I am really hoping it is more like 8.5 months pregnant - there is nothing we can do but wait.

Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.