Creative hands

Look at this! Nico was building his school out of cards the other day! He has such a good imagination and is creative!

His two little girl cousins just adore him, and I have a feeling Nina won't be much different. He is very calm, gentle but playful with them, and they love him and follow him around like little puppies.

I'm so proud of my oldest!

I love you, Nico!

Blanket of Love

Quite a while ago, I found this fabric in an online store, but it was sold out. Now I have found it on Ebay, and today I made it into a blanket for Nina. I made a special blanket for all our kids, so this was a very special project for me. I found this really really soft material (kind of like a chenille type fabric) for the backside of it, and it turned out beautiful. I had some fabric left over, so I made a very small little blankie that I will send to her as her last care package before we bring her home.

And because I like this fabric so much, I ordered more of it to make valances in the girls' room!!!

I also bought various flannel prints to make blankets that we will give to the orphanage in Loudi. I really wanted to give them something that they can use for all the other children in their care.

"A little patch of heaven"

Elia was very busy outside. After a while, he came running in, his voice full of pride: "Mama, come look at your flower bed!". This is what I found - the grass he had planted and grown at preschool, neatly planted in a bare spot in my flower bed How sweet it that! Mike and I looked at this labor of love this morning, and this is what he called it - a little patch of heaven. I hope that little patch won't take over my flower bed, but for now, it will stay.

Update!

More good news....
We received an updated report on Nina today! No pictures (apparently we won't get those until adoption day), but lots of heartwarming tidbits!
According to her report, she is healthy, likes dolls, music, singing and dancing, and has gotten more extroverted. She is shy around strangers, but warms up soon. She is described as talkative :-)))
We also learned that there are 2 children in her foster home, but that she is closest to her foster parents (bless their hearts!)
She sleeps from 9pm until 8am (works for me!), and she is potty trained!!!
Her growth is good, she is short for american standards, but above average for weight! This is very reassuring!
Mike said: " I just want to go get her now!" Exactly how I'm feeling too!

Jungle and Tornadoes

Tornadoes don't happen very often in good ol' Wyoming. So when the clouds start rolling in, the sky is lit up by lightening, and the tornado sirens go off, it creates some.... well, should we say, excitement. We spent a while in our basement last night while monitoring the weather closely. There were a couple of tornadoes touching down about 20 miles outside of town, but thank goodness, that was it. Needless to say, I made sure all of our adoption documents were in the basement with us (I really didn't want to get a new I 171H!!!). Once the warning passed, I finished cleaning and decorating our upstairs bathroom, which is pretty much the kids' bathroom. I painted it over the last week, and we decided to turn it into a jungle bathroom. I never had a "theme" for a bathroom before (besides the obvious ;-)) ), but it sure turned out cute! Look for yourself!

Our LOA is here!!!!

Wow, what a day!
We received an email from our agency today, stating that our "Letter of Acceptance" had arrived from China. Of course I was hoping that we would get this important piece of paper very soon, but prepared myself to having to wait until at LEAST until the end of May. And here it is! God is so good, and this process has been so smooth and quick!
We will receive it tomorrow, sign it and send it back to the agency right away. After the CCAA in China receives it, they will issue our Travel approval (TA). This has typically happened about a month after the LOA. This all means that there is a good chance we will be leaving for China in appproximately 6 weeks! How amazing is that!!!!
I can't believe we will have Nina home in 2 months!! It SO warms my heart to think about it! We're READY (well, maybe not logistically, but in our hearts!)

Uebersetztung: http://chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com/2007/05/loa.html

Welcome to the family, Caleb!

I have some very happy news to share today...
Yesterday afternoon, a beautiful little baby boy was born. He is our newest nephew, and his name is Caleb. He is TINY! He was born almost 6 weeks early, but he is doing wonderful! His Mama and Daddy and big sister are VERY proud!

Be touched...

Adoption1
Uploaded by ludo

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Mothers I know! First and mostly though to MY mother who loves me even when her "Baby" goes ways that just seem too crazy to her (like marrying an American and moving half way around the globe, or making her a Grandma of a sweet chinese girl, just to name the most drastic ones :-)) )

Happy Mother's Day to two other mothers, who hold a special place in my heart: Nina's Birthmother, whom we will never be able to meet. I don't want her to hurt anymore and agonize over what happened to her little baby that she left behind three years ago. And to Nina's Foster mother who has invested to much in our daughter's life. You are an amazing woman!

Did you hear it?

I had my last Hepatitis B shot today.
You have to understand that Hepatitis B vaccination is not an easy thing for me. I had an allergic reaction to my first shot many years ago, and never finished the series. At this point in our adoption and with travel coming up, I wanted to try to get re-vaccinated. Our employee health nurse was willing to give it a shot (literally!), and with the proper precautions I did okay with the one I had in January (if you call sheer panic and nervousness okay *sigh*). Today was my last one, and I was just as nervous as before, maybe even more so.
But, I'm here, I did okay, thank God, and you may have heard the boulder come off my chest.
I certainly feel a LOT lighter today!

In the "Match room"

We just received notification from our agency that we can download a new travel package, which includes our visa application. This notification means that our Dossier has been moved to the Match Room at CCAA, where our Dossier and Nina's file officially get matched with each other. There is still no clear guideline as to how much longer it will be until we receive travel approval, but things are definitely moving into the right direction.
We'll keep you posted!

The girl's room "transformation" - sunglasses required!

This last week, it was time to paint the girl's room. We wanted to have it pretty much done for Anya's birthday. Here are a couple of pictures from "before". This used to be Nico and Anya's, later on Alex and Elia's room.

Work in progress

On Friday we painted: Mike's Mom helped me, and so did Elia. He really surprised us by sticking with it for about three hours. He had his own little roller, and just loved it. As you can see, he added his own personal touch to the walls ;-)))

And the finished room...

What a difference the paint made! It feel like a totally different and new room! Mike's parents put up the chair rail yesterday, and I finished touching up today. Friday the carpets will be cleaned, and then we will start moving Anya's things in her new room. In the last picture you can see the bedding the girls will have. I bought this set last year already, and it will go beautifully with all the other colors. Now I can't wait until the beds get here *hurryhurry*....

Happy Birthday, Anya!

Our big girl is EIGHT! She had four friends over friday night, three of them spent the night, and two of them spent all weekend with us. Anya had a blast and loved every minute of it.

Anya, we love you, and we are very proud to have you for a daughter. You are a kind, funny, smart and caring young lady, and it's a joy to have you in our family!

Another Care Package

We sent Nina another care package last week. I SO hope she gets our mail.

I want her and her foster parents to know that she has a family waiting for her. Otherwise, the families and kids often don't know that until it's almost time to travel, and I don't want this to be a harder transition than need to be.

The little bunny is SO soft. We have another one here and will bring it to China with us, just in case she doesn't have hers with her. Any little thing that will be familiar to her will be a good thing.

My heart aches when I think about her leaving her Foster family, and about them letting her go as well. I am so thankful for all they have given her over the past two years, and even though they knew that this day would eventually come, it has to be hard for them. I hope that we will be able to stay in contact with them, so they can know how Nina is doing, and also for Nina's sake. They will always have a special place in her heart, I'm sure.

50 days

Today marks our 50 day Milestone in our wait for Travel Approval. How much longer will it take? It could be 2 weeks, it could be 2 months.... nobody knows. I believe it will come at the right time, and until then, we will be soooo busy with end of school events, soccer, remodeling and so on, I know time will fly!
Until then, we are praying for Nina daily. And I believe this is the best preparation anyway....

Stalling...

This just happened....
The kids just went to bed. Mike and I are downstairs, and I hear a small little pitter-patter on the stairs. Elia and Nico come downstairs... and Elia goes: "Mama, when is Nina BoBo coming?" I say: "This summer." Elia: " Uhhhh, why is this taking so long?" And off he goes again, back to bed. So cute!

Decided!

Here she is... our little girl with the name we as a family have chosen for her:

Nina means "little girl" in Spanish, but also "Grace" in Hebrew.

Gabriella means "God is my strength" in Hebrew.

FuBo is her given Chinese name, Fu meaning happiness and Bo is in the hopes that she will advance bravely like great waves

Beds and Promises

This is the bed we picked out for the girls. Up until now two of the kids had slept on mattresses on the floor, so this was a good time to buy some beds. We really liked this set up, as it will give them enough floor space to play. I see some airy fabric hanging loosely over that corner section, to make it a dreamy, girly hideaway.

Can't wait!!

But more so, I can't wait to have my daughters together.

I just emailed our agency, and the earliest update they can request on BoBo is May. Hopefully we will be able to get an update on her. God has blessed us with so many personal, special details during this adoption process, that I have no doubts he can do this too.

I came across a wonderful promise during my biblestudy yesterday, that I just have to share. I felt like the Lord was saying this over our adoption of BoBo:

See, I'm sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared . (Exodus 23:20)

God is AHEAD of us preparing not just logistics, but most of all, the heart of a little girl, who is undoubtedly loved, but who will go through some tremendous changes over the next few months! What a wonderful reassurance!