Adoption News

Our dossier officially logged in at the China Center for Adoption Affairs on January 17th, 2007! In adoption lingo, this is called the LID or "login date." The next step is getting a referral for a specific child, yippee! News of our login date came on Thursday, which happened to be my birthday. It was a great, unexpected birthday present!

Speaking of referrals, our agency has announced that they will be getting a "surprise" mini-batch of files in the next few weeks, but they are not sure when. Although the chance of us getting matched is pretty small, there is still a chance. We are praying and know that God's timing is perfect. Check back for updates!

Fun in The Snow

Here are some pictures from the snowstorm we had on January 21st. It was the first time Julie showed an interest in playing with the snow. We had such fun!




Somebody needs to tell Miss Munchkin that boots stay ON one's feet when playing in the snow!

Piggy Tails!

It has finally happened, after 13 months of waiting. Julie has enough hair to make two adorable pig tails! Granted, they stick straight out from her head, but one can get away with that at 2 years old. One of our neighbors thinks they look like Shrek's ears, of all things. My students think that they make Julie look like the little girl from Monsters Inc (Boo, I think). I like that image a lot better! I can't believe how much older they make her seem. What's next, driving?!?!

DuPage Children's Museum

One of our therapists gave us a free pass to the DuPage Children's Museum, which Julie loves! Her favorite activities are the water works and the bubbles, as you can see!

Our Dossier Is Done!

Yes, we finally received our last document, after 10.5 weeks of waiting! Larry spent Thursday downtown getting it certified at the Secretary of State's office and authenticated at the Chinese Consulate. He was planning to go back downtown on Friday to pick it up from the Consulate, but they offered to do same day service since it was a slow day! Thursday evening, we drove to FedEx and sent our completed dossier to our agency. They received it Friday and it is waiting for our Family Coordinator to review it. If everything checks out, we should be DTC on January 5, 2007. Praise God for the end to a very long, seven months of paperchasing. We are excited to begin the "official" wait now, even though we've already been doing plenty of waiting. We are trusting God for just the right match at just the right time. We know He will be faithful to do it!

Our dossier all spread out, all 13 documents plus picture pages:

Taking turns holding the packaged dossier. It is a strange feeling to hold something that has taken so long to compose, knowing that it represents our next child. I couldn't help but cradle it a bit :-)



Mailing the dossier at FedEx! We have similar pictures from when we mailed Julie's dossier back in May 2005. It is so wonderful to have Julie in these pictures of her little sister's paperwork!

Christmas Day

Although this was our second Christmas as a family of three, it felt like our first. Last Christmas we had just returned from China and we were still so tired and out of sorts. This year we really enjoyed the whole season. Julie didn't fully "get it" yet, but she is learning quickly! We opened presents leisurely, allowing her time to play with each new item. Next year we plan to turn our house into a flannel-board reenactment of the Christmas story, reading passages of scripture each day and moving the characters around the house as the story progresses. Larry and I had fun brainstorming how we would make it all work. Most of all, we want Julie to know that Christmas is about Christ and His incredible gift to us.

Here is Julie dressed up in her Christmas outfit from our dear friends in New York, the Robinsons. Thank you!

Here we are eating a special breakfast of pancakes and eggs, courtesy of Larry.

Julie was excited to open up a pack of sign language flash cards, based on her favorite video series. They are probably her favorite gift.

We hope you had a Merry Christmas and we wish you God's abundant blessings in the New Year!

Julie's Christmas Stocking

Here is Julie opening a gift from TT, her Great Aunt. Inside was a stocking with a cute bear on top. Needless to say, Julie knew just what to do with the contents of the stocking!