Update on Sophia

Here Sophia is sporting the ever popular split pants

I just LOVE this aqua color on her!

Can't wait to kiss those sweet cheeks!

We received 3 new pictures and some updated information on Friday.  She's grown 3 inches and gained almost 5 pounds since July.  We are told she is still on a bottle and is rocked to sleep.  She loves rice with chicken broth.  She also loves to take a bath.  She is called Fan Fan and Fan Xing.  We've decided to keep Fan Xing as part of her middle name - so she'll be Sophia Isabella Fanxing.  We can't wait to meet her!!

Finally, our LOA

Dana called this morning with our LOA in her hand!  I just posted on facebook last night that it had been 68 days and we hadn't heard a peep.  Dana will fedex everything to us today.  We'll sign the papers & send it all right back so it can be back on the way to China on Friday.  Next up - more paperwork and waiting.  Hopefully we'll be bringing Miss Sophia home sometime in March.  Hang on, sweet girl!!

I love being a football mom!

Jarod is white #59 (on the ground in this picture).  Here he sacked their quarterback.

After the sack, they put 3 guys on Jarod

Jarod makes the tackle even if it means taking down his own guy in the process!

Jarod started playing football this year for the first time.  He loves it!  We love it!  He is a defensive tackle and is doing so well!!  As the season goes on, he has learned so much and made such improvement!  His coaches are great!  At the parent meeting before the season started, the head coach said they were going to expect a lot from these boys.  They are expected to be leaders among their peers.  They are expected to be respectful and use their manners - yes ma'am, no ma'am, please and thank you (which Jarod already does, but it's nice that it's also expected at school).  They are expected to stand up for someone who is not being treated right.  It's so refreshing to have support at school when you're trying to teach your kids to behave that way already!!

In our district, any boy in 7th grade that wants to play football gets to play.  As a result, Jarod's school has 3 teams - A, B & C.  Most of the boys on the A team have played football before.  Jarod had never played before & was placed on the B team.  He seemed a little disappointed about that at first.  I told him it's better for him to be on the B team and get to play, than to be on the A team and sit the bench all season!  He's seeing that to be true!  He plays almost every defensive play.  We have all really enjoyed this season!

Introducing My Sweet Sophia!

We received our Pre-Approval from China today.  We anticipate traveling in about 5 months.  But here are the details I know you've all been waiting for.....

She'll have 2 middle names - we're still working on the second one.  We want to use part of her Chinese name.  We have her official name, which is what we used when we did Chloe Grace's paperwork.  But we later learned she had no idea that was her name & had been called by a nickname.  So, if Sophia has a nickname that she already knows, we'll use that in addition to the American name we've chosen...which is

Sophia Isabella

Her birthday is on Friday, October 1st.  She'll be 2.  She is in foster care in Wuhan, Hubei.  This is right next to Chongqing, the province Chloe Grace is from.  She is 30 inches tall and weighs 19 pounds.

I can't wait to kiss on those sweet baby cheeks!!  Hold on, sweet girl....we'll be there soon!

Big news....but I can only share a little

What I can tell you is....

It's a girl!
She'll turn 2 on October 1st (the birthday of one of my dearest friends)
She had a VSD that has been repaired.
She's cute as can be!!!

Now what do we do?

We fill out more paperwork and not so patiently wait. Then wait some more. Hopefully we'll be in China in about 5 months.

As soon as we receive approval from China to adopt this sweet girl I'll post her picture. Until then, feel free to approach me in public where we can gush over her together :)

DTC

Our dossier went to China yesterday!!  Now we (not so) patiently wait until we see our sweet Sophia's face for the first time.

First day of school

Madison, off the her first year of middle school

Chloe Grace, looking forward to a great year in 1st grade

Jarod, starting 7th grade

Jason, beginning 4th grade & stylin' in his new glasses

Everyone's off to school and the house is quiet.  The first day is always bittersweet for me.  I crave the routine the school year brings, but I miss my kiddos!  Also, I am NOT a morning person, so the early wake up call is a tough adjustment for me.  A sweet friend and I have a standing breakfast date every year on the first day of school, so we'll meet in a little bit for breakfast tacos.  I can't wait until this afternoon to hear about everyone's day today!!

17 years

Tomorrow will be 17 years ago that I was having my hair and make up done, putting on a white dress and walking down the aisle on my dad's arm toward the love of my life.  How can it really be that long??  Tonight we're going to The Cheesecake Factory, without kids, to celebrate.  I always order the same thing there...tomato basil pasta and brownie sundae cheesecake.  Yummm!

at the consulate

Our dossier is at the consulate in Houston to be authenticated. Hopefully we'll get it back by the end of the week! Then it's on to our agency who will forward it all to China. You'd think the second time around I'd be more patient....not so much!!

New Banner

Jeff commented on my last post that a new name was in order....I have to admit he's right! We're no longer "Waiting for Chloe Grace". She's been home for 2 years now and is doing great! Well, tonight she's not doing so great....she was sent to bed early for telling a lie. Right now she's a very unhappy little girl. She can't stand to be sent to bed when the sun is still up. She'll wake up in a much better mood in the morning, I'm sure!

Anyway...now that we're "Searching for our sweet Sophia" it's time the banner on the top reflected that. I spent some time this morning helping a dear friend set up a blog to follow their adoption from Ethiopia. I couldn't figure out how to put in the background she wanted, so I had to come home and play with my blog for a while. Several hours later, here it is!

Still hopeful we'll be DTC by the time school starts - that's only a week and a half away. Everything's at the consulate in Houston...we'll see if we make it by the 23rd!

I-800A Approval

We finally received our I-800A approval notice in the mail today. We had a slight hiccup that delayed us about a week. We received an RFE (request for evidence) regarding some of the wording in our home study. Thankfully, our social worker is fabulous and took care of it right away.

This is the last document we need to get our dossier certified and authenticated. I plan to have it all on the way to the consulate in Houston on Wednesday. My goal has been to be DTC by the time school starts on the 23rd...we'll see if that happens!!

We're one step closer on our journey to finding our sweet Sophia. We may not know who she is yet, but God does, and we know He's holding her close until we can snuggle our precious girl.

Fingerprints...Done!

We're sooo close to having our adoption paperwork finished! Last Saturday we received our fingerprint appointment letter in the mail from USCIS (U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services). Our appointment wasn't until August 10th....Boo! That was just too far away! I'd read on an adoption chat board that some of the immigration offices let you walk in and get it done early. For CG's adoption, we had to drive to the immigration office in San Antonio, over an hour and a half from our house. Not terribly far, but too far to attempt to walk in and be denied. Now, there's an office in Austin just down the street from the mall & shopping center I shop at often. It's on the way to work for Steve, so we decided to go down there this morning and see if they'd take us early. I explained to the officer that this was the last thing we needed to do to get our paperwork ready to send to China and asked if there was any way we could get our prints done today. She said their normal walk in day is on Wednesday, and she'd have to process everyone else with an appointment first, but if we wanted to wait she'd take us today. We were happy to wait, there weren't that many other people there. Turns out we were the 3rd and 4th ones fingerprinted and were on our way by 8:30 am (they opened at 8). When I got home I called the NBC (National Benefits Center) to find out who our case worker is and how long we're looking at between now and receiving our I-800A approval (the I-800A is an Application for Determination of Suitability to adopt a Child from a Convention Country). I had to leave him a voice mail, but he very promptly emailed me back and said he should have our prints and run the check within a few days and would issue our approval right after that. So hopefully, we'll have it by the beginning of August. Yay!!

Chloe Grace Day...2 years ago

Chloe Grace, June 29th 2008 in Chongqing, China

Chloe Grace graduating from kindergarten, June 4th, 2010

Two years ago we were in Chongqing, China. We were axiously waiting for our guide, Alison, to call and tell us our sweet girl had arrived. We didn't have to wait long. The last 2 years have been wonderful! The time has flown by, really. Chloe Grace has come so far. She was such a scared, yet brave girl when we met that day. Now she's confident, loving, and oh - so sweet! She's such an amazing little girl! I'm so grateful to be her mommy.

I'm still in denial...I can't be the mother of a teenager!!!

Jarod and I - June 6, 1997

Jarod and I - 13 years later - June 6, 2010

Jarod turned 13 a few weeks ago. He's such an amazing young person! He wanted a "Survivor" themed birthday party, so that's what we did! The kids all had a great time. There were 18 kids that we divided into 2 tribes. They each named their tribe and designed their tribe flag. We had "Pickles" and "Gryffindor". They competed in various challenges: an obstacle course, a food challenge (they had to pair off and eat not-so-kid-friendly food; grapefruit, black beans, jalepenos, brussel sprouts and saurkraut), who could stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth, who could jump on the trampoline the longest without falling...we all had so much fun! And now, I'm the mom of a teenager...it just doesn't seem possible. Jarod...I'm so proud of you. You've been such a blessing to our family. You are smart, fun, witty and caring. You are a great brother and an amazing son. I'm blessed to be your mom!

Light at the end of the paperwork tunnel

We're almost done with our paper chase to bring home our sweet Sophia. I mailed a package on Monday to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) with our application in it. I've been told it's taking families about a month to receive their approval. If that holds true, then we might be able to have our dossier to China within the next 6 weeks....my goal is to be DTC (dossier to China) before school starts in August.

Ready, Set, Go!!!

This box is very important...I've told Steve if our home should ever catch on fire, after getting everyone out safely, this container full of papers MUST get out!!


I'm sure to most people, a container full of files could be easily replaced. In the adoption world, it's not so easy. This container is the home to all the paperwork we've gathered so far to bring home our sweet Sophia. We don't know how old she is or when she'll make her way here or what her precious face looks like. If this process taught me anything the first time around, it's that I am NOT in control and God's timing as ALWAYS perfect. So, we'll continue to gather documents, obtain notarizations, visit the Secretary of State's office and then send it all to the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Houston. And after all that happens, and our completed dossier is in the hands of the CCAA officials (hopefully early this summer), we'll wait. We'll wait as long as necessary, then we'll take another very long flight to the other side of the Earth (can I get a Xanax this time, please??) and we'll meet Miss Sophia Isabella for the first time. It could be in six months or it could be a year...I don't know. But I know it will happen. In God's time. And not a second sooner.

Blinded

Tomorrow will mark 19 months that we've been home with Chloe Grace. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around that. In many ways it seems like she's always been here. Our days have been pretty normal, which is why I've gone so long without blogging. We felt settled. Things were good. We really didn't struggle with attachment issues outside what we expected. We had some hard days during our first few months home, but overall things went very well. A fellow adoptive mom likes to often remind me, "Yes, things have gone well, but she's not done with you yet." In other words, don't let your guard down. Guilty as charged....

Things are still good. But over the last couple of months Chloe Grace has struggled. I think it's normal considering all she's gone through in her short life..."Why couldn't I stay in China? I want to go back to China. I want to go to Mama Wang's." Mama Wang's house is her Utopia. In her mind, everything was perfect there...candy all day & trips to Disneyland. While I do think things were good for her there, it was certainly not all rainbows and butterflies. But she needs to feel that way for now, so I just let it go. We talk about how I'm sure Mama Wang fed her healthy foods and certainly didn't take her to Disneyland, but I don't try to keep her from thinking it was wonderful there. Maybe I should, I don't know...

In CG's mind, if I'm not treating everyone absolutely equal, then that means I don't love everyone equally. Just yesterday we were sitting at church services and I could tell she was withdrawn and upset. I had no idea why. I asked her if we needed to go in the back & talk about it and she said yes. I took her out & asked her what was wrong. At first she was reluctant to tell me. I assured her that she could tell me anything. She was hurt that I had hugged Jason & hadn't hugged her. To her, that meant I love him and and I don't love her. How my heart aches for that sweet girl. I told her I love her very much and that hugging Jason didn't change that. I told her anytime she wants/needs a hug from me all she has to do is let me know or she can just hug me and I'll always hug her back. She just cried and cried and it broke my heart. I know emotionally together we're only at 18 months...but when I have a silly 6 year old girl running around here it's easy to forget that. It certainly caught me off guard yesterday for her to still be struggling with the permanence of my love for her. So we'll keep working on it, keep assuring her of our love, continue to demonstrate her importance in our family. One day she'll realize we're in it for the long haul.