Update From China, Getting Close to Travel!

We are finally seeing the light at the end of the long adoption tunnel!  Today we were so excited to get an update on Aaron as well as some information from his foster famly.  Below is a new picture received today:)  This picture was taken at a group foster home he has been staying at while his foster family has been in the United States on vacation. 

I am a little partial to his foster family! I am so excited they are back to China and have him with them again :)  His wonderful foster family has so kindly invited us to stay with them the few days we are in Beijing! We are so excited to be able to meet them and really get to know the wonderful people who have taken such great care of Aaron.  What an absolute blessing from God! Our agency also told me today that we can now correspond with the foster family - I am so excited! I am emailing her TODAY! In the whole scheme of China adoption - we are totally spoiled by our amazing American foster family!

We are in the FINAL waiting period.  So, right now we are waiting for our travel approval from China, which we are praying comes within 2-3 weeks.  At that time, or a day or two after, we will have our travel dates.  It still looks like we should be traveling the middle of September.  Things are really starting to move quickly!  I have actually got the suitcase down and have started a little packing - you would not believe all of the items that are suggested that we take!  I bought some clothes for Aaron the other day, at Old Navy (2 American flag T-shirts to wear home!!), it makes me super excited but also super impatient!!

We aprreciate your continued prayers for Aaron and for us and our kiddos here.  I will post as soon as we know our travel dates, and I plan on blogging while in China so you can all follow along :) 

Vacation and Raffle

This week we are on vacation visiting Ryan's family in Las Vegas, Nevada.  During our time here we drew the winners for our beef raffle!  Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the raffle and especially to Mikael and Jamie, Rancher's Best Beef, for donating the 1/4 beef.  The kids drew the tickets and the winner was.......Roney Bisio!! Roney was very excited :)
While we have been here I've had some new feelings regarding our Aaron I thought I would share.  We have really just been spending time with family and hanging out in the pool - because it is SO hot here!  But doing all these things as a family, I really find myself "missing" Aaron, and wishing he was here with us NOW.  Then I thought - can you really miss someone you haven't even officially met?  So I guess it is not really a "missing" but a "longing".  Funny how our minds work - at least mine - I so want him here with us on vacation making memories with us.  Then I am reminded that our Father's timing is perfect - not mine.  I guess it is similiar to the feeling that we have when we are expecting a birth child and so want that baby to hurry up and get out here!  We are ready to start our lives with them - NOW :)  Those "adoption birth pains" are starting :)
We should be getting our final papers from immigration with in a week or so.  Then the quick cascade of papers through the final adoption phase in China will begin.  It looks as though we will be flying out to China the beginning to middle of September - time is flying by - that is only 2 months away!!  It make take me that long to figure out what I need to pack! :)
Anyway, thank you again for your continued prayers and support.  Please keep Aaron lifted up in prayer that God prepares his heart for changes coming into his little life and that Aaron will have an amazing peace when he meets us.  Also, for our hearts as we prepare our home and lives for his arrival.

WE GOT IT!!!!

Today was the day!!! Holt called this afternoon with exciting news that the letter from China (LOA) had arrived!! Praise God that His hand has been on our paperwork all the way in China! God is so good :)  We were also told today that is looks like September travel to China for us - 3 more months! We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  This weekend we are going to double check our paperwork which will hopefully be overnighted to immigration on Monday - then a (hopefully) 2-3 week wait on those documents....more waiting, but not as long!
Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support.  Please continue to lift Aaron up during this time of transition for him as well as for our 3 kiddos here waiting with us. :) Love you all!

Blessings~

New Update!

We were thrilled to get an update from Biejing today!  There was a short letter from Aaron's foster mom and 6 new pictures! He is really growing! Below you can see the new pics of the little cutie!
Anyway, I wanted to give an update on where we are at right now in the whole process.  As of right now, we are waiting for a coveted letter from China.  We are hoping and praying to get this letter towards the middle or end of this month (pray for asap!).  Our agency estimates us flying to China about 3 months from the time we get this letter.  As soon as we get the letter, we then send in about 11 pages of paperwork to United States Immigration Services (and we have these papers filled out and ready to go!).  After we get word back from immigration we will start looking towards travel! Yeah!!
About 3 weeks ago we sent a really neat book to Aaron.  My grandma and mom found this book that recorded our voices reading the book to him, so he gets to hear our voices!  Ryan and I each read a page, and then each of the kids read a page, and then we read one page all together.  So, he should have received the book by now, but they didn't mention it in the letter... Ryan and I laugh and wonder if the "talking book" is driving them crazy with our voices going off everytime the book is opened! They may have hid it!
Anyway, we really appreciate all of your prayers and support.  In the letter from Aaron's foster mom, she said that their family is going to be traveling back to the United States for a few weeks.  While they are gone Aaron will be at Ping An Foster Home.  Please keep him in your prayers as his life begins to go through so many changes.  We are praying that God surrounds him in His love and wraps His everloving arms around our boy until we can have him in our arms.
Blessings~

New Pictures :)

We are always excited to get new pictures and  we got a letter today too :)  Thought some of you would enjoy seeing a couple more pictures~

Looks like he likes animals -- good thing with our family!

 The boy with Aaron is his foster brother:)

Love that smile!

Wow....what a wonderful suprise!

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary - and God gave us a special gift today :)  Some of you have asked why we can't talk to the foster parents in China since they are American.  Well, according to the Hague rules and regulations, we can have no correspondence with the foster family until after we finish with the adoption process.  What is suprising is that apparently the foster family in China was not aware of this rule.  This weekend the American foster mom in China left 2 messages at the office for us and then called 2 times this morning! We CAN NOT talk to them at all or it could damage our adoption process.  So, the wonderful girls at the office kind of stalled with her and in the mean time I was trying to get a hold of our agency (they are an hour behind us). On our last post we had just sent over a photo album and letter to Aaron, which she received and then tracked us down on the internet!  Well, one of our workers at Holt (our international agency) ended up calling her this morning (and waking her up! it was 3 in the morning in China!).  The foster mom told her that she just wanted to let us know that they had received our photo album and letters.  She also told her that they are now calling him Aaron (I am crying tears of joy as I right this!), and he has been looking at the photos and he will flip back to my picture and say "mom" - God is so good.  We pray for Aaron so often through the day, and recently I have been asking God to please allow an update on Aaron to come quickly - well, He answered, just not the way I pictured - but so much better!  She also said that he is doing very good and speaking English and Chinese.  We are so thankful for this unexpected update!
Thank you again for your continued prayers~

Blessings.

Waiting and Saving....

Well, many things have been going on the last couple of weeks - not exciting, but progress with more paper work!  This week we were so excited to be able to send a letter and a photo album of our family to Aaron.  We took all kinds of pictures and the kids each wrote a letter to him as well - they were so sweet!  Aaron will probably be receiving the letters and photos with in the next couple of weeks, so please pray for his little heart as our family is introduced to him and the changes begin.  It is so easy to think of how absolutely excited our whole family is to be blessed with a new child - but at times I can get overwhelmed with the extreme changes that he has no control over and how confusing this must be for him.  I just can't wait to hold him and tell him how much he is loved and we will never leave him - and even more importantly how much God loves him and will never leave him!
Next month, May 7th, we will be having a fund raising garage sale to help cover the cost of our travel expenses.  So, if you live in our area and have anything you want to donate let us know - or if you need anything come check out all of the goodies! We have several families donating items to the garage sale so I think there will be some good stuff :)
Right now we have about a 2 month waiting period while our paper work is processed in China.  We are praying that it goes through quickly.  After that we will start moving towards getting more information on our travel timeline to China - we are still praying for August or September :)
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support - we will continue to give you up dates as we get closer to bringing our little one home~