Our Birthday boy!

We got 3 pictures today of Xin Hai celebrating his 10th Birthday with the cake we had sent for him. We hope he had a good birthday and are happy he will have his next birthday at home here with us!

Thanks to Angela with Lady Bugs N Love for sending our care package for us and then sending the pictures to me when the orphanage sent them on to her! So nice to see our sweet sweet son's face! 

Happy Birthday Luke Xin Hai Worrell!

Happy "10th" Birthday Luke XinHai!!!!!!

Wed Sept 22nd is Luke's 10th Birthday. He will be spending this Birthday in the orphanage that he has been in since he was 8 months old. We sent him a Birthday package and cake for his Birthday through Angela with Lady Bugs N Love (the same women who sent our first care package for us and we LOVE her) so hopefully soon we will have new pictures of his birthday to share. It is hard knowing that Luke now knows about us but will spend his special day without us. One thing I am unsure of is whether the orphanage will actually celebrate his birthday tomorrow as tomorrow is a big Holiday in China. The Autumn Moon Festival is Sept 22nd so Angela wasn't sure if they would celebrate his birthday because it is already a big holiday. We shall see what happens. I know we are thinking of him here and praying lots of prayers for him and hoping and praying he knows how much love we have for him.  This WILL be his last birthday celebrated without his family. Say some prayers for our precious son on his special day. We love you Luke XinHai!


It is already Sept 22nd in China so it is Luke's Birthday already for him, but it will be for us tomorrow. Crazy how that happens. We have been praying for you all day today and will do so again tomorrow. We are going to have a small cake at our house for him tomorrow (his Brother, Tommys suggestion) and some prayer time for his Birthday. Cant wait to have a heck of a shin dig for his 11th Birthday. 
Love you Luke!

LID!!!!!

Another Big YAHOOOO is in order! One more acronym down! We were notified today that we have LID (Log in Date of our dossier in China) as of Sept 7th 2010. That is amazing since it was just sent on Friday, Sept 3rd on Labor day weekend and Arrived in China on Sept 6th which is labor day Monday and we were told they were closed that day. So amazing amazing amazing! One week at LID already and now we await LOA (letter of Acceptance) this is our next big Acronym and step.  I have been told this can take anywhere from 25 (really fast) to 75 or more days for this to happen.  We obviously, like everyone else in this process, are hoping for an LOA in the 20's day range, but as with everything else in this process we have no control over this. I am thrilled with the super duper fast LID and am going to try hard and not count days like a crazy person (this is going to be tough) until LOA....

Sept 22nd is Luke XinHai's 10th Birthday and we are in the process of sending him  a birthday package which includes an outfit, candy and nuts for the kids in the orphanage, a basketball, some more pics of us and of course a cake.  We are sending this package through Angela with Lady Bugs N Love as she already sent our 1st package and we just love her. I am hoping maybe she will be our guide in Beijing!  Hopefully we will receive new pics of Luke with his friends celebrating his "Big 10" Birthday. We  are going to have to have a huge Big 11 Birthday for him here next year! So happy with todays news! Come on LOA!!!!~!!!

testing

This is a test to see if I can post to my blog from email

DTC!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE DTC!!!!!!!! What more can I say.... WOW!!!! but for those of you that don't know what that means I will explain. All of our paperwork we have been working on since February, trust me there is a TON, is finally all state sealed, China Consulate Authenticated and now our adoption agency has shipped it off to China! WHAOOOOO! This is a big step. Our next step is LID, that should happen not to long after DTC... but I know that you often don't find out you have LID for awhile but you have it. So don't know when we will be notified we have LID (Log in date), meaning China has our paperwork.  Then about a month or so  after LID we should have LOA (Letter of Acceptance) meaning that China wants us to sign papers saying that this is definitely the child we want, of course he is! then we head down the road through the Hague process steps and head towards a few more steps (the Hague process is fairly new so how long all of that takes is in the air) and finally TA (travel appointment) and CA (consulate appointment). So from this date forward it is about 4-6 months before we head off to get Luke. Of course we are hoping for 4 months, but there are a lot of Holidays in China and The USA between now and February and the CCAA takes off for both American and Chinese holidays so I am feeling 4 would be tough, but one never knows!


Here is a picture of  most of our paperwork after we got it State Sealed ( we had several states involved so it took awhile and a few of our papers are not in this picture as we shipped them off to our adoption agency when they arrived later) I don't have a picture of any of our paperwork after it got consulate authenticated as Madison Adoption Associates took care of that for us (Thank the Lord as it is scary if this paperwork ever got lost to replace it would take months)

YAHOOO DTC feels good!!!!

YAHOO some forward movement!

Yahooo Lydia emailed me today to let me know that all of my paperwork is back from the Chinese Consulate and is authenticated! They are shipping it off to China on Friday! So I am not sure if that shipping it off to China day is when we are considered DTC or when they actually get it in China but oh man I am excited! This is a big one. Now we start counting down the acronyms until we get to the final big two TA and CA and then we are there! Will let you all know when it is finally on its way, but that sure did make my week! Hang on Luke we are working on coming to get you. His birthday is coming up so time to get in touch with Angela from Lady Bugs N Love and get working on another package, we are soooo getting him a Basketball this time as he seems to really like BBall! YAHOOOO!