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!

HI everyone! Well My oldest son, Aaron is now safely tucked away at his College. He is a freshman at Valley Forge Christian College and I am so proud of him. It is truly strange for him to not be home (our house is the place where him and his friends where every single day as well) so even with 2 young ones at home I feel like I am going through empty nest syndrome hahah. I am missing my big guy, but am so so so proud of him. I cant believe he is off and on his own and doing amazing and loving college. Geesh where has the time gone???


I am sitting here waiting for our paperwork to come back from the Consulate with Authentication and then all will be shipped off to China and I will finally be able to say we have DTC .. but not yet. I cant believe how long this process takes as we have been working away like crazy people since February and thought our son would be home by November until we hit sooooo many speed bumps and roadblocks. I know this is all in Gods time and He has the perfect plan, but it is sometimes hard when I know my son is now aware of us and wondering what is taking so long for his mommy and daddy to come and get him.... We are coming Luke!!!. Our big guy is going to be 10 on September 22nd and it is sad to know we wont be there with him.... but we are planning on sending him another care package with more pictures of us and a nice big cake! It is nice to know that this is his last birthday without a family and I plan to throw on whopper of a shindig for his birthday next year :)


So for now I just sit and wait for notice from Madison that our paperwork is back from the Consulate and on its way to China!!!!!!!tick, tock, tick , tock

AWAITING I-800-A approval!

We are in a "holding pattern" while we wait for our approval of our I-800A. We went in early Monday morning and were fingerprinted. Our appointment was Aug31st but we took the risk and went in early. Our dossier (all of our paperwork going to China) is due in China on Aug 21st and our that is the end of our 1 month extension. Plus Aaron is heading off to College on Aug 21st so how would Aug 31st have worked for us? Sooo we decided to take a chance and the Lord watched over us and made a way! We walked into the office and a very nice lady behind the desk didn't even glance at our date on our papers. She whisked us right in and had us sit down. After we came in she switched places with another woman and that woman was inspecting peoples hands and checking dates (she sent one family away as their time wasn't until the afternoon) so we just missed having her check us in by 2 minutes..... Then as we sit waiting our turn one of the men my husband coaches football with comes across the room and heads into the supervisors office... turns out he is the supervisor of that office and runs the whole thing... Thank you Lord! He made sure everyone knew who we were and that we were well taken care of. We could not have asked for more. So the fingerprinting was done Monday morning, I called the USCIS that afternoon to let them know we were printed very early and hope that an officer was assigned to our case, and we had just been assigned an officer that morning. I got to speak with him and let him know we went in early. He said if everything is approved the fingerprint results should be back in 3-5 days and then if approved we would get our I-800A approval in the mail after that..... So now we wait! When the approval comes back I will drive it to Trenton to get State Sealed and then quickly get it to Madison so they can get it Consulate Authenticated for me. Then and only then can my dossier be sent to China and we can finally say we are DTC, (dossier to China) after that await LID (Log in Date) then we await LOA (letter of Acceptance) and then we hit Article 5 (which I believe that has a few steps involved) after that we get TA (travel appointment) and then we are off to get our son! So for now we wait and we count days until our approval comes and then we wait and we count days for the next thing.. I do predict a lot of counting!!!!!  But we are getting closer and closer to LUKE! We are working as hard and fast as we can to come get you!  

What an amazing day!

Well today has been an amazing day!!!!!! I got an email today and opened it up to find not one but 12 new pictures of our amazingly handsome son! Plus an update too! The update is a little rough with the translation ( I am going to see if I can find someone to re-translate it) but it is amazing. Our Luke XinHai got his care package and seemed to really enjoy what we sent him! We hear that he is doing very well. Amazingly sweet, friendly and loving! We got new measurements too. Seems he grew a bunch since April as he is now 4'7" which is amazing as he was 4'5' in April. He thinned out a bunch too as the pics we got sent in April his face was chunky and now he is quite slender.  Weighing in at 66 lbs. His brother Tommy was upset that Luke grew so much as he wants them to be the same height, which I think is so funny. He was happy when he saw that his brother is about 3 inches or so taller then him but seems to weigh about 6 lbs more.. so not too much difference. His brothers feet are only 1 inch bigger then Tommys' so they should be pretty close in body type, both skinny bone boys hahah. Opening this email with the pictures surely made my day! I am waiting on our fingerprint appointment for our I-800A. I called yesterday and they said our appointment is Aug 31st but we are going to try a walk-in as my son will be gone for College at that point and also my extension deadline will have come and gone by then. When we applied for an extension due to my homestudy agency taking forever we only got a 3 week extension. So please pray that we can turn things around quickly as we want to hurry and go get this handsome little boy home! We are all smiles today after seeing these pictures!

 God is sooooogood!