More Steps

This week we've done some important things in the adoption process.  We submitted an I800 application with lots of supporting documents to US Immigration so Allie can become a legal US citizen once she hits American soil.  And thanks to lots of help from Matt, we got our China travel visa applications sent off yesterday.  You have to have them hand delivered to the Chinese consulate in Chicago or DC so you send them to a courier who takes care of all that.  There are a ton of tiny details you have to get right on the application itself and on the process of mailing to the courier, but hopefully we did it all!  I had to have a waiver on mine (because I work for a religious organization) saying my trip is not related to my job.  So interesting.

Anyway, there are still a handful of steps where we get some kind of approval and send off some kind of application.  It all sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher right now, as did most of what we went through already, until we were actually at that step and could see what it was all about.  I think the next thing that will come is our I800 approval from Immigration, which takes several weeks.  So time to wait again.

In the meantime, I have a small prayer request.  The package we sent to Allie with the book of our pictures, blanket, etc. has still not arrived in China.  Presumably it's held up at customs and could be released any time, but the post office here could not track it at all.  They said don't worry yet, but it has been over a month, so I'm a little concerned and just want her to be able to have that book!  So would you pray the package makes it to China soon?  Thank you!

And now....back to painting.  One week till the show!!!

Gene RYou're amazing Holly!

November 20, 2016•Edit•Delete

Cindy CPraying & expecting Allie to receive her package soon.

November 20, 2016•Edit•Delete

LOA!

We have been waiting almost a month since we were logged in to get the famous LOA, which I always think of as "Letter of Acceptance" but is really something like "Letter Seeking Confirmation from Adoptive Family".  Anyway, we got it yesterday!  This is just another step in the process, but an important one that enables us to file the I-800 with US Immigration so that Allie can come over and be our daughter.  We also get to apply for Chinese visas now and we're supposed to put the date of travel as 6 weeks from our application date...which stopped me in my tracks a bit...6 weeks...so not ready...but it will be more like 8-12 weeks when we actually travel.  Still thinking February after Chinese New Year.

Speaking of not feeling ready, I have just been nonstop going lately.  We had a second craft show last weekend and it was so busy getting ready for that while trying to fill orders from the last one.  And now we have another one next week and I'm still trying to fill orders.  And receiving orders.  We've raised 2/3 of the cost of the adoption, including grants which is just amazing.  And I love the painting.  But I don't have have time for ANYTHING.  So gotta try to get through this show and then it should be better just filling orders.  Yesterday I was driving to work and listening to a book on tape because, as mentioned before, I don't have time to read.  The cd finished and I couldn't reach the next so I put in a cd I made several years ago with songs that are really meaningful to me.  With nothing else filling my head, I let myself ponder all that's been going on lately, particularly Allie.  Tears immediately came to my eyes as I thought of the reality of what we're doing--the overwhelming part and the blessing part.  I realized I am going to need more time to process and in the car right before work is probably not my best option.  

Just can't even believe how God has worked out this thing I've been praying and hoping for for many years.  And like what's happened several times before, on this day I was feeling emotional and connected with the Lord, that afternoon I got the call about our LOA.  I know things are going to be hard, but he keeps showing me that he's right there showing his love to us through it all.  

First Craft Show:)

Our craft show was a huge success! I had been painting and crocheting since summer, Cindy had made a ton of jewelry, and we had invited the whole neighborhood and all our local friends and family. Then my friend Susan, who is also adopting from China, joined in with her stuff and invited people. Susan and I were both overwhelmed at the crew that showed up. When you are trying to sell stuff that you made, it can be hard to think that people would be interested and it's hard to ask for help, as we have been doing this whole adoption with the financial aspect. So to see our house packed with folks who were so supportive and so interested in buying our stuff was hugely encouraging. We finished our puzzle too, which is just awesome. We ending up getting $2600 in sales for our family and Susan made a bunch too!!! So thankful for this community. (Now back to painting for next weekend.... :) )

November 5, 2016•Edit•Delete

RickHow wonderful for you! What beautiful work! Wish I could have been there. Let me know about the next show/event

November 6, 2016•Edit•Delete

HollyC392The final one is Winter Wonderland show at the Greenway on 11/26.

October Pics of Allie!

HollyC392I got these yesterday through a Facebook friend who is good friends with one of Allie's caregivers!! Blessings abound. Can't even believe it.

October 14, 2016•Edit•Delete

HollyC392Opened facebook today to 4 new pictures of Allie from my new friend. I didn't even ask for them! So thankful.

October 26, 2016•Edit•Delete

Alicia WOh my gosh. The little stripey dress! She is so cute!

Care Package!

Soon after we got our PA for Allie, I talked with Lisa about sending a package to her, as that is a common thing for matched families to do.  I knew we wanted to send a plastic picture album of our family that she could play with, a blanket, some clothes, and disposable cameras, so I headed to the baby store after work one day to pick things up.  

I think I should not go to stores at lunchtime after work.  After the loud and sometimes crazy environment of our preschool classroom, I tend to zone out, especially when hungry, so I ended up spending more than an hour wandering around the store, thoroughly confused and not making any decisions.  A few times I pulled out my phone to text Lisa for advice, then put it back again, telling myself that she has important things to do and I need to be an adult and just pick something out!

For blankets, I pondered whether she would like the thin receiving blankets like my kids had, even though she is older, whether to buy multiple of the same in case she loses one, whether to pay $25 for one beautiful blanket or $16 for 4 small cute ones.  I decided on the $16 pack of receiving blankets so I could send one and keep the other 3 as backups, as we've done for all our kids.  

I couldn't find an outfit for her...What size will she need at 15 months old but the weight of a 9 month old?  And I read no pants b/c Chinese do split pants for pottying, but couldn't find any dresses that looked comfortable.  In retrospect, she's got pants on in many of the pictures so I should have done that, but eventually I settled on two pairs of pjs.  

And then I searched high and low, with and without one nice but uninformed employee, and couldn't find a baby photo book till we called in reinforcements on the search.  Finally I made my purchases and headed home, feeling quite in adequate for the task of parenting this child when I can't even manage a quick trip the store!  

Truthfully, I am really not prepared practically at all the way I was with my other kids.  I haven't gone in the attic to find the boxes of Julia's clothes to make sure we have enough.  I haven't found a crib or decided where to put the crib.  I haven't decided if we'll use Julia's old cloth diapers and if we do, whether or not we have enough.  I haven't looked in the attic for things like toddler silverware or cleaned out Julia's closet to make room for Allie's things.  I haven't figured out what we'll need to take on our big trip for us, let alone for Allie.  For now, most of my time is taken with getting ready for the craft fundraisers and oh yeah- filling out even more papers:  grants and immigration papers for Allie.  But I don't feel panicked--yet.  One thing at a time is all I can manage right now!

Tonight we're going to try to make a video to send to Allie's caregiver, who is willing to show her.  We had some interesting talks this morning about what we might say.  I think we will limit to saying hi in Mandarin and maybe I love you, though when I played a video of the pronunciation this morning, the kids were just having a fit saying "Yo hiney, FunFun!"  (It's really more like "Woe eye knee")  I'm sure we will butcher that one!  But so thankful she will be able to see us in her book when it arrives and in a video.  It is hard not to think of the shock and sadness she will feel when we take her from her caregivers.  Yet I know that she needs a mom and dad.  A group home is not enough.  It will be hard, but good.

We've settled on a name...

This week we decided for sure to call our daughter Allison Meifen.

Allison is for my younger sister Jeannie (her middle name).  I had always thought that if we had another girl--a sister for Julia--I'd want to name her after one of my sisters.  We decided it would be Jeannie since our girl is a little sister and her birthday is one day before Jeannie's.

Meifen has meany different meanings to us.  First, you pronounce it "mayfun".  Mae is my grandmother's middle name and Matt's grandmother's middle name.  We wanted her to have a Chinese middle name though, so we thought we'd spell it the Chinese way.

Mei has multiple meanings in Chinese, depending on how you say it.  It can mean sister or beautiful, both of which are great.  Julia especially has called her sister Meimei from the beginning, so that's fitting to have that part in there.

But after hearing her caregiver call her "Fenfen" on the videos we got, I began thinking of her more and more as Fen and wanting her to still carry that name once she gets here too.

Then Lisa and google showed me that Meifen was a common Chinese girl name.  It means a combination of plum and sweet fragrance.  We think that's like "sugar plum" and we love that too.  So Meifen it is!

Oh, and we will probably call her Allie, though I've heard Gray refer to her as Allison several times already, which is fine too.  And for fun, the boys love to call her Allie-gator.  :)

Sarah ZBeautiful name with so many wonderful associations... got chill bumps reading this update! Can't wait to meet your Allie!

Above and Beyond

This past week as we celebrated (and adjusted to) getting officially matched with our girl, I was able to contact Little Flower Foster Home, where she stayed as an infant, and received access to a treasure trove of beautiful pictures they had taken.  

I am really into recording memories and keeping up with family photos.  Each of my kids has plenty of albums of their babyhood, a notebook with things they said or did recorded, birthday letters, etc.  It has always made me sad to think of an adopted child not having those memories to look back on, so I'm just so thankful that we will be able to make her a baby album too.  It's a little thing, but important in some ways.  

On top of that, after connecting with moms on the Little Flower facebook page, I got put in a group for parents with heart kids and chatted with some folks with similar situations there as well.  We had also found out the name of the home our little girl has lived in since February and I got put into their "secret" facebook group too, where I made more connections!  What an awesome network of encouragement are all these adoptive families!  One from the secret page informed me there is a blog for the home and in no time, she found this for us:  Our daughter on her 1st birthday.  Amazing!

Sarah ZSo much joy in her beautiful face! How wonderful to have access to these early photos... I bet you're falling in love already!

October 3, 2016•Edit•Delete

lindsey sOh my word, Holly, she is PRECIOUS!!

October 4, 2016•Edit•Delete

Barnette CI cannot wait to meet our newest granddaughter. Do you have an exact birthdate?

October 10, 2016•Edit•Delete

HollyC392The birthdate given to her from their estimation is July 14th.

October 11, 2016•Edit•Delete