Referral!!!

We are so excited to share with you all that we received a referral for a little 18 month old beautiful Chinese girl!  Words can’t begin to tell you how excited we were to see pictures and read all about our new little daughter!  It was so fun to introduce Wu Xiu Li (which means beautiful, elegant, graceful) to her big sisters.  Her name really describes her so well…both Travis and I were amazed by how beautiful she was when we first saw her photo. Her eyes look so much like her big sisters’ eyes.  We wanted to wait until we got our pre-approval before we shared with others.  We will wait to share her photo until we get our Letter of Acceptance from the CCAA that we have been officially approved to adopt her. 

We have continued to be in awe of God’s timing and goodness towards us in this process!  We were logged into the CCAA on Monday, June 21st and we received our referral the very next day on Tuesday, June 22nd…now that is what I call quick!  We didn’t officially start our adoption until December 29th, 2009 and we hope Xiu Li (pronounces Show Lee) will be in our arms by the end of November 2010! 

Some fun facts about Xiu Li:

Birth date:  December 29, 2008

Birthplace:  Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China

“I am Special” by Hailey

Check out this original song written by Hailey. She wrote and performed it just days after returning from a trip to the States with me. I think you will get the point that she felt pretty special. I’m glad that she felt loved by getting to go on a special trip to America with me.

Biking with Morgan

Our sweet Morgan has gone above and beyond her duty as a cousin!  She has been so sweet and fun to her 3 little cousins.  She has taken each of them on a date.  All the dates consisted of a bike ride, and then have varied from there.  She took Madison to get her fingernails painted and then to Peter’s to split a ice cream flurry.  She took Hailey to the grocery store and the stationary store.  Since Sydney is just 2 1/2 her date was just a bike ride.  Check out the video of Sydney riding on the back of Morgan’s bike.  Cute!!

Cousin Mo!

Our sweet 17 year old niece, Morgan, has been here with us for the past 3 weeks.  It has been so fun to have her here!  All 5 of us would agree…plus all the neighborhood kids and adults.  She has been busy having a Chinese language tutor 2 hours/day plus teaching swimming lessons while she is here.  Not to mention all the other things she’s been going…going skydiving in a wind tunnel; shopping; going to museums; studying; riding bikes, scooters, taxis,  and rickshaws all over town;  seeing movies;  babysitting;  taking her bike to get it fixed;  and pulling out Hailey’s first tooth.  She is quickly become my girl’s favorite cousin (other cousins, you better get over here fast!  Don’t let Morgan get the #1 position!)  We love you dear Mo!

Logged in!

We are completely blown away right now!  Our dossier (adoption paperwork) didn’t arrive in Beijing at the CCAA( (China Center of Adoption Affairs) until Friday, June 19th!  Usually dossiers sit on someone’s desk for at least a week or 10 days before someone logs them in.  Well, they logged ours in on Monday, June 21st….yes, the very next work day!  We are so glad that everything has arrived in it’s final destination.  This means that we are now eligible to be matched with our daughter.  Hopefully, we will know who she is soon!  We are praying for you, sweet girl! 

Our local butcher

As Sydney and I are on our morning stroll. We saw the butcher outside
our apartment complex.

Orphanage Visit

This week I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a local orphanage with some other moms from Madison’s school.  Of the 9 of us that went, one has 2 adopted daughters from China, and 4 of us are in the process of adopting from China and Ethiopia.  Even though we live here, it is usually fairly difficult to get to visit the orphanages.  Thankfully the school has had an ongoing relationship with this orphanage.  Several families at the school have actually fostered (and later adopted) children who weren’t thriving there.  It was a small orphanage and so we just went in and played/held the kids for an hour or so.  Most of the children there were over 3 and had a variety of special needs.  I really pray that they will be adopted into loving families.  

My friend Cary & I held these little boys the whole time we were there.  It was cool to sing “Jesus Loves Me” to these little ones and pray over them while we were holding them. 

It was a pretty emotional day to know the grief their biological parents must feel in having to bring them to the orphanage.  I’m sure each of them thought they couldn’t give their child the proper care they needed.  In China, it would have been much easier (and culturally acceptable) for them to have aborted them.  I’m very thankful that their biological parents chose life for these precious ones. 

The Urban Life

When you live in a huge city there are some things that you do in your house that you just wouldn’t do if you lived in the suburbs.  A few examples are that you pot plants in your house, you BBQ on your balcony (instead of your backyard), and your kids ride riding toys in your small apartment.

The newest addition to that list is that when you live in an urban area with no outside/backyard space, you can have a swing in your bedroom.  I think you also have to have a pretty cool dad who will, not only allow it, but will spend several hours getting it drilled into the concrete ceiling. 

Here are some picture of the girls swinging on their new swing. 

Hailey was especially excited about that swing, since she LOVES to swing and there are very few swings in our city.

Sydney getting in on the fun!

Only in a city of 10 million people will you see this

I was just walking out of my office and just saw this and thought it
was funny.

People live in the city but most are from the farming areas. So they
still keep roosters and chickens around that wake us up at 5am.

Neighbors

We have the cutest little couple who live in our complex.  They walk around every afternoon and have started looping down in our circle (to see the foreign kids, I think ).  I think they are so precious.  The man is 98 years old and his wife is 90!  I can’t imagine all the things they have seen in their life time.  I think they look great for their age, which is usually the opposite of what I think of the locals here.  Because of their hard pasts, usually I feel like people usually look much older than they are, but not this little couple.  I have a difficult time understanding them when they talk since they speak the local dialect and in very soft voices.  I hope to find out more of their story in the future, because I know they must have some amazing stories. 

Here Madison is with them.  Notice how little clothes Madison is wearing compared with their clothes.  Typically Chinese are “scared of the cold” where I think Americans are more afraid of the hot.