A few more photos and a 2nd video!

Agency #2 sent me some photos and HIS VIDEO of him performing his talent at their talent show when they held the camp.

-sigh-I am in love!
...ok, I was in love before,
but come on!
He's precious(and quite hysterical if I do say so myself)!!!

With that in mind, laundry will go undone, house will be unkempt, fancy meals will go unmade...
because I will be here....hitting "play again" over and over and over again with four excited boys and one excited husband sitting here next to me!

Can't wait to show him to you!! They are going to be submitting the file transfer to the CCdoubleA on Monday afternoon, after that we lock him in, they already have our LOI and we wait for PA!

Yay!

Admist all of our good news

My heart is aching for this little boy.

From this family:

"He has a very complicated heart condition. He has transposition of the great arteries, dysplasia and severe backflow of the tricuspid valve. He was recently taken to Shanghai for a heart evaluation. The orphanage had hoped that he would be able to receive surgery for his heart and they even raised all the necessary funds. However the hospital felt that his condition is too serious to perform surgery so he was sent back to his orphanage."

Did you catch that?
SENT BACK TO THE ORPHANAGE.

Do you realize what that means for him? Over there he has no chance,
here,
he has a chance.
My heart is breaking. This precious family had planned to adopt him but God has other plans for them so this little fella needs a home. He needs a home soon.
Could you be his family?
They are advocating for him so if you would like more information on him click on over here and her email is listed on the sidebar, I know she'd love to speak with you about him!!
Sweet Jesus show us his family!!

The 411 on our dual adoption

First off,

Ya'll rock.

You have brought a smile to my face with your incredibly encouraging comments! Thank you!
Here are the details of what we know so far:

• Can't share kiddo #6's face until we receive PA..but he may or may not be hanging up in the living room and/or plastered over every surface in our home. So come on over and see!
  
• We are moving forward with one dossier for both boys. Gotta love that....except I probably won't be seeing Sally in GZ. And that is a serious bummer in my book.
  
• Name you ask Jean? Hmmmm....we are running out of J names but I still have a few in my pocket. I think a poll is in order! So step off to the sidebar and give me your two cents on his name!
• Both agencies are still working out the details of how all of this is gonna go down. As you remember, the agency that has his file now lists him on their agency specific list since they held a camp there a few months ago. They have agreed to release his file to our agency but the practical logistics of how that will happen is giving me a headache. But it's all good; it just necessitates lots and lots of Tylenol.

Bottom line: We are excited! Ecstatic! I have watched God move in big, big ways in my life but to watch this enormous mountain move on the other side of His world has been in-cre-di-ble. When we first fell in love with these two we had NO idea that they were even in

-the same province
-much less the same orphanage
-much less the same foster home
-much less that it would turn out that they are best friends.

Seriously?
In all of China?
In all of the 8 million orphans in China.
In all of the provinces,
in all of the countless orphanages.
Amazing.
Simply amazing.

So what will it be like bringing home a 6 year old and a 7 year old at the same time only 7 months apart in age, one of which that is only 18 months younger than our twins?
No idea.
We are definitely jumping into the deep end of the adoption pool.
But last I checked.....
the deep end is exactly where He wants us.
Fully relying on Him.
I know that HE will be there to guide us through this. We know that we know that we know that this is His will for us.
And that's enough for me.

Ch*na said......

I'm not gonna lie, I had written this post in my head a million times over the last few months. Written it if they said yes.
Written it if they said no.

When I wrote it in my head it was eloquent, well read, precise, funny,
it was perfect.

And now that I sit here looking at this screen,
words fail me.

The only thing I can think,
the track that keeps running through my head
is

Praise you Father, Praise you Father, Praise you Father.

Thank you Lord that you in your infinite wisdom knew that this boy


AND
this boy
WILL BE COMING HOME TOGETHER.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
More later as I gather my thoughts, but for now my praying blogging friends, know that we have verbal permission from the CCdoubleA to bring these foster brothers and best friends home
together.
Praise you Father.

And I'm back in the game

Whew! SO much to update on. Which I will do as soon as I unpack and oh, ya know...get off the computer..(first things first ya know, I had to catch up with all of you and your blogs!)..... and fix the kids some breakfast.

Yesterday was my birfday....let's just say I got one heck of an early birthday present.

L.I.D!

Yay! We got our LID today!

July 8,2010

Ahhhh, that day makes me happy. ;)

So now we are in a holding pattern, my best guess is that they will be asking about the dual adoption sometime next week!

Let's hope for Monday....Monday seems like a good askin day to me!

UPDATE! Just received the following from our agency:

Hi Sonia,

We are ready to rock and roll! When they will ask depends on when the directors are available. She has to go to several different people and discuss the situation, and then they all have to agree. It may take some time to get a response, but I will keep you posted on what we hear!

(Did I mention I really, really love our agency?!)

I don't think I had this many butterflies in my stomach when we found out we were having twins! Sheesh! Here's to praying for favor amongst all of the directors and that God will be all up in their biness whilst they are discussing these two boys future together!

Now where did I put that ice cream.....

6 inches

is about how much space I had to "sleep" last night.

Justin has gotten into a totally awesome habit of waking sometime around 1 am for no particular purpose....and because I'm the mom...he likes to wake me up to join him.


Yes you little one. Don't give me that cute face, you know the havoc you are wreaking on my sleep cycle.

Yeah. It's great fun.

You should try it.

-ahem-

So I get up, tuck him back in bed

and then

I

lay

there

for

hours
unable to go back to sleep.

Man alive there is a lot of thoughts that start flying around in mom brain when it is quiet and my off switch seems to be broken.

I once read an article that included a poll about how many moms are the one's that sleep closest to the door and it was some incredible number like 89% of moms "happen" to sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door. We are the first line of defense against middle of the night roamers and alas, they get us every time.

There must be a flaw in that system.

-sigh-


Mom! Wake up! I have turkey on my head!

I never minded getting up at all with any of these kiddos before...ya know...

when they were babies.

But hello, he's 8.

This no longer works for me. I have looonnng since stopped lactating, I have no diapers to change, no pacifier to find...I have seriously nothing to offer this child at 1am.

So last night in a totally misguided attempt to try and just go back to sleep I put him in the middle between John and I...

and by "middle" I mean Justin then proceeded to go right back to sleep snuggled right up next to me on my side of the bed leaving me about 6 inches of space between the bed and plummeting to the floor in the middle of my slumber.

Good times. Good times.

Coffee anyone?

Well...I was wrong.

Ya'll were right.

Compulsive email checking does in fact NOT stop even for a bit once you are DTC.

-sigh-

One day my husband will have his wife and my kids will have their mom back. :)

But for now....my heart belongs to hotmail.

Wild Olive Give Away!

*I know you want to think that this is me in the picture....ummm...yeah...but alas...I lost this figure somewhere in the 6 minute interval between child number 3 and 4 emerging from my loins. Just didn't want you to be confused.* :)

The ladies at Wild Olive are at it again! A new tee just released AND a ginormous giveaway goin on over there! If I win I'll be re-giving them away again right here! Because really,

re-giving

unlike re-gifting

is so much fun!

Click here and go check em out!

Adventures in really bad parenting.

So

here are my thoughts on our beloved child #1 and #2

they are our...though treasured and incredibly loved....

dry run children.

Yep.

I'm just gonna throw that out there.

At only 12 months apart they are jointly, to us, kind of like our first child though they are two.

So as with any dry run, there are things you learn that you did that you loved and that were effective...

Case in point, I recently drove with Jason and Jordan to visit a good friend and help her move. While there we were sitting outside and Jason seeing that there is only one seat left and he and her daughter still standing, completely of his own accord, cleans off the dirty patio chair and pulls it out for her daughter giving her the last available seat.

Yeah.

Love that.

Great manners? Check.

And then with your dry run there are things you wish you could completely rewind and do totally differently.

Case in point.

These two are slobs.

Very loved, funny, happy, healthy, Jesus lovin slobs...

but slobs nonetheless.

And here's the really bad part...

I made them that way.

Yeah.

You know when you have your first child(ren) you completely underestimate them and their abilities.

Surely this little 4 & 5 year old can't clean up their room! I'm the mom! I clean the room!

Surely this little 5 & 6 year old can't hang up their own clothes! I'm the mom! I hang up the clothes!

Surely this little 6 & 7 year old can't take out the trash! He's the dad! He takes out the trash.

Yeah. See where I'm going here?

And then we had the twins.

And those two little fellas didn't stand a chance.

Surely these two little one year old's can help clean up their room! I'm the mom! And look! They can help clean up their room!

Surely these two little two year old's can start to make their own beds! I'm the mom! And look! They in fact can help make their own beds!

Yeah. We learned ever so quickly the second time around.

So just to illustrate my point I thought I'd share with you today's task. It was laundry day....

ack...who am I kidding, everyday is laundry day.

The twins had an enormous pile of shirts to hang up in their closet...because I may or may not have skipped a laundry day..or 12.

Here is the result:
The big boys have been out of town with me thus they only had one stray shirt to hang up.

Here is the result:

Ummmm.

Yeah.

Dry run.

DTC!!!

After 4 months and 2 weeks our dossier finally headed to China on Friday and is on a big jet plane as we speak....errr type....errr blog....errr, read this blog...errr
never mind.

Wow.

I feel like a million bucks.

I can't tell you what an enormous step this feels like...well, I could tell you...but most of you already know what that is like and can share this same emotion..so I won't tell you. I'll just let the memory come rolling on in.

I am incredibly excited at this point. Excited for what's coming next, excited to not have to refresh my email every 2.7 seconds for a least a week or two, just plain ole

excited.

Whew!

Hoping to get a quick LID date which can only mean we will have the answer to the big question very, very soon!