Saturday, December 28, 2013



He comes over to check out the camera at the end of this video. This one makes me a little sad, seeing all the sweet children who need families. But I am thankful that the orphanage workers look kind and the room is clean and friendly appearing.

Getting ready

We had a wonderful Christmas celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus. We got to see lots of family and the kids loved their gifts. It was great but as soon as the kids went to be bed Christmas evening Levi and I took down all the decorations. I usually like to leave them up until after New Years but it seems like we have a thousand things to do before we leave in 5 more days!!!! And I really don't want to come home to Christmas decorations on Jan 18th. During the past week we have been busy completing all our trip arrangements and packing. We are just about ready! I am proud of myself for getting everything for all five of us in three suitcases! Thankfully we will be able to do laundry there so we don't have to take too many outfits.

During our trip we should have good internet access and plan on blogging frequently with trip updates.

I am going to post a few videos of Elliott that we received several weeks ago. I can't figure out how to attach them to this post so they may come up individually.

Elliott






Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Elliott will be in my arms in 18 days!

We got our travel approval Monday evening and yesterday received our visa appointment so now the fun of travel planning begins!!!!

Levi, the girls and I will leave on Jan 1st to fly to Beijing. Asher will be staying at home with grandparents and my sister. We will spend two days sight seeing in Beijing before flying down to Chengdu on Jan 5th. On Jan 6th we will go to the orphanage to pick up Elliott!!! It is crazy to think that in just a couple of weeks I will be holding the sweet boy that I have been staring at in pictures. I am incredibly excited but also incredibly nervous. Nervous about traveling 18 hours with the girls  and then back home again with our boy who doesn't speak English, doesn't know us or what the world looks like outside the walls of an orphanage. Nervous about leaving behind my sweet two year old son for 18 days. Nervous about what adjustment of life with 4 children will be like after we get home. But I am able to set aside this fear as I focus on the reason we are doing this. Yes the the steps we take are scary and sometimes uncertain but the benefits are enormous! Having the privilege of loving Elliott and have him join our family is worth it. Being able to offer Elliott a forever family where he will always have food, shelter, clothes, and an abundance of love ....those benefits are worth working through the scary parts.



Thursday, December 5, 2013

Getting close

We have passed through lots of steps in the adoption process this past few weeks. Today we got our Article 5 approval which is our government giving us permission to adopt Elliott and for him to live permanently in the US with us. Now the only step we are waiting on is TA (travel approval). Once we have TA we will begin planning our trip. We hope to have this in the next 2-3 weeks! I am so ready to know the date we will get our sweet boy.

A few weeks ago the representative from our agency who is managing our adoption was in Chengdu and visited Elliott in the orphanage. She has been wonderful through every step and now she went did the most remarkable thing...she gave him hugs and kisses for us and sent us some precious videos of him!!! Prior to this we had only 8 photos of him. Seeing him in the videos was so special to us and the kids! It was nice to get a little glimpse of his personality and see him looking healthy and happy. I will post them soon...when I know if it is ok to :)