More Updates!!!!

I can't believe after all this time that i actually have posts to make about little girls!!!! Its so amazing... and i just want y'all to know that all the glory goes to God who made this happen... I was thinking about that tonight that i was actually crying and begging God to take away the heavy desire i was having to get two girls, because i thought it was not even possible! God apparently has a very special plan for our girls and our family. and I AM SOOOO THANKFUL!!!


Tomorrow we will once again open our garage and house to sell things to raise some more money. It should be an interesting day, as we did not advertise anywhere but at church and on Craigslist. We will put our signs out on the roads and wait for people to come!!! There is a big Antique market going on tomorrow in a town near us and we expect to get traffic from that as well. Last time God gave us $2500 plus $1000+ in WeedFreeGardeBed sales. IN THREE DAYS!!!!!! That was miraculous!


Also the other day we received updated pictures of Kimi from Hengyang!


Isn't she just so precious!!!?

Her measurements:

height :100cm[Christel Cook] 39.5 inches

weight :13kg[Christel Cook] 28.5 pounds

head :46cm[Christel Cook] 18 inches

chest :50cm[Christel Cook] 19.5 inches

She can walk by herself

She can call "Mom and grandma "But not very clear ....she understands simple sentences too ...

We were very excited to read that she can walk by herself, since she has the diagnosis of "doubted cerebral palsy." She is of course skinny, but we expected that! But otherwise she looks good. Her sad face breaks my heart... i cried for a good 15 minutes because i just want to get her and hold her and make her smile. She is three and a half, people!!!! She has been without a mommy for WAY too long!!! The thought of Alex or Anthony not having us for all this time is just unbearable for me.

On Friday China posted updates for Maria too on their site... so as soon as we have the translations we should have some new info on her. They posted the same pictures that we received from Ann but there are several pages of writing, so we are excited to hear about what she is doing these days!

We Have PA Again!!!

Our Pre-Approval (PA) was posted over the weekend and the CCAA actually called our Liaison in China over the weekend to tell her. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is OFFICIAL!!! we are going to be the parents of two girls!!! Travel approvals were received by our agency and our for Maria was not among them, so we deduce that China will be holding our TA until they have Kimi's ready, too. That is good to know! Otherwise we we have been traveling within 2-3 weeks possibly!! That is so exciting to know that the process moves that fast! Its only been 2 months since our match with Maria! That's amazing! After 4 Years of being logged in this wait is almost over!!

We sent care packages to the girls last Wednesday, you know... We used Ann at Red Threadecause she had the perfect PJ care package, with GIRL pajamas, a blanket, a doll, camera, letter and she let me include three family pictures so the girls will know who we are.

This is Maria's package. Isn't the little doll so cute!


Guess what we got on Thursday!!!! New Pictures of Maria!!!! 6 of them! Isn't she so precious!!!? We were very excited to see that she was standing that is a good sign. She is 20 months old right now.

Here are the updated measurements that they sent Ann. We are thinking that she will be about a skinny 12 month size! I will try to get an update just before we go... so i can pick out some clothes to take for her.

height :79cm - 31in

weight :8.3kg - 18.3 lbs

head :43cm - 16.9 in

chest :42cm - 16.5 in

feet :11cm - 4.3 in

teeth :16

This is the care package that was sent to Kimi.

We are still waiting on an update on Kimi. But I found the yahoo group for her Orphanage and in the photo files there found some pictures from last summer of her!!! It was so exciting! She looks sooo tall and thin and sad. She is the one in the pink checked shirt with blue sandals. The Lady she is with is probably her foster mom. She was almost two and a half when these were taken. I hope that we get new updates soon!!!

The Big News!

Last week, China told us that we could lock the file for a second little girl!!! We are so excited, we can hardly believe it! We will have TWO daughters!!! So I wanted to share updated info. There have been a few changes... as in names.

Heng Ran YangSoon will be

KimberLei Anne

and

Jia Yi Wei

Soon will be
Maria Noelle

You can read about Maria (Jia Yi) here. Today i sent them both care packages and hope that we will get updated information soon. We can hardly wait to see how they have changed since the last updates. Maria's last update was in November of last year (9 months ago) and KimberLei's last update was one year and 10 months AGO!! She was only a year and a half old, now she is three and a half!

Kimi (Heng Ran) was born March 18, 2007 and was brought to the orphanage at 8 months old! It was then that they diagnosed her with "cerebral palsy ?" literally that is the diagnosis, with the question mark and all! Her reports don't exactly jive with cp but i guess we will see what is going on with her when we get there. The reports said when she arrived, she did nothing, no talking, no playing, her development was VERY much behind, after they arranged for someone to take care of her especially in the orphanage she improved and has become "an outgoing pretty girl." At one year and seven months she could say some words and could walk with help. She likes to go out doors for walks and smile, play games and listen to music, she likes to clap to music. She's apparently a "moderate sleeper." She was 33.5 inches tall and weighed only 21 pounds. SKINNY!!!! But she had 20 teeth! That's a lot of teeth! Although in another place it said she had 16 teeth. I am thinking the 16 is the right number.

Her Chinese name: Heng means without end and is a boy's name, it is her first name and what many children from that orphanage are also named.
Yang is her "last name" it means masculine, or poplar tree or to propagate... hummm.
Ran however is definitely a girl's name and is a Japanese name. It means Water Lily. How very appropriate! We love water lilies and have them growing in our water garden in front of the house.

She is from the Hunan Province, Hengyang City. and has lived there in Foster care for the last year and a half. But lived in the orphanage for 11 months before that. We are hopeful that we will get to visit her city, as typically adoptive parents stay in the larger city of Changsha. Although Hengyang is no small city, i read the other day that there are 7 MILLION people there! That is HUGE! We are looking forward to seeing Hunan, it looks BEAUTIFUL from the pictures we have seen! I can't wait to photograph.

There was certainly not as much info on her as on Maria's documents, but we are very happy about her and hope to put a smile on that VERY sad face! And some meat on her skinny little arms and legs!!! We also can't wait to see some hair! Goodness sakes!

I leave you with a couple more pictures of her.

Crazy Love...

A few months ago i discovered a few people that are as passionate about orphans as we are, and it is soooo refreshing to know there are others who are following God's plan for the orphans. One lady is Linny, she has 10 kids!!! What a dream! I think it is incredible. I hope that God sees our family fit for that kind of service as the years go by. I feel so completely honored that God has seen fit that our family should be bringing two little girls home from China at once as it is!!! Since this is NOT a normal occurrence. From the beginning we have always been approved for two kids at once (all 3 dossiers) but not sure i believed it would ever actually happen. We often have joked too, that our adoption from China has taken SOOOO long that they really should give us two... but seriously, how often are there twins available... If you'd like to read the whole Story of Two, it is a long one.

So Linny has this "Crazy Love Challenge" going on at her blog... and its about fund raising. We are definitely fund-raising over here, but at the same time i have a very hard time asking for funds from others... so my request for funds is going to just be in the prayer department. We ask for prayers for God to sell our Motorhome and our Race-Quad. We have already sold a ton of stuff at a sale that we had last weekend and if we need to we will start selling our furniture in the house as well... we did sell a few pieces already actually. We are certain that God will provide all the money that we will be needing to bring these two precious girls home, and really just can't wait to see how He does it!

Thank you for stopping by our China Blog, and please do pray for us, it is so comforting to know we have support. You can see more pictures of our boys from Kazakhstan on our main family blog

WOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!

Lyndsay called yesterday and said she had some really great news... yeeeeesssssss?

The woman at the CCAA that has been working on our file told our Liaison that she has enough approvals from her superiors that our agency can lock the SECOND file for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we have been officially matched with #2 girl!!!!! Poor Lyndsay... she is probably deaf now! I screamed in her ear and then started to cry! I really don't remember what she said after that other than we should be getting a PA in a couple days. I know she asked me something and i could hardly talk (since i was crying), but i just don't remember what she asked!!! When i got off the phone and went to find Jerry to tell him... i cried some more... more like sobbed... i was so relieved! This little girl now has a family who loves her and will take care of her and she will no longer have to be alone and so sad as she looks in her picture. I won't be sharing her picture until we get the PA to be safe, but she is a cutie and of course shaved, as usual! Ugh!

I can hardly wait to share her with you all!

sigh

i have TWO daughters.


ps. we raised about twenty-five hundred dollars at our sale!!! Now we are listing things on craigslist and after that ebay. Let us know if you need a motorhome!

One More Day...

We have one more day for the sale! So far we have sold two thousand dollars!!! Praise God!!! What's crazier is we still have A LOT of stuff left... it hardly looks like anything's gone!!! just crazy!
We did have someone steal something the first morning! Something fairly expensive... $20 or so... we couldn't believe it! However... we're ok... we prayed for them.

So we are still praying for the sale of some of the bigger items! So please pray with us!

Also China apparently has requested and reviewed updates on both girls we are requesting... the information and recommendation went on to the "superior" of the woman who has been working on our file at the CCAA. So we are still awaiting their response! Please keep praying!

Countdown to Sale!!

2 DAYS until we open for sales! We are busy busy getting ready over here and have some GREAT stuff to sell! Tons of Antiques!! Furniture, a Motorhome, race quad, books, clothes, a 24ft swimming pool, tools, snow blower, and on and on!!! TONS of stuff! We are going to have a Lemonade stand with cookies, and we might even have some produce to sell! We are excited to see what God does with this sale!!!