End of October

Well, here we are at the end of October and approaching 2 years of waiting for Hannah. Time has gone quickly, but oh, how we wish we were closer to bringing her home. The program continues to move, but ever so slowly. We are still waiting for final word from our agency regarding their Hague status. Hopefully everything will go well and they will be approved so we won't have any more bumps in the road.



As we continue to wait, we enjoy every minute with Grace. We just celebrated 6 years together on the 22nd of October. I can't believe it has been that long..it seems like only yesterday we were in China meeting that little girl we had waited so long to hold. She has blossomed into the sweetest little girl any Mommy could hope for. We are so proud of her! We recently donated 11 inches of her hair to Locks of Love. I love her with short hair, and she loves no more tangles! She continues to make great progress at school, and I thank God every day for the people He has placed in our lives to help us with her learning. What a blessing they are!

Here is a recent photo. My baby isn't a baby anymore!

Fall update

As we approach our 2nd anniversary of submitting our dossier for Hannah, we have mixed emotions. Sometimes it seems as if this is never going to happen, while other days we are more optimistic. Our agency is still working through their issues with Hague agreement. They have closed all of their regional offices now, and we are once again working with the home office in St. Louis. I have my doubts that they will be able to continue to stay in business at all, but they assure us that there is a plan in place if they do not receive the Hague accreditation. I guess once again we will wait and see. Our friends in TN, the Millwoods, are very close to receiving their referral, so I guess we will live vicariously through them until it is our turn. We continue to pray for the stability of the program in general and ask for God's guidance and patience while we continue to wait.

As for the program in general, the CCAA completed matching the first week of Feb. 06 last month. There are 33 log in dates with our agency ahead of us, and at the current rate that means that we have a minimum of 33 months until we get a referral. That's hard to imagine, but a very realistic possibility. We will see what happens when referrals come through this week. One day at a time.....

As for our sweet Grace, she is in first grade this year and doing great. She has grown so much this year and we are incredibly proud of her accomplishments in school so far this year. She remains the light of our lives and her hugs and kisses make the pain of the wait disappear!


As we have said so many times before, we know God is in control of this situation. He knows what he is doing and what is best for us. We continue to trust in Him!

End of June Update

Well, here we are 20 months since log-in and not a whole lot closer to Hannah's referral. China sent referrals a couple of weeks ago for families whose dossiers were logged in through Jan. 22, 2006. With an Oct. 30, 2006 log-in, we still have a very long way to go. It's frustrating, but we know there is nothing we can do about it. So we wait......

Grace lost more teeth last month. She looks as cute as a button without any front teeth. She's just growing up way too fast. We have enjoyed our first month of Summer break. We haven't had much of a chance to do anything too out of the ordinary, but we did manage to get to the zoo and have several cook-outs with friends. She starts speech therapy next week and we have had a visit to the eye doctor and next month is the dentist. Sound like fun??? Her new babysitter, MaryBeth is awesome! We all love her!

We had a fun weekend with family....what better way to spend time together?

Hopefully we will get to see some fireworks this weekend. Grace loves that!

Happy Summer!

Grace's first wedding

My sister, Mandy, got married to Ryan last weekend. It was an emotional weekend, but so beautiful. It would have been my older sisters birthday on Saturday, too, so it was hard not having her there. It is hard to believe she left us almost 5 years ago. I know she was there in spirit, though. We could all feel her presence.

This was the first wedding Grace has ever been in and she did a fabulous job. I can't wait to see the photographers pictures as I was unable to take any during the ceremony, but I did manage to capture a couple prior.

Only 5 more days of school and our little girl will be a big 1st grader! Amazing! She has made some great progress this year thanks to the wonderful team at Crossing. We can't thank them enough. She lost her third tooth this week, and we assume she must have swallowed this one like she did the last ones.

Happy Spring!

Spring Update

Nothing really new to report on the adoption end, unfortunately. Our agency is still working on getting their approval through the Hague convention. I don't know much about it other than it is some type of agreement between countries that is now required for international adoptions. It doesn't really affect us now, but it will when we get ready for referral. Hopefully they will have everything in line by then. China is still making extremely slow progress on the existing dossiers. Here is the latest from the CCAA website:

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before December 31, 2006.The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before January 09, 2006.

As you can see, we are still a long way off from referral. Our log in date is October 30th, 2006, so at the current rate, we are looking at least another 18-24 months before we have any information on Hannah. We have looked at the waiting children lists, but we are just not sure we are prepared to go that route. God will lead us in the direction He wants us to go, and it is our job to listen and follow.

Speaking of jobs, I start a new job on May 5th. I will be working for the Ohio State Medical Center department of ophthamology as a receptionist. I am excited about the opportunity and the change. It should be really great for our family, too, with better benefits and more money. I will miss subbing, but without any benefits, something had to change. I am fortunate that this opportunity has presented itself. Thanks to our friends Janet and George for the help in landing this job!

We are enjoying the beautiful spring weather. Only one more month of school for Grace. She is loving being able to play outside again and spend some time on her slide. This is my favorite photo yet this year.

Is it Spring yet?

Snow, Snow and More Snow

It started Friday morning, and didn't stop until Saturday night. In the end the "blizzard" of '08 left us with 15 inches of the white stuff. We've been snowed in all weekend. Needless to say,I think we are all ready for Spring! Grace isn't too fond of the cold and snow, but we did manage to get her bundled up and out for a family shoveling fest.

Today will be another quiet day at home, with probably more shoveling this afternoon. Have I mentioned that we are ready for Spring???