3 more sleeps....

Only 3 more sleeps til we make the long flight to China. We will fly from Atlanta to Seoul, have a 2 hour layover, then fly to Beijing. We leave Atlanta at noon on Wednesday and arrive in Beijing at 8 pm on Thursday. We will have Friday and Saturday to tour Beijing, and get acclimated to the 13 hour time difference before we head to Olivia's province. Sunday morning we will take the train to Jinan, Shandong and Sunday afternoon we will meet our little girl!!! Oh how I cannot wait!!!!! We will have a 24 hr temporary custody, before we finalize the adoption on Monday. We will stay in her province until Friday, when we fly south to Guangzhou. This is where the US side of the adoption is finalized. She will have to have a medical exam and TB test there. The first available appointment we could get at the Consulate was Thursday, January 31. This puts us getting home 2 days later than we originally planned, but we'll make do. We have to wait 24 hours after the consulate appointment to get her visa. Once we get her visa we are free to leave! Well unfortunately we will stay overnight in Hong Kong Friday night because of the flight times. We will fly out of HK about noon Saturday 2/2 to Seoul, another 2 hour layover, then to Atlanta. We will get home Saturday night about 7 pm!!! In which I will rejoice to be at home with my FOUR kiddos!
It has hit me HARD over the past 2 days that we are leaving our kids for 2 1/2 weeks......2 1/2 weeks......:-/ Christmas was 2 1/2 weeks ago, that was forever ago! I know once we're there it will be fine, but up until then, I may be somewhat of a basket case....:-(. I am worried about the kids. I pray that God will give them peace and ease any fears they have of us leaving. I know they will have many hard moments but I'm sure it will soon be forgotten once we're home with their new little sister, aka Taylor's China baby (that's how he refers to Olivia, "my China baby")

Today we had a GREAT family day! I finally got to go to church and feel normal, wasn't up all night working. Then we had lunch at Buffalo's, their favorite, and then later we went bowling. I got this great groupon deal of an hour bowling, laser tag for 6, and $20 at the arcade for only $45!!!! That's a steal!!! We had so much fun!! I must say laser tag was the best, maybe cause I kicked some booty....hehehe.;-)
It was exactly what I needed, to have a carefree day, just the 5 of us. With all the preparation, cleaning, planning, spending, worrying, writing wills (yes, it was a must....) I needed today to hear my God, pray with my amazing church family, and relax with my amazing hubby and kiddos.



God, please give me the strength to get through the next few days. Please God, remind the kids that you are living through us, we are following your will to bring this precious baby home, and that you will guide us all and love us all and take care of us all while we are apart (as well as every other day of our lives) and God please bring us back together soon. Through Jesus Christ we pray, Amen!

What an Amazing day.....

Today was amazing!! I first went to lunch with some other China adoptee mom's (they are all BTDT).  They are so full of information, it's so nice to have them to answer my thousands of questions.   Two of them brought there little ones, which makes it all the better, to see these beautiful faces that are loved and thriving.  It really brings this all to reality.  Olivia isn't just a picture or a thought, she's a living, breathing, child who doesn't deserve to be an orphan.  Luckily she won't be much longer.  However there are still many more orphans in this world.  So if any of you have an itch ot just a little "what if" thought for adoption, let me know (wink,wink) I know some amazing people that can get you going!

As we were leaving lunch I checked my email and had one from our agency that said our Travel Approval was mailed from China Tuesday 1/8 (China time, so really Monday night, our time) and should be to the adoption agency by Friday!!!! So I asked if we could get our Consulate Appointment (CA) for the last week of January, could we leave next week, and she replied with YES, if there are any CAs available for that week, we can go!!!  BTW the CA is one of the last things we do in China, but is what the entire trip is planned around.  It is at the US Embassy and makes the adoption official on the American side, so that Olivia Kate will be a U.S. citizen when the plane lands in America.
 So we will hopefully be leaving Wednesday 1/16!!!  And will get Olivia on either Sunday 1/20 or Monday 1/21!!! If there are not any available that week, we will leave the next Wednesday 1/23.  I'm not exactly sure when we will find this out, possibly tomorrow, maybe this weekend. So I guess I better be ready..... :-)

Then tonight I was given a shower at work by my dear friends.  It was AMAZING to say the least!  I can't begin to explain how apreciative I am to everyone for all their support and love for us.   I must say I work with the most wonderful people, I am so thankful for this!  We truely have such a great team on our unit, how many people can say they work with good friends.  I can't wait to tell Olivia about how many people supported us and helped us get her home.

 

 

These four girls above are absolutely AMAZING!  They did an amazing job on the shower with all kinds of Chinese details.  They have been such a wonderful support for me through out this process.  If you remember I posted a while back about them having a bake sale for us, I was again AMAZED tonight at the amount of money they raised for us.  They worked so hard and cooked 40 pumpkin rolls and endless cookies, muffins, and breads.  I hope one day, I can show them the same support and love they have shown us! 

My promise....

So Christmas and New Year's have come and gone......I haven't had a chance to download any pictures yet... we had a wonderful Christmas with all of our family, busy, of course, but still good! New Year's we spent at my Dad and Step-mom's cabin that they rent every year in Helen.  It was wonderful too!  My brother and SIL and nephew Jake were there and my sister and BIL.  We had so much fun hanging out and playing games.  I am so thankful to God for that time with them, of just hanging out and enjoying each other.  We spent Christmas with everyone too, but there was no time constraint or little ones BEGGING to open presents or parents thinking, "we need to get home for Santa" (eventhough I really try to play down the whole Santa thing....I try every year to put more emphasis on what Christmas is truelly about and every year I seem to fail.....I just get way to caught up in the spending, sorry got way off subject)......

 Of course , as always, every single minute of every day, I am thinking about Olivia and how ready I am to get her,  oh how I wanted her to be with us this Christmas.  But it was here that I realized she's not only gaining a mom and dad and sister and 2 brothers, but also grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.   Yes, it has taken me a while to realize this....don't judge, I may have been a little selfish in thinking "She's getting a momma!" Actually I think I have been MORE focused on "I'm getting another daughter!!!"  But now, I can't wait for her to experience everything FAMILY means.   As we have had so much time over the past couple of weeks with family, God has reminded me.....she's not only gaining the 5 of us, she is gaining so much more.  She has our extended family that already love her so much and can't wait to meet her, and she has our friends that have supported us and cheered us on, and our AWESOME church family that has loved and supported us every step of the way.  We take so much for granted and idolize all the wrong things, but thinking about Olivia and that it doesn't matter what she wears or plays with, it only matters that she has love. every. day. for the rest of her life!  This is my promise to her!

This is a little late but Olivia's visa (Article 5) was picked up from the US Consulate and sent to the CCCWA.  Now all we are waiting on is China to say "Come get her"!  I am hoping it comes the first week of January.  We really don't know, it usually takes 1-3 weeks for travel approval.  We are SOOOOO close!!!  Luckily we have Christmas and New Year's to keep us busy in our waiting......I am also using this time for some much needed time with my 3 kids here that have seriously felt my spaceyness lately.  I have been a little scatter brained, to say the least (some may call it "placenta brain", with out the placenta.....)  I hope these next couple of weeks while they are home we can really have some much needed family time.  We are just waiting on the TA, there is finally NO more paperwork to do, so I can devote my time to them and enjoying them. 

A few examples of our God's love.....

Yesterday, Taylor and I had lunch with my friend Michelle and her beautiful little girl Ava.  Ava came home in October and has been an absolute blessing to Michelle and her family.  Read about them here.  Ava is just precious!  She is so happy and I love to just watch her, you can tell there is so much going on in her little mind.  I think mainly she is saying "What in the world?"  She just watches everything and everyone.  It's so amazing to think how God has blessed this family with this little miracle and blessed this little girl with this family.  Just two months ago she was living in an orphanage and had no idea what it meant to be loved and wanted and now she has a family that absolutely adores her!  I love spending time with Michelle and getting all the tips she has for China and what it's like adjusting to her new life, but I also feel a little closer to Olivia.  Sometimes it feels so unreal, Olivia is half a world away and all I have are a few pictures and a short video, you can easily get wrapped up in the minute and the travel part of it.  Trying to plan and prepare for 2 weeks in China with a 3 year old has taken a lot of my brain capacity here lately....LOL.  Anyway, being with them brings me back to reality and the fact that I will have a little China princess soon! I will soon be doing the whole toddler thing again, I will have a little one to carry and teach new things to. Oh how I can't wait to meet her and learn her little personality, what she likes and doesn't, what makes her laugh or cry, and even more to show her that we love her and that she will, FOREVER, have a family! 

Last night we went to the kids Christmas program at school. It was so nice to be reminded of what this time is really about, Our God and His love, by giving us His son, Jesus Christ.  The school had a Lessons and Carols, where the kids sang Christmas carols (true Christmas songs, not Rudolph) and they read scripture about the birth of Jesus.  It was Awesome!! It may have brought a few tears, hearing those little voices singing such beautiful and meaningful songs.  Here are some pictures.....:-) Chase is officially too old for this....:-(

Friends....

I have some AMAZING friends!! They have organized a bake sale at work to make money for us for the adoption. Today they baked multiple baked goods including yummy pumpkin rolls that people have PREORDERED!! I am so thankful for the blessing of friends. Today is a terrible day for America. After a man walked into an Elementary school in CT and killed 18 little angels. We have to find thankfulness in the things that REALLY matter. Our friends and family. This time of craziness and preparing for Christmas in which we all over spend and buy things that are by needed, we lose sight of what really matters. We have a God who loves us more than we can fathom and in this time of heartache we must not forget that. He puts people in our lives for a reason, just as He has given us Olivia Kate, he has also blessed me with some wonderful people to share my life with.

Article 5 Drop off

So I have been patiently (yeah right nothing patient about this) waiting for the I800 approval, that we got last week, to be sent to the National Visa Center, to then be sent to the US Embassy in China.  Well it finally happened today!! We will now wait 2 weeks and then it will be picked up on Thursday 12/20.  After it is picked up we will only be waiting on Travel Approval (TA) from China.  Once we get our TA we will be assigned a date for our Consulate Appointment, which is the American side of the adoption that is finalized in Guangzhou, China, at the US Embassy towards the end of our trip.  TA can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks and we could leave a week or so later.  So this time next month I may finally have an answer to the million dollar question "When will you go get her?"  These are the last few steps y'all, we are SOOOO close!!!!  :-)