Coleman Crosses Over into Boy Scouts

Coleman has had a great year in Scouts. We are so proud of how far he has come and all that he accomplished. He wants to try to become an Eagle Scout, and he has the determination to do it if he decides to. Coleman's Pinewood Derby car won for his grade and for the entire troop, and he went on his first Boy Scout campout where he rowed a canoe for 20 miles and camped on an isolated island overnight. We are so proud of the young man he is becoming!

She is so stinkin' cute!!

A Funny New Hair Do For Emma!

We have really received a lot of blessings surrounding the adoption lately. We had a really rough Fall and Winter with lots of unexpected medical and financial issues and, thankfully, we are making up for all of that this Spring. Our dossier to China was sent to our agency in December and then delayed in Washington for authentication so it was not sent to China until February 5th (our DTC date). We just found out that the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) did not log in our paperwork until March 16th (our LID - log in date). We realized at this point that we would not be traveling to China in the Spring as we originally expected. The estimated time is to travel 3-4 months after your LID date which puts us in June or July (though we will probably only be given a week's notice for travel - our TA (travel approval) will arrive at random and then we will leave anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks later). As much as I would love to have Sam at home with us today, it was a relief to find out that we would travel over the summer as April and May are extremely busy months at my children's schools. If the trip to China came in May, I would have to stay home. God's timing is truly perfect, and I knew he would work this out for us. And the pictures they keep sending us have really helped to pass the time. Seeing him grow is sad (we are missing it!) and exciting (he is thriving!). We were also contacted by our AMAZING adoption agency about a Special Needs grant to help us offset the costs of the adoption as well as a LOW interest loan, if we wanted it. They said that they knew we were not planning on adopting again (and were not financially prepared for it) when they contacted us and the least they could do was help us out as much as they could. I cannot say enough wonderful things about EAC! They are wonderful and are truly in it for the kids and the families. Chris, Karla, Kim and Zhou are like family, and we cannot wait until we see them at the China Party next month! Karla calls us out of the blue just to check on us. They really go the extra mile! So, I am counting my blessings as they continue to pour in. We are just SO THANKFUL!

Hello Everyone! I know it has been a long time since my last post..... I really have no excuse, just life. I did sit down to post one day and after repeated attempts at uploading a picture unsuccessfully, I finally gave up. So here I am, weeks later, finally catching up. We received updates on Sam yesterday and he has grown up so much since the last picture they sent. He is just beautiful. In addition to our referral picture, the orphanage has sent us 3 other sets of photos of Sam. We are so grateful! His hair has grown out a bit and he looks more like a little boy than a baby. He is gorgeous!! His 2nd birthday is a week from today and we have sent 2 birthday cakes to the orphanage so they can celebrate. I met a wonderful woman online who is also adopting from Luoyang and she took a birthday present to Sam for us last week. They should receive his cake on his birthday. We used Blessed Kids to send it. We sent a package to Emma after her referral through Adele at Blessed Kids and were very pleased with her service, so we are using it again for Sam.

Updated Picture of Sam (late April 2007)

Picture of Sam sent to us early March 2007