Saturday, May 16, 2015

Updates galore!

Hello friends!
Thanks for sticking with us. Is there maybe 2 or 3 out there still following along? If not I will just keep this going to document our journey. First and foremost so thankful God is in control of this crazy journey of life. He sure knows how to throw in the twists and turns. We just hang on for dear life and watch Him work!

We have gotten 2 updates on our little Ladybug since last time I blogged. One right before Valentines day saying she was doing well and has only grown a smidgen. She is definitely our littlest so far!


We finished up our Home study and began working on some fundraisers and then it was time to ask for a cake to be sent to Abby for her 2nd birthday! Now for those of you who do not know, when you ask for a cake to be sent you do not get to choose the cake. You are just very grateful that they get them a cake. We have an amazing contact lady through our agency that does a beautiful job getting packages to our sweetheart. This is our first one sent. We simply just asked for a cake. They send normally 5 pics back to you from the party, we got 15! Yes we were in heaven watching our youngest enjoy cake! And she LOVED it! Not even exaggerating! We giggled at the size of the cake compared to her!

 It is so very pretty. They have a way of making cakes there that just stun you! I think it is the prettiest toddler birthday cake I have ever seen! I do not know what it says on top. Maybe Happy birthday and her Ch*nese name. But here is the picture we just giggled at....


It is bigger than she is! Not even kidding! But the girl loves that cake and put it away! Course she shared with her friends too!

Love how she is licking her fork. Take a look at that plate. She had a pretty good size piece when she started. I think Vickie might have to have her as her taste tester when she gets home! We truly enjoyed celebrating in this manner. We also celebrated here at home, praying that she knew she was loved!


We cannot wait for her next birthday to celebrate all together! We are crazy about our little sweetheart! We have been asking God to protect her and prepare her for our family and also asking for a little bit of joy in these updates. 

Our family has been through some tough changes the last few months. One son is off to start his career and calling on his life. It has been a very tough few months but we are so proud of him!!! Very thankful that God is protecting him in this endeavor. I would love to share with all of you about this but for his safety I cannot do that here. Just please pray for our youngest and his new journey. If you knew what he was doing you would be just as proud of him as we are! 

So as our family adjusts to changes we began more paperwork for the adoption. We have sent off our I800A which is asking our government for permission to find our family suitable to adopt our sweetheart. We would love your prayers in this part of the journey. This is a lot of waiting and praying in this stage on our part. We want them to approve us and we want them to do it quickly because there are always deadlines looming. An important one is coming up for us. Please keep our family in your prayers. In the mean time we are gathering our last bit of paperwork (Thank you JESUS! Feels as if we have been paper pregnant FOREVER.) to complete our Dossier (the 13 pieces of very important paper that will be sent to Ch*na to capture exactly what our family looks like) as we wait on the I800A approval. Stay tuned this ride just keeps going! 

While we wait, it was time to ask for another update on our sweetheart since that one back in February. So while sending off our I800A we also asked our agency to update us on how our Ladybug was doing! They are great about doing this. They got in touch with her SWI (Social Welfare Institution) or you would call it her orphanage, to answer another round of questions from her family! I love asking these questions because they give us insight into her daily life and her personality. So we began the wait for a response. YES more than half of the adoption you spend waiting on one thing our another. These waits are normally pretty good. They did not disappoint! This time 2 more pics and a video!!! We were so excited about the video! But the pics stole our heart!


Here she is working a puzzle. We got video of this and let me tell you what. this girl is SO smart!! They keep telling us she is just the sweetest little thing. I see glimpses of that here and there. But this, this right here did me in!


This is the first time we have seen her smile! Oh how it melts my heart! I just get giddy every time I look at it! Our prayers have been answered in this one single picture of our little Ladybug! She is still the tiniest thing but oh how we are crazy about her!! Asking God to do mighty things to get her home and then through her life! Praying we are worthy enough to be her parents! 

List of prayer requests for us:

Please pray for our family if we come to mind. 
Pray for Abby and her heart to be prepared for us. 
Pray for Tommy and his safety on the journey God has him on. 
Pray that the I800A approval goes smooth and quickly
Pray that God will continue to show up and show off in every area of this adoption and our lives!!
Pray for His continued provision through out this journey. (there is a link to our gofundme page on the side of this blog if you feel led to share with anyone)
Pray that we will not loose sight of His face during all of this.

Thank you for following along with us on this journey (if you are still with us thank you SO much). I promise to update more often! We love that you are watching God unfold His plan for us. His ways are not our ways and His ways are better than we could every hope for our imagine!

Trusting the One who is writing this story!

Lots of love and Ladybugs :)