A Day of Love

Yesterday, some wonderful women I'm honored to call family gave me
and our daughter-to-be an adoption shower.  I can't begin to thank them for
all that they did and all that they gave our daughter to help welcome her
to our family!!

The clothes were beautiful and I must say, she'll be better dressed
than her mommy.  Mommy...can't believe I'll eventually get to hear that
word again (cause right now it's just mom)...but I digress. :-)  There
was pink galore and lots of bows (poor S... he'll need to learn how to do
hair and figure out how to put on tights). :-)  There were even baby dolls.
All this mom has known are hot wheels, legos and N*SCAR. Please don't
get me wrong....I've loved every minute of that, but to play dress up and
have a tea party...CAN'T WAIT!! :-)

The best part about the day was the sharing of love.  Love that these
beautiful women shared with me.  Love that they have for our
daughter.  How blessed she is that there will be so many people
to shower her with love when she comes home!  Women that
have been praying her for before they knew who she was!

Thank you friends!!!

Delicious food and beautifully decorated tables.

Can't wait to read this book to her!

                                                   

The chopsticks were a gift to all who attended and were brought from China

by my friend, Deb, who just returned with her daughter. Thank you, Deb!

One of my closest friends, Heather.  Thank you and Jessemyn for

a wonderful day!

                                                                          

The special helpers who took turns bringing me the gifts. :-)

These two pics...the wonderful ladies I'm blessed to call family!
Please not that not all of them were in these pics!

Special thanks to Tranixa for capturing this day in pictures!

Article 5

Doing the happy dance at our house today! 

We received an e-mail from our adoption agency this morning to let us know
that our Article 5 was picked up from the Consulate in Guangzhou and
is on it's way to Beijing.  Once there, the C*AA will issue the TA (Travel Approval).
That can take anywhere between 2-4 weeks.  We are hoping for the 2 week
time period. :-)

We still don't know exactly what an Article 5 is, but what we do know
about it is that it will help decrease the amount of paperwork that we'd
have to do for our daughter's visa once we're in China.

Whatever the Article 5 is, we're glad we got it. Now the countdown begins
for our TA and meeting our daughter!

Progress

This past month and a half has been difficult....very difficult.  We turned
in our I-800 paperwork in Dec. of last year and it finally made it to the National
Visa Center in NH this past week!  A very long story and so glad that it's
resolved and we're back on track.  But it was time lost and we're a little
bummed about that.

Today we got some very good news.  Our I-800 was approved last week
(Feb. 8th) and the National Visa Center cabled our paperwork to Guangzhou
yesterday.  Our agency also sent paperwork to China yesterday. SO, we're
hoping we're on track for our paperwork to be delivered for our Article 5 this
week.  Then we have about a two week wait until we receive that and then
the final wait....the wait for TA (Travel Approval).

The next month or so will again prove to be difficult.  Remember I'm not a very
patient person but God is truly working on me through this journey.  So much of
this process is out of our control and we have to trust the One who is in control. 

There is so much to do before travel.  We have to finish getting her room ready.
Plan homeschool lessons for when we're gone.  Shop and pack items that
we'll be taking along with us. There's even a birthday next month to plan for.
Hopefully this will help pass the time and before you know it, we'll be posting
about our Article 5 and then TA.

In the meantime, please pray that we encounter no further paperwork delays.  
We also pray for God to continue preparing our daughter's heart for our arrival. 
We can't wait to meet her and bring her home!

What We've Been Up To

A little of this.....

and this, plus the garage.   This southern born and bred girl didn't

know what a roof rake was until this week.  I wish I could say I didn't

know how to use one, but now I do.  It's just as much fun as raking

leaves....NOT!  There's one good thing about all this snow...

the workout my arms/abs have gotten over the past month.

Who needs Jillian when you've got a good snowfall to clean up

every few days!

So now we have even more snow in our front and backyard.  We really don't

have room for anymore snow.  As you can see from the pics below, the piles are

 taller than our kids... and in some parts of the yard the piles are taller than S & me!

D & J in the front yard.

Below is a picture of the backyard.

Our dog, Jake, loves the piles in the backyard as now he

can see what's going on in the frontyard with ease.  There's

even a place by the gate where the snow is so high that he can walk right over the

edge if he isn't careful.

We love the snow, but really....we've had enough and we can't wait for spring!

Waiting

Well, I'd love to say we have our Article 5 and awaiting
TA, but I can't.  Somewhere in Lee's Summit, MO our
paperwork sits.  Our caseworker assures us she is looking
for it....but it's been well over the 14 days that it normally takes
to process.  We rec'd the Notice of Action, so we know that
they have it, it's just not where it should be.

So, while we wait, we prepare to send off our friends from
church who will leave in a few weeks to meet and bring home
their beautiful daughter, G.  Can't wait to follow their travels!

In the meantime, my heart aches. I ache to hold and love on this
little girl.  God has done a great job of knitting our sweet daughter
into my heart already. :-) It's amazing how quickly that has happened. 
So while we wait, I look at her picture and dream of the day we
finally meet. Her smile makes me smile. :-)

Wild Thing Kart Series Banquet for 2010

Yes, it's the  middle of January and we are talking go-kart racing.  The banquet for the 2010  CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series at Stafford Motor Speedway took place on Sunday, Jan. 16th.  Here is a run-down of the awards that J and D received and a few pics of the event.

D finished 2nd in the Hoosier Triple Crown Series in the Tiger 'B' class.  Recall the Hoosier Triple Crown Series is a three-race series with each race held at a different track - Stafford Motor Speedway, Rt. 106 Racepark, Concord, NH and Twin State Speedway, Claremont, NH.  D got a cup trophy and a purple Hoosier t-shirt.  D also got a trophy for finishing 2nd in the CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series Tiger 'B' class.  D had a very good year and will move up to the Tiger Sprint 'A' class in 2011.

J ran in both the Jr. Outlaw and the Tiger Sprint 'A' classes.  In the Jr. Outlaw class, J finished 8th overall in the CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series and received a plaque with a picture of him racing his kart.  J also finished 3rd in the Hoosier Triple Crown Series and got a cup trophy and a purple Hoosier t-shirt.

In the Tiger Sprint 'A' division, J finished 5th in the Hoosier Triple Crown series.  J got a framed 8x10 picture of him racing his kart.  Last but not least, J was the champion for the CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series Tiger Sprint 'A' class.  For finishing first overall, J received the championship trophy, a monogrammed CERIC championship jacket, a monogrammed Hoosier championship jacket, a Hoosier baseball cap and t-shirt, a 30"x24" championship poster of J racing his kart, a 1 year free subscription to iRacing.com (an on-line racing simulator site), an iRacing t-shirt and keychain lanyard, $75 cash and a certificate for a set four Hoosier go-kart tires; not bad for winning the championship.  He also gave a short speech thanking many for their support (see the video below).  We are really happy for J and glad he got to experience what it was like to win a championship.  It only gets tougher from here.  This year J will be racing the Jr Outlaw class only.

D on-stage getting his 2nd place CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series Tiger 'B' trophy.

 

J's Championship speech.

 

The 2010 CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series Champions sporting their Championship jackets.

J and the Tiger 'A' on display.

J and D with their trophies.

J and his loot.



D and his loot.

J and D with their trophies.

The 2011 schedule was published for the CERIC Wild Thing Kart Series at Stafford Motor Speed.  All races are on Mondays unless otherwise stated.

May 8th (Sunday practice), 16th, 23rd

June 6th, 13th, 20th

July 11th (Family Fun Night), 18th, 25th

August 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th

September 11th (Sunday, Triple Crown)

Hope to see you at the track this summer.

Snow Day!

Okay so I know we're a homeschooling family and there is no such thing
as a snow day, but I think today is different.  We had at least 21 inches of
snowfall during the night and early this morning.  WOW!  We learned from the
news broadcasters that this is a record for our area. The kids don't care about
the record.  They are excited about the hills of snow on our street and the
great fun they've had sledding down them! :-)  We'll get back to lessons later
this afternoon.  In the meantime, we're enjoying the beauty that has blanketed
our neighborhood.

We won't talk about the 3 + hours that it took us to clean it all up.......