Chinese Lesson #1

There's a website called www.chinasprout.com and it has all kinds of information about China plus gifts, clothing, and jewelry. I was rummaging around the other day and found what Grandmother and Aunt were in Chinese. “Lao Lao” is for maternal grandmother. I believe it's pronounced kind of like "l-ow l-ow"and the ow is like wow and you don't pronounce it as two syllables. Does that make sense? Paternal grandmother is “Nai Nai,” pronounced like what a horse does, that's a little easier! I also found out that Ni Ni is for maternal aunt and Gu Gu for paternal aunt. So, Sue, Lyndal's mom is Nai Nai Sue, and my mom is Lao Lao Marcy. Angie, Amber, and Gaye are Ni Ni and Michelle, Lyndal's brother's wife, Cathy and Mary are Gu Gu. Alright, stay tuned who knows what I will come up with next!
The Chinese language is complicated because it has different tones and different tones can make a word mean different things. I think there are four tones. There are also different dialects of Chinese - Mandarin, Cantonese, and others.

One More Step Done

We drove to OKC this morning to get our fingerprints done. I was so worried we were going to have to wait forever and have to deal with a bunch of junk (I don't know what I was basing that on?!), but we got there about 11:05 and were out by 11:30 - YEAH! Now we just wait for them to send us a form, send that form to our agency, and we wait! I think after we get this form and send it to our agency we are done with our part of everything and we just get in line. YEAH! God is good!

A Name for the Baby Girl . . .

. . . According to Nicci!
Sweet Nicole is so creative and thoughtful. Does anyone remember when I was pregnant with Ethan and she was so sure it was twins and she wanted to name them Climber and Slider? Well, we got Climber a.k.a. Ethan - the kid climbs on everything! OK back to her ideas on what to name our little China Baby . . .

Pretty Star

Isn't that so beautiful? We told her we'd put it on the "list." What does everyone else think?

How Long Have We Been "Pregnant?"

We began the paperwork for our little China Baby in November of 2005. When Dillon received our Pre-Application they let us know that we would need to hold off until Ethan was a year old before we go any further. When March of 2006 rolled around we began working on Application II. So, we have been what in the adoption world is known as "Paper Pregnant" since November of 2005. Only about another year to go! I think that's longer than an elephant?

More Good News!

Our dossier has been authenticated and we are just waiting on the I-171H. We can't get the I-171H from Immigration until we do our fingerprints next Thursday. YEAH!!

We Got Something in the Mail!

We received our letter to go get fingerprinted yesterday! This means that immigration received our Home Study Report and we are just moving to the next step. We have to show up anytime on a Thursday in OKC and have them done. We plan to go next week to have them done, before Lyndal starts having to travel to San Antonio for a couple of months.
Yes, you heard me right, we are back being a family living in two cities again. He will be traveling Mon. - Thurs. for a couple of months. We've done it before, we'll do it again!

Bible Verses I Learned Yesterday

I am keeping a list of Bible Verses that we can stand on while we go through this. So far, they are mostly about orphans and patience. God is good and patience has not been a problem! We pray every night that this baby girl never knows the feeling of abandonment, being unsafe, or being unloved. We also pray that her birth mother and birth father will somehow know they don't have to worry and will strangely have a peace about them when they have to make this difficult decision.

Isaiah (49:23) Kings will be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the LORD;
those who hope in me will not be disappointed."


Habakkuk (2:3) For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it° will certainly come and will not delay.


Micah (7:7) But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.


Psalms (37:7) Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;


James (1:27) Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

A Few More Pictures of Us

Ethan sneaking an apple, but not for long!
Conner at Scout camp.
Nicci at PaPa and GaGa's in Woodward.
One of the pictures we used for the adoption application. It's not easy getting all five of us to smile/face the camera/not drool (Ethan)! We took a lot of pictures of us! 

This is Us (minus me, the mom)!

This is from our trip to Disney World last November. We are Lyndal, Conner age 9, Nicole age 6, and Ethan now 14 mos. old (6 mos. at the time of this picture). Pretty soon, about another year, there will be a fourth child! 

One More Step

Our dossier paperwork looked great and has been sent to the consulate! We now wait for an appointment with immigration to get our fingerprints done. It's so hard to believe we are this close - I know I keep saying that, but it is amazing!

Brief Update

I took our dossier paperwork to Dillon today. Our case manager will review it and send it off to be authenticated (make sure the notaries are legitimate). Our Home Study Report will also be sent off to immigration this week. Once immigration gets our Home Study Report they mail us a new piece of paper and we make an appointment to be fingerprinted in OKC - closest fingerprint office for us. After the fingerprinting and the authenticating are done everything is sent to the Chinese Consulate in Guangzhou. We are looking at a DTC of September or October. Once we have our Dossier to China (DTC) we wait for a Log In Date (LID). The LID determines when the clock starts as far as a wait for a referral and the unlikely chance that some of our paperwork should expire. Does that all make sense? Bottom line is is that we are almost to the big wait period!! That was easy!! The wait will go by fast because we have some adoption education classes we have to take, some books to read, and hopefully learn some Chinese even!

China Heritage Camp

Here is Nicci with her class. She was with the Fish Group. She was one of two American born kids in her class.

 

Lots Going On Last Week

Last week we had China Heritage Camp. It started on Thursday and ended on Saturday. Nicci was in the Fish group and was one of two American born children. She learned so much! I was very impressed with all that she did and learned. She learned a little Chinese in songs and basic language (numbers, greetings, etc.), she learned some Kung Fu, she learned a little about their cooking, and general information about the country itself. I was in some Parent Education classes the first two days. The first day was about talking to your child about being adopted. The second morning I was in a Chinese cooking class. We learned how to make boiled pork dumplings. It sounds kind of gross, but they were very good! The third morning I worked in the nursery. Ethan was one of three American born kids and one of two boys. The other boy was American born also. They were all so cute and fun to be around! Conner couldn't go because he was at church camp for the weekend. I did take him up there twice so he could just get used to seeing what it's like.
This same week we received our dossier packet. This is most of the rest of our part of the paperwork that goes to China. We are so close to being done with our part it's hard to believe! After our part the big wait comes! WOW!

Our New Puppy!

We got Jasmine Shiloh a week ago today. She is now 7 weeks old! She is a great dog and doing very well on potty training and crate training. Conner and Nicci love her a lot. Ethan really doesn't like her at all! Lyndal thinks she's pretty cute too! She is named after Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's daughter Shiloh because she was born two days after her :)! She's a pug and wont' get very big, about 20 lbs.

 

One Step Closer!

We just finished our last home study visit. Rebecca came to visit us at our house this time. She took a tour of the house to make sure we weren't living unsafely and then sat down to ask us some questions about our families and about adjustment issues for the little China baby. She also asked the kids a few questions. She asked Conner how he was punished when he misbehaved and he told her that he's gotten about 50 spankins! Nicci told her that the China baby will like her daddy because he hunts (Lyndal doesn't hunt). Then in the middle of Conner talking Nicole let a little pootie go!! Luckily, everyone laughed (especially Nicole). Rebecca was a lot of fun to get to know and she was so sweet and very helpful.
The CCAA posted that they had finished matching children with families with an LID of June 28, 2005. Right now they are running at almost a year from LID to referral. This could speed up or slow down. It's been known to be 6-8 mos. of a wait or has gone as far as being 15 mos. We are hoping and praying for the time to get shorter not only for our benefit but for the waiting families and all the children needing forever families.
Our next step will be working on our dossier and continuing work with USCIS (immigration). Nicci and I are going to China Heritage Camp this Thursday through Saturday (Conner will be at church camp). It will be a lot of fun getting to know some of the families and learning about the Chinese culture. YEAH!