Well I heard today that our GBI fingerprint checks are back in, but our FBI ones are not. I also heard that the Wisconsin Child Abuse check is in, but the Georgia ones are not. So at least we are half way done with all the checks. I am really hoping that ALL the stuff comes in this week so that we can have a completed homestudy in our hands before we leave for vacation :)
I know alot of you guys out there (like me) like to follow other families on their journeys to China. Well here is a list of my personal friends who are (like me) going back to China for ROUND TWO!
Lucy's Blog- She came home with Ally last year a couple of months before Shelby came home. Ally and Shelby were both found on the same waiting child list with Hope. Now Lucy is going back to China, but this time for an almost 6 year old. Her new little one in China is exactly the same age as Travis. We may even wind up traveling together in China this time around!
Heather's Blog- Heather came home with the famous Lily last year about 6 months before we did. You may remember that because of Heather's blog last year, as I was waiting and watching them to go to China, that I found a link over to Hope's website and found my Shelby! Now Heather is paperchasing again to go back for her next addition. She doesn't have a match yet, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Lily may have a little brother in her future :)
Darcy's blog- Darcy came home with Danielle last year 2 weeks after we did. Danielle and Shelby and Ally were all on the same waiting child list last year. Danielle actually shares the same "special need" that my Malia has. Darcy may be crazier than I am since she currently has 3 girls at home all under the age of 5. Now she is paperchasing for her 4th little girl. I personally think she could use some blue in her house, but hey what do I know ;0) I suspect Darcy will travel shortly after we do again this time around.
Susan's blog- Susan is the queen of First Fridays. I give her alot of credit to helping make my family complete. Because of First Fridays, I was given the resources to use to help bring my girls homes. Because of First Friday, I have been blessed by numerous families who have adopted their children from China. Susan is on the road for the long wait for her 3 child and 2nd little one from China, but she sure is making the best and the most of her wait. She helps everyone enjoy the journey as well as the destination!
So as you can see, I am not the only crazy mom out there. Well I know I am a little bit crazy, but frankly I can't imagine anything better to add to my life right now than another sweet little girl. I realize motherhood comes with alot of hard work; however, the rewards are truly amazing. If you have every had a child then you should know what I mean. Children are definitely a gift from God!
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. -Isaiah 43:5
The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. -Psalm 126:3
That's right, thank goodness we have made it to a Friday :)
It has been a crazy week for me for sure. Here are the results of yesterday's work that started at the doctor in Woodstock, then off to the agency, the back over to the courthouse in Marietta, then downtown to the Sec of State's office, then yes finally to the post office for Express Mail to the Houston Consulate! Oh and I even managed to squeeze in an actual half day at work :)
Here are some other pics that I haven't had time to post. I just love the ones of my mom playing the Wii. We are having alot of fun at our house with this cool
toy. It's time for us to venture out to buy another game or two so if you have any suggestions for some kid friendly games, please let me know. Caleb of course just wants the fishing game so we will see what we can find.
Some of these pics were taken at the car show we went to this past weekend with Chris and Greg and their crew. It was hot, but fun. The girls put on a little dancing show there so they were big hits. The other pics are from swimming with my friend Shelly and her two girls. It had me thinking the whole time that this is what I would be looking like if Malia was already home. I can't wait to have her home with us so we can all go swimming together. We are getting closer and closer though to getting her home :) 
We are looking forward to another FCCA Waiting Family potluck this weekend. I don't see a whole lot of people coming yet so you should come hang out with us if you are waiting or already have a child from China. It is strange for us to be an official "waiting" family once again. Strange BUT good!
Here is part of an email I sent to my agency to outline the procedures I am taking to complete my dossier:
Here is how I am proceeding with processing my dossier:
I have obtained a new birth certificate for CJ and have now sent that off to be certified through the WI Secretary of State’s office. Once I have it back, I will send it to the Chicago Consulate for authentication. I will have this document back fully authenticated by July 14.
I have ordered a new birth certificate for myself from the state of GA, but have not received it yet. I hope to have it early next week.
I would like to come by your office on Thursday morning and obtain all of my other docs that you have and you and I can review for correct notarization. I will have my medicals in hand as well for you to notarize too.
I will then take all of my dossier docs (minus CJ birth cert, homestudy, and my birth cert) to the GA Clerk of Superior Court for certification on Thursday morning.
I will then proceed down to the Sec of State’s office for the final certification. Same day I will mail all of these docs to the Houston Consulate for authentication. I will expect to receive these docs back completed by July 14.
So that will leave my birth certificate and the homestudy left to be notarized, certified, and authenticated. I will need to bring you my new birth certificate before I leave for vacation on July 4. Hopefully the homestudy will be ready to go by July 4 as well.
Once you have the completed homestudy in hand, then I will need you to have the homestudy notarized and taken to the GA Clerk of Superior Court for county certification.
Next I will need Hope to take the certified homestudy along with my already certified birth certificate, down to the Sec of State office for final certification.
I will then ask that Hope send these 2 certified docs to Cindy Marut at www.mychinadocs.com for rush service from the Houston Consulate. I will leave all of the necessary information with you before I leave for vacation.
If you have the homestudy completed and in hand by July 4, then hopefully you can send my docs for certification on July 7. Then my docs should be able to go out to Houston on July 8. If all of this happens successfully, then mychinadocs.com should have my fully authenticated docs back to me on July 14.
So once I return from vacation we should have all of my documents completed and fully authenticated and ready for you all to put together to send to China during the week of July 14th so that China will have everything in time!
We started off this morning with Shelby's great speech therapist and a visit from our Babies Can't Wait coordinator. Shelby will "age out" of this program in September, so we are preparing for the switch off to the public school system then. She will of course qualify for speech in public school system; however, I can't imagine me putting her on a bus and off to school at only 3 years old. So I guess we will just have to wait and see what they suggest once school starts. She is doing well with her current speech therapist, so we may just choose to stay with her even after school starts.
It is pretty neat to see Shelby working hard to use her mouth in different ways when Ms. Connie asks her to do things with her tongue and mouth. We are seeing alot of progress and hearing new sounds each week. I am very hopeful that she will eventually figure out how to make the correct sounds with her new palate. Seeing how far she has come in just 6 months is amazing. Remember that the first time she ever heard English was only 7 months ago! She can completely understand everything we say to her and she is definately talking alot. The problem is that I am about the only one who understands what she is saying. I love to hear her putting words together now and making full sentences. My favorite one tonight was her telling me "Caleb is being a meany-butt!" every time he would irritate her :) I know not very nice language from a 2 year old, but it still cracks me up!
On the Malia paperchase today, I actually received CJ's birth certificate from WI in only 1 day! So I went to the post office today and expressed it up to the Sec of State's office in WI for certification. Hopefully this office will be quick like the birth cert office. Once I get it back then it will be off to the Chicago China Consulate for authentication. CJ and I are going to the doctor in the morning to show off our arms for negative TB test marks. I am hoping that they will have our completed medical forms, but I have a feeling I won't be able to pick them up until Thursday. I am planning on hitting the GA state departments on Thursday to certify some of my docs. I will keep you posted as to how my "plan" works out. So far everything is coming together in record time. Thank you for all the prayers out there as they seem to be working so far :)
CJ had his complete physical done this morning. Everything went fine and then the social worker called and said that we needed to add a TB test to the list. So I called CJ and fortunately he was still at the doctor so he received yet another test. So then I had to strike off to the dr for my TB test. We both have to go back Wednesday morning so they can make sure we test negative, and hopefully they will have completed our paperwork we need from them for the dossier.
Next CJ was off to the agency to sign some more forms. This time he had to sign off on getting his WI background child abuse clearance. He didn't live there when he was 18 but he was right at the age of 18 so we are being safe rather than sorry. Let's hope that the big state of WI gets this clearance back asap. So we have a few more docs under our belt and are still hoping for the best. Please keep praying for us to complete this in record time so that we ensure Malia is ours. We only have until July 25 to be LID!
If you ever had a question as to who is leading who in China...
Beijing approves Olympics ‘cheer’
At least now we’ll know who’s pulling for the Chinese in the Olympics.
Beijing Olympic chiefs are introducing an official cheer for patriotic spectators to spur on Team China at the Games, Chinese media reports. 
The authoritative, four-part Olympic cheer, accompanied by detailed instructions, will be promoted on TV, in schools and with a poster campaign. It involves clapping twice, giving the thumbs-up, clapping twice more and then punching the air with both arms.
The cheer is accompanied by chants of “Olympics”, “Let’s go” and “China”. The Beijing Olympic Organising Committee has hired 30 cheering squads who will show spectators how it is done at Games stadia, reports Xinhua state media.
A committee official said the simple chants and gestures were designed to help spectators cheer for their favourite athletes in a smooth, civilized manner. The Ministry of Education is also arranging special training sessions in schools for the 800,000 students who are expected to attend the Games.
Li Ning, president of the Beijing Etiquette Institute, told the Beijing News that the cheer was in line with general international principles for cheering, while at the same time possessing characteristics of Chinese culture. [source article from BBC News]
Yeah, they said we can keep the ones we have and even qualify for another one ;) We survived our homestudy appointment today without any of the kids injuring themselves or knocking each other in the head the entire 2 1/2 hours the social worker was here. Thank goodness for the new Wii that did wonders at entertaining the boys during her visit. Yes, we broke down and bought the coveted Wii for the kids. Really I think CJ and I enjoy it more than the boys do! It is alot of fun and since we sold the Jeep and the waverunner, and talked the boys out of all extra-curricular summer activities, we sprung for the Wii. I will post some pics tomorrow of even Nana participating in the Wii fun! We had a good weekend just doing odds and ends, but most importantly we are now one step closer to our final addition-Miss Malia!
Well how do you keep a house clean when you have 3 kids at home? This will be the challenge this weekend since we are having our homestudy done on Sunday at 4PM. This means that somehow we need to manage some sort of orderly fashion all weekend. So my solution is going to be keep them AWAY from the house ;) So we will try to stay busy all weekend and if I just happen to pop in at your house, just please let us in. Anytime at your house messing it up is less time at my house messing it up!
Need a smile today. Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS93Q4jQAO0
I have finally found some pictures of where our new little one currently resides. Here are some very recent pics from her orphanage. I really hate to think about her in here and having to wait so long for us to come to get her. I can only hope and pray that she is loved on everyday. As you can see it does appear to be a nice and clean orphanage so I hope that she is being well taken care of. From her personal photos it appears that she doesn't miss a meal!
Please keep her in your prayers as she sits and waits for her family to bring her home. 
I am already deep into the paper chase. I went to the courthouse today and was fingerprinted for the GBI and the FBI checks. I also obtained my Criminal Background check from the police station. So 2 more docs under my belt.
So in 3 paper chasing days I have managed to pull these docs together:
However, he is going in the morning to get his fingerprints and his criminal background check completed.
John McCain is an adoptive father
During John McCain’s vigorous and high-profile campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000, it was learned that he and his wife, Cindy, have a daughter adopted from Bangladesh.
Morgan Strong, a veteran interviewer and then consultant to CBS’ Sixty Minutes and The Early Show, talked to McCain shortly after a recent trip to Vietnam by the Senator.
Read the short interview here.
My boys are fortunate enough to have some awesome role models in their lives.
That's right, look who can blow a whistle. Now I know to many of you that doesn't seem like a big accomplishment for a 2 year old. BUT for a cleft affected 2 year old-it is a big deal! We went to see Shelby's main speech therapist at Scottish Rite this week and he said that she is doing great. Shelby is making more and more sounds everyday. We have a Babies Can't Wait therapist that comes to the house every Tuesday and works with Shelby. The problem is that the therapist really isn't a cleft specialist, but the one at Scottish Rite is. So I am going to try to take Shelby (at least during the summer) down to the specialist once a week-we'll see.
Anyway the best news is that Shelby now has more air coming out her mouth rather than her nose-YEAH! So I am very happy with her report. As painful as the surgery was to go through, it is really paying off now. I can't wait to see how much her speech improves over the next year.
Here are some pics to show off. Travis had his big party for the end of season in baseball. He is so proud of his trophy. Thanks to Uncle Scott for a great season. Not so sure we are a baseball family, but at least he got Travis to try it out for a season. Oh and here are some pictures of Shelby in the bathroom drying her "hands". 
She is so funny. She gets so excited when we go to a bathroom with the hand dryers. I think she would stand under the dryer all day if I would let her. Oh the simple joys of a 2 year old :)
I just read this post from another mom here. I just had to post it as I believe she took the words right out of my mouth!
It is so comfortable to live our comfortable lives in our comfortable homes with our comfortable planned number of __ (fill in the blank) children. But what if God isn’t looking for us to be comfortable? What if he wants us to leave our comfort zone and experience the thrill of knowing that we are answering His call? What if that includes adding a 5th spot at the dinner table, re-baby proofing the house, and re-arranging the kid’s rooms to include another bed? What if that 5th spot doesn’t speak your language, has developmental delays, or other medical issues that you will have to address?
Will you answer His call? The prospect is scary, the process is daunting, and the hardships unknown, but is it worth it? How can it not be?
God promises peace to those who do His will. And I have to tell you, that peace is incredible. Knowing that you are on a plane because God asked you to be there, going to meet your daughter for the first time because God asked you to be her mother, is an experience I will never forget. Hearing her whisper “I love you” in my ear when she hugs me at home is my reward for not giving into fear and uncertainty.
I have given birth to two children in hospital rooms and I met my third daughter for the first time in a sparse hotel room lounge, but I can tell you honestly there is no difference. They are all my children and have the same place in my heart. The only difference I see with my adopted daughter is that every time I look at her, I am so deeply aware of the gift that God has given me. I think you can take your birth children for granted sometimes, but perhaps it is because Mylie has been with us such a short time, she just looks like a gift of God to me.
If anyone reading this is contemplating adoption, I would only say this. If you think it’s your Christian duty to adopt a child, don’t do it. If you truly believe that God has given you a love for children and is telling you that He has put room in your heart for one more of His children, don’t let anything stop you!
You will NEVER regret it.
WOW! Makes you stop and think about things in your life doesn't it?!
