I800A APPROVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So if you are friends with me on facebook, you may already know this. But if you're not....

WE GOT I800A APPROVAL TODAY!!!

Well, we actually got it Thursday (Jan 19th) but I got a lovely email from our officer today letting us know we had been approved. I thought that was SUPER nice of her!! She actually sent me an email yesterday saying she had been assigned as our officer and she would be reviewing our file. But I never got it because for some reason it went to my Spam email. Ugh!! But that's okay because it made the email that I got today that much more exciting!! (so thankful I got that one).  I was yelling in excitement and the boys got all excited and everything!! I was hoping we would have it by next Friday, so for it to come this week was just amazing!!!   Yay!!

I just want to say THANK YOU to all who prayed for a quick approval! We were fingerprinted on the 27th so that is right at 3 weeks and 3 days from then.  Exactly 7 weeks from the day they received our application, so that makes it 49 days I guess. Woohoo!! Super awesome and thank you God!!!

It should get here in the mail by Monday I am guessing. Then we have to get a copy of it notarized and send it to the Colorado Sec. of State and get their certificate, then straight to Washington D.C. and get Hilary Clinton's signature again (Lol) and the Chinese Embassy authentication. Then it will go straight to our agency and hopefully then, straight to China!!

FINALLY!!!

Girls, we are coming for you!!

It seems like it has taken forever to get to this point! This is a HUGE step!!  Now it is only a matter of months.  I am so excited!  Once we get our letter of approval from China, we can send care packages to the girls.  We will include photo albums so the girls can start getting to recognize our faces and know that they have a Mommy and Daddy coming.  And lots of big brothers and 3 little sisters, too!  

Now, I just wish we lived closer to Denver.  I am seriously considering just driving up there with our paperwork though.  It's about 7 hours to Denver from here, but it would probably save us several days of processing time and overnighting back and forth if I do that. If I walk our paperwork in, they will expedite it and have it done while I wait.  But if I mail it in, who knows how long it will take to process. Then I could just mail it to D.C. from Denver. Hmmm... I just might be seeing a road trip in our future.
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I wrote the above paragraphs on Friday and planned to post it that night. Then everything hit the fan, so to speak, and I am just now getting this posted Sunday morning. We had a rough weekend. I got sick and several of the kids were sick with some kind of stomach bug. I especially hate stomach bugs!  Hopefully no one else will get it!  I feel much better, though, so at least the household can start functioning again.  Although, I have to say my hubby did a great job of cleaning up after everyone and doing laundry.  Thanks hon! 

What a beautiful Sunday morning!!  Have a great rest of the weekend everyone!!

Wow!!!!

Guess who ate her whole dinner tonight without a bottle??

Yes, this same little girl who has eaten ALL of her meals...

for her ENTIRE life... through a bottle.

So this...

and this....

With a smile...

and no screaming...

is pretty amazing!!

Super messy,  but that is more than okay.

With this kind of smile during mealtime, we can do any messes you can throw out at us!

Boy do we LOVE this girl and we just continue to be amazed at how fast our precious sweet Victoria is progressing!! 

A Praise and a Prayer Request

Our dossier is sitting right here in my house, all authenticated and ready to go to China!  Yay!! That is a Praise the Lord!! We sent it to Washington D.C. to the Dept. of State and the Chinese Consulate for authentication less than 2 weeks ago and it is back already!  Next we will send it to our agency, where it will wait until our last piece of the dossier is ready. 

Yes, there is still one more piece to the dossier puzzle.  A very important piece.  Our I797 approval notice from USCIS.  Here is where your prayers will come in. 

Our USCIS application was received on Dec 9th.  We received our receipt and then our fingerprint appt notices mid December.  We had our biometrics done on Dec 27th, a week or so earlier than our scheduled appt date.  But we have still not been assigned an officer to our case.  I have called twice and emailed them once. They don't like to give out too much info either.  Lol  They just keep telling me that they have 90 days to take care of it.  They didn't buy into my asking for favor because our girls are so cute and have special needs either.  Lol  :)) 

It's kinda funny because the email I got back said and I quote " In addition, per our website, a significant majority of all pending cases are for ‘special needs’ children therefore there is no procedure for expeditious processing with the exception of life-threatening conditions which can be documented by a physician."

Funny, huh?  Well I tried...

Anyway, would you please pray with us that an officer will be assigned soon and will approve us quickly.  I know there are a lot of people in the same boat as us...waiting on USCIS.  It is so frustrating knowing everything is done and ready to go to China, but we are still just waiting on them.  Our process has taken too long already (our homestudy took much longer than we planned).  So we are just really praying that we will catch a break here.  Our little girls are counting on us.  The sooner we get our dossier to China, the sooner we can go get our girls!  So please pray for an officer to be assigned and a quick approval!  Our daughters have been waiting for us for a long time already.  Thank you we appreciate it so much!!

Simply a Nursery Rhyme

Did someone say Ring Around the Rosie?

We love this song!

Ring around the rosie...

A pocket full of posies...

Ashes...

Ashes...

We all fall down!

Yay!!!

Our singing voices not so great.  Lol  It's more like yelling...but the girls sure are cute!  :))

Fundraiser Reminder and a Super SURPRISE!!

This is a reminder for Daniel's iPAD2 fundraiser AND and a surprise announcement.  So be sure to read all the way through to the end!  :)


For the Reminder - Daniel's fundraiser is STILL GOING!!  I  have been a super bad blogger lately.  It has been hard to find the time to remind people and try to get the info out there.  It has taken some time for ME to recover from Madalyn's surgery, let alone Madalyn getting over it.  LOL 


Anyway, it IS still going!  YEA!!  You still have time to donate!  :)

Daniel is trying to raise money for his plane ticket to China.  A round trip ticket from where we live in Colorado, to China, will run about $1800.  We are not quite there with his ticket, and we are still working hard on that.  We have Daniel's ticket to pay for, plus my ticket, and another helper for me if possible.  Plus we will need to pay for our daughters' one way ticket home.  And according to my research, that will cost approximately another $2000 dollars.  Yes, we still have alot of fundraising to do, but I digress...  Lol    We will focus on this one right now!


Please consider donating to Daniel's fundraiser.  It is tax deductible (goes to Reece's Rainbow)!   :))  Even just $10 will help.  If everyone who reads this blog would donate just $10, it would make a HUGE difference!  Here are the details, in case you have forgotten or you didn't see the original post:

Details of the fundraiser:

iPad 2, 16GB, wi-fi, a retail value of at least $499.00

$10 = 1 entry

$25 = 5 entries

$50 = 10 entries

$100 = 20 entries

$150 = 35 entries

$300 = 80 entries!!

It's so easy! The more you donate, the better your chances of winning! After you make a donation, you can get a free entry for each day that you share about the fundraiser on facebook or if you blog about it. Just be sure to leave a comment (and a link) on this blogpost when you do.
PLEASE spread the word!!


If for some reason we don't bring in enough money to pay for the iPad 2, we will split the money 50/50 with the winner. Praying we bring in more than enough money and we don't have to worry about that!


Oh and if we bring in at least $2500, we will add the iPad smart cover to be given along with the iPad 2!!!

Please please share our fundraiser with everyone you know!  Share about it on facebook or on your blog if you have one!  Every time you do, you will get an extra chance to win a super cool iPAD2 !!

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The next part of this post is our super exciting news!!  And, without further adieu....the SURPRISE part of this post.

We have been keeping this to ourselves for a little while.  For one reason or another.  But we have decided to announce it earlier than previously planned and we are sooooo excited!! 

Can you guess??  Can you guess??

I'll give you a hint.  You know we are adopting a super cute and adorable little 5 year old girl, right?!

Well.....we are actually adopting TWO super cute and adorable little girls!!  :))  I cannot keep the grin off my face, I am so excited!  Ha Ha I knew you would be surprised!!!

Introducing little miss Ruby Mei ~

Oh my heart isn't she just so adorable!!  We are so in love with her already and absolutely cannot wait to meet her!   Hailey will have another little sister!   One who will be traveling home from China with her.  Wow!  She is going to be surprised, too, don't you think?!  :))

Ruby is 4 years old.  She is in a different province than Hailey, but not too far from where Hailey is.  We have been able to add her to this adoption without adding too much in the way of travel in China so that is nice.  There is much I would like to share about us actually being able to add another child to this adoption from China, but I cannot at this point.  Suffice it to say that the way things worked out, it was very clear that this little girl is meant to be our daughter as well.  We continually are amazed and blessed at what God has done during this adoption!  Wow!  Thank you God!!  We give you all the glory!