This is the Week!

This Saturday we finally received our long awaited furniture for the older girls' bedroom. Rebecca and I quickly made the beds with the newly washed bedding. She was so excited to finally get her new room. We moved all of the girls clothes over form Rebecca's old room and most of the boys clothes are moved to their newly finished room in the basement.

This furniture has caused us such a headache. This is the second set of furniture and the second store. To be honest if we were not desperate for the girls' room to be done before we leave we would have returned this set as well. We have never experienced such terrible customer service. We just wanted to know when it would be delivered and one simple question and persistence from us (due to our schedule and trip) they were terrible. Jeremy even made the trip down to the store to speak with the store manager and they refused to let him see the manager. On the bright side the delivery guys were super nice and did not damage anything.

We took a quick trip to Pittsburgh on Thursday to take Ben and Mariah to their endocrinologist. Mariah hates socks and shoes on her feet. If you look closely you'll see her socks on her hands. Why not?

Just relaxing watching some Micky Mouse on the iPad while we wait for the doctor.

Then we went to my mom's to get the other kids and of course, they had to go play in the snow. 

We opened Christmas gifts at my parent's too. We figured that since our van will be pretty full on our return from China it was smart to go ahead and open those now. This is how Mariah felt about it!

Grandma and Pap bought Mariah her Bity Baby twins. She (with a little help from us) have named the babies "Mollie" and "Matthew". When we asked her to name the little girl it almost sounded like "Mollie" so it stuck!

The older kids had been outside playing all day. So they look a little unkept!

Always willing to "help".

And help some more.

And last but not least.......

Since we left the house before 6am we forgot our camera. This photos are taken with my mediocre phone.

We are not done wrapping gifts yet. But we will get there. While I was wrapping gifts Jeremy was cleaning up his tools from the boys' new bedroom. We stayed up way too late!

I'm disappointed to miss the kids' Christmas programs tonight. Mariah was supposed to sing with the toddlers and Becca and Ben are in the older kids' program. Yesterday Mariah woke up from her nap with a fever. She was up a few times during the night and still is running a temp today. I guess we will have to watch from web streaming. Looks like next year will be yet another "first" for Mariah.

We are wrapping up the last of our planning for China. It is really hard for me to share these details but I've had a few people asking very specific questions about the financial aspect of adoption. I am sure this is a result of our recent fundraiser. 

So here it is. Our adoption this time around is costing right at $40,000. Honestly, we are a little short right now. We will figure it out in the next few days. I know God will supply where we simply cannot. We are definitely walking by faith at this point. There are two grants that we received that our agency does not have yet. We know for sure one will not make it to our agency on time. The other one we cannot get a hold of anyone to get some answers.

We had a family friend send us a card this week and it made me cry. Here is what was written in an email following the Christmas card. This is how God has provided for us this entire short process.


Romans 12 gives reasons for giving..you say it is a sacrifice...well, we are to be living sacrifices..I think about Christ sacrificing his life for me because he loves me. Love is a sacrifice...True love is shown by sacrifices one makes..we don't always make sacrifices to the people we love..so just accept the money and pray it arrives so it can help you in bringing Selah home. We love you guys and don't show it often enough.
Jas 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

If we know you have a need and can help meet that need, but instead we say, "Oh we'll pray for you," how would that show our faith? We show our faith by our works. Enough said...just use the money however you need.

I had another friend who sent us a check and told us not to thank her but thank God. He had provided for them in mighty ways. Other friends have helped thoughout our adoption. We are so grateful. We simply could not have afforded this on our own. So many families have gifted us financial help. Will you please pray that we can get things done very soon?

We Skyped with Selah again on Friday. She seemed much more relaxed. She has a cold though. We typed with her again for about an hour. We wanted to make sure she understood what adoption meant. Her social worker contacted us later in the day and told us this:

We talked about weather with her. She is very concerned about us having some warm clothes for her. She also asked if we have central heating.

She keeps telling us how terrible her English is. We jokingly told her how we are terrible with Cantonese and Mandarin.....the two languages she knows. She can read some English and what she couldn't we noticed her looking up words in some kind of a book. We are so encouraged at her willingness to learn. We did hear her tell her social worker as she was trying to take over the keyboard, "Let-a me!" We both smiled!

We showed her our Christmas tree. She thought it was pretty. 

She is living at boarding school during the week and at foster parents on the weekends. 

It has felt like The Enemy is working overtime to steal our joy and prevent this adoption from happening. Even though the bank's mistake cost us $500 on our flights, and another $120 for our visas, we still choose joy. I just told Jeremy that God must have some amazing things in store for our Selah because Satan has been non-stop in almost every area of our lives. It makes me even more excited!

I guess I'll end this post with a strange addition I noticed to Christmas Town......oddly, there are wolves roaming the town. Very large wolves that have a striking resemblance to those seen in the Lego set of The Hobbit. We have boys in our house, can you tell?

I am hoping to write at least one more post before Christmas. Until then we are wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!!!

Video Chat and a Birthday

Friday was such a special night for us. After looking at still photos for months, we were finally able to see our new daughter live! Here is a screen shot of the beginning of our session. Selah is in the pink. Unfortunately they could not hear us. We could hear them but for some reason they couldn't hear us. This is how the beginning our session began! This is a Chinese website so we were struggling a little with the Chinese characters. Honestly, we were guessing!
I easily could have been the spotty internet service there. I know it is common. I was so happy to interact with her. 

It was pretty clear to us that she was overwhelmed at the beginning. She is very quiet. She is beautiful! We were thrilled that she seemed to be able to read a little English. She was not able to speak English but she seamed to be able to read it a little. 

We asked her questions (through texting online) and she was trying to answer the questions for us. Here is another screen shot and it took a while for her to read and answer our questions. Sometimes we asked the next question before she answered.

We asked her if there was anything we could bring her and she answered, "No! No! Don't take things to me." It really kind of broke my heart. She wants nothing from us. Not in a bad way. She probably has not had much of her own so this concept is truly foreign to her.

Some of it got lost in translation. Where she wrote, "1 year" was actually her answering how long she has been out of the orphanage in foster care. She misunderstood the question. However, we are thrilled with how it went.

She loved seeing the kids. She lit up when she saw a "Chinese sister". God is so wise in how he gave us Mariah first. It is clear to us that having Mariah in our family will make things more comfortable for Selah. By they way, we will likely be calling her "Hui Yi", her Chinese name, for quite a while. I will not take that away from her. This is pronounced something like "who-i (short i) ee" The Yi has one sound....the long e sound.

Hui Yi's social worker asked if we could Skype again this week at the same time. We are excited to see her yet again. What an unexpected blessing!

Saturday was our Mariah's third birthday! She had such a great day! First was breakfast with Daddy. However, I crashed the party!

We had an ice cream cake for her after supper. Since I am a little busy this year......I opted for the easy route and have DQ make the cake. She loved it!

Time for presents.....

This Sunday our children went up to the front and gathered with our pastor. Our younger three are pictured here. Mariah is there but you have to look!

Ben raised his hand when our pastor asked what the children wanted for Christmas. His response....."Selah". Oh my! I had a feeling he would say that but you never know. Then our pastor asked Mariah and she finally said, "My Mommy!" Oh my sweet girl! I promise I am here. Then Rebecca kissed Mariah on the head. I am blessed!

We had our fundraiser this past week. I am the first to admit I am terrible at promoting my own fundraiser. I struggle with asking for help. This was really hard for me. Through the website we were blessed with $2,745! Then we had dear friends donate even more. Our total after church today was $4,115. We received a phone call on Saturday afternoon that we received another grant for $1,000. In one week we saw God provide us with over $5,115. It has nothing to do with us. God showed my unbelieving heart that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. 

To be honest these have been extremely difficult few weeks. The final payments are coming due and we did not know how we would be able to make those payments and pay for our airfare. Our flights alone have totaled over $8,000. 

It is amazing for me to think that we leave soon! Please keep us in prayer as we take Rebecca and and travel to meet Hui Yi. Pray for our new daughter as we are certain she is scared.

Bringing Selah home.

           
                   
I have been wanting  to dedicate a post about our Bringing Selah Home Give1 Save1 event but our week got super busy! Busy in a good way though. 

Sunday began our event for raising funds. We have been blessed so much in our journey to China. I will admit that I am terrible about promoting my own fundraiser. Honestly I would rather not. But we need to get Selah home .

We have been so blessed by numerous sweet people. I can tell you that I am so honored that so many have been following our story.

I have watched, as many who are financially struggling during this holiday, give to our adoption. We have had parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, missionaries, adoption friends, cyber friends, old high school friends, church family, friends of family, and complete strangers donate. 

Right now our funds raised stand at $2209.69! Isn't that amazing?  I had no idea how we would do with this and I am so honored!

We will allow the event to last until December 28th. However we will be featured for one week only on the Give1 Save1 blog.

Jeremy and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary! I honestly love Jeremy more than I could have ever imagined possible. I adore him and he is perfect for me. We never imagined we would be planning our second trip to China and six kids! Raising kids is the toughest job I've ever had. But the smiles and notes like this are so worth the exhaustion!

This was card number 2 from Rebecca. Her other card was priceless, thoughtful, and selfless. I do not deserve this sweet child. She honestly would give us anything within her power. She shopped at the AWANA store just last night and bought something for everyone else in the house and got herself one small pair of earrings and could not have been happier. She is so special!

Jeremy stopped and got these beautiful roses for me. It wouldn't be a happy anniversary post if I didn't share a photo from that very cold December day in Leechburg, Pennsylvania. Look how young we were when we married! Oh my!!!

This photo was snapped by our photographer as we sat on the steps at the front of the church waiting for the rest of our family to gather for photos. We were both relieved the ceremony was over!

Our hearts are overwhelmed with the outpouring of love on our family and for our sweet Selah! I cannot wait to meet her!

So Close!

I have so much to share!

This week our youngest son hit the double digits. He is a whopping 10 years old now. Oh Benjamin, you melt my heart. You keep me on my toes. I love your zeal for life. I cannot wait to see what God has in store for you. You definitely live life to the fullest. I love that you still like to cuddle. I love that you love others with all your heart. I love that you are a bundle of energy. I love that you are a Child of the King! Serve the Lord and honor Him. That is all we ever ask of our kids.

We had family come in for the holiday. For the first time in many years we stayed home for Thanksgiving. My mom and dad came on Thursday and brought the entire dinner....turkey and all. Our plan was to enjoy Thursday and the men would work Friday then we would have our Thanksgiving meal that evening. My mom is the best cook I know. She made a delicious meal and Tammy and I helped just a little.

Mom, I hope that I am half the cook that you are. Your six pies were delicious and the meal was equally good, as usual.

Friday and Saturday the men-folk started working on building a closet for our older boys' bedroom. What a job! It gave us a few problems but we are well on our way to having it finished this coming week.

After lunch on Saturday we had a small celebration for Ben.

He was afraid that he would breathe and blow out the candles!

Nothing like celebrating with a few cousins.

We also have all of our decorating completed. I admit we scaled down a tad. We have a large tree in the living room and another in the family room. The kids have small trees up in their bedrooms and Jeremy put lights up outside. Some of the village pieces are out. 

I don't have a fancy tree. We have a ton of ornaments on this tree and the white lights that I prefer. I really do love this tree.

This is one reason why we scaled down a tad....a toddler changes things.

I usually do not take great photos but I thought this one was worthy of my blog.....

And of course I had to get a photo of Selah's stocking with all the others...

We sent a care package to Selah a few weeks ago. We wanted to send things that we thought she would enjoy yet were age appropriate. I think the hairbows are a bit too young for her but we allowed them to be sent regardless. We also sent money for a fruit basket to be sent to the foster family. Somehow I am missing the photo of the Barbie we sent.

We sent a few newer photos of our family. The bunny to the far right is for the other foster child living in their home.

Since she does not read or speak English we asked for some books for her to read that had good moral themes. I only can hope they are appropriate!

Evidently the service that purchased the care package for Selah also asked the orphanage for photos. Last time we did not get any so we did not even ask. To our surprise this is what I found in my email this morning!

Jeremy and I both think she will be very cold here. I better buy that electric blanket I've been debating about. There is not much to her.

These were taken at the orphanage.

I already bought her some lip balm for those dry lips.

I am not certain what this photo is about but she has such a sweet face.

We cannot wait to see a full smile on her beautiful face. I know she has come from very difficult circumstances. We ask that you pray for us as we meet her in just a few weeks. 

God is good! What a wonderful Christmas gift He had planned for us this year. 

As I think back just two years ago when we were considering our first adoption, I remember telling Jeremy that there is no way I could adopt an older child. I am so glad that God opened my eyes to this beautiful opportunity to be Selah's mom. I know it will be unbelievably difficult. I do not feel qualified. And honestly, I'm not. I will lean on God even more. Selah will teach me more about myself, likely things I probably do not want to learn.

We are called to this lot in life. It is ours and we proudly own it! God will equip us.

This week we are trying to raise funds for our adoption. Keep checking back and I'll keep my blog updated as to the progress. Airfare is looking very expensive yet we have no choice. Jeremy made a beautiful video to share as well. The link should be up and running on Monday.

Onward and Upward!

Just because I have to share this adorable photo...........

Can you believe that Mariah has a tough time getting along with Ben on most days yet she will copy him almost every single time? I do not understand these children! Typical sibling rivalry. This was at church waiting for the service to begin this past Sunday. Sort of makes me scratch my head.

Last Sunday Mariah's "Puggles" teacher and daughter, Miss April and Gracie, gave Mariah this adorable Cabbage Patch doll. Mariah loves it!

Okay, I got side-tracked! We have had a lot of movement this past week. I am thrilled to see how quickly we are moving now with adoption paperwork.

November 13th we found out we had our LID. That is the acronym means Log In Date. Basically this just means that Chin@ has taken our paperwork and has it in their system. Finally!!!

The very next day my social worker emailed me to let me know that our dosseir is already translated! That has to be some record or something.

Then on November 18th my social worker emailed again to let us know our paperwork is through the review stage. We only have the final stage to go.....Matching! Several more approvals are still needed but we are still on target to leave near the end of December.

My nesting has kicked in full-force! We only had a six top kitchen table. It works now since Mariah is still in a highchair. We definitely needed a new one. We found one online and it was delivered last Friday! 

Here is the before....

And the after....

We love it and it fits everyone!

We finally picked out furniture for the girls' room. But it has been a disaster! Every piece was damaged or missing pieces! Unfortunately, the store was not willing to make it right. Jeremy told them to come and take it back!

At least the girls had fun shopping at this store, right?

Once again, this is what their room looks like....

I think we have successfully confused Mariah. One day it was her brothers' room, then it was empty, then it was filled with new furniture, then it was empty again. One can only laugh!

My sweet Rebecca will one day make the best wife for a very special man. And a very sweet mom one day too. This child always thinks of others above herself. 

I took Rebecca and Benji to the eye doctor's this week. Ben has been put back in glasses. He has a mild prescription but it seemed logical to do so. Doesn't he look like Jeremy?

Then we have Rebecca. She told me she would not mind glasses but if they cost us money, she didn't want them. Really? My sweet girl, we would do anything to give you what you need. But, the doctor says you do not need glasses yet! Be thankful for healthy eyes with great vision!

And I wanted to share with you what Mariah learned to do this week....POUT!

DTC!!!!!

We have reached a huge milestone.......DTC!!!!! This three letter acronym means Dossier to Chin@. All of our paperwork that we have worked tirelessly on has been sent to the other side of the world! Now we wait to find out our LID (Log In Date)-the date which our dossier is recorded in the "system". Then we wait for our big approval -- LOA (Letter of Acceptance)!

We will still be traveling in December. We just don't know all the details yet. It gets complicated from here. The US Consulate will be closing for a week in early December. Then at the end of the month there are more closures for the holidays. It will be tricky trying to figure this all out. I am certain that we HAVE to finalize our adoption before January 4th.

Much like a pregnancy, I have begun nesting. Last weekend we had our carpets cleaned. We sold a set of furniture from our family room. Our idea is to move our theater room up from the basement since the room is already wired for surround sound. Jeremy's office is moving into the old theater room and our older two boys are getting Jeremy's office for their new bedroom. We have a bit of work to do down there first.

Our kids would rather not move any furniture up there. They love the empty room! But the sectional must be moved!

Who needs furniture?

I caught Jeremy playing Princesses with Mariah. 

Even Mariah is taking advantage of the empty room.

I got up with Mariah on Sunday morning to get ready for church. Poor thing had a fever. It was a long day as her fever rose.

Yes, that thermometer reads 105.0 degrees. She was one very sick little girl.

She seems much better now. Her throat is still yucky but the fever is gone!

Along with our DTC news, we also got something special in the mail.

Her passport came!!!!! Now she is waiting with us for all of the remaining approvals to come. And we will send our passports off for the necessary visas.

Here are a few photos that I took with my phone (not the best quality) but I thought they were sweet photos.

And this one too.

I came out to the kitchen the other day and found Jeremy standing at the window above my sink using Ben's spyglass. Evidently whatever was happening at the cul-de-sac was pretty interesting.

Once again we have been blessed to see how God continues to provide for our Selah to come home. We received a grant from a fund that was such a blessing to our family. We had an interview with them on the phone two weeks ago and we were so blessed by their prayers for our family.  

Here is part of the email we received from them:

"We love your heart and the ways He is creating new ways for you to grow in Him. He loves the way you are listening for Him, not others, that you are living in new ways to grow with Him...so exciting! We are honored to be part of your journey as well and hope it provides even more affirmation that His heart is for adoption and His heart is for you! We will continue praying for your family. Please keep us updated. We look forward to walking with you for years to come."

What a journey we are on. One thing that we have learned through this process is that our faith is continually being refined. We did not expect this to happen. I am glad that I am not in control of this whole thing. I am a miserable failure.

Please continue to pray for our Selah as she waits for us to join her in Chin@. A piece of my heart is in Chin@ this holiday season. It is heartbreaking to think that our daughter has never heard the true meaning of Christmas. We will make sure that changes. We cannot wait to create some memories with her.