Six months ago today...

We learned that we had been chosen to be Brady's family. Wow! What a day! I can't believe it has been 6 months. I also can't believe it might be 6 more before he is home. We're coming baby, we're coming!

AnnaClaire's First Time Out

because she hit her sister upside the head with this...



She's not big on being affectionate with Allie (see picture #3 in the Sisterly Love post), so the make up hug was worse punishment than the time out. Notice Allie's red eyebrows from crying. AnnaClaire has hit her before, but this time she really clocked her.

It's been 40 days...

since we were DTC. SURELY are logged in by now. This wait gets harder every day.

Sisterly Love

If you are wondering, that is blue lip gloss around Allie's mouth (thank you Grandma and Grandpa).

Anna Banana Pear Bear

I am hoping that one day I will get a picture of her with a CLEAN face!

My funny girl

The other morning, I was rushing around to get out the door with both girls. I didn't have time to apply makeup and my hairdo consisted of an elastic band pulling back my stringy hair. Allie looks at me and asks, 'Are you going to wear a hat?' I tell her that I am not and she says, 'You need a hat to cover up the weird.' I guess I know who not to go to for a self esteem boost.

Where oh where is our LID???

We are still waiting to hear our LID. I really believe that we are logged in, we just don't know it yet. I hope we hear soon so that I have a number to count from. Weird, but it just makes me feel good to know we have our place in line.

The first pictures that we saw of Brady

I am trying to do catch up and current posts so please forgive the scatteredness (is that a word?) of my posts.

Check out our cutie. These were the first pics that we saw of him. They were taken at about 9 months.

Lightning really DOES strike in the same place twice

With AnnaClaire's adoption, there was an issue with when we were logged in. The dossiers from our agency that were sent 8 days after our groups dossiers were logged in before us. I spent a good deal of the wait for AnnaClaire being angry and heartbroken over that fact. Apparently, I didn't learn the lesson that God was trying to teach me because it has happened again. Someone from our agency that was DTC 9 days after us received a super speedy LID and we still wait. I never hear of this happening and now it has happened to us TWICE! For the first time in this journey I really feel like bawling my eyes out.

Long time no post

Hello all! It's been so long since I have posted here. We finally sold our house in June and our closing was set for July 19. On the 7th I heard that CHI (Children's House International) had a new Waiting Child list. I had unsubscribed from most of the WC Yahoo Groups because our family had been praying for specific children to find homes. They would find a home and then a few weeks later be back on the list. It was affecting me in a negative way and Jeff suggested that maybe I needed to step away from the lists. I agreed. I was doing well with not looking at the lists but when I heard that CHI has their new list I just felt that I needed to look at it. You can view their list without being a member of their yahoo group so I logged on hoping I would have access. I looked at all the beautiful children and 4 boys caught my eye. I thought they were precious and they tugged at my heart but we weren't planning on adopting any time in the near future. I was sure that each of the 4 boys would quickly find their families. That night I couldn't sleep. I went down to my computer and logged on to the CHI site to look at the 4 boys once again. At that point, I honestly didn't have a *favorite* out of them. I just felt drawn to all of them and wanted to look at their pictures again. I clicked on their names and when I looked at Daniel that night I heard God tell me that Daniel was our son. That doesn't happen to me very often. God led us to adopt from China initially, but it was always in other ways. I hadn't really felt that I had *heard* him, but this time it was different. He told me that Daniel was our son. I honestly was shaking, had butterflies in my stomach and my heart was pounding. Okay, now what? Jeff had told me several times that my next adoption would be with my next husband. I was pretty sure that God a WC for us, and I knew that when that child came along that Jeff would agree but even I thought this was a bit crazy. We were days away from moving into a house that was stretching our budget to the max. How could we afford to adopt right now? How could we afford surgery for this child (he is cl/cp)? How could we handle 2 toddlers the same age (he is 3 months younger than AnnaClaire)? HOW? With God! DUH! (as Allie would say) I told Jeff about Daniel. I showed the kids his picture. I explained that I felt that God had told me that he was our son but that the agency he was with would likely not allow us to have him since we already have 5 in the home and that I had heard that they wouldn't ask for a family size waiver until a child had been on the list for a full cycle (usually about three months). This list had been open only days. I think Jeff was trying to decide whether to commit me (but the fact that he'd have to hire a maid and nanny if he did held him back! I emailed the agency and asked about a FSW. The response was that they would ask for a FSW if we were interested in a boy. I almost started to cry or hyperventilate. I asked for prayer on one of my lists and emailed the agency to tell them which boy we were interested in. I was crushed when she told me that he essentially had a family. They hadn't formally commited but that was just a technicality. I told her to let me know if they decided not to pursue him. She sent me the file of 2 other boys. Ironically, they were 2 of the 4 that I had originally felt drawn to. One looked so much like AnnaClaire and I could really see myself as his mother but he just wasn't meant to be my son. I told her that I was waiting for Daniel. I know that she thought I was hard of hearing. He has a family. DUH! I kept watching the site and his status hadn't changed so I emailed her every few days and 'YES, he still has a family they just haven't formally commited to him'. Then came a new rule that if your child was in Guangdong (and Daniel is) you would have to stay in China for an extra week. The boards started going crazy. The WC coordinator posted to the group that the new rule was already affecting placements. Families that were planning to commit to Guangdong children were having to reconsider because of the hardship of staying an extra week. I emailed her immediately. Is Daniel's family one of the families reconsidering. She said that she loved my passion and that I must be on a very good vibe with the cosmos because Daniel's family was reconsidering. She sent me his file 'just in case'. A bit later she asked us to fill out a pre-ap. Jeff and I talked and decided that we had a peace about it and we sent it in. I don't know what we expected to happen but we received an email on July 17 that we had been chosen to be Daniel's family. What an amazing journey...we can't wait to bring our new son home where he belongs. His travel site is www.journeytome.com and the username and password are both tiger. We have named him Brady Daniel LeQiang. His birthday is June 14, 2005 and he was at Shantou SWI in Guangdong but recently was moved to foster care. We sent out LOI on 8/28, received PA on 10/4 (It actually came on 10/3, the same date as BOTH the girls' referrals but since our agency is in Washington State they didn't call us until the next day) and were DTC on 12/8. Now we wait for our LID so we can start the countdown to TA!

Our Little Sweet Pea

The kids

'I don't like this pizza'

Allie chose Chuck E Cheese for her birthday dinner. Once the pizza came, I told her that she had to eat a slice before she could get down to play. She took one bite and declared, 'I don't like this pizza'. We now know that her taste buds are normal.

THREE!!!

All ready for her birthday celebration at school.

My Baby is Growing Up!

How Many Hats Does A Little Girl Need???

ALL OF THEM!!! (also applies to shoes and hairbows)

Spaghetti, mmm...

Snow!

It has snowed here the previous three weekends. Ryan and Allie have enjoyed making a miniature snowman each weekend.

Valentine Girls

These pictures are from our Valentine playdate at Chuck E. Cheese. AnnaClaire snagged that cupcake on her own.

Hello again!

I haven't updated in over a month. I will have stay on top of things better;)

The house is coming along. We expect to move in sometime in June. We are still trying to sell the house we are in :-/ The van finally sold last week so we are back to being a 3 car family.