Starting a New Year and Still Waiting....

We are on day 120 since our preapproval and day 139 since our Letter of Intent. This is a bit longer than we anticipated. We hope to hear something surely this month if not next week. After we are given the stamp of approval then we wait on our Travel Approval. Essentially, it takes about 6-8 weeks for travel once the Letter of Acceptance arrives. We try not to count but I sit at home today bored so I count.

Christmas Joys

With Cousins - Lili and Maggie

Looking for Santa....

Just in case Santa was not aware!

Dear Santa, I have been a good girl. Leah

Me too! Natalie

Carrots for the reindeer and cookies for Santa.

Experiencing Christmas with our four and five year old gives us such great joy. They are always in such awe of the lights, tree, Santa, the manger, and of course the presents. What is different about this year is that they both truly are beginning to understand the importance of Christ's birth. The questions they have about that day are so genuine and innocent.....Why is Jesus in the food bin? How are the donkeys and cows going to eat? Why are the "fairies" on top of the stable? These questions are springboards into some good dialogues.

Christmas Eve was spent at my parent's house. It is a tradition (started by my Grandpa) to eat Mulligan stew (secret recipe) on Christmas Eve and what a treat it is. We not only love it for it scrumptious taste but it also keeps my grandparent's memory alive.

On Christmas morning, my parents share the morning watching our girls unwrap their gifts from Santa and enjoy breakfast with us. Leah was not her usual lively self and did not seem excited that it was Christmas morning. The culprit...her belly ached. She didn't even want to open gifts....argh! After about an hour, her sickness was confirmed by a trip to the bathroom. So now she is sleeping and she is going to stay home with me today as her daddy and sister set off for more Christmas parties.

Julianne is in the #1 Picture of 2008!

Julianne is already famous.....making the #1 photo of the year for Love Without Boundaries Organization. Julianne is the third child in the crib...quite a beauty! Love Without Boundaries is a large charity organization that gathers necessary supplies for the orphanages in China. To see if for yourself... http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/topten08/content/1_large.cfm

Waiting.......for Letter of Acceptance

Day 79 and counting........the reality of going past day 100 is starting to become more of a reality for us. We know that in God's timing we shall have her in our arms when we are meant to. For the sake of planning our absence from work, it would be nice to have a heads up on when we are leaving. My ultimate goal is to be able to help her blow out her first birthday candle on January 28! Chinese New Year too! Wouldn't that be awesome!

Leah and Natalie have certainly been keeping us preoccupied though with tea parties, puppet shows, playing dress-up, reading books and last but not least settling the latest sibling rivalry. Since we are off from work on Wednesday, we are devoting the day to preparing Julianne's bedroom and turning it into a ladybug haven. Natalie has already moved into Leah's bed which is about three weeks sooner than planned due to her "pink monster with one eye" dream. With each passing night the giggling, arguing, and jumping on the bed are beginning to subside. Hopefully, we will have this transition perfected by the time Julianne is brought into the mix. If not, the current shared queen bed might have to be switched out to two twin beds and unfortunately, this isn't part of the South financial plan at this point. In due time, though.

Happy Halloween 08!

The girls woke this morning with such excitement for the day as we shuffled them off to their sitter/school. I am sure this energy was felt by all since we too felt it from our students throughout the day especially since the day was an "end of the quarter" party for my seventh graders. We watched the video "Hercules" in the morning and then we enjoyed various "Greece" themed activities for the rest of the day - Obviously, this is what they are learning in Social Studies class.

After school, we rushed home to perform surgery on our pumpkin and I had to finish donning Leah's dalmation costume with spots. Once the girls were fed and dressed, the girls' friend Natalie came over for the annual Trick or Treating ritual. An hour is about how long their cute little paws could hold out. Carrying the girls is fine for the first few houses then it becomes old very quickly. The girls had fun digging through their treasure bag of candy once arriving home and little by little it began to disappear with the help of mommy and daddy. Too bad Leah doesn't like Reeces cups - my favorite!

An Angel

By divine intervention, I had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful woman through a Pingliang Yahoo chat group who was going back to the orphanage from where her child came. Her mission: to supply the children with medical supplies, toys, clothing, etc. After reading her post about her pending travel plans overseas, I didn't hesitate for a second to email her. My original request to her was to simply give our daughter a few extra hugs and kisses from us. Being the kind woman she is, she went beyond our hopes and wishes. She loved on our daughter for days, took pictures (many!!), brought her gifts from us, and even sent two video clips of her. With these clips, we are able to get a small glimmer of her personality and her dimeanor and we feel as if we already know her.

Now for all of you that know me, you may know that I worry (just a bit) so having received these images truly eased my anxieties about her health. How reassuring! God's master plan meant that my path in life would intersect with that of this dear, dear woman. She is an angel and we are so truly grateful for her and all that she has done for us!!!

Enjoy the pictures and video!

Pingliang City and Orphanage

Pingliang
Pingliang lies on the Loess Plateau,in the eastern region of the Liupan Mountains and the upper reaches of the Jing River. It used to be one of the important places of ancient Chinese culture and the second key post on the Silk Road as well as a strategic point, through the ages, along the natural barrier formed by the Liupan Mountains. As early as the late Neolithic Age, 4,000 years ago, human beings settled here. It is now the administrative center for Pinliang Districtand has a population of 270,000 of 14 nationalities, 73.4~0f whom are Han and 26.5~ Hui; others include: Man,Buyi, Baoan, Xibo, Tibetan, Korean, Russian, etc. Pingliang is a vast territory rich in natural resources. It cultivated land, natural forests,grasslands, and land suitable for either forest or grass. Rich in mineral resources, Pingliang has twelve active mines and verified deposits of sixteen minerals to include coal ,iron, copper, aluminum, pottery clay, limestone, etc. The coal deposits are estimated at 18 million tons. The limestone is of very high quality and in a concentrated location for easy mining. Animal resources are rich, too; in addition to poultryand livestock,there are wild animals too: musk, deer, fox,wolf, leopard, badger, hedgehog, wild boar, pheasant,etc. The wild plants of interest are mountain peach, wildapricot, mushroom, and over one hundred wild herbs likelicorice root.
(taken from www.silkroadcn.com/pingliang.htm)

Our referral

These pictures were taken when Liang Ruoting was four months old. This was our first glimpse of our child. Look at that smile and those eyes!

The following pictures were taken when she was 7 months old.

Look at those big beautiful brown eyes! It looks like she will take after my side of the family with thick hair unlike her daddy's, well, let's just say "thin" hair.

Introducing....Liang Ruoting

“When Jesus Christ asked little children to come to him, he didn't say only rich children, or White children, or children with two-parent families, or children who didn't have a mental or physical handicap. He said, "Let all children come unto me.” ~Marian Wright Edelman

We received our phone call from our agency, FTIA, on August 15 around 9:30 am stating that they have matched us with a baby! After following countless blogs from other prospective adoptive parents, we anticipated a wait time of AT LEAST 2 years before hearing about a child. Since we started this process just last January, we were shocked and elated by the timing of the phone call. Another pleasant surprise for us was finding out her birthday was January 28 of this year! We prepared ourselves initially for a child 18 months old or older so news of a seven month old baby up for adoption was wonderful. We said "yes" and instantly became a family of five. Our girls were thrilled upon hearing that they would have a new sister! They excitedly began talking about sharing a room with each other. The plans for who gets to sleep on the top bunk (once we get them a bunk bed) were already mapped out.

Liang Ruoting was found at the waiting hall of a railway station on February 1, 2008. She was then brought to the Social Welfare Institute of Pingliang City in Gansu Province. At the time she weighed 2.9 kg and was 46 cm long. Currently, other than her visible disability, she is considered to be healthy. At eight months old, she sits and is able to stand by holding onto objects. We just can't wait to get our hands on her.

Throughout this process, Jon and I kept searching for signs from God to validate whether we we're making the right decision. His guidance was felt in many different ways but one of the more significant signs helped us solidify that were indeed about to travel down the path He chose for us. This sign came in the form of this little girl's name. From our research, we believe that the name "Liang" indicates the orphanage she comes from. We felt chills when we learned that "Looks like Grace" is the meaning of the name "Ruoting". On March 6, 2002, my niece and god daughter, Grace Josephine (Gracie Jo), died suddenly in her sleep when she was just shy of 19 months old . This connection of Gracie Jo's name to Liang Ruoting's, was too powerful for us to ignore. As tragic as that March day was, our entire family has tried to find the positives from her short sweet life. Who would have known this would take the form of two little girls? Lillian Grace and Maggie Josephine were adopted from China by my sister and brother-in-law sometime after this tragedy. They are such a blessing and a joy. We believe that while sitting on God's lap, Gracie helped hand pick each of those girls for this family. Ironically, we received our call on Lili's birthday. Coincidence? I don't think so. Just one other example of God's presence and affirmation that His plan was now our plan. We debated on including Grace in her name, but we are not sure. We, as a family, have decided to name her Julianne. Julianne Grace OR Julianne Liang OR Julianne Ruoting. We knew that the name we chose would have "Li" in it since my name is Deborah Lee and our children's names are Leah and Natalie. So when we received the call for Liang Ruoting, we knew she belonged in our family.

“I'm singing at the top of my lungs, I'm so full of answered prayers.” Psalm 13:5

Our cup is already flowing over.........we can't wait to make her a part of our lives.