Merry Christmas!

Michael and I received the best Christmas present earlier this year...we learned that we get to be Lily's Mommy and Daddy!  We are so happy that Lily made us parents and we are ready to go bring her home shortly.

Thank you to family who have things under their tree for our sweet little one.  Just wait until next year Lily Grace!

Merry Christmas to all of you and of course, Lily.  We love you.

Lately

Lately we've been getting a lot of good news!  Good news because while we don't have a travel date yet, we can at least see that light at the end of the tunnel.

Here's where we stand with the process:  

• We got our 1800 approval notice which let us then proceed with the National Visa Center to be able to send our necessary information to the US Embassy in Guangzhou. 
•  All of our approval notices have been sent to our representative in Guangzhou and now they will request our Article 5 letter - this is a confirmation step letting China know that all our paperwork is ready at the consulate for our consulate appointment.  
• Once the Article 5 letter is ready, we'll be in the homestretch for traveling!

While all that paperwork stuff is happening, we've been shopping! And who wants to brave the stores and mall around this time?  We stayed home and shopped...

Go figure! Who made that rule anyway?

 We should have some goodies being delivered this week:

Car seat - check
Cabinet/plug safety devices - check
Booster Seat - check
Umbrella stroller for China trip - check
Grandma's new SUV so she has room for a car seat too - check!

Not hardly a conversation can go by nowadays without talking and planning about Lily.  Everyday things we do now we always mention that in just a short amount of time we'll be doing all these things with Lily.  Our hearts are just so full and happy right now!  We just can't hardly stand the wait until we can hold her and begin our lives with her.

Tired from shopping, we did manage a bit of time at the park with the puppies!

Of course our conversation revolved around bringing Lily there in the spring to play.

Priorities

We have begun the great adventure of prioritizing as parents!  So many things to choose from to buy for Lily.  Where does one start?

Being very informed parents, we know she'll need these.

And of course, this to put them in.  

Safety is a top priority so we've watched many car seat reviews.  Yes, we were the only ones in that aisle wearing reading glasses. We just looked so much smarter than all the others!

Planning for our airplane ride home, these may come in handy for some of the 13 hours and offer a bit of entertainment.  The people sitting around us will appreciate it if it works!

So far, so good on prioritizing.

 But then this happened...

 Our new "pit", aka our family gathering spot.  Yes, it does pull you in and make you want to be all cozy! That's ok though because after all, Lily needs a place for cuddles and lovin with her mommy and daddy! So therefore this purchase is justified - whew!

Speaking of movies, all Disney movies must be able to be seen and heard well by everyone so there's also this addition:

Don't judge! It's not like we got the biggest one.  It had to look right on the wall.  It had to match the "pit".  And, let's not forget, it's all for Lily!

Right Now

Right now my two thoughts are:

Really, our wait isn't much longer...just a few more months. 

We are having such a fun time getting everything ready for Lily!

  More on that later and our decisions of "proud parent prioritizing"!  

My other thought currently is that I just cannot wait to let Lily meet this guy:

Her Grandaddy!

We sent my Dad several of our favorite pics a while ago and here he is just after opening them.  She doesn't know it yet, but he is one of many who can't wait to meet her, hold her, and love her.  What a family of love she is about to join!

It's a surreal feeling "knowing" her as we do, filling our house with her pictures, preparing for our trip, getting our home ready for her and at the same time she's totally unaware of the true greatness which awaits her: kindness, learning, fun, use of her imagination, vast experiences, building of confidence, nonstop care, hope,  devotion, faith and unending love.  Not only from us, but from our families and friends. This sweet, little girl half way around the world doesn't know this yet, but she has so many blessings coming her way.  As do we!

Zooming

ZOOMING - that's how we describe our life right now!  After months of waiting, we are in the part of our journey where things are really moving.  And we are pretty darn happy about that!

Lately, we spend a lot of time doing this...

Signed, sealed, delivered.

  Lucky for us many things are done electronically with actually just a bit done like the above.  I can't imagine waiting by the door each day for a delivery from FedEx!  Now, we just wait for a "ding" and then know that...

Any "When Harry Met Sally" fans out there??

So, where are we in the process?  Forms, forms and more forms - I800, I864W,  DS-260.  It's like a whole new language out there for us with these names and acronyms (CCCWA, TA, LSC, USCIC just to name a few).  More acronyms than we have in the teacher and pilot world and that is a crazy amount!

We received our LSC - Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter.  It's a formality from China which we sign saying we agree to adopt to Lily.  That was an easy one which we eagerly signed and returned.  We've also sent off all paperwork to immigration which will allow us to immigrate Lily to the United States.

Woo hoo!  It's all official for us and Lily Grace.

One more thing...Happy Birthday today to our daughter, Lily!  She's now a big 2 year old!

Our Daughter

We are so incredibly happy today to introduce you to our daughter,

Lily Grace Wilson.

I don't believe I can put into words our true happiness in knowing everything is official and she is our daughter.  A little, sweet, young girl waiting for her Mommy and Daddy to come get her.  Our daughter. I love the sound of that.

  

Our daughter Lily...

Another Step

So we are learning through this process to take things one step at a time.  For someone who likes to see all the steps and the end result laid out before beginning anything, this has been an adjustment I've had to make.  Some people refer to that as being anal - I just like to say I'm organized!

More good news though...we can now say we are one more step closer to our daughter!  After receiving her file and reviewing it with some doctors, we wrote a letter stating it is our intent to adopt her.  The letter has been translated and has been submitted to China so now her file is "locked' to our family.  Once China receives the letter and accepts it, they in turn will write and send us a Letter Seeking Confirmation.  Then, at that point, all is official!

In the meantime, we are about to jump into another series of paperwork to get approval for our daughter to immigrate to the United States. Speaking of the United States, there may have been a little reason we chose to wear red, white and blue when we took our pictures to announce our adoption. We are always ready to show our patriotism and can't wait to share that with our daughter.

He can always make me laugh and I absolutely love that!

Progress

We've had a lot of progress around here lately!  We received our email with our little ones file from China!   It's the next  piece of this puzzle we've been waiting on and to say we were elated about this is an understatement.

The day we received it, was my late day at work and I got a call from home telling me the news.  We agreed we wouldn't open up the file until we were both home. The meeting that afternoon at work is a blur as I just couldn't stop thinking about what we were getting ready to learn from that file. Boy, did I ever hurry home that day!  

We sat down at the computer and clicked to open it and...nothing.  The file couldn't be found.!!  WHAT?!?!?! No way!  By now the New York offices were closed and we had to wait another night.  

We agreed that the next morning whenever we got the file, we wouldn't wait to open it together.  I didn't want to risk waiting another night! The next morning around 9:30 I got the file at work and quickly tried to scan through it before heading into a meeting. 

Seeing new pictures of her was my absolute favorite!

 We now have a little more insight into her life so far.  A few more formalities until we are official and can share pictures.  And yes, we have LOTS of precious pictures to share!

It is such a surreal feeling to know our daughter is around the world waiting for us to come and bring her home.  Our hearts are so full already and our love for her grows by the minute.

  

We had dinner the other night with a friend and she surprised us with a gift for our daughter.  Our first gift - and yes, I did tear up.

Lots of snuggles waiting for her and us!

Introducing...

Gracie Wilson!

Well, no big news yet on "our little one" but this little sweetie stole our hearts!  She's a rescue who rescued us.  Sweet,  little, three year old chocolate lab.

Ok,ok,one one more for the night.  Seriously...just precious!

Now all four us are waiting to fill our home up even more!

  Anxiously waiting for our little one from China to join us.

Three for Thursday

My three thoughts for Thursday:

1.  I'm so very thankful that "our people" from our agency have been in China these past two weeks.  They have been traveling all over seeing as many orphanages and children as they can.  And, yes, they saw our little one!  Of course I wish it was me but having someone check on her and love on her warms my heart. I hope she somehow felt our love.

2.  I'm so excited we got a little update through email!  I can't wait for a phone call to get more information and hopefully pictures.  I'm hoping to be able to "share" her with all of you here soon when everything is official.  It's SO hard to wait!

3.  We've been told she enjoyed playing with the blocks we sent.  I can only imagine her little hands holding them.  Our first present to her and we can't wait to be the ones to play with her and hold her. She has already filled our hearts so much and we haven't even met.  I can only imagine the love once we meet her. She definitely needs to be here...quickly, please!
 I feel she already belongs here with us, and we belong with her.

First Present

Have you ever had a hard time buying a gift for someone?  What about someone you haven't met?  What if that someone is your future daughter?  

We are so lucky that our agency is sending a great team over to China soon to visit their partner orphanages and see as many kids as they can.  And the best news?  They will be checking on our little one and taking her a gift from us!  But the gift needs to be light and small since they take many things over there.

 So, what did we send? 

We spent a while here looking around for the perfect "first gift"...

We got a little sidetracked looking at all the things we get to buy someday: car seat, jogging stroller, bows, kids potty, cute bathrobes with hoods, adorable clothes, shoes, did I mention bows??  I mean really colorful, really big bows! Can't wait!

We decided everyone needs a soft lovie and some blocks so they'll be heading to China soon! 

 And no, Roxi is not going to China, just the toys.

We are all waiting eagerly for the next bit of good news.  We can't wait to introduce everyone to our daughter here on the blog as soon as things are official.

Roxi didn't want us to share this outtake but that's what we parents do!  She says she wasn't ready and I didn't count 1,2,3 for the picture.

Playing Goldilocks

This bed is too hard, this one is too soft, and this one is just right!

We had fun finding the JUST RIGHT bed for our little one and it should be delivered here this week. It's hard to imagine our little one soon sleeping in it.  We just can not wait for that day!

For anybody local, you'll recognize this:

We always try and support a local company when possible.

Somehow buying one bed turned into buying two new beds.  So for those of you reading who may be coming for a visit, you too have a brand new comfy bed waiting for you.

 Hopefully that will entice you all this way soon! Afterall, we do have a good reason for all of you to visit in the future!

NYC Trip and got to meet Leta!

OK, so this is a big post for us.

 

Big

 

During my layover in Manhattan this week I went to the Gladney office to meet someone that is a BIG part of our process.  Please let me introduce to our family and friends a person that works hard at answering all our questions, listening to us and showing so much empathy for us that it feels like she is now a part of the family.

 

Every page of our application and dossier, each of the hundreds of emails so far, all our questions, telephone calls and her tireless enthusiasm and good news for us...

 

She is just GREAT!

 

This is our confidant and friend, and the Asia Program Caseworker

 

Leta White

 

 

And just because I like to see all good things TEXAS, if you look at the last picture over Leta's left shoulder, that new American little girl is sitting in a field of bluebonnets!!!!

 

 

Oh...

 

One last thing for today...

 

Did I mention that we know our little girl now?

 

And that her paperwork is close to completion...

 

Yeah, HUGE post today!

 

More details soon, I promise!

Mailbox Surprise!

It was a big weekend for the China Makes Three household!

 

When we started this whole process, we waited to tell most of our family so that when we made the big announcement we would have more information other than just saying we started a big long process.  So here we are, almost eight months in and with our LID, we decided it was time.

 

Oh, and we had the perfect venue...

 

A family wedding!

 

Lots of smiles, hugs and loving tears!  Family just feels so good!

 

And so that now our family can follow along, our announcement will be arriving in your mailboxes this week!

 

 

 

Say Cheese

On a wonderfully cool, crisp, sunny day we met our photographer for our session...not really! In actuality, we were hurrying to beat a storm, it was HOT and windy.  But, nonetheless, we ended up with some good pictures to help announce our future adoption. 

 

More soon...

 

Oh, and those cute little boots light up RED WHITE & BLUE!!!!!

 



Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Waiting is hard.  Waiting is not fun.  Patience is a virtue.

 

 Time - we have some time now.  We sort of miss the daily filling out papers, copying forms, going to FedEx and seeing our little friend the notary at the bank. 

 

So what do we do? 

 

A furniture makeover for our little one...

 

 

 

Good thing is, it's not too hot here in July!

 

 

 



Happy Day

Currently thinking: 

 

We received our official Log In Date today!  This means our paperwork will be translated and whenever the time is right, we can officially be matched with a little one.

 

More waiting in our future but a big step accomplished today!



Last Big Approval Step

After all the paperwork and all the running around getting everything notarized and then authenticated, we got this email and we could not stop smiling.

And, It's Off

All documents authenticated...check!

 

Everything in order and boxed....check!

 

Off to FedEx we go

 

Our completed dossier is off to Gladney!

 

Our package will arrive at our agency in New York tomorrow. 

There, it will be checked and receive another approval. 

 

Then...it's off to China!  China will do a check, translate everything and complete a final approval.  At that point, we'll receive our Log in Date (LID).  Once we receive our LID, we can officially wait for a referral to be matched to our little one!

 



Lines and Copies

Wednesday, June 3, was a day to spend at the Chinese Consulate.  What we imagined to be a quick drop off of documents, took most of the day.  We did a lot of this:

 

Upon discovering we had to make copies of everything, we set off to complete our task at hand.  Making copies doesn't sound too difficult until you realize the authentication notice from the Secretary of State  stapled to each document can not be removed!  No unstapling or tampering with any of these precious documents. 

 

 With our copies in hand we returned to the Consulate to do this:

And some more lines

 

Another successful day and a step forward.  Next up, picking up our authenticated documents from the consulate.