"If God leads you to it..."

"If God leads you to it, then He will lead you through it." I saw this on a church sign on Monday. It spoke volumes to me in regards to our adoption journey. Yesterday (Wednesday) our adoption agency posted their newest Waiting Child List. We (Tammy and I) have looked and prayed over the list several times. Our agency will begin accepting applications tomorrow morning. We are planning to submit applications for 7-8 little girls on Saturday. The families chosen to review the children's medical records will be notified on Monday. We continue to believe that God is in control of our journey. Our prayer is that each child on the list will be placed with their forever family. We ask that each of you will also pray this prayer. We also ask that God will prepare us if our daughter is on this list or not. He has placed us on this journey and we know He will see us through until the end and the beginning of our journey as a family of SIX!

A few pictures

Being a very big boy at the dentist!

Much happier at Chuck E Cheese!!

Still slow moving!!

Will we ever get through 2005 LID's? Will we ever get in the review room? Hopefully by the end of the year, we will accomplish both of these!!!

As frustrating as the wait can be for us, time really is going by so swiftly. The boys' summer activities keep us going every day. Between our 2 older boys, 2 nieces, & 2 nephews, every weeknight ( & most Saturdays) in June is booked with baseball and softball games.

In May, Hudson had to have his 2 front teeth pulled. They began decaying shortly after they came in. So now he can't eat corn on the cob for at least 3 or 4 more years. He really did pretty good for the dentist, even the dentist said so. He had the teeth out in about 3 minutes! I think Hudson was more freaked out about feeling numb, but after a trip to Chuck E .Cheese, life was good again.

We still can't decide for sure on a name, but we have plenty of time to decide! Our agency's new waiting child (Special Needs) list will come out next week. Chris and I are still open to this possibility, if it is God's will. It is always exciting to see these beautiful children find their forever families.

Our boys are looking forward to our vacation next month (Disney of course) and Hudson is asking every day if today is the day we are leaving. We leave 4 weeks from today, but I'm not counting down the days or anything. HA! It will be a nice break from our day to day chaos. Even as chaotic as our summer are, I love every minute of it and cannot wait to add even more craziness to our lives.

Mother's Day 2007

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers reading this and especially our mothers, Mary Lynn and Marlene.

God truly blessed Tammy and I with two amazing and Godly women as our mothers. We were both brought up in Christian homes and were taught to love our Lord with all our hearts. Our adoption truly began when God spoke through Tammy's mom. One day she reminded us that we had considered international adoption early in our marriage. From that point on, our hearts were in China.

Today we had the opportunity to spend time with both of our moms. We began the day worshiping God with Tammy's mom at her sister Jennifer's church. Jennifer and her husband Ralph dedicated their daughter Emerie to the Lord today. During the worship time, God spoke to me through a statement made by the worship leader. He said "Are we willing to wait on the Lord for our children?" WOW! We have always prayed with our mouths and most of the time with our hearts that we want God to bring our daughter to us in His time. However, sometimes I (Chris) want God to bring Hope or Mia to us tomorrow. So my prayer today is that I am willing to wait on the Lord for our daughter.

Two other mothers have been on my mind and heart today. I see what an amazing mother Tammy is to Morgan, Jackson, and Hudson. These three boys will one day be three Godly men because of their mother's love. They can see God's love through this woman. An amazing thing about Tammy is that she has enough love for a little girl waiting many miles away. And this love extends to another mother who is making or has made a difficult decision to give up her baby. Through this whole journey, Tammy has always had Hope's or Mia's birth mother on her heart and mind. And I know this will never change.

Please continue to remember us in your prayers as we WAIT on God to bring our daughter home.

2 DAYS??? UGH!!!

The CCAA has finished the

review of the adoption

application documents registered

with our office before

March 31, 2006.

The CCAA has finished

the placement of children

for the families whose

adoption application

documents

were registered with our office

before October 26, 2005.

ACKKK!! Only 2 days of LIDs were matched this month!! This came as a complete surprise to everyone in the China adoption community. We still have 317 days of LIDs before ours!! The good news is that if they continue at this rate, our grand kids will be able to play with our daughter. HA! We've had a very difficult couple of weeks trying to digest this latest information from the CCAA. We just have to remember God will bring our daughter home when it is time, whether it is 4 months from now or 4 years.

Since it looks like we'll be nowhere near a referral for at least another couple of years, we've decided to take the kids on another Disney Cruise next year. This gives us something else to look forward to, instead of despairing every month at the ever-lengthening wait for our little girl.

We've been discussing names again. We had settled on Mia, or so we thought, but lately we've been tossing around different names. A dear friend at church suggested, Hope. We both love that name and all it implies, so for now we are thinking of calling her Hope.

We continue to pray for our daughter-to-be and her family. We also pray the each month will bring more encouraging news than the last month.

Bring Me Hope

Baby steps forward!!!

The CCAA has finished

the review of the adoption

application documents

registered with our office

before March 31, 2006.

The CCAA has finished

the placement of children

for the families whose

adoption application

documents were

registered with our office

before October 24, 2005.

So what does this mean? Families whose documents were logged in with the CCAA between Oct.14 and Oct. 24, 2005 have finally been matched with their babies! Our LID (Log in date) is Sept. 8 2006! That's 318 days of LID's before ours. The CCAA has been matching an average of 2 weeks of LID's per month, lately. But Oct. and Nov. 2005 were reportedly huge months in terms of #'s of families with LID's during those months. At this rate, we anticipate the wait to extend to about 2 years from LID to referral, but pray it does not extend too much further!

Families with LID's in March of 2006 have made it through the review room. This means the CCAA has given final approval for these families to adopt from China and their dossier will now move to the matching room. April and May LID's are now in review. We are hoping to be in review by the end of 2007.

We are slowly moving forward, but at least it's progress. Every day brings us a little closer to our baby girl!!!!