Happy Thanksgiving

"O give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His steadfast love endures forever." Psalm 118:1

So thankful this day for our many blessings, and especially thankful today for our precious daughter waiting in China!

Makes My Monday

Big family news this weekend ... my sister, Elizabeth, got engaged! She and her new fiance, Dan, live in Memphis and are planning a 2010 wedding. Here is a picture of Britton with Dan taken just a few weeks ago. As you can see, Britton has already made himself very comfortable in Dan's presence...

And, just for the record, I now have a husband Danny, a sister-in-law Danica, and a soon-to-be brother-in-law Dan. Wow.

Care Package

With our LOA coming in on Monday, I had to bust a move to get Lia Kate's care package together so that it would actually make it to China before we do! I got it together and mailed it out today. The care package included a fleece-y outfit, pink socks, a giraffe lovey, a disposable camera (so that her nannies can take pictures of her for us), a photo album with pictures of us and her, a butterfly toy w/ wheels, stacking cups, two little books, and nuts for her nannies. I had to include things that I did not expect to ever see again ... just in case ... but I'm hoping at the very least she'll be able to look through the photo album so that she can recognize our faces on Gotcha Day.




I found a fleece outfit that I'm hoping the orphanage will dress her in . They like to keep them warm and bundled up in the winter. And I couldn't let a plain white shirt make its way out of my house, so Lia Kate's first appliqued shirt went out in her care package.


My favorite part of the care package, though, is this little photo album with pictures of the three of us and her, too.




It was surreal to put pictures of the three of us mixed in with pictures of Lia Kate. This child in a foreign land whom we don't even know is our daughter. Surreal.


Britton looking through the album and pointing to Lia Kate. ;o)

Wow.

I am still in shock that we got our LOA today! This is our Letter of Approval from the Chinese government that officially approves us to adopt Lia Kate. We got it only three weeks after first seeing her sweet face. Some people wait months and months for LOA, and here we are flying through the process. Of course, we have been in their system for nearly two years so that does have something to do with it. However, this means we could be leaving in December instead of January to get her! It is exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. Next, we wait on our Travel Approval. Once we have that, we can set our U.S. Consulate Appointment, which takes place in China near the end of our trip. In the meantime, there is tons to do ... shop for winter clothes for Miss Lia Kate since we'll be needing them now, play fruit basket turnover at the house (Britton goes to the guest room, the guest room goes downstairs, etc.), fix the nursery up for a little girl to inhabit it, apply for Visas and do last minute paperwork, read adoption attachment books, make some cute clothes for Lia Kate, make and freeze food, go out of town for Thanksgiving, do some Christmas shopping, take Britton to see Santa, decorate the Christmas tree, pack for China. Wow. The list goes on. I am overwhelmed. And overjoyed. The next two months will be a whirlwind. Stay tuned!

Pumpkin Pictures

I can't believe I haven't posted any pumpkin pictures so far this year. Last year, there were lots. Remember these and these? And these? Oh, and these? Well, here is our little guy this year, sitting pretty with some California pumpkins. I still have tons of pictures to post from our recent trip to the Bay Area. But between our adoption, and sewing shirts, and gearing up for a busy holiday season, you could say that life's a little busy these days. ;o) A detailed post is coming soon.

Lia Kate's Finding Ad

Years ago, when I first became interested in adopting from China, I learned that 1 to 2 million baby girls were abandoned in China each year. Most Americans probably believe baby girls are abandoned because Chinese families want a boy to carry on the family name. While that may be true in many cases, there are more complex issues that lead families to abandon their daughters (and sons, too). It is actually against the law there for parents to give their children up for adoption, which means they can't simply bring their child to an orphanage if they can't or don't want to keep them. Instead, many birth parents leave their babies in a well-traveled area where he or she is sure to be safely found. When a baby is found, it is protocol for the police to attempt to find the birth parents and, beginning 10 years ago, it became law that the orphanage place an ad in the local newspaper, with the hopes that birth parents would claim their children. This is called a finding ad. There is a company here in the States that can locate a child's finding ad, and they found Lia Kate's ad for us! Here is our little girl in, perhaps, the earliest picture of her that we'll ever see ...

The ad reads "(Her name), female, was found near the Lian Jiang Nursing School on August 11, 2008. She was 12 days old at the time she was found." This is the first we have learned of her finding place and it helps us piece a little bit more of her early story together. We plan to go to her town when we are in China and visit her finding spot. There is not much we'll be able to tell her one day about her life in China, but we hope to put as many pieces together as we can.

Here is the newspaper page her ad was on. She is the 6th baby from the right on the bottom row.

Lia Kate's finding ad appeared in the newspaper on February 20, 2009; and, per the number at the top of her ad, she was the 176th finding ad since the beginning of the year (so in the time span of a month and half). She was 6 months old when the ad ran, but her picture was probably taken when she was 3-4 months old. In comparison, by the time Britton turned 4 months old, we had already taken 1,881 pictures of him (I know, that's a lot). For our little girl, this is the only one we have ...

... and that is why this fuzzy, tiny, grainy picture is so very, very precious to us.

Makes My Monday

Here is Britton pointing to a picture of Lia Kate, which he does every time he sees a picture of her. I'm quite sure he doesn't understand the far-reaching implications this little "picture" will have on our lives. ;o)

More About Lia Kate's Name

I have a good friend named Linling who is Chinese but has lived in the States for years. We met while she was a post-doctoral student in Jackson. She now lives in Boston with her smart Harvard-scientist-inventor husband and precious baby boy.

Here is a pic of me and her on our last trip to Boston. Anyway, I am privileged to know her and am so thankful she was gracious enough to translate Lia Kate's Chinese name so that we know exactly what it means.

Lia Kate's surname (which actually comes first in Chinese) is the name of the city where her orphanage is. All of the children in her orphanage have this same last name. Her 2nd name is her "first" name or given name and it means "family" -- indicating their wish for her to have a family of her own. And her 3rd name means "capital" or "Beijing" and is pronounced "jing." Lia Kate was found and named just three days after the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing! And she was named for it. I love this! Another neat thing is that not only do she and I share a birthday, but we were also both born in the midst of the Olympics -- me the 1976 Olympics and her the 2008 -- and her Chinese name will forever reflect that.

Linling showed me that the Beijing Olympics logo ...

... is the character for Lia Kate's name. The running man is the Chinese character for "jing." I also found out that she is likely known as "Jing Jing" in her orphanage. Our little Olympic baby. I love it.

I remember exactly what we were doing on 8.08.08 ... we had friends over to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. We ordered Chinese food and I even made Chinese dumplings just like Linling taught me. It was a fun night and I imagined we would one day have other nights like those once we had our daughter. Danny & I even said we needed to order a DVD of the very impressive Opening Ceremonies for our daughter to see one day. We had no idea that at that very moment, our daughter was out there ... just days old ... living with her birth parents who would soon abandon her in the streets. It's a little overwhelming to think about.

Here is Britton (such a baby he was) on that night watching the Opening Ceremonies:

We definitely need to find a copy of the Opening Ceremonies now. I can't wait to share it with Lia Kate one day ... to celebrate her heritage and tell her the story of her name.

Makes My Monday

This makes all my Mondays this year! This is me and my best friend from high school, Emily, sharing a few days together in beautiful, sunny California ... admiring and loving on each other's boys, talking, laughing, shopping, getting pedicures and catching up. It's been a fabulous, much-needed, long weekend! Back to reality today...