Happy Chinese New Year!!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Today China started their celebrations of the Lunar New Year.  The Year of the Dragon.

We celebrated at the Blankenship house as well.  We ordered pick up from our favorite Thia restaurant.  Now before you start, yes I realize I am not adopting from Thialand and that the food is different than Chinese food but it is my Chinese New Year and I will celebrate the way I want to! HA! 
We had a lot to celebrate so we ate like it was Thanksgiving but instead of Turkey and dressing with mounds of creamy sides I had eggrolls, Nam Sod, Spicy Cocunut soup, Thia Noodle, Spicy beef noodle and Pork Fried Rice.  Every person waddled out of our kitchen.  I love that the kids gobble up just about everything I put in front of their face.  Let me add a funny story to show you how much we ate.  About 15 minutes after we at dinner I was trying to get Leila in the tub when my comedian Josiah walks into the bath.
"Mom, you need to take my temperature." rather seriously, "No, Mom I'm serious. My tummy feels really bad.  I think I might be getting sick"
After I stopped giggling I reminded him that he at as much as Daddy had and what he was feeling was the feeling of being stuffed. 
So now that all the kiddos are in bed I can focus on all that we have to celebrate.  Friday the 13th was the day we sent out our last package of info to our agency for our Dossier.  It was received Tuesday and I had told T to do whatever she needed to do to get it to China.  Since my Dossier was only waiting I800A approval letter from immagration we were willing to pay the extra money to have it translated quickly so that it could GO, GO, GO!   If you are wondering how I got from the last post to this post it is because of you.  You have prayed with us, you how have encouraged and you who have shared tons of information.  You were used as one of God's instruments in His grand plan to move that paperwork. We found out shortly after my last post that because of our sons severe heart condition that we could ask for his file to be expedited.  So we filed the extra paperwork needed and on the 6th of January we received an email confirmtion that our file had been approved.  So now we just wait.  Wait.... Wait.... Wait.... Wait.....  If you know me than you know this is not my strength.  I don't wait well.  This week the Chinese Governement is closed for the celebration of the New Year.  I could wallow in my self pity or I could celebrate That is just what my little man did for his birthday.

This is what I woke up to Saturday morning.  Pictures from my sweet sons birthday party.  Doesn't he look good after just recovering from his second surgery.  I also love that he is wearing yellow this time around.  It has gotten very cold there and ther is not much heat so they wrap them up to keep them warm and toasty.  Look at his hair it looks like he needs a little trim above his ears.  I wonder if he will get one for New Years.  It is a Chinese tradition to get a hair cut for the new year celebration.  I hope you guys can feel the excitement that I have.  Lot's and Lot's to be thankful for. 

We still have a long road but I'm excited and I have faith. 

P.S. If the young lady from the pool reads this.  Timberdoodles, Apologia Science, Sonlight

P.P.S.S. Does anybody know were I got that temperature money ticker thingy on the side.  I can't find it and I need to change it.  It is driving me crazy.

Happy Birthday BABY!

Today is the celebration of a lot of firsts!
The first day of 2012
Our new sons first birthday
The first time I have not been with my child on their birthday.
The first time I am crying out to you guys and begging for your prayers and help!

 

Remember yesterday when I told you that immigration originally said that it would be 45 days for approval. Well, they have changed.  Let me rewind a couple of weeks.  I received a call from our agency letting us know that the Chinese Consulate was starting to deny dossiers if they had any documents that had notaries of 6 months old or older.  So we went through our documents and realized that our Birth certificates and our Marriage License had expiered the week before.  So we reordered.  Then we noticed that our medical exams were gonna expire soon as well.  So we started getting anxious about sending them in.  Since we were only so close to that 45 day mark we opted to wait and see if our immigration approval letter one come in and we could send it all together.  On day 53 we still had heard or received anything. 
E took off on Tuesday headed to Montgomery to have our information State Certified.  He should have known it was gonna be a bad day when he hadn't even gotten out of Tuscaloosa when he came to a stop light only to have his phone slide off the console and fall into his glass of water.  :( Then when he made it to Montgomery he realized that there were documents that still need to be county certified before they could be state certified.  One of those documents was the medical exams that we were getting close to expiring.  So he turned around and headed back towards Tuscaloosa.  On his way home he stopped at a Publix to pick up a few items for the house.  He threw them in the back of his car and headed back towards the house so he thought.  As soon as he turned a curve the items fell over and hit something in the back of car and broke.  Did I mention it was also his birthday?!
The next day E woke up and started the process all over again. First to our notaries office to have one more document notarized.  Then to the County Courthouse to have it County Certified.  Next, to Jefferson County to have 2 documents that were notarized in Jeffereson county County Certified.  Then back to Montgomery.  He had no problems this time (hee hee) and after he received all of the certifications he found a FedEx/Kinkos and "started making copies" (Does anyone else remember the copy man on SNL).  After all copies were done he overnighted it to AGCI.  I wonder if E did a little dance when he sent that package off.  Just kidding, all of us know E is not the dancing type.
While E was gone I had a talk with T from AGCI.  She really felt like I should give immigragtion a call and check up on the status of my I800A.  Well folks there is just no way to sugar coat this.  It was not good news.  I was informed that my case had not even received an Officer and it was going to be more like 90 days instead of 45 days and then she said it could be longer.  So if you haven't done the math that would put us at the beginning of February being able to submit all of our paperwork to China.  That was a punch in the gut.  Everyday we don't have that letter adds a day (or longer) til we can go bring our baby home. 
So this is were I beg for your prayers.  O to cry out to the Heavenly father and beg Him for His mighty hand to push that paperwork through. For protection of our sweet son and his body.  God has already given me peace and reassurance so now I just have to fight and pray him home.
While we are praying him home and finding every way we can to get him home sooner than later I am going ot keep myself busy.  I have a list of things to do around the house, 4 beautiful children who need me to love, nurture and teach them, a relationship with my husband that needs to be invested in and grown, time to pray to a loving, sovereign Father so that I can grow in my relationship with Him.  We will also be fundraising.  See the list below of some of the things that we will be doing.  If you would like to help out or have an idea then let me know.

• A raffle from a friend who does photography and is also adopting please go check it out at here
• Print created by a local artist (pictures to come) of a sketch of 5 eggs in a nest with the verse from Psalm 84:3
• In May we will have another Boston Butt Sale
• We are having a 147 million orphan button put on the blog so that you can click on that button and have it take you to our virtual 147 store to purchase gear.