Gabriella received her care package!

I have many favorite pictures we have received of Gabriella however this is one of my absolute favorites...for a couple of reasons. First the love of the foster mom's face that she has for the girls is very obvious and it comforts me daily knowing she is living with a foster family who loves and cares for her. Secondly, Gabriella is holding Emily's arm as if she is the big sister looking out for her little sister...I find this just precious! Thirdly, if you scroll down and look at the care package we sent her then you look at the shirt she is wearing ~ it's the same shirt and one of the bows we sent is in her hair!!! Our baby girl received her care package and we are thrilled!!! The shirt she has on is a 3T, it is the largest item we sent as we weren't sure of her size with her height being almost 34 inches yet her weight is 22 lbs!!! We are going to have a tall, thin princess coming home to her family. Our boys already have a list of foods they want to introduce her to when she comes home! Nicholas feels that chicken tenders and french fries are a must. Jordan can't wait to introduce her to Mexican food and mashed potatoes and gravy. Daniel loves Chinese food...something tells me Gabriella will really enjoy having dinner when Daniel chooses what we will be having for dinner:)

Log in Date (L.I.D.)!!!!!!

Did someone say that our family received our log in date? Mommy and Daddy you need to get my room finished ~ this means I'm one BIG step closer to coming HOME!!!! Our official L.I.D is September 17, 2009!!

Emily & Gabriella

We have mentioned in a previous post how blessed we are that Emily's family and our family have been united through a common adoption group. Emily came home from China with her family about two weeks ago ~ her mom and I have been in contact with each other since learning our girls were in the same foster home in China and email regularly. Emily's mama was so kind to email us several pictures of the girls together in their foster home in China. This picture means so much to both of us as the girls foster dad is holding them, and the various pictures we have show the true love their foster parents have for the girls ~ this is something we will eternally be thankful for. Emily is on the left and is doing wonderful at home with her family ~ the relationship we will have with their family is truly priceless as we feel it is nothing short of a miracle from God that our two little girls who lived half way around the world as sisters in China, will be living just a couple states away from each other here in the US. Once we have Gabriella home with us for a bit and have spent some time bonding, our first road trip we are planning is to allow the girls to be reunited ~ just thinking about how much it will mean to them is something we can't even put into words.

We are hoping to have our log in date (LID) which is the date our dossier is logged into the China system ~ we should have the date this week....that's what we're hoping for. After the LID comes the letter of approval (LOA) ~ once this is received we will sign it and send it back to China ASAP. After they receive it we will then recieve our travel approval (TA) and that is when we can take a long plane ride to China to bring our baby girl HOME!!!

Care Package for Gabriella

We sent a care package to Gabriella and it was quite fun picking things out to send her. Our social worker suggested we go to Build A Be*ar and record our voices in a stuffed animal so Gabriella could hear our voices before she meet us ~ so this is where the lamb came from and has a message from us to Gabriella:) As her weight is only 22 pounds, which puts her in 18-24 months on many charts, yet her height is almost 34 inches that would equal a size 3T we sent a variety of sizes over to her. I think we will have a much better idea once she is home with us and we can try different things on her ~ speaking of clothes, this little girl is establishing quite the wardrobe. Children's Pl*ce had a great sale about a month ago so we started her 2010 spring/summer attire:) Also, if anyone has ideas of items to take with us for Gabriella to play with while we are in China I would value your opinion...the last 18 years have been spent with basketball, golf, football...I think you get the idea so we are in need of ideas of what a very sweet 2 year old little girl my enjoy playing with:)

Back to School

Jordan and Nicholas are back to school...this post is a little late as they started August 11. Our entire family and community thought this was VERY early to return to school however the school year will be completed before Memorial Day of 2010. Jordan is a sophomore this year and is driving to school each morning ~ he is lovin' that! Nicholas is in the 6th grade and continues to ride "the 50 foot twinkie" as he affectionately calls it ~ he does love Julie his bus driver:) We hope the boys have a happy and healthy school year as well as learning a lot of new things:)