Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Chase's 3rd Grade Circus play
Today was a busy afternoon. Zoe had dance and gymnastics. Then we had to rush off to Parker's Baseball game and then lastly to Chase's play. The 3rd graders put on the spring play and Chase's class had to dress up as clowns. Chase and I made a quick trip into town and got him some suspender's, nose, a bow tie and some face paint for the performance. He made such a cute clown!
Sunday, May 18, 2014
The Call!
So I recently realized after reading another friends post on her blog, that I never blogged about "The Call". So here it is! It starts back in January really. We seen a little girls picture on our agencies email that they sent out and I inquired about her that very day. The next day they sent us her file and we reviewed it with a doctor. After hearing what the doctor said we decided that we wanted to pursue her . So on Monday I sent and email out to our social worker and also to the China team.
So after waiting all day for an email back all day I called our social worker and quickly realized that there was a problem. They had sent this little ones file out to several families and several families were interested. I was in shock, we really thought this was our daughter. We had never encountered this with our other agency since they only let one family see a file at a time. So a committee was formed and a family was chosen. We weren't that family. We were devastated to say the least.
It was hard to make it through the next few weeks. My faith in our agency had been tested.
Weeks went by and we inquired about a few other files but the little ones needs were to great for our family. Meanwhile we moved forward getting our papers ready to send off to China. I sent the last approval to be Authenticated the beginning of February. After waiting over three weeks with no work on this paper I started trying to inquire about it. Finally after another week I was told it was lost. So we were back to getting state certification again and this time I sent it off to DC to be Authenticated. I was contacted by our courier in DC a few days later that China had changed their rules and that now no documents can be sent for express processing. So we ended up having to waiting two weeks for the papers to be sent back. And then on Chase's Birthday March 19th both the DC documents and the lost SF documents were handed to me by Fedex. Yes you heard that right, the lost documents were found and arrived at our house on the same day/time as the DC documents. I rushed them inside and made copies. Then Chase and I sped off to Eugene to hand deliver our Dossier.
Our Dossier was mailed on March 21, 2014. Then on the evening of 4/1/14 ( yes April fools day) at 5pm I got the call. Steve had just left to shuffle the kids to sports practices. I answered the phone and it was our social worker. She said " I'm calling you about a little girl's file that we have for you".
I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I said "yes", and she continued " She is younger than you were expecting, so if that is a deal breaker than I can stop now", I said "NO that's fine"!
She went on to tell me about her and before she ended the conversation she said, I would recommend no looking at the pictures until the end after you have read all the medical file". I asked why and she said " She is absolutely adorable". So of course I was more excited than ever! After hanging up I called Steve and ask him if he wanted me to wait for him to get home or to open up the file. He must of known that I couldn't wait and told me to go ahead and check it out.
I opened up the email and started reading through all the medical information and the information about her. Then I seen her face and yes it was over, it was a done deal. There I seen our daughter starting back at me. I had the same feeling that I had when I seen Zoe's file five years before. This was our daughter with out a doubt and I felt relief in this.
So the next few days were a blur. We follow up with doctors and sent our Letter of Intent. However the thing was we couldn't actually submit it until the file was finalized which ended up being just a little over a month later.
Also in the weeks after the call I received confirmation from God several times that this was our daughter. First amazing thing was that her name in her file means "Hope for a better a bright future".
The Bible verse that I've been seeing everywhere just weeks before was Jeremiah 29:11 : For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans welfare and not evil, to give you a future and Hope.
The other amazing thing was that back in October we all guessed for fun when we thought Hope's Birthday would be. We'll I had saved it on my phone and a week after we received her file I opened it. I had guessed her Birthday EXACTLY! The thing that is crazy is that I chose that day for no particular reason, there is no one in our family even with a December Birthday and the day had no significance. The other thing is that I forgot which day I had guessed until I opened up that file on my phone!
There are still so many more little things that have happened throughout our wait. God's timing is always perfect. We weren't ever suppose to be matched with that other little girl and now I know why. Also even though all those unnecessary delays were horrible they were necessary in the timing of our referral of our daughter that God had planned for us. For those still waiting know that your time will come soon and you will understand later why the delays were meant to be.
Be Truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead! 1Peter1:6
Cast your cares upon the Lord, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7
So after waiting all day for an email back all day I called our social worker and quickly realized that there was a problem. They had sent this little ones file out to several families and several families were interested. I was in shock, we really thought this was our daughter. We had never encountered this with our other agency since they only let one family see a file at a time. So a committee was formed and a family was chosen. We weren't that family. We were devastated to say the least.
It was hard to make it through the next few weeks. My faith in our agency had been tested.
Weeks went by and we inquired about a few other files but the little ones needs were to great for our family. Meanwhile we moved forward getting our papers ready to send off to China. I sent the last approval to be Authenticated the beginning of February. After waiting over three weeks with no work on this paper I started trying to inquire about it. Finally after another week I was told it was lost. So we were back to getting state certification again and this time I sent it off to DC to be Authenticated. I was contacted by our courier in DC a few days later that China had changed their rules and that now no documents can be sent for express processing. So we ended up having to waiting two weeks for the papers to be sent back. And then on Chase's Birthday March 19th both the DC documents and the lost SF documents were handed to me by Fedex. Yes you heard that right, the lost documents were found and arrived at our house on the same day/time as the DC documents. I rushed them inside and made copies. Then Chase and I sped off to Eugene to hand deliver our Dossier.
Our Dossier was mailed on March 21, 2014. Then on the evening of 4/1/14 ( yes April fools day) at 5pm I got the call. Steve had just left to shuffle the kids to sports practices. I answered the phone and it was our social worker. She said " I'm calling you about a little girl's file that we have for you".
I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I said "yes", and she continued " She is younger than you were expecting, so if that is a deal breaker than I can stop now", I said "NO that's fine"!
She went on to tell me about her and before she ended the conversation she said, I would recommend no looking at the pictures until the end after you have read all the medical file". I asked why and she said " She is absolutely adorable". So of course I was more excited than ever! After hanging up I called Steve and ask him if he wanted me to wait for him to get home or to open up the file. He must of known that I couldn't wait and told me to go ahead and check it out.
I opened up the email and started reading through all the medical information and the information about her. Then I seen her face and yes it was over, it was a done deal. There I seen our daughter starting back at me. I had the same feeling that I had when I seen Zoe's file five years before. This was our daughter with out a doubt and I felt relief in this.
So the next few days were a blur. We follow up with doctors and sent our Letter of Intent. However the thing was we couldn't actually submit it until the file was finalized which ended up being just a little over a month later.
Also in the weeks after the call I received confirmation from God several times that this was our daughter. First amazing thing was that her name in her file means "Hope for a better a bright future".
The Bible verse that I've been seeing everywhere just weeks before was Jeremiah 29:11 : For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans welfare and not evil, to give you a future and Hope.
The other amazing thing was that back in October we all guessed for fun when we thought Hope's Birthday would be. We'll I had saved it on my phone and a week after we received her file I opened it. I had guessed her Birthday EXACTLY! The thing that is crazy is that I chose that day for no particular reason, there is no one in our family even with a December Birthday and the day had no significance. The other thing is that I forgot which day I had guessed until I opened up that file on my phone!
There are still so many more little things that have happened throughout our wait. God's timing is always perfect. We weren't ever suppose to be matched with that other little girl and now I know why. Also even though all those unnecessary delays were horrible they were necessary in the timing of our referral of our daughter that God had planned for us. For those still waiting know that your time will come soon and you will understand later why the delays were meant to be.
Be Truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead! 1Peter1:6
Cast your cares upon the Lord, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Parker's first baseball game
Tonight Parker had his first game of the season. He did so good. He made a double play on his own. Caught a fly ball and then tagged second. Caught another fly ball later on and also made an out at second base. He played second for three innings. He got up to bat twice. The first time he hit it over first base man's head and made it to first. He then stole the bases and made it to third. The second time up he got hit in the back from the pitcher and made it to 1st base.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Wyatt turns 8
Today we went to a Birthday party for one of Chase's friend. Zoe is friends with his sister and Parker with his older brother so all three kids came along. They had fun shooting paint balls at balloons and exploring the property.
Chase track and field
Chase is also doing Track & field. Today after his soccer game he rushed back to the track meet in our town. He did High jump, 100m and 200m. He didn't make it over the high jump but had good form. 100 m he got 7th and 200m he got 2nd.
Zoe 1st grade Farm field trip
I got to arrange my work hours so that I could attend Zoe's 1st grade farm field trip with her. It was a rainy cold day but the kids didn't let that slow them down. I've been to this same farm a few other times with Chase's class. The lady that owns the farm was a teacher at the Elementary school a few years ago and is now retired. She has sheep, Lama's, Alpaca's, Chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and peacocks. The kids got to help feed the chickens and also helped with jobs around the farm.
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| Baby turkey |
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| Counting the sheep |
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