Gotcha Day 1 and 2

Jake's Gotcha Day Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

                                                

Here we are in Xi'an.  We're in the civil affairs office with "Jo" our coordinator and Jake's orphanage staff.

                    Joy's Gotcha Day - Jan 14th, 2013

 Gotcha Day was in the hotel room with "John", our coordinator, and Joy's orphanage staff.

 Joy, smiling for mom, during our tour of the springs.

Jinan is the city of springs.

It was freezing cold on this tour and we couldn't wait for it to be over.

 

Joy, signing the paperwork, at the civil affairs office.

She did a great job!

It took me awhile to get these few pictures loaded with 5 kids running around me.  We do have more pictures to share, but they'll have to wait.

Thank you so much to our friend, A.A., who brought an incredible dinner tonight!  The kids were asking for more after their 2nd and 3rd helpings.  

Things are going well.  All 5 kids are doing pretty well with the adjustment.  I'm not quite back to feeling normal yet with my body.  I know it'll take some more time to recover.
Thank you to all who have prayed for us & continue to pray for us.  

I'll try to keep posting on post-adoption life!
With love,

Marta's "We Love You" Treats

     Tom and Marta will be holding down the fort while we are gone.  As you probably can imagine, Marta is not to happy about mommy being the one who has to make the trip to China.  I know that I need to communicate to her how much we love her and will miss her.   So I decided to leave some small gifts for her to get while we are gone.

     I put dates on each bag so Tom will know when to give them to her.  The 1st one will be given on Mon, Jan 7th.  The next one, a week later, Jan 14th.  The 3rd one, on Sun, Jan 20th.  And then the last one, on Jan 24th, the day we come home.  This may be the hardest day because he don't get in until 9:30pm (if all goes well).

"The Present Bag" 

Packing, Copying, and a New Year!

We have 3 days until we leave for China!!!! We are all very excited, and just trying to make sure we have everything. Things are going well, but I am tired of packing. I think we have all packed our bags about...12 times.

On Friday, we'll eat lunch with our grandparents before going to the airport. Then we fly to New York.  Then from New York to Korea, then China. Thanks for your prayers!

Me copying my math to take on the trip

Our suitcase (Me & Joy)

Mom's stuff....right now

Dad wanted a picture of Shane and Marta. Silly girl!

Hey guys! It's Grace here. :) I just wanted to do a practice post for you guys, because I will be the "official blogger" while we are in China. I can't wait to tell you all what is going on in our adoption journey. We are leaving in 6 days, (WOW) and I promise to post as much as I can. 

More bails 

Just a couple of the many (hundreds) of cotton bails.

Sibling pictures! Looking forward to adding two more to this.

Daddy, Marta, Shane and I in between some cotton bails.

I've been taking up photography lately, and this was one of my favorite.  

This was another, all at my grandma's house.

Jake and Noelle

Thank you Danae!  

Danae and Dan were able to meet Jake and give him more pictures of his forever family right after Thanksgiving.

They went to Jake's orphanage and brought his friend, Noelle, home to the USA!

Danae was able to give us some new pictures that we hadn't seen yet. 

In the group picture below, Jake is on the right side with the red, white, and blue short sleeve shirt and Noelle is standing right beside him with her cute pigtails.

   We sent Jake his first care package back in Feb, for his birthday.  And looked what happened!

Danae said, "I wondered where the cake came from for Noelle because we didn't send it."  Now you know why Jake has that expression on his face! 

Jake, when you get home, we will not make you share your cake!  

We will be meeting our new son on Jan 6th or 7th, 2013!  

Then, we'll leave Jake's province and travel to Joy's province!  Please pray for them as they are about to experience the "Big Change."  Your prayers for them and our family are cherished beyond words!

And yes, we are packing! Ok, practice packing and gathering all the things from the list that we need!  We can hardly believe how close it is now!

 

1 Trip, 2 Kids

If you're thinking to yourself, how are they going to make 1 Trip to get 2 children

in 2 different provinces....well, here's our plan.

First, Jake is in Xianyang City in Shaanxi Province and Joy is in Linyi City in Shandong Province.

Shaanxi Temple

Boat in Moat in Shandong (Jinan)

Amy, Grace, Shane, and Amy's cousin, Charles, will travel to China to bring Jake and Joy home.

We will complete all the paperwork in the children's individual provinces (this will take approximately a week in each province) and then we will go to Guangzhou, Guangdong and spend a week here (picture below).  We will complete the final paperwork and exit medical exams for Jake and Joy.

It will be a long trip (to say the least), but we will try to make it fun!  Have you ever traveled with 4 children on a plane?   


TRAVEL DATES

We are still waiting on our travel dates.  As of now, we are hoping to travel in Jan 2013.   The adoption agency says we should receive Joy's TA at the beginning of Dec. 2012.  The 3 week trip makes us put off our travel until January.    There are many positives for us in this time line and God's plan is perfect!

Jake and Noelle

We hope to have some more pictures of Jake soon via a new blog friend, Danae.  She & her husband are traveling to Jake's province to bring their new daughter, Noelle, home.  The will leave on Nov 22nd.  Jake and Noelle are in the same orphanage!  If you want to follow their journey, here's their address:
www.andsowearegoing.blogspot.com



Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!  Please keep visiting the blog for updates!  Blessings,

New Pictures of Joy!

Thank you Crista!

Joy attended a camp with Crista, 

Bring Me Hope, this past summer in China.

Crista was with Joy the whole week.

She sent these pictures to us from 

CA!

"I'm getting ready for 

Arts and Crafts."

"I'm really working hard and I'm excited about my project."

"Do you like it?"

We are going to have 2 little fashion

models in the making.

Swinging with her friends.

Dancing the Hokie Pokie!

"Put your right arm in, take your right arm out."

We are so thrilled to have these pictures of our new daughter!  Again, we can't thank Crista enough for blessing us with a glimpse of Joy's personality.

(Grace says she's a dresser-upper, and that we are going to have another girly girl in the house.) :)