Upcomming benefit

It is only 1 more week until our benefit! We have had some wonderful donations for the silent auction. We are wrapping up the plans for the meal and have also had some desserts donated! We are hoping to have a wonderful turnout!

I talked to our adoption agency a few days ago and asked  for an estimate to how much longer until we are able to bring our son home, I was told 6-8 months! It is getting closer!

If you would like to donate an item or have any questions, feel free to email me at disney_mom82@yahoo.com

Thanks!

Here are some new photos we received!

 

He is the cutie in the middle. We were told the boys on each side are his best friends!

 

He is so cute!

Upcomming Benefit

There will be a benefit on September 8th at Salisbury Church, in Charleston, IL from 11am-7pm to help raise some of the needed funds for the adoption. We are so appreciative of the local businesses and individuals who have donated for the benefit. There will be lunch/dinner, silent auctions, and more! If you are available that day, please come and join us for a good time. If you would like to donate an item or service, visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/254946614617663/ and leave a message or email me at disney_mom82@yahoo.com. We look forward to the event and hope to see many familiar and new faces!

Good news!!

     I'm sorry we are a bit behind on posting, but we did get the good news a lot earlier than we expected. We got PA, which is pre approval from China to adopt our son!! We are all so excited and thrilled with how quickly everything is moving at this point. We are now just waiting, to be honest I don't know what we are waiting on, but we do not have any more paper work at this moment. We met with our social worker and had our Enrich assessment last week, all went well there. Our social worker will come to our house one last time before the adoption in August.
    Just a couple of days ago we got an email from our adoption agency that we can now send him a package and ask a few updated questions about him. We have been preparing a little box to send him, right now we have a cute soft blanket, a light up bouncy ball, a package of plastic cars, crayons and a coloring pad. We are going to add a photo album of us, a disposable camera and a few things for the nannies there.
    We bought our first few shirts and bottoms for him, which  is exciting to me, its been too long since Ive been able to buy little boy clothes. We are not going to buy much until closer to the time we go to get him, that is the hard part, not knowing what size to get him. According to his medical records, he didn't gain a pound between 18mo and 33mo, he is now 39 months old, and we hope to see an updated height and weight soon.
   We are able to post a picture of him, so I will post a picture of our beautiful son! We are still debating on his name, we want it to start with an H, feel free to post some ideas! He will keep his Chinese name for a middle name.
   Please continue to pray for us, we appreciate the support. We got our first donation from our blog this week, from my Aunt, thank you so much, everything helps and is so appreciated! If you wish to make a financial contribution to help us with our costs, please feel free to use the Paypal link to the right or email or if you scroll down to the June 1 post, you will find our bank address. 

He is such a doll!

Look at that smile!

Today was our home visit from the social worker. It went really well! She was nice, talkative, said everything was fine at our house, etc. Our next steps are to get our fingerprints this week and then we have training to go to Thursday and Friday. There is so many papers to fill out, it gets a little overwhelming, so I have to just look at one group at a time. Im getting a binder so I can keep copies of everything, never know when you will need it again.

As of last week, H was still available for adoption and the agency will call them on July 4th for us and see if he has been transfered to the list where we can be matched with him. If so, we will request to be matched. We feel this will go fine, if he was never on the wrong list, we would have never seen him in the first place. Now we have even more of our home study going, hopefully it all works out the way we plan. We know we are not in control, but feel confident this is what has been planned for us.

Not much for an update here, but hope to have good news soon! Please continue to pray for us.

Rollercoaster ride

Well, I talked about the roller coaster this process can be, we have been experiencing just that this past week. I wont go into all the details, but the short version is that the original agency we were working with, that said we would be matched with H later retracted those words and became very hard to work with. After doing some praying and talking, we decided that it would be best to find a new adoption agency. The day that we decided that we were going to change agencies, we got an email letting us know that H was no longer available through the original agency, he is now on a shared list (open to all agencies) and his category level had changed, we would now have to have our home study completed. We called and spoke with the agency that we were originally wanting to work with and they did a little researching for us. They were told that H was put on the wrong list originally, which is the list that enabled us to see his file and request his information. China has now moved his file to the shared list and he is suppose to keep his current status on there for 3 months. The new agency explained our situation to them and they let the agency know that they are going to count his 2 months that he was on the wrong list, so he has to be on this list until July 5, IF he is not matched with a family that is further along in this process than we are, then we can request to be matched with him. (Yes that is the short version)

Had he not been on the first list we would of never seen him and now he is on a shared list so the new agency can ask for his file when we are ready. We feel this is Gods will and He is in control. We will follow wherever he leads us and prepare our family in the case that another family is matched with H, but we do hope and pray that he will become our son. If it is meant to be it will be, if not, we feel like God has used him to lead us to adopt from China.


Please continue to pray for us, we appreciate all the thoughts and prayers!

Also remember our puzzle piece fundraiser.

We are doing our first fundraiser!

The fundraiser is a puzzle piece fundraiser. What you can do to help us is pay $10 per piece of the puzzle. You don't get the actual piece of the puzzle but you do get to tell us what you want us to write on the back of the puzzle pieces, such as your name, a Bible verse, inspirational word, etc (something short). Once the whole puzzle is "sold" we will put the puzzle together and frame it in a double sided frame, one side you will see the puzzle the other side we can see all of the wonderful messages and names that are helping us bring our son home.


To purchase a piece of the puzzle you can do one of the following:
1. Click on the Paypal link on the top right side of this screen and pay from there. There will be a section where you can add a special message, that is where you can tell us what to write on the back of your piece(s).
2. You can mail a check to our bank and email us what you want on the puzzle piece. Our bank address is:
First Federal Savings and Loan
800 West Lincoln Avenue
Charleston, IL 61920
In care of Beck & Brock Paul Family Adoption Savings Account
The email address is disney_mom82@yahoo.com


You can always donate without being a part of the fundraiser and you can purchase as many or as few pieces as you wish.


We received LOTS of paperwork this week. We will have a phone conference this afternoon to explain each part of the paperwork and to answer any questions we may have. It is a lot of work, but really, I am glad to know that they require so much out of each adoptive family. They want to be sure of who we are, where we live, work, etc to ensure that each child will have a loving and supportive family. As much as I wish this process would go faster, I know this is necessary.


Brock started organizing the extra bedroom. It has been storage since we moved here, so there are many things in there that we will be getting rid of soon. We hope to have a couple of rummage sales this summer to both clear our items we no longer need and to continue raising money for our adoption. Averie, our 4 year old, has stated that she wants to have lemonade stands all summer to help raise money! She came up with the idea on her own just after we started this process. I have promised her we will definitely let her have a lemonade stand at the rummage sales!


We thank everyone for reading our blog, supporting us on our decisions and praying for us. God is definitely in control of this situation and so far we have had a pretty smooth process. I am bracing for the bumps as I know adoption is not usually smooth sailing, I just pray that God will continue to guide us and keep us strong during that time. We are giving this all up to Him and will follow wherever He leads us.


Here is a picture of the puzzle we are using, I think it is very cute and will look great on his bedroom wall!

One last thing, on the right side of this screen you will see a music video, if you click on it you will be able to hear the song Brock was talking about on the last post.

Donations

As many of you may know, we are not ones to ask for help. Not many people like to ask for help, even when they need it. As we are going through this adoption process, we will continue to have many fees and expenses along the way. I have faith that God will provide for us and have not worried too much about the financial aspect of this process.

If you would like to make a financial contribution to help us with the adoption, you will see a donate button on the right. This link will take you to Paypal where you can make a donation to our adoption savings account. You can donate any amount, no amount is too big or small. We really appreciate all the support we have had already, whether it is words of wisdom, prayer, donations, etc. We are very appreciative to everyone!

We will be having a local fundraising event on Saturday September 8th (the weekend after Labor Day). Please pray for the planning and preperation for this. We will post more information as it gets closer to the event.