Day two....

Two days into our trip and two days till we get Olivia! Check out Wendy's blog or Olivia's for better updates.

Already a gadget guy

I was trying to figure out which snugly we had (ie. what color, in all the boxes, we were looking for), so I had to go back to a picture I knew we had of us getting ready to put Justin into one (we were standing in line at the Seoul airport heading home.) Anyway. It cracks me up looking at Justin, he's kind of just hanging there, but he was definitely checking out the video camera.

Happy Birthday Josh

Josh turned 24 today. We had Abbey and Josh over Saturday to celebrate and to talk about the trip. (well actually they came and brought dinner, but Wendy did make the pie.) One of the good things about having Josh in our family is that he can actually carry a tune; so having him around during birthday celebrations has been great, though when it was his birthday he got the full sad effect of our singing. Our intentions were good, I guess that's what is important. Anyway. Happy Birthday Josh.

china here we come!!

We finally got word that we can go get Olivia!!!
What a journey with the i800a/i800, but we've made it this far, yah!!
We leave next week and
she'll be in our arms Monday, November 10, 2008.

Looking for our girl....

Olivia received this beautiful doll, but Justin has somewhat latched onto to it. Somehow I think he is playing like the doll is our Olivia. He is ever so gentle with the doll; she's usually wrapped in a blanket, as he cradles her or puts her up to his shoulder saying, "You'll hold Olivia like this". So, Diane :) I hope you don't mind and you might get a kick out of this picture....since you had boys and girls in your house, you understand little boy play. So after Justin has snuggled the doll up and then very gently placed her in the stroller, he has added a few things that all baby dolls need...first cover her in a bright orange bandanna, she then needs a crane part from a trailer, a boat in a bottle, add to that a retractable ruler and lastly give her a vegetable peeler and the baby doll is all set.

Another funny thing he said after seeing a strip of the very tiniest baby hair bow, "Oh, bow ties."

Wendy is studying over packing lists, in order to determine what we can/should/and might be able to take to China with us. Justin just wanted someone to play train with, so he stuffed her in the basket as she was reading over the lists.

Olivia is one today!

Today is Olivia's birthday. We're having family over to celebrate the day.
This is where she is, up in the infant wing. We miss her terribly and can hardly stand to be away from her any more.

We love you Olivia and will see you soon.

Celebration

A couple Saturdays ago, some of the ladies/daughters blessed our family with a Forever Family Celebration. It was wonderful to finally celebrate Olivia's coming home. Thank you Beatty family for envisioning this party and making it all so special. Many others helped them and we are so thankful for everyone. The party was at Abbey and Josh's house.

notice Abbey's belly!

More of the party

We played games, opened presents and just had a fun time.
We received a pink car for Olivia! Very cute. We played a game called "All about Dee", I got all the answers correct. Good thing it wasn't more challenging for me.

Forever Family Day Games

Beautiful decorations and the food

Thanks Heather for making another yummy and beautiful cake; my girls made the almond cookies and Diane B. made the diaper and sheet centerpiece, thank you everyone, we feel so blessed and are thankful for such a supportive and loving church family.

Megan did this baby carriage, very cute!

Forever Family Celebration

Iler party

It just wouldn't be September w/o a party at the Iler's. It is always a good time of visiting, catching up, good food, etc...and this time we got to show of our picture of Olivia.

Volleyball at the Iler's

Justin and off in the distance...

I was reading a book to Justin, it was a longer book and he is doing well following the story. As we were reading along I read, "the farmhouse was off in the distance". I continued. We turned the page and moved on, then Justin begins to ask, "where is the dentist?, where is the dentist?" I took me a few minutes to figure out what he was meaning, then I said to him, "distance", "off in the distance, meaning far away". He was still looking for Dr. Mike somewhere in the book. He continued to think. A couple pages later, he then says, "you mean like Whiteblack, swam off into the distance?" Then I really had to think. I then realized he was remembering the phrase in another story. He still amazes me, how you give him a piece of information and then he moves on with it. So today as we were driving around, he kept asking, "is that car off in the distance", "do you see any cars off in the distance", "is that traffic signal off in the distance", etc. you get the idea.

Someone with the NBC has our file!

It appears that someone at the NBC office (that's National Benefits Center), has our file! The office of our Congressman has assured us that NBC is working on our file, though it is Friday afternoon so probably not a lot is being done, but at least it has been pulled and began to be processed. We are past the 90 days it was supposed to be processed. Hopefully we won't have too much trouble or too much...."Request for additional evidence". Please continue to pray that our case is processed quickly w/o much trouble. We've been OK'd twice with the I600a, so hopefully, even with all the addtional info., documents and evidence required for the I800a, we get through quickly. Thank you for all your prayers.

Formula and I600A

In the post below, if you following the link first there is info. on the tainted formula. Olivia's SWI is in Guigang, so hers is not even listed. That is good.

If you continue down the article/posting you'll get a very long explanation of some of what we are going through right now with our I600a which has turned into the I800a. We are at day 93 of being longed into NBC, not counting the month+ spent trying to get our forms/documents to the correct place. Anyway, keep praying that we are assigned a case worker, so that maybe a real person will work quickly on our paperwork to get them processed and accepted. We've tried begging and pleading, also our adption agency's case worker is pleading our case, plus Bob is on first name basis with our Congressman's office. Nothing so far has worked. As best we can tell, there are very few of us that are in this particular situation, where we have our referral, etc. and are still wading through the I800a (being OK'd for the adoption for the 3rd. time!)

Formula

We are very glad to finally hear that Olivia's SWI (orphanage) does not use the tainted formula in China. The above picture is where she is living right now. They did some renovations, so I don't know if this picture is before or after that.

http://www.jcics.org/China.htm is the official statement and listing of the SWI involved with the baby formula. Even though over 50,000 children were involved, the article states it was only a small percentage, unfortuately that is still a very large number of children to be affected.

Gotcha Day Party

A few Sunday's back, we celebrated Justin's 4th Gotcha Day. The day Justin joined our family forever.
We invited a few of Justin's friends, ate Korean food and just had a great afternoon/evening.