Chinese Consulate is fast!

We received our UPS packet yesterday from the Chinese Consulate in Houston. The packet contained--

PJ's birth certificate

Our marriage certificate

2 Employment verification letters

2 Police reports

2 Physical examination forms

Application letter to China requesting our Hope

Financial Statement

All that is left is our home study. Yeah! Look at the tiny picture of the Consulate stamp. It says "Hope" Andrade. Kinda cool. Hope Andrade works at the Secretary of State in Austin.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Ashlyn is on two wheels !

Today Ashlyn wanted to try her bike without the training wheels. This is a huge deal at our house. Ash has been scared to try this the entire summer, but today she decided to give it a whirl. 9 minutes later she was on her own ; starting, stopping and turning on her own. We are all very proud of her courage to try this and most impressed at the speed at which she took to riding. Great job Ash !!!!

This is PJ's first posting! Great Job!

Meaning of the Names

We have a poll at the bottom of this page for Hope's first name. I did a little research on the meaning of each name.

Mia-mine
Penelope-weaver, duck (I always giggle a little when I type this name!!)
Sydney-wide meadow
Alexis-defender, protector
Emerson-brave, powerful & mighty

Ashlyn's name means a meadow of Ash trees (& a dream). And Sydney means a wide meadow. PJ does not think we need two "meadows"! I was thinking we already know what to expect with a "meadow". So, you kinda know what name I'm leaning towards. You never know what can happen between now & seeing Hope's precious face though.

Go vote for Hope's first name!

Ashlyn After School

Ashlyn & I went over to the Boyetts house after school. She needed to see her best friend Owen. This is the first time in forever (2 years!) that the two of them have not been in the same class. The Boyetts go to a different elementary school than us. Bummer! They played with legos & listened to the Jonas Brothers. Ashlyn thinks they are really cute! She thinks Owen is cute also.

First Day of School!

Today was the 1st day of school for Philip & Ashlyn. Philip started 4th grade. Philip was "pretty nervous" last night & this morning. Once he sat down in the cafeteria with his friends, he was fine. His day was a 10! Ashlyn started Kindergarten. She was really excited last night & then a little excited & nervous this morning. Ashlyn was a little teary before, during & after drop-off at the classroom. Nothing major--no tears rolling down her cheeks or anything. That might have happened after I left because she missed me (those were her words!). Ashlyn was super excited to see me at pick-up. She said her day was an 11 (10 is supposed to be the best, so she really enjoyed kindergarten--thank goodness).

The kids thoughts on their day-

Philip

Getting to meet my new teachers. Meeting new friends & seeing my old friends. Mr Biard is going to be really hard at Math. Mrs Williams is going to be hard in reading, writing & occasionally social studies. (I guess we are only occasionally doing social studies???!!!)

Ashlyn

Good! Can't wait for tomorrow. Don't want to school to end! I met 10 friends today (she could only remember 2 of their names!). Best part was EVERYTHING! The 1st day was about being nice & responsible. No picking up or throwing rocks. No walking up the slides. I hope I have a great day tomorrow. Woo-hoo!

Thanks for everyone's prayers. We really appreciate it!

The kids feelings!

Philip's feelings about having another baby sister--
I hope that we get her soon. I hope that she is healthy. And stays healthy. Enjoys the new family.
I wonder if she has friends at the adoption place (isn't that cute & sad!).
How much longer til we get to fly to China ?

Ashlyn's feeling about having a baby sister--
I hope that she is healthy and likes the new family.
I hope that she enjoys me being her big sister & enjoys Philip being our big brother.
I hope that she likes my friends especially Owen.
I say prayers for her almost every night. (I love this one.)
When we fly to China, can we stop in Hawaii & lay on the beach for awhile?

Chinese Consulate

The Chinese Consulate received our 10 documents today. The documents have been hanging out in Austin for about 10 days getting authenticated at the Secretary of State. The SOS mailed them back to me & then I mailed them to Houston for the Consulate to authenticate them some more! I had to purchase a money order for Houston. $205!! PJ & I had no idea how to fill it out. I had to google it. Duh!

The Call!

OK--it really was not "the call" but our local social worker called us tonight. We have been waiting for two weeks for our agency to review our packet. She wanted to introduce herself & see if we were going to be home over Labor Day. We have plans to be out of town but seriously if that is when she wants to do the home study--we will stay home! I told her to call me as soon as she receives our packet from Dallas & schedule our home study. I'm guessing our background checks came back clear. She mentioned we will have 3 interviews/meetings. I was thinking I read 4 meetings somewhere?? Anyways, we are getting close to being DTC (dossier to China)! Yeah!

Still Waiting on our Home Study! Dossier Talk.

OK! I'm beginning to think something came up on our background checks. PJ & I sent our huge homestudy packet almost two weeks ago to Dallas. (Our agency has an office in Dallas, but the main office is in Virginia.) I have an email stating the background checks were sent in last Tuesday, but still no call to set-up homestudy yet. What does that mean? The checks were only supposed to take a couple of days to process. What is up?? We (or really me!) wanted the homestudy to be completed before the kids went back to school. I don't think that is going to happen since they go back on Monday.
PJ & I did have a conference call with our family coordinator today. Basically, Stephanie was going over the different ways to prepare our dossier. Are you wondering what the heck is a dossier? It is a bunch of documents that you put together to represent you & your family to a foreign government. In our case--China! Stephanie informed us of the "healthy" dossier & then the "special needs" dossier. China views their special needs way differently than America. A child with a missing finger is sometimes considered special needs! Amazing I know.
PJ & I have felt from the beginning that Hope will be considered "special needs" to China but just normal & healthy to us. But with that said, we are preparing our dossier as healthy with a statement stating we will consider minor special needs (missing fingers, club feet, seizures, heart defect, repaired condition & a bunch more!).
God already knows Hope & she is perfect for us. Can't wait to bring her home.

I love this song & video.

This video clip was played at the SCC concert at our church. It makes me teary everytime I watch it, but in a good way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY_FpV05n-c

Why we chose to adopt?

PJ & I have talked about adopting since college. Something about Austin & the poor kids--not sure where the whole idea started but it was there. We decided that if we could not have children naturally, we would adopt. After the birth of Philip & Ashlyn, we talked about adopting but we were never on the same page. All that changed on February 21, 2008.

We attended a Steven Curtis Chapman concert at our church (Hillside Christian Church) with our family. SCC is awesome! God used that concert to put adoption on our hearts. PJ & I came home after the concert, put the kids to bed & immediately got on the Internet looking for information about adoption. No words were spoken about us "doing this". After a weekend trip to Red River, NM, we decided to research more about adoption, countries and agencies. PJ said that we should research til June. Then decide if we wanted to really adopt. This was the end of February. PJ is so practical.

We submitted our adoption application on April 18--not exactly June! We were approved within 2 or 3 days. We were so excited! We were adopting a little girl from China within the age range of 0-4 years. Waiting til June was not necessary. We already knew our little girl was out there waiting for us.

Then the work began. Unless your family has gone through international adoption or you know someone, you have no idea what a family is required to do in order to be able to adopt. It is crazy! But totally worth it. Around this time, we found a new house, sold our old house, moved into the new house--it has been an exciting summer. We can not wait to bring our daughter home from China. God knows who she is & she is perfect for our family.

We are referring to our daughter/sister as "Hope". This will be part of her middle name. We are not deciding on a first name yet. Philip likes the name Mia and Ashlyn loves Penelope!!! I'm serious.

Please keep Hope & our family in your thoughts & prayers. Enjoy our journey!