Life after getting the RA.

On Tuesday, we finished the last parts of the I800 & dropped that in the mail to our government. The agency sent the actual referral acceptance letter today via FedEx. It came in a super cute pink folder. PJ & I signed it & shipped it back off to the agency. They are sending it back to China on Friday. We really have not been doing much BUT I think that changes at the end of this week. I kinda feel like some paperchasing is fixin' to come!

Philip & Ashlyn dropping off our I800 packet.
Several cars drove by with the look of "what in the world is that lady doing taking a picture of her kids holding a UPS package"!!

Signing the referral acceptance!

PJ signing the referral acceptance that we officially accept Li Si Xin as our daughter.

Now lets go to China!

RA for The Vinyards!!!

Can't believe that I just typed those words!! We received our referral approval to adopt Li Si Xin (Bao Bao Lian) soon to be Sydney Hope this afternoon. Talk about SHOCK! Agency just received an RA packet on Friday. The agency was surprised they received one today. We are so blessed to have this little girl in our family. So..........what you guys have been waiting for:

Picture sent with Sydney's referral. The first time we saw this picture was on my cellphone sitting at Blue Sky (serves the best hamburgers) on February 27.
We received this picture in March. The agency requested an update for us since the information was old. The kids loved her crocs!

Isn't she a little cutie?! I just want to squeeze her cheeks.

This picture & next pictures are from June's orphanage call.

I love this picture because she is smiling! The pictures are taken at her orphanage. It has beautiful landscape!

Little Miss Sydney Hope

Love that girl!

TC (travel coordinator) said we should expect travel mid to late October. The issuance of travel approvals (TA) have been delayed a bit (totally did not ask why because at that moment I was so excited!) so we will not travel as quickly as others. Sydney turns 3 on October 22nd. I would love to be there for her birthday (really I love to be home with her)!

We want to say a huge Thank You to everyone that has been praying for us, commenting on our blog, sending us emails, thinking about us, responding to my emails and more. God has truly blessed us with an amazing family and friends (even if we have never met in person)!

Grace & Hope's Room

Ashlyn Grace & Sydney Hope--just in case you were wondering! OK--here is the pictures of the girls room. They did not turn out how I wanted them. The room is much cuter than it looks. I'm still not sold on the placement of the dots. We can just move them around wherever. We put a contract on this house on the same day that AWAA approved our application. I was actually standing in the girls room when I found out. Kinda neat! This room was the old master of the house--that is why it is so big. The black dresser & vanity were actually my Mom's (Mimi to the kids) growing up but I think they came from my mom's great grandmother. I'm not sure Ashlyn really understands the whole sharing her room with her baby sister yet. That will come with time!

Ashlyn's bed is on the left.
New dresser! Girls have a lot of stuff. We have two big walk-in closets. One for clothes & the other one for a kitchen set & other play stuff.

Sydney's bed. Can't wait til she is here!

Vanity for putting on make-up!

Adoption News--We are still waiting on our RA (referral approval). I think we are either at 150 days or really close to it or maybe after it. I'm really trying to not count because it is driving me crazy. There have been 3 batches of RA's come & we have not been in them. The first two were ROUGH. The third one came in on Friday. It was almost comical that we did not get it. You might just have to know us to understand. I shed a few tears & then went on. We can ask for our agency to check on our paperwork on the 12th (5 months waiting). But China could delay our paperwork longer if we do that. So we have a decision to make. Hoping we get our RA before then.

High White Belt--Ashlyn Grace

Ashlyn also tested for her high white belt this week. She takes the Ninjas class at Extreme Martial Arts. Same as the boys just on a younger age level. We think Ashlyn is moving up though when school starts (everyone will be in one class. yeah!).

This is Ashlyn showing off her punching skills--jab & right cross.
This is her round house kick. Such POWER!

I just thought this was a cute picture. She is really paying attention.

Mr. Bussey (her most favorite instructor) & Ashlyn

High White Belt--Philip & PJ

PJ & Philip had their high white belt test this weekend. They actually tested during the week and then had graduation this weekend. This is a BIG deal!

Philip doing a rear naked choke. Notice Mr. Bussey tapping out!
Philip during the two minutes of shadow boxing. It is much harder than it looks (according to PJ!).

Look how proud he is of this new belt! I love his expression.

PJ & Philip

I did not post pictures of PJ because the adults were across the room & the gym is all dark AND PJ's partner was MUCH younger than him. So PJ looked like a giant.

Orphanage Call Update

Angela from Ladybugs n love emailed us this morning. If you have never used them, these ladies are awesome! The orphanage answered all 10 of our questions! Yeah! But no pictures (which I really wanted). Since we requested pictures in June, they did not want to send more this time :(.
One of the most interesting answers------Sydney has been with a foster family since December 16, 2008! Hello--how did we not know that? This totally changes all of our "what is Sydney doing right now" questions. We pictured her waking up (while we are eating dinner) in a little room with several of her little friends all in their small beds!
How do we feel that Sydney is in a foster family? I think it is a good thing for her?? (right?) We are hoping that she is getting a ton of lovins and attention from her foster family. I also hope they are reading to her at least 30 minutes to 1 hour a day and teaching her the ABCs in English(he-he!) Back to being serious--I think the transition might be really hard on all 3 of us. I think Sydney will be brought back to the orphanage again before we come to China. We are really not sure what to think right now. The kids are having a hard time with Sydney living with a "family" that is not our family. I'm amazed at how much the kids LOVE their baby sister without even "knowing" her. It warms my heart!
Sydney likes to play outside and eat candies. She will fit right in with her big sister. Ashlyn would eat candy all day if we let her! She does not like to crackers. Do you think she will like goldfish crackers??!!
Sydney grew a little over 2 inches since June but lost just a little weight. I'm sure from growing taller or different scales. She still just has 20 teeth!
The girls room is finished! I will try to post pictures soon.

No RA Call x 2

Nope. The Vinyards did not get the call again. We have been waiting 141 days since accepting Sydney's referral (yes I read the ra instruction sheet about how you should not count your days!). I never would have dreamed we would still be waiting. I'm starting to panic that something is wrong with our dossier or Sydney or they lost it or whatever!
Praying ours is in the next batch. And also hoping we get our orphanage call information back soon.

Cousins

2nd Orphanage Call

PJ & I decided to order another orphanage call today since we are still waiting on our RA. We were devastated last week when we realized we did not receive our RA. But it is a new week and we are still hopeful. Coming up with 10 new questions to ask was difficult! We are really just wanting new pictures and a little bit of weight gain. Can not wait to share our cutie with you guys! Thank you for all of your prayers & super sweet comments. Come on RA!

Birthday at the Ranch

Philip decided that he wanted to invite a friend to the ranch for his birthday instead of having the big birthday themed party. We picked up his friend, PS (not his real name!), on Friday & headed to the ranch. The boys packed everything labeled with "Nerf"--seriously!! I'm amazed at how Nerf guns can entertain boys for hours. Ashlyn would play with them for awhile & then come back for some crafts, movies or other fun stuff. Great weekend!

Ashlyn & I waiting on the fire pit so we can roast marshmallows. (that does not look right??)
Birthday boy eating his birthday brownie! Hard to believe our first baby is 10.

PS, Ashlyn & Philip

These next two are not great pictures. But I wanted to show how much fun the kids had on this "better than slip-n-slide"!

The boys racing.