Travel Approval

We recieved our travel approval from China yesterday. This means that our agency can make all the final arrangements. First they must schedule our Consulate Appointment, which they are scheduling for March 31. We will be leaving on March 20 and returning on April 2. We will most likely meet Molly on March 23rd, Easter Sunday. We are so excited to finally have a definite date that we will meet our baby girl. We can't believe that we are going to be a family of 5!!!!

New Measurements!

Our agency emailed us yesterday with updated measurements for Molly. She currently weighs 18 lbs and is 27 inches tall. Keep in mind that the 18 pounds is with 4-5 layers of clothing on and probably a heavy coat. So, I am assuming she is between 16-17 pounds. She is a healthy size! We were predicting she would be in 6-9 month clothes when we get her, and it looks like we are about right. I also emailed with a online friend who was picking up her son from Molly's orphanage. She was able to meet Molly and says she is absolutely beautiful and a very happy baby. She took a couple of pictures but is having a hard time getting them off of her camera and onto the computer. So, we are hopeful that she will have success with that soon, and can send us a couple of updated pics of our baby girl! Our agency also requested pictures, so hopefully that will come through as well. Either way we will be meeting our little girl soon! Hopefully we will be leaving 3 weeks from today! I have so much to do, and I can't think straight to get it all done!

Our little boy is growing up!

Our oldest son lost his first tooth tonight. I almost cried. It just seems that losing teeth makes him officially big. He is so excited you would think it was Christmas around here. My Mother-in-law told him that his first tooth was special so she thought the tooth fairy would bring him $5!!! I remember being thrilled to get a quarter. I think the tooth fairy will bring a dollar, or maybe two. I took a couple of pictures of our snaggle tooth, but they were too dark on the PC, so I will have to try a couple more tomorrow and post them.

God Answers Prayer!!!

WE GOT OUR LOA!!!! We are going to CHINA!!!!! We now have to get busy with all the preparations. Our agency always leaves the states on Thursdays. The soonest Thursday we can leave is March 13th! That's only about 5 weeks away!!!! We will get to meet Molly about 2 days after we get there! This whole process has been amazing! There are so many things in the process that have shown me that my Dad had a clear hand in this! Now it looks like we will probably meet our daughter on my parent's anniversary--March 15th!!!! God is SO GOOD!

Molly and the SWI are doing well!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!! Someone we met through the internet was finally able to get through to Molly's orphanage. And she is doing well! The orphanage never lost power! If you go to the comments section on the post prior to this one you can read the entire post about Molly and her SWI. It is such a blessing to know she is doing well! Thank you so much, Mara, for checking on her!

Now just keep praying that our LOA will come. I have faith that it will be here Monday! Please pray with me that this is the case!

Snow Storms in China

First of all we have not received any news of our LOA. We are still praying that it comes TODAY. However, my prayers have turned more toward the safety and warmth of our Molly. As I posted earlier there have been massive snow storms in much of China, and Jiangsu (Molly's province) was hit really hard. The director of our agency has gotten in touch with several of the orphanages in China and though some have no power the children are fine. However, she has been unable to reach anyone at the JiangYin SWI. Her emails have been returned and the phone is down or always busy. JiangYin is a newer orphanage, built in 2000 (I think). So it does have proper windows and a good heating system, but if there is no power for extended amounts of time I am sure there will be problems with keeping warm, food, and water. Please pray that the weather continues to improve (there hasn't been snow in a couple of days) and the Chinese people can come together and heal from this national disaster.