Praises tonight!!

Here is Josh and Emma smiling because as of 8:05pm tonight (8:05 am tomorrow morning Beijing time), our dossier is our with the courier for delivery to the CCAA!!!!

Emma's first St. Patrick's Day Parade

Today, we went downtown to see the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Emma enjoyed it a lot. It is wonderful to get to celebrate so many firsts with her! We are looking forward to celebrating her first Easter with her next weekend too!

We had sent off for Emma's passport about 2 weeks ago, and it came in the mail yesterday. Now, we are all ready to go back to China to pick up her sister, Allie. We should receive our LID (log in date) sometime next week, then the count to LOA (letter of approval) begins. Lately, they've been running right at 2 - 2.5 months, then TA, or travel approval has been coming 2-3 weeks after that! We should be traveling sometime in June.

Enjoy the pictures...

Praise the Lord, today, we are DTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DTC means dossier to China in the adoption world. Our next big acronym is LID - Log in Date. When we adopted Emma, it took almost 2 months to find out that date. This time, our agency enters our dossier electronically in the CCAA system, and they expect our LID to come in 2-3 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! We should definitely be on our way to sweet Allie before the Olympics!! Hoping and praying to travel by mid-June. Please pray that Allie will have a smooth transition to her new family! Pray for her foster family, who we know loves her and will miss her dearly. Pray they will be comforted that we love this little angel, and, for Allie to feel in her heart already how much her new momma and baba love her!

Here she is again...(we are hoping for new pics again soon!!) TODAY, ALLIE IS 3 YEARS, 3 MONTHS, AND 3 WEEKS OLD!!

Spring Cleaning

On Friday, we had a dumpster delivered from the county and worked all weekend to clean up and clean out. Boy are we tired now!! On Friday morning, Bobby waited on it to be delivered, so he dressed Emma and fixed her hair. She had a big water-spout on top of her head!

Then, Sunday afternoon, we packed up some of her clothes for winter, and tried on some of the 12 month stuff from last summer to see what fits and what doesn't. We found two outfits her foster mom gave her, the traditional Chinese dress she made her and a pair of shorts and shirt, and both still fit. We took her picture in both of these and will email them to Jing Yan later tonight. Enjoy the few pics from the past few days!

Our documents are now on the way

On the way to Madison Adoption and should be received by 10:30 in the morning! Hopefully, they will turn it right around, and we will be DTC by tomorrow evening!! YEAH!! Here is the pic of our house we included in our dossier, and one of Bobby, me and Emma...

They are on their way!

Well, our documents are on their way back from DC to us. We will have them by 10:30 in the morning, and will make copies and have them all back in the FEDEX to Madison Adoption by the afternoon!! We hope they will receive it Friday morning, and send it off to China Friday afternoon - Little Allie, we will be there soon!!

A busy weekend

We went to a birthday party for Miss Lucy on Saturday which was lots of fun. Thanks Deb and Russ for inviting us!! There were lots of Emma's little Chinese friends there, and sweet Karina from Guatamala. Lucy had a great time, and got lots of wonderful gifts. She is a beautiful little girl. Now for the bad news, we forgot our camera, so we don't have pics from the party.

Sunday, we worked to finish Allie's part of the girls room, and spent a little time outside too. So, the pics this week are of Allie's bed and wall, and Emma and family enjoying a break from house cleaning and rearranging furniture on Sunday afternoon...