LEAVING IN THE MORNING!!!

We are heading out in the morning! I will be blogging along the way as best as I can! Love y'all! Can't wait to get our cute lit' bug!!!

CAN I GET A WHAT WHAT (or a Whoot Whoot!! FOR THE PACKING WOES??!

I have packed, downsized and re-packed 3 times, and... I am about to do it again. Someone emailed me today and said she will go to China with just carry-ons. Another told me she had 2 full limit large check-in suitcases. I am somewhere in-between.

I have to have 8-10 gifts to give. A gift/donation bag for the orphanage. Clothes for Xi Hua. Some small books and toys for her to stay occupied, especially on the flight home. Medicines, mini toiletries, my small amount of clothes. Something nice to wear for court days, which means one nice pair of shoes.. this adds up!!

Ok the good news is.............. We are leaving in 2 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are coming baby girl!!!!!

SURPRISE LITTLE LAST MINUTE UPDATE ON XI HUA THIS MORNING!

I was so happy to wake up to an update on Xi Hua from the orphanage this morning!! 2 photos and her growth. It was just what I needed to get me through this last minute packing, paper gathering, house readying, kids' activity signing up-ing, and yes, still working! I love these precious photos. She has gained a pound, yay for 24 lbs!

Email Posting Test 4

Ok, so test 3 didn't work with trying to post 4 large pics by email so
I will try 3..

Email Posting Test 2

Now I'm going to try a larger quality photo for the test... :) please
excuse me.... :)

Email Posting Test

I'm testing to see if I can post to my blog from email so that I can
blog from China....

WE HAVE TA!!!

I am happy to announce that we have Travel Approval for China!! I was trying to be clever this morning and find a T and an A to put in the picture above... let me just tell you to never google images of T and A, LOL!!! Or maybe you'd like to, who knows?? Anyway, we have TA and we are so happy that we are doing the happy dance, and well, mixed in with the slightly nervous dance back and forth, which is an odd combination of moves, but... YAY!!!

We should be traveling the first week of August. Jacob and I will travel only. We will fly into Beijing and spend 2 days there seeing the sights. I thought it would be just a sin to travel all the way to my daughter's home country and not spend a couple days seeing the beauty of it, so we will take 2 days seeing the great wall, Tiananmen Square, the Temples, The Forbidden City, Etc. Then we will go onto Guangzhou where we will literally receive our precious daughter the next day! We spend 12 days in Guangzhou accomplishing various appointments and then fly home. Jacob's parents will be coming to care for the kids during this time, thank you Lord for them!

I don't have our exact departure date, but I believe it might be August 3rd. I will have it very soon though! Keep you posted. Now, off to get A LOT done!

MANY MORE NEW PHOTOS!

A dear fellow orphanage group friend and fellow blogging friend, Heather, is in China right now adopting her daughter who was the next bedmate and friend of my daughter. She sent me several new pics of our daughter with her friends. (and a couple of older pics that were given to her by the orphanage). What a blessing and a joy to receive these! How wonderful of her to do this for us. She also has video she will send later!!!!

Look at that sweetest face ever! hmmm... I see Mickey Mouse on those bed sheets. I happen to know him personally. I will have to set up a meeting eventually. :)

Tiny little hands. So precious. My friend said she is very little but bright, lively and healthy. She will probably wear size 18 months, (she's 3 1/2) when we travel for her.

Looks like she really loves her friend. Look how she is squeezing her, LOL! That is the daughter of another group friend. We will all hope to keep in touch.

I love to see her here just having genuine fun and laughter and not looking too serious or apprehensive. Xi Hua is the one in the middle with her arm up.

Just happy fun!

This photo is a little older. She is holding the blue cup.

This is older too. Xi Hua is in the front eating the fruit. What a sweetie. I hate that I am missing those baby years.

WE RECEIVED OUR NVC LETTER YESTERDAY!

Slowly but surely we are one step closer - we received our Nation Visa Center letter yesterday stating that they have received our I-800 approval and they will mail forward to the US Consulate in China.

Now we wait for our Article 5 (which honestly, that is the one part in the whole process that I don't really understand what exactly it is, lol). We should receive that in about a week.

Then 3-4 weeks later, we will receive travel approval and travel 2-3 weeks after that!!

WE HAVE I-800 APPROVAL!

This post is a few days late, but I just wanted to share that we received our I-800 Approval on Friday! For those of you following my timeline to compare with your upcoming dates, that was 25 days after LOA. This is our final immigration document and it is good to know we are moving quickly toward travel now!!

Now we await our NVC (National Visa Center) letter any day now. Then our Article 5 which should be in about 2 weeks. 3-4 weeks after that, we will receive TA (Travel Approval) and we will travel 2 -3 weeks after that!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACOB!

Yes, it is Birthday week around here! Happy Birthday to my loving husband, Jacob. He is my best friend and boy do we like to laugh a lot! There are times when we get to laughing so much. It's usually about something crazy that happened at work or about one of our funny work friends. We also enjoy talking about everything and anything that is on our minds. He supports my ideas, hopes and missions totally. I love him tons!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET 16

Happy Birthday Christina! She is sweet 16, and yes it's true, she is pretty darn sweet. Ok, well she does have an opinion with a splash of occasional drama :) , but I have to say that having a teenager is not anywhere as bad as people make it out to be! Whenever I say I have a now 16 year old daughter, people will usually say either, "oooh good luck with that" or " oh wow, how's that going?". Why do people automatically assume having a teenager is a negative thing? Anyway, it's a very positive thing for us and we love every minute as a family. She never complains about going as a family to sporting events, kids' concerts, church, or wherever. She is respectful, GREAT with kids, a good student and loves girl time with me. Happy Birthday to my little girl who is growing up too fast!

WE RECEIVED AN UPDATE!

We received an update, along with 3 new pictures of our waiting girl, Katie Grace Xi Hua!

Here is what the update said:

Please forward this to the Haines family.

Xi Hua's personality is quiet and shy. She is afraid of strangers. Her physical development is good and is going to the preschool in our orphanage. She is studying in the little tod class. She can feed herself and can climg up and down the stairs. She likes to watch cartoon, listening to music, likes to play games with other children and outdoor activities, and play toys. Her height; 84 cm; weight: 10.5 kg.

We are so happy to have new pics of her little preciousness and are glad to hear she is developing well!

MOMS ROCK!

Super busy week and I haven't had a chance to give Mother's Day shout outs! I hope you beautiful moms out there had a great Mother's Day and were treated like queens. :)

I am so thankful for my mom. She instilled in me my faith in God without placing judgement or legalism within it. She was so kind and affectionate when we were kids - lots of loves and hugs! I NEVER once heard her talk badly about another person. If she did, I never heard it! Who can say that about themselves? She never spoke a negative word about a person of another race or socioeconomic background. Pretty awesome mom to have and I'm so glad for the grace she passed down to me.

Below are a couple pics of my wonderful mama, Alberta, aka Mimi!

I also am so grateful for my mother in law, Susan! She is so much fun to be around. She is very generous and does so much for our family. "Lolli" is totally a hands on type grandma. She and Pops love to take the kids and they always do awesomely fun activities. We appreciate them so much!

Below is a photo of Christina and Matthew's Abuela, Altagracia. Even though am am divorced from their dad for many years, I still maintain a lovely relationship with his parents. They are kind and loving and generous. The kids love to go to Puerto Rico and visit and enjoy all of the delicious foods "Lela" prepares!

WE HAVE LOA!!!

We are jumping for joy here at the house today as we received good news!

I was really starting to get weary. We passed 20, 30, 40, 50 days of waiting, and when I asked some others about their wait, someone told me they waited over 100 days for LOA! So last night on the way home from work I said something like this to God, "Ok PLEASE, it has been too long don't let us wait past tomorrow. I don't think I can take it! Please don't make Xi Hua wait any longer!" This morning we got the call on day 60... LOA! Letter of Acceptance. Our final approval.

So this is not concrete, and someone who has recently been through this, please share your timeline from here. But what I am gathering is this: About 2 more weeks for I-800 (immigration) approval. Then perhaps 2 weeks for Visa notification. Then a couple weeks for Visas. Then we wait for TA and plan for travel. So about 12 more weeks-ish??

We are getting closer!!