Bump in the Road

On Saturday I received a letter from immigration.  You can imagine my excitement thinking that it was the anticipated document we had been waiting for.  Unfortunately, it was a letter stating that their is a minor adjustment needed in our home study.  Our agency has relayed that it is a quick fix and it will also give us an opportunity to give them the information that we have accepeted the referral of Fu Jiang Ling.  Blessing in disguise?  Maybe this will speed things along? We trust in God's timing and that His plans are the best - even delays!  Praise Him!!!!

Blessings!

God continues to shower us with "photo blessings" of Jacob! If you know me, you know that I am a photo hound and could spend my day looking at photos. Well, the Lord has given our family soooooo many photos of Jacob that I am just beside myself. How blessed we are to see his many expressions and get a little peek into his world. Enjoy our newest addtions!

Care Package Received!

Here is photo of Jacob with the "Care Package" we sent! It is nice to see the toys in his hand! Oh, how we would love to scoop him up this instant! We think and pray for him everyday and our hearts are growing in our love for him. We hope our immigration paper comes this month or December.

News!

The therapy director at Philip Hayden sent me some information about Jacob today!  She directed me to their therapy blog www.phftherapy.blogspot.com and included an "update therapy progress report".  He started as a boy whose fine and gross motor skills were significantly delayed, and language skills that were also delayed.  He would not use his right in play and was preferred to be by himself.  After 6 months of therapy, he was walking, using his right hand, and using words to express himself!  He also now initiates interaction with others.  His is featured on their blog (in an older post - so you will have to look for it) and the therapy director states that " Cole has flourished. He has learned to walk, use his right arm, and talk in short sentences. Now, we know him as the strong and outgoing child he is! He has taught us the beauty and determination of life. "  What a blessing!  

Jacob waits

Fingerprints Done!

We spent the last week up in Maryland attending a family wedding.  Our trip home consisted of a 4am wake up with a 6am flight back to GA.  The kids did great and Delta did had us home when expected.  We were on the road to Ric's fingerprint appointment by 8:12.  The HOV lane was a saving grace when we hit some traffic and we arrrived by 8:45.  Ric was out our there by 9:10.  Praise God!!!  It feels great to have one more thing out of the way and closer to Jacob.  Now we WAIT..................

Another Fingerprint Appointment!

The USCIS has now sent Ric his third fingerprint appointment.  The first we could not make because it was in the midst of our vacation.  The second one we received, he was out of town.  I took the opportunity to go ahead and get mine out of the way.  We now have an October 7, 9AM appointment.  We will be heading home from Maryland that morning on a 6AM flight.  We are praying for good timing (no delays of the flight, no heavy traffic) and understanding immigration workers (if he is late).  This will one of the last hurdles in getting our dossier complete.  After this we wait for immigration to send us a piece of paper that we have notarized, certified, and authenticated.  That will complete our dossier!  We then send that to our agency and they go through a process of checking and rechecking to make sure everything is perfect and sending it to China.  Then we wait for something called a Log in Date (LID).  This will signify that China has logged your dossier into their system.  We are thinking at t his point that we may travel in early spring???????  We will update that thought as things continue to move along.

Our First Care Package

We took a while to get together a care package for Jacob.  We sent a soft and silky blanket,  two toy cars, a play phone ( that has 3 different language settings and we even put an "I Love You" message on it), a small teddy bear, a camera, lollipops to share with friends, some gummi bears for his caretaker, and a photo albums of  his new family.