I wish you a Merry Christmas!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8RW6aHXWQ

Wow! This video captures how we are feeling without Tia here for Christmas. . . She will be home next year for Christmas!

Any news??

This is the question we have been getting as we have been in touch with family and friends so I thought I would let everyone know the answer. The answer is: no.

We aren't expecting to hear anything until at least day 85 after our Log In Date, which is about January 12th. It could of course be anytime from now until day 150 though that is not very likely. The BEST case scenario is we get our LOA (Letter of Acceptance from China) in the next couple of weeks, return it and get Travel Approval and go get Tia at the end of February. WORSE case scenario is that we don't get the LOA until after Chinese New Year (February 7-21st things seem to shut down)and we go get Tia in late March or even April. Either way we are between 2-4 months from bringing home our beautiful little China doll - and that is VERY EXCITING!

Please pray for our Tia and we will continue to trust that God's timing is perfect :)

Merry Christmas to all our family, friends and online buddies!

Christmas Pressies for Tia!

The Christmas packages arrived from the Grandparents and Tia has two gifts under the tree!

We have a LID for Tia!

We got the very exciting news today that our LID (Log in Date) for Tia is 10/18! This is super great news as our Dossier left America on 10/11 - arriving in China on the 15th. We are so excited, now we are truly beginning the wait for LOA (Letter of Acceptance) since we start counting from LID. This is usually between 85-100 days. We are already on day 43! So it will most likely only be 42 - 57 days until we find out China has Accepted us. We are still on target to go to China and get our precious Princess at the end of February. It is going to be a very busy 6-8 weeks as we have a 9 day trip to Tasmania, Christmas, Friends visiting from America and the Philippines and the summer holiday for the kids start this week. It will go very quickly - I hope we will be ready when it is time to go to China!

Where in China is Tia?

Tia is in a city called YiWu. Directly below Shanghai on the coast of China is a city called Hangzhou - YiWu is very near to Hangzhou, the city where we will receive Tia. We are hoping to be allowed to visit her SWI (Social Welfare Institute - or orphanage) in YiWu city also. We feel it would be really good to see where Tia has spent what will most likely be the first 19 months of her life. We also have friends waiting for their children from there and so we would love to visit them and get some photos for their waiting families.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiwu If you would like to learn more :- )

Meeting Tia on the 21st of February?!

I predict we will meet Tia on February 21st. Elijah was 19 months and 6 days when we met him and Tia will be 19 months and 6 days on the 21st. We have patterns like that in our family - so, there you go!

A room for Princess Tia.

A couple of weekends ago we rearranged the kids bedrooms to make a room for our little Tia. We ordered this sham. Isn't this so cute?? I also ordered polka dot sheets for the twin bed. I haven't figured out what to do about the comforter yet, I would like a bright pink one. Pottery Barn Kids has a beautiful quilt but of course it is pricey. My Mom is making a crib comforter out of the China Doll fabric with little Asian girls with parasols all over it - that should be really cute... Thanks Mom!

Tia will have Elijah's old room, the room closest to our room, with plenty of little girl toys all ready and waiting for her! (Elijah's kitchen, Isabella's Loving Family dollhouse, a little table and chairs, plenty of stuffed animals . . .) We are not supposed to paint so I am looking for some cute wall stickers or pictures for the walls. Or maybe we will paint :0 I'm so "cheeky"!

Elijah took over Isabella's old room and got very cute new Pirate bedding (happy not scary pirates!) and will get some more Pirate things. He is very happy about the move.

Isabella scored big and got the very large previous playroom. She has a Queens size bed in there and her bar and beam - so it is a gym in addition to being her bedroom! Jonah had a few moments of questioning about this but he has always had the largest room so it seems fair - plus we needed a place to put all her gym equipment.

It is starting to feel like a little Princess is moving into our house! So fun : -)

Happy Birthday to ME!

Well it is my birthday - in Australia anyway :) All I want for my birthday is TREASURE!!! heehee (as my friend Debbi would say!)

Check it out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPk_qyojxE
oh, and my treasure would be called "Tia" which means "Princess" (of course) - in Greek!

My best Adoption Buddy!

My friend Rebel. OK first that actually is her name. Rebel is the friend that I mentioned seeing a post of hers on our agency Waiting Child chat group. When I saw that she was an American living in Australia and her husband works for the US government I contacted her. Rebel's family is adopting a 3 year old little girl named Lilli and she convinced me to pursue adopting through CHI and our wonderful Lawyer Michele Jordan. If it weren't for Rebel we may not have found our beautiful daughter Tia. Elijah and I were so happy to be able to meet Rebel and her daughter Abby and little Liv in a town called Bowral on Friday. We had a great time shopping for little girls stuff and enjoying lunch. Elijah (4.5) just adores Abby (almost 4), they are so cute together! It was a really fun day and even though we both had to drive in an incredibly scary downpour on the long drive home - it was totally worth it and I can't wait till we can meet again! We love you Rebel, Abby & baby Liv!

Photo of Tia from 9/10

Oh Happy Day! Here is a new photo of Tia! A family traveled to YiWu, Tia's orphanage in September to get their little girl. They took several photos of Tia. This just happens to be on Matt's birthday :) Doesn't she look different? They did mention the nannies woke her up from a nap to take her photo. We are so blessed to get these new photos!!!!

Please Pray.

Can you please stop and pray for Tia every time you visit this blog? Please see the prayer in the Header. Thanks.

Dossier is at the CCAA!

Our dossier has safely arrived at the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA)! Tick that off the list . . . . Next is our LID (logged in date). Hopefully soon.

DTC!

Great News! Our dossier is complete and on its way to China! It is scheduled to arrive on Monday the 15th. We should hear that is logged in sometime in the next month. We are expecting that sometime in January we will get a letter asking if we are still interested in adopting Tia. We will accept of course :) and then it will be about 4-6 weeks before we go get our little Princess!

Things are moving right along . . . YEAH!

PA!PA!PA!PA!PA!PA!PA!PA!

Great News! We received our PA for Tia on October 5th! I checked internet from Melbourne that day and was so excited to learn that China has given us Pre Approval to proceed in adopting little Ni Chouzhou! We are very excited and are looking forward to the news that our dossier has arrived in China. We are still hoping to travel in February to bring her home.

Ladybug sighting . . .

Our agency emailed us today to let us know our Dossier is completely ready, the payments have arrived and it is just waiting for that Pre Approval so they can send it to China. Very exciting news - but we need that PA - can everybody do a PA dance for us?

I took the kids to the beach/park today since they are done with Term 3 and are enjoying their Spring Holidays. While eating lunch I was smacked in the face by a bug - when I brushed it away I realized it was a ladybug! Ladybugs are considered lucky in Chinese adoption and are supposed to be a sign that you will get some good news about your adoption. It is a silly little Adoptive Moms tale but fun anyway and we would sure love the news!

It should arrive by the 9th . . .

According to our adoption agency chat group, if you go on vacation or are away from home your news about your adoption will arrive. We are leaving for the school holidays next week and we will return on October 9th. I'm guessing our Pre Approval will arrive during that time! Maybe we should leave today . . . . !

Do you like the "ticker" ? it is fun to watch the days roll by (or creep :-)

Patiently Waiting?????

It has been 2 weeks today since China received our Letter of Intent to Adopt little Zhouzhou. The average wait time until Pre Approval is 40 days. 14 down and 26 to go . . . . I have been pacing myself that we will hear from China around October 16th . . . just in case you were wondering! If you could please pray for Tia and her little heart I would appreciate it. We don't know if she has had surgery and with the weather changing it seems like a lot of the little heart kids get sick - I have been praying that she would be healthy and loved! until she can join our family. Thanks for sharing our journey.

Crystal Spring Bounces Home!

We just love our adoption agency "Children's House International". They work so hard to place these special needs children - and they treat all their families like FAMILY! They introduce the familes matched to the children on their waiting kids list with a poem to the online group. They just posted our poem today - isn't it so sweet??

Crystal Spring Bounces HOME!

Lovely little Crystal Spring,
Do you like to play and sing?
Do you like the Wiggles?
Do koala bears give you giggles?

In your new home country,
We are hoping that they do!
Your FAMILY lives Down Under!
It is exciting and so true!

You'll be the fourth child.
You're a sister so very pretty.
You look very smart.
And we are sure you'll be WITTy!

Your family just met a president!
(A Bush, not a tree. :-)
You're going to have a lot of love!
Just you wait and see.

Your mama shares a name
With a CHI bio baby so sweet.
Your name will be Kristiana!
We think that's pretty neat.

Mom and Dad are done paper chasing.
Authentication is nearly through.
When all the wait is over,
They'll come and get beautiful you!!

Yippee!!
XXXOOO,Holly

LOI & Dossier news.

Very exciting news! We have a tracking number for our LOI (Letter of Intent to adopt) that we have sent for Tia - it should arrive in China on the 7th. What this means is that 3-6 weeks from now we should receive Pre Approval to adopt ZhouZhou. Our dossier is complete and was sent for Certifying/Authenticating today. It will also need state seals, China seals and then translating. If all goes well it will be ready to send to China as soon as we have Pre Approval sometime in October. This means we will most likely travel about 5 months from now. OK, that sounds like a very long time . . . PLEASE PRAY it would be sooner! We would love to travel in January, it doesn't sound possible. "With man this is impossible but with God ALL things are possible." :)

A new photo

The most amazing thing happened today . . . I saw a post on the orphanage group I joined on Wednesday, that a family who adopted from Zhouzhou's orphange in June had photos of some of the other kids. Anyone interested in seeing them should email the family. I emailed Lori and she emailed me the photos. I was so excited to see a photo of Zhouzhou! So this is a photo taken when she was 11 months old, 2 months newer than her referral photos. I really struggled with fear in accepting the referral because at 9 months it said she could pick up her head while laying on the ground, and she could track objects. Very scary to me that a 9 month old was not said to be sitting, rolling over or pulling to a stand. I prayed and honestly felt that we were meant to have her, whatever her destiny is. Matt and I both felt that we should proceed. Then to have a photo of her THE VERY NEXT DAY! where she is in the creeping position in her crib! I'm so amazed that God cared about this fear of mine enough to work out all these details and I have the photo that came all the way from a small orphanage in China, taken by a family in America and is right here on my computer here in Australia the very next day.

He who forms the hearts of all,

Tuesday August 14th, I read in my bible (I''m reading the 1 year bible - so it was that days reading) "he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do." Well it was that day we got the referral for Crystal Spring- but BEFORE we got it. I just knew God was saying He formed our little girls heart, so that she would be ours! When I got the email that we had a referral for a little girl with a congenital heart condition I KNEW she was meant to be ours. If she wasn't Special Needs this little girl would never have been matched to us. We have had several comments that she looks like our family - especially Isabella. Why is it so amazing that God is God? I guess there is so much hope in knowing he cares about the details of our lives.

Kristiana Hope Zhouzhou - To be called "Tia"

Crystal Spring!

We are so thrilled to announce the referral of our baby girl! Yes! This is Crystal Spring - in our guessing contest she received 3 of the only 7 votes! She was born July 15, 2006. She has a heart condition called VSD and she was scheduled to have surgery in June (we don't know for sure if she has had the surgery) That is just about all we know at this time - Here are a couple photos of her! We think she is just the most beautiful little China Doll!

Todays Updates from Michele

I emailed Michele to find out if there was any information about our referral - this is our ongoing conversation . . .

I just heard that the medicals are not done. I will email Stefani and see what I can find out. Michele

and then . . .Stefani replied that she has the translation of the growth chart but not the medical but that it could come any time . Hang in there mate. Cheers.

A few hours later . . .Ellie, it is taking all my willpower to keep my mouth closed as I have been sworn to do. At least you know this is the week you will meet your daughter. Michele

Finally . . .Let’s see what happens tomorrow. And then we will talk. AND I opened your absolutely beautiful card tonight. How thoughtful. Thank you Ellie. I am not enjoying your wait either just so you know. Goodnight. Michele

Just a hint?

Michele sent this email on Sunday (Saturday in the US)

Ellie, I know you are VERY anxious but I think you are going to be ecstatic once you receive your referral. That is all I am allowed to say. Hopefully the translated medical will not have any significant surprises. Regards, Michele

I asked for a little "hint" about our little girl - her reply:

Ellie, until the translations are complete, we won’t know for sure if this is your little girl but I have seen her picture and she is adorable. I think you will be thrilled when you see her. I am sorry I cannot say more – I do know how hard this must be. Think of it like a child waiting for Christmas. The outcome will be all worth the wait. Regards, Michele

It does feel like waiting for Christmas! Hopefully it will only be 24 more hours!

Have a wonderful Day,

Ellie

From Stefani,

I emailed the Waiting Kids coordinator - she is the one responsible to match us with our daughter - this is her reply to me:

I can tell you that we indeed have a very special and beautiful little girl that we can't wait to introduce to you as soon as the translations are completed. We cannot introduce her to you until the translations are done but we are hoping that she will be a Witt. We can't wait either but we have yet to wait some more. I'll let you know just as soon as I do. Stefani

So . . . It will be at least Tuesday - Sydney time.

GUESSING.

We have a bet going on our little girl.

Here are our guesses:

name - When we will receive referral, age at referral, weight, which girl (see post from August 7th - List #19 Names)

Matt - Tuesday, one year old, 14 pounds.
Ellie - (Saturday), Tuesday, 2 year old, 24 pounds - ELOISE
Jonah - Sunday, 1 year old, 18 pounds, CRYSTAL SPRING
Isabella - (Sunday), Tuesday, 1 year old, 16 pounds - CLOVER
Elijah - Monday, 1 year old, 10 pounds (oh my :) - CRYSTAL SPRING

Debbie - ANNABELLA
Rebel - (Saturday), BRIGHTON
Ashlyn, Tuesday, CRYSTAL SPRING

Do you want in?

Days, Hours, Minutes . . .

I feel like it has been a lifetime since we found out the list of new referrals had arrived and is being translated . . . .When will CHI call us with our referral?? I make up scenarios all day long! I have been focusing on Saturday morning here - which is Friday afternoon in the US. Only 18 more hours (I hope!) Do you think I will be able to sleep tonight?

All moms remember how long that last week (of pregnancy or waiting to get referral/travel etc) was. UGH! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO long! millions of minutes, trillions of seconds . . . . . . . . . . . .

Email from Michele (our CHI rep)

It’s my last day in Philadelphia. I head back to CT on the train today. Hopefully I can get more sleep there. Are you sleeping at all or just sitting next to the computer? Heidi and I are so excited for you but trying not to drive Stefani crazy. We keep sending her messages but chances are she know exactly which child she will refer to you. Hopefully we will know soon. Regards, Michele

List #19 Names.

OK, There are a million things to do around here but since I am anxiously awaiting our referral I thought I would imagine which little girl she might be? Here are the names of all the kids on List #19. (names are towns in Utah)
Take a guess as to which one will be referred to us!
Annabella
Brighton
Clover -
Corinne (pronounced Ka Rin)
Crystal Spring
Eden
Eloise kept her Shunyi foster name so its not in Utah (I want this girl!)
Geneva
Harper
Kayenta
Lynndyl
Monroe
Salem
Shauntie
Terra
Vivian

Group #19!

This is a message posted by Stefani Ellison on the CHIWaitingKids site today!

Boy Howdy!! Its time to circle the wagons and get out our fiddles and dancing shoes! Group 19 is HERE and what a posse of perty little partners we have this time too! We had been told the group would be late in arriving due to the 3 week tour of the US by the Waiting Child Supervisor so we got a mighty fine surprise when it arrived. We didn't even get time to have our naming game. So, since the new group of children was compiled on Utah's Pioneer Day, and we had no names,we quickly named them for towns in Utah. Most of you wouldn't have a clue with those anyway.We are in the process of translating the files and that will take us to the end of the week. We have a large group of CHI families (this means that they have officially applied to CHI, not just sent out a pre-app, and submitted a request for a specific age, gender and need for Group 19) who will be assigned their children first. As soon as that is finished the list will be opened to our preview families.These families have sent in a pre-application and we have that on file. We will not be accepting any more pre-application families UNLESS they would like to adopt a boy. We still have room for more families wanting magnificent boys and let me tell you, this group of boys is darned cute! We have 27 new files. 16 girls and 11 boys. Only 1 child is under 12 months old but we have 13 one year olds with the bulk of them having their first birthday in the last month or two. We have 4 two year olds, 1 three year old, 3 four year olds, 1 six year old (boy) and 1 nine year old (girl). The children are from Guangdong, Henan, Shanxiand Zhejiang provinces. Two of our children are in the Shunyi Outreach Program for Hope Foster Home. We know they have been very well cared for and are excited to be part of their journeys home.We have needs that include cleft palate, cleft lip/palate, heart issues, visual impairment, spina meningocele, limb difference, burns, port wine stains, hypospadius, chronic skin rash, strabismus, and unilateral microtia.We will be working furiously to get these files ready and will be contacting first our CHI request families, then our preview families and then opening the children's files to the general public. We CAN'T WAIT for you to all meet them!!!We tremendously appreciate all your help with Group 18. We are getting ready to make our final announcement for the last child inGroup 18 very shortly! I'm having to go find my drum sticks for that one. We'll need a HUGE drum roll to get all your attention.--Stefani EllisonChina Program Coordinator Children's House International

Parameters of Child requested

Michele asked us to clarify what age we would consider the perfect choice for our family - this is my answer:

Yes, please say 6 months to 3 years. As far as preference . . . . we would love a 2.5 year old that has a "spark" - and is beautiful! :) so, we would prefer that 2.5 year old with a spark. OR we would be happy to have the child meant to be ours whether 2.5 or 8 months. I am not sure this makes sense but hopefully it will help.

Good Luck with that :)

Average Timeline for CHI

As far as a timeline for our adoption . . . once we get our referral we send our LOI - Letter of Intent and then the timeline averages for our agency are as follows:

Average Days to Pre Approval from Letter of Intent: 37 days
Average Days to Logged in Date from Dossier to China: 6 days
Average Days to Letter of Acceptance from Logged in Date: 80 days
Average Days to Travel Approval from Logged in Date: 101 days
Average Days to Travel Approval from Letter of Acceptance: 22 days

Add all these up and we are looking at 143 plus a few days after we receive our referral, accept and send our Letter of Intent. So if we pretend to send it on August 20th (our 13th anniversary) we should be in China right around the end of January - but that would be if everything went perfectly. Most likely February or March. UGH. I better improve my waiting skills. You would think I would have that perfected after the past 4.5 years of waiting for Casiana.

The wind is whispering . . .

We are so ready for List #19 to come out.

Heidi says . . ."as for the list... the wind is whispering it is coming soon".

Family of God

Family Of God

"I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God
I've been washed in the fountain,
Cleansed by His blood.
Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod,
For I'm part of the family
The family of God.

From the door of an orphanage
To the house of the King
No longer an outcast
A new song I sing.
From rags unto riches
From the weak to the strong
I'm not worthy to be here
But, PRAISE GOD, I BELONG!"

Christiana? Kristiana? or Tessa?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I always ruled out the name Christiana because Isabella's middle name is Christina. I really love the name Christiana and even originally invented it myself while I was in college- though of course later I found out it already existed. I tried it out on Matt and the kids again and we are sort of liking it - especially because that would mean we could call her "Tia" which I also love. Christiana Hope is beautiful! It could also be Kristiana Hope just to make it a little different than Christina. The only bad news is that Elijah likes Tessa - and he can say Tessa - we will have to see our little Princess before we decide. They are both beautiful names.

Homestudy is DONE!

It has been a busy month since Megan our social worker was here to do our home visits. The kids got out of school on June 21st and 22nd. Matt's parents arrived on the 29th and we had a wonderful non-stop sightseeing visit with them. It was really great to have them here. It was also a nice distraction from the adoption paperchase. Grandma & Grandpa Froggy flew out on Wednesday and we emailed the last few pieces of paperwork required for our homestudy to Megan on Thursday afternoon -within 2 hours she emailed me a draft of the homestudy. I emailed her the corrections I had and CHI made their corrections. Yesterday just 2 days after all the documents were sent in Megan emailed me to say she had sent CHI her corrected final draft! We are moving right along with this paperwork! The kids go back to school Monday (Jonah & Elijah) and Tuesday (Isabella) so my plan is to get all the rest of the documents notarized and send them all to our agency. I'm working and praying that we can get our I171 (Immigrations paperwork) back and have our Dossier ready to go when the new Special Needs list comes out in the second or third week of August. We are getting close but usually there are a few frustrating snags along the way (like our AFP reports and my Dr. letter which are now, thankfully complete)

Homestudy visits complete!

We have been very busy getting all our documents gathered for our homestudy. On Saturday evening our social worker Megan arrived from Hong Kong to do our home visits. We were able to share the cost of her trip with two other American families here in Australia. We had a great time going over all the documents and visiting with Megan to meet all the homestudy requirements. After the visit Megan let us know that we will be receiving an approved homestudy! YEAH! Tick that off the list!

"Messenger of Hope"

After playing with names for the past few months we have a preliminary favorite :-)

Our little T-girl will most likely be named Tessa. We played with the names Tea', Alexandra, Anastacia, Sophia, Julia and many more. All the kids had a say and they wouldn't consider a name that didn't end in "a". We eliminated based mostly on how they sounded with the other kids names. We chose Jonah, Isabella, Elijah & Tessa. I still like Tea' (Tee-ah) and it sounds good with the others but I do think Tessa is the perfect name. Tessa means "messenger" and when you combine it with Hope - it is perfect in every way!

Now we are praying Ephesians 1: that the eyes of our heart may be opened that we may know what (who!) is the "Hope" of our calling, the riches of our inheritance among the saints!" I had been meditating on this scripture daily as encouraged during a sermon. One day I realized how perfect the name is for our little girl's middle name. "Tessa Hope" has been conceived in my heart! I had this same sense when we felt called to Ukraine for our son Elijah - a little one has been conceived in my heart and we need to go get her!

Special Needs adoption from China.

Yep, we decided this is the way we are going. It took lots of researching, prayer, soul searching and then just a leap of faith! We are using Childrens House International. I joined their CHIWaitingKids yahoo group in March - really never thinking we would go that direction. The joke is on me! I started reading a lot of blogs and it seemed the little girls I would totally fall in love with happened to have heart conditions. Many times the condition just needed to be monitored and others needed one surgery. I feel pretty sure this is the type of special need our daughter will have.

Our social worker will arrive on June 16th for 2 days of the homestudy. We are hoping to be done with all our paperwork by that time and then we will just have to wait. CHI has a new special needs group that will arrive in most likely August and so hopefully our little princess will be in that group. If all goes well it is most likely she will be home with us by January 2008!

names . . . .

I want our little princess to have a name that feels good with all the other kids - but especially with her sisters.

isabella christina: belle, bella, izzi
alexandra maria: zani, lexa, xia
tatiana maria: t, tia, tati
tessa maria: tess, tessie, t

I am just playing with names. We threw Alexandra out there yesterday. I've always liked it but of course it does not have a "T' other than that though . . .

List 18.

Every 3 months Childrens House International receives a new list of Waiting Children. On May 7th a new list of waiting children will be presented to potential adoptive parents. Families that have put in a pre-application are allowed to view the children first. We put in a pre-application however because we are not CHI family yet we are in the second phase of the pre- application process. We are interested mostly in little girls with minor heart defects - a special need that most seem potential adoptive families seem to be seeking. That is another reason I am assuming we won't find our daughter on this list. Still, I am feeling anxious about List 18! I am wondering how "matching" works! How long before we will get the password? Will we JUST KNOW one of the little girls is our daughter?

. . . just the thought that there is any chance our daughter is on this list makes me feel very nervous!

I have today without the kids so I am trying to NEST! Cleaning, organizing etc. so if we find our daughter I can focus on paperwork!


Ellie

Why "Crossing our T's?

I decided to keep a blog about the journey we are taking to adopt a little girl - possibly from Taiwan. Most of the girls names we like either start with a T or have a T in them. We were trying to think of an expression as a theme for our blog and we decided since we have an Isabella and the adoption of this little T girl is partly to give her a little sister, we've already dotted our I - now we are crossing our T! This little girl will COMPLETE our family! This will be our Princess "T".