Come Ye Thankful People, Come

Put together all the tables you can find.  Bring in the folding chairs.  It is that time of year.

The time our family travels to be together and eat a magnificent meal.  In the case of our family, we are so blessed that no one of our homes are really quite large enough to hold us all anymore!  

But, our policy is there's always room for one more.  We were blessed with two new Little Princess daughters this year, and also two adorable grandsons.  Room for FOUR more... yeah that works well too!  

Mix in some extended family, and it makes for a great party!

The holiday bonus about having many adult "kids" is that Thanksgiving dinner is super easy now.  It is generally held at a daughter's home, and there are so many of us to bring things that a couple of sides in crock pots and a dessert is all I ended up making this year.

 After the meal, it is presto chango and the "banquet hall" is transformed into a game room for Catch Phrase.

With several married children and so many schedules to juggle, our family celebration was early this year.  Even though the calendar indicated it was really a Saturday instead of a Thursday, we gathered together and were thankful for God's blessings and for each of these people, so dear to us.  We are really looking forward to the addition of our Prince Isaac, as well as a new grand daughter in 2014. God is so gracious towards us!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Would you like to visit some more family celebrations?  Join the line at A Place called Simplicity http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2013/11/get-ready-were-coming-for-visit.html

We have a Log in Date!

Yay!!!! We've been informed by our agency that we have our LID - Log In Date.  This is the official date that the CCCWA has logged our dossier files into their computer system.  Earlier this year they installed a new system, and there are now several statuses that a family goes through.  These are the next steps according to our China case manager:

Translated - the adoption community has long referred to this one as OOT, Out of Translation

Reviewed - which she says some families skip -not sure why  

Match reviewed- at which point the website will show our LSC/LOA has been issued.  The hard copy arrives in the mail about a week after that.

We were also informed that since we adopted two on our dossier the last time, it is possible we might have a "hiccup" in our processing.  Sigh.  Of course.  We've had one bad case of hiccups after another with our "fast and easy" reuse of our dossier. The average wait from here to LOA (Letter of Acceptance) is about two months.  I could sure use something "average" to happen with this one!

Was it giant moles?

Something has been digging in our yard.

  

Those bushes aren't where they used to be, and yonder fountain is certainly out of place!

  

So what happened to this once nicely landscaped area just off our front porch?  The crew dug the holes to begin the ramp today!  We chose the second option to have it go out and across the front porch, out the middle, and double back to the sidewalk.  Thank you for your prayers concerning this decision.

 

Which Ramp?

What is bugging you?  Some of us wear glasses or hearing aids.  Perhaps it is an ulcer or one is prone to heartburn.  Maybe you have allergies or acne. Some might walk with a limp or suffer from something that isn't visibly apparent to the rest of the world like fibromyalgia or arthritis or another auto immune disorder.  Let's face it, as humans we all have things about us that aren't perfect. 

Did you know that Isaac is a paraplegic?  He seems like a really wonderful boy in every way, but in China if your legs don't work it is devastating.  Usually you aren't allowed to go to school, and forget about finding a job. Just navigating through the streets is impossible in some areas.  In the states his future is so promising.  He can pretty much be anything he wants to be as long as it can be done in a sitting down position.

 Funny thing, sometimes we are called to things outside of our comfort zone.  Like a child who is a paraplegic.  We don't love him any less because his legs don't work.  It is a non-issue to us from that angle.  The uncomfortable feeling comes from attempting to figure out how to make things easier for him.  We've never had a child who can't walk at all, so it is new territory.

The "ramp man" Jim, (a wonderful guy with a great big heart for orphans) was here again today.  This is the third time he has come to help us try to figure out how to install the ramp so Isaac can be independent and participate fully in family life.  We have three plans, none of which are ideal, and we need to make a decision.  While the eeny, meeny, miney, moe approach is tempting at this point, we really do need to weigh the options (along with their pros and cons) and make a deliberate decision. We'd appreciate your prayers over the next couple of days as we sort it all out.

First Snow!

 

November 12 brought the first snow of the season to the Cincinnati area, and the Little Princesses were all about it!  They stared in amazement!  Being from a sub-tropical climate, I'm sure they had never seen any before.

A couple of months ago they began asking for boots.  I believe they may have seen someone else wearing them, and they were totally smitten.  I bought them boots in anticipation of snow, but hadn't expected it this particular morning.  There wasn't really enough snow to merit the hassle of wearing boots, but since I had promised them "When it snows you can wear your boots." what else could I do?

You have not experienced true boot hassle until you've attempted to wrestle inserts and little braces into them!  All I can say is that it was a good thing we were running early that day (which rarely happens!).  The effort proved worthwhile though as they pranced through the snow, and then told their therapists all about their boots, hats, coats, etc.  So, bring on winter.  The Little Princesses are READY!

DTC for Isaac!

There are no words to describe how happy I am to have at last received confirmation that our dossier for Isaac is on its way to China!  We were DTC yesterday, November 14!  While perhaps not long in terms of the wait some have in the adoption world, it was nearly a month longer than it took for our girls.  Combine that with the assurances we'd had that the second time always goes faster, and it made for a really long wait.  We didn't have so many papers to do this time and we had our part done in a little over a week.  The rest was just waiting.  Why so long?  I won't go into all the details lest it sound like one big whinefest, but it was primarily delays with homestudy processing and USCIS. 

A week or two after our dossier arrives in China, it will be logged into the CCCWA. (China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption)  The day our paperwork is logged into the system is when we acquire our next set of acronyms, known as LID meaning Log In Date.  Then comes OOT (Out of Translation) and in review.

Our big deal wait is for our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) also called the LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation). This is our official approval  to adopt Isaac.  It can take anywhere from 1-5 months after our LID,  and the current average is around 60 days.

If you are new here and not certain what all goes into a dossier, I made a list a year ago when ours went out for the girls.  You'll find it here http://lanzadoptionadventure.blogspot.com/2012/11/we-have-dtc.html

So now we wait again.  As I recall, the wait for LOA was the most agonizing of all.  There is no rhyme or reason as to why some get their letter in three days and for others it is over a hundred days!   But, at least we are into the second half of the wait now.  Hang in there Isaac!  We're coming!

More on Lance from his advocate

I've featured Lance on the blog before.  He seems like such a great kid!  Where is his Mama???  Here is more about him from his advocate:

Just heard that Lance has a private grant available! Would be a really helpful amount for a family! Read here a cool story from when he was at camp in the summer:

Lance! A boy known for a huge smile on his face and who has captured the love of all the volunteers at Taiyuan Camp. Although he is diagnosed with CP and doesn’t have capabilities such as running, this hasn’t stopped him from having the time of his life at camp. He loves singing at the top of his lungs and like all other boys, squirting everyone in the pool with water guns.

While we were sitting outside of our apartment wondering how to transport Lance to the assembly hall (his legs were tired), a man who owns a business living in our camp apartments offered to give Lance and his friends a ride in a big van. Lance couldn’t believe we got to ride in this van and kept telling the business man “Thank You!” As we started to drive off, he exclaimed real loud with a big smile on his face, “Wow! It’s like we’re a real family!”

More here!! defendfoundation.org/lance with photos and videos!! :)

and even more here on his Reece's Rainbow fundraiser http://reecesrainbow.org/66346/laurence

UPDATE!  Jan 2014 - Lance has a family!!!!