New Pictures...

We have been snapping lots of pictures lately. Here are a couple of them. Audrey has been doing well aside from a cold and ear infection last week! She is feeling much better now. Looking forward to an awesome Christmas together!

Thanks be to God!

I'm giving in to the peer pressure by an unnamed person (Randy Jordan) and posting another blog entry :-).  Today when I woke up, I was not really thinking about all the things for which I am thankful.  Instead, I allowed silly emotions to take over.  I was having a "moment" as they say, and it lasted much longer than it should have.  Sometimes I think I've received a courtesy dose of extra hormones that all ladies experience during and after pregnancy! :-)  Anyway, I was sitting on the floor crying and talking to my husband.  As we were getting ready to pray, my precious little girl crawled over to me, pulled up, and gave me not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE kisses in a row!  It was as though God was sending me kisses via this little blessing.  THAT is what I am thankful for today.  Yes, God has blessed me tremendously in so many different ways, but His extravagant love for me just knocks my socks off every time He lavishes it upon me.  My husband has always been such an amazing manifestation of that love, and now I have received another wonderful gift.  Thank You, Father, for allowing us to be Audrey's forever family! 

"The LORD is my strength and shield.  I trust Him with all my heart.  He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.  I burst out in songs of thanksgiving."  Psalm 28:6-8

Audrey enjoyed her first Thanksgiving with her family, and she had a blast!  She was a bit shy of all the people at first, but she warmed up and quickly charmed everyone in the room.  :-)  She played, danced, sang, laughed, ate, and finally collapsed on Daddy in the recliner!  I'm so glad she is adjusting well and seems to feel very comfortable with others as long as we are near.  We are already looking forward to Christmas!

Audrey's Gotcha Video!!!

The video above is the video we took the very first time Audrey was put into Paige's arms. We have been wanting to go back and post some of our videos from China that we were not able to post. Keep watching for more.

I hate to post pictures like this, but...

She is just so cute at bath time!!!! (and all the time!)

Things are getting better...

Audrey is adjusting better each day. She seems happy most days during the day now except for toddler fussiness that can happen. Nightime is somewhat better for all of us. Last night Audrey slept pretty well all through the night with limited crying out last night. We are making sure to be there for her when she does cry out to reassure her we are there. We are believing this is going to get better and better making all of us a better rested family!

We got out of the house for the first time in a while yesterday and today. We took a walk around the neighborhood yesterday and today we went to Wal-Mart and Los Portales for some mexican food. Audrey did well and she likes the rice at Los Portales. It was nice for all of us to get out of the house.

Home at last!!

We made it back home on Monday and we are glad to be here. Audrey has taken some steps backward since we have been here which may be part of the process. Our adoption agency said this could happen. I know the little girl has been through a lot in her little life and especially in the past 2-3 weeks. We love her very much and it is hard to see her unhappy which she seems to be right now much of the time. I don't want this post to be a downer though and we believe that things will improve as she comes to more of a realization that we are not going anywhere and this is her forever home! Please pray and agree with us that she realizes it as soon as possible. Thanks everybody!

Kyle, Paige, and Audrey

We are back home!

After 20 hours of travel and waiting at aiports we are back home or at least to Nashville! Thank you Lord! We will always have fond memories of our time in China, but there is no place like home! We will probably still post things about our family from time to time, but probably not as often now. Hope everyone enjoyed it!

Audrey had her first meal in the US tonight with our friends, Joe and Lori Marlar! She likes Spaghetti!

A tribute to Peter

Another day has gone by here in Guangzhou China (Thursday). We just put Audrey to bed and it is 7:15 p.m. here. Not bad! She is doing well. We had our consulate appointment today which is where we applied for Audrey's visa so we can travel home. We will get that back tommorrow and then off to Hong Kong! It went very smoothly thanks to our guide Peter.

Speaking of Peter, we wanted to include a picture of our guide Peter in this post since we have referred to him a few times. He is very very good at what he does and he is on top of everything. He does not miss anything which is nice for us. I don't know how he keeps it all straight! He does everything fast and you have to be on your toes to keep up with him, but we completely trust him and that is nice to have when you are in a foreign country! He is also a gentle sweet spirit and even though we don't know him that well, we will never forget him. Here's to you Peter!

While we were at it we thought we would include another shot of Audrey! It is not real clear, but a good picture of her - Are'nt they all! See you soon!

Another day closer

 

Today is Wednesday here in Guangzhou China! We did not do a whole lot again today, but it was a really good day with family. We had a late breakfast and then came back to the room for Audrey's nap. Last night and today she has been going to sleep without as much fuss. She was fussy for a while this afternoon, but she had a really good evening. I guess that may be typical with a baby. She is more confident with us each day and it is really neat to see her becoming more comfortable. I think that is why she is going to sleep easier. We may have already said this, but she hardly would crawl when we first got her. Now she can easily crawl. She now loves standing on her feet and she just laughs when walking with our fingers in her little hands. She gets so excited and gets going so fast it is hillarious! Bath time was not near as difficult tonight either (check out the picture with the cool hair style). We took a walk around the area here this afternoon.

Tommorrow is our last appointment (consulate appointment) and then Friday it is off to Hong Kong which is a 3 hour drive from here. We will stay the night there and fly home on Saturday. We are very excited! Thanks for everyone for reading our blog and keeping up with us and praying for us. This trip has been challenging, but very good also. We are very blessed! We love all our faithful friends and family. God bless you all!

Kyle, Paige, & Audrey Fuqua

Audrey walking with Daddy

Tuesday evening in Guangzhou China

It is Tuesday evening here in Guangzhou China. We had a good day, but did not do a whole lot. We are getting to spend time with each other which is nice. Audrey is enjoying learning to walk! She is getting more brave each day and trying new things. She loves getting up on her feet and having us help her walk. She smiles and laughs almost every time! Bedtime is still a struggle to get her to sleep, but once she goes down she is sleeping pretty well. We are hoping once we can get back home and in more of a routine it will get even better. We are still ready to spend our time together back in the U.S.

This afternoon we went to this area called Shamian Island. It is very pretty there. We did a little more shopping for Audrey. We got several authentic Chinese things at a little shop called Jenny's Place (Thank, you Vicki Pierce). We also ate at a place called Lucy's for dinner which was pretty good. We are not very adventurous eaters. We have been eating some at the McDonalds next door and we ordered out some Papa John's last night. We are ready for some good food when we get back home. Our hotel is a 5 star Marriott hotel and the included breakfast buffet is very good.

Just a few more days and we will be home! Can't wait for everyone to meet Audrey!

Days of Rest

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday have been wonderful days of rest for us. The only downside to that is it makes the time go by a bit slower, and we are so ready to come home! :-) Saturday, we just hung out around the hotel. Sunday, we did much of the same, but we also got brave and took a taxi to a local supermarket to buy some things we needed. Today, we went to another store to buy some clothes for Audrey, and then we went for a stroll around Liuhuahu Park. It was huge! It is a beautiful park, and it was full of people today. I'm not sure if it's that way every day, but around every bend there were groups of people participating in different types of exercise/dance classes. People were also playing table tennis and badminton, and there were even exercise machines in the park!  Chinese people are definitely not lazy! There were also several different musicians and singers hanging out singing and playing their instruments. There was just so much to see, and Audrey slept through it all!

 
She loves to ride in the stroller, and falls asleep quickly. We are wishing we had one that would recline so we could just let her sleep in there at night! :-) As each day goes by, we can see her progressing more and more. When she first came to us last Wednesday, she couldn't even crawl very well. Now, she is walking while holding on to our hands! Amazing! We also see signs every day that she is bonding with and attaching to us more. How awesome it is when she reaches for us!

We have two more days of free time, and then our Consulate appointment is on Thursday. That is where we apply for Audrey's visa to come home to the U.S. We will get the visa on Friday, and then it's off to Hong Kong to spend the night. We'll fly home from there on Saturday!:-) We are looking forward to seeing you all!

Wait! There's more! BONUS VIDEO!

All About Audrey

Today is Saturday, and it's the first day we've had to just hang out and take it easy. Up until this point, we've had some type of appointment every day. I thought I'd help everyone get to know our Audrey a bit better. We are still learning about her, of course, but here are some things we've learned so far.

Audrey is a very curious baby. She is always watching other people around her, especially herself...she loves looking in the mirror! She also explores everything by touching it if she can. It's very sweet when she reaches out to touch our faces, clothing, hair, etc. And when she looks at us with those beautiful dark eyes and smiles...it melts our hearts!

Our girl is also very active. Lord help us when she starts walking! She wiggles all the time, even when sleeping. I think at home she'll need a king-sized bed because she rolls all over the place when she sleeps. She has also started throwing things, except she can't quite figure out how to throw them forward. She throws everything behind her head as though she has no use for it anymore. :-) Audrey is also babbling quite a bit. It sounds like baby babble, but it's possible there are some Chinese words
mixed in there somewhere.

She's been smiling and laughing quite a bit over the past couple of days, which is very fun for us. We do whatever we can to make her laugh. I've discovered that she is ticklish on her belly and her thighs. She also laughs whenever we kiss on the side of her neck. We are loving it! One thing she started doing on her own was making a motor boat sound with her lips. We've got to get a video of that because she spits quite a bit when she does it...hilarious!

Audrey loves to be held and carried around a lot. This is sweet, but becomes a problem at naptime and bedtime. If we put her down, she cries. That's why she's been sleeping in the bed with us. We decided that we'd do whatever we had to do to make sure that she gets the sleep she needs (us too!). Once she does go to sleep, though, it seems she could sleep through an F5 tornado! I would imagine that she had to be able to do that due to living over a year of her life in an orphanage. She also sucks her
thumb when she gets sleepy, which we think was probably a coping behavior that she developed while in the orphanage.

We are blessed to have this sweet little girl in our family! I've been telling her that she is famous back in Kentucky, and that there are so many people that want to meet her. We cannot wait to come home and show her off!

The Zoo, Market and the Passport

Today we spent the morning at the zoo with our guide and the other families in our group. It was nice to get to talk with them about how their kids are doing. After leaving the zoo we stopped by a market where we were able to buy lots of authentic Chinese things that we can give Audrey later in her life. Many people give their Chinese children one thing from their home country every year on their Gotcha Day until they are eighteen. We also went with our guide to apply for Audrey's passport. We are looking forward to having this weekend to rest.










Audrey seems to be getting more comfortable with us and us with her. We just need her to start sleeping more at night.

It's Official!

It was a busy day today (Thursday). Our guide Peter took us to sign papers to officially adopt Audrey. So as of today she is ours for good! We had to go to another place for the notary after that. Our guide Peter is super and he is very experienced in doing this, which makes it really nice. After that we came back to the hotel and while Audrey took a nap with Paige in the room, I worked on paperwork for 2 hours with the other adoptive families. We thought we were done, but then we went to do Audrey's medical exam which is standard procedure. She was fussy after that and I think we were all tired for a while. I also think we are all still trying to learn each other.

Tonight we had our best time of bonding with her yet. The pictures posted are from that time. She was laughing and smiling which she had not really done with us yet. It was a great time! Very sweet!

 

…And faith becomes sight

After 5 years and 3 months to the day we got our Audrey! It all happened really fast, but it was a good day for the Fuqua’s! Other than some mosquito bites on her face she is perfectly healthy. She has been very curious and she likes playing with toys. I still don’t think she has realized what has happened to her yet. We anticipate some grieving by her at some point, so please pray for her. There was a time tonight where she had kind of a scared look on her face. We found out she likes to be held when she is upset and we are happy to oblige!

Right after we got her today she took her first trip to this 12 story shopping center sort of thing. It was quite an experience, but we got some needed baby items while there like formula, diapers, etc. so it was good. Looking forward to everyone meeting her! We will take and send more photos later.

We get Audrey today!!!!

Last night we flew out of Beijing into Guangzhou China. Our guide Peter (not the same one as before) was there to meet us at the airport. We were very tired so went to bed. It is now Wednesday morning here and we are glad to be here. The hotel is much nicer here than our one in Beijing. The best part about today is that we get to get Audrey in about 7 hours! It still does not seem real, but it will soon! We will get her 2:00 p.m. here so it will be 1:00 a.m. Wednesday Kentucky time. We will post some pics as soon as we can!

A Day in Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

We spent the morning of Tuesday, October 12 in China checking out of
our hotel and touring Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We had our
own personal guide who picked us up, opened the doors for us, bought our
lunch at Pizza Hut in Beijing, and of course showed us all the sites of
Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The amount of patriotism to
country that you can see by the Chinese people is amazing especially
seeing them in a place like this. The place was packed and Peter our guide
said it was not that busy. I am so glad he was with us. The Forbidden City
is where the Chinese emperors used to live. I had no idea how large this
place was, it is unbelievable. We walked for what seemed like 2 miles and
we did not even get to the end.

Sightseeing in Beijing

Today (Monday, October 10), after a day of much needed rest, we went to tour the Great Wall of China.  Our guide, Peter, took us to the JuYong Pass portion of the wall.  All I can say is that it was awesome!  Petersaid the wall is about 4,000 miles long.  I think seeing the wall today made it hit home that we are really in China!  :-)  We were not in good enough shape to climb all the way up either side, but we did go about halfway up one side.  The stairs are extremely steep, so I was very thankful for the handrails.  We had Subway for lunch (ahhh...the comfortsof home), and then came back to our hotel to rest.

Tomorrow, we will tour the Forbidden City and see some other sights closer
to the downtown area.  Our flight for Guangzhou leaves tomorrow (Tuesday,
October 11) at 6:00 p.m.  We will arrive in Guangzhou about 9:00 p.m.
(that's Tuesday 8:00 a.m. KY time).  Then, on Wednesday, we will receive
our little girl!  We are not sure of the time yet or whether we will go to
her or if they will bring her to us.

The jetlag has been MUCH harder to get over than we had imagined.  We ask
for and are grateful for your continued prayers.  We want to be strong and
healthy when we receive Audrey!

 

We made it!

We made it to Beijing! The plane rides were long, but we survived. There have been quite a few adventures already and we may post more about that later. Paige and I are both experiencing some health issues already so please keep praying for us!

A few more changes... but they are good!

We received word last night that some of the dates we do things have changed. We are still leaving Nashville October 7 and returning October 22, but some of the dates we do things in between have changed. The biggest change is that we now get Audrey 2 days earlier! Now we will get her on October 11. I updated our itinerary that I posted 3-4 posts ago to reflect our new schedule. The one downfall is that after traveling for nearly 24 hours and getting to Beijing at midnight their time, now we have to get up the next morning and go sightseeing. We are looking forward to the great wall, but not on 4-5 hours sleep after traveling for 24 hours! We will make it though and we are thankful to get Audrey sooner.

Nesting

I've heard lots of people talk about their "nesting" process during pregnancy.  Our nesting has been on fast forward!  We've been spending a crazy amount of time in Audrey's room trying to put away all of the wonderful gifts we've received for her.  I've also been doing an insane amount of laundry, both for Audrey and to prepare for our trip to China.  Even though it has been and currently is very stressful, it's also been a lot of fun doing this together.  There are still some unknowns that can not be known until we receive our daughter, so I'm resting in the knowledge that our adoption is all God's design.  He will give us the wisdom to answer any question or overcome any challenge that should arise.  He's carried us this far, and I know that He will never leave us.   As always, He is so very good!  

More Showers!!

Our awesome friends from both our workplaces gave us showers this week. We are blessed!!

Cake from Paige's shower

Kyle with panda finger puppets!

Gift Table from Paige's shower

Awesome gift from Paige's shower.
There were lots of great
other gifts too!

Balloons from Kyle's shower!

Cake from Kyle's shower!

Plans finalized and flights booked!!

We now have our itinerary for our trip to China. Here is our schedule...

October 7: Fly out of Nashville
October 8: Arrive in Beijing China at almost midnight!
October 9: Sightseeing- Great Wall of China
October 10: Sightseeing- Forbidden City/ Fly to Guanzhou China (Guangdong Province)
October 11: THE DAY WE GET AUDREY/ legal process
October 12:
October 13:
October 14: Orphange Visit (tentative)
October 15:
October 16:
October 17: Obtain legal documents
October 18: Medical exam for Audrey
October 19:
October 20: Consulate Appointment (this is the appointment that was changed which is why we are leaving later
October 21: Obtain Visa/ Possibly stay the night in Hong Kong
October 22: Fly out of Hong Kong- RETURN HOME!

I think we will do some sightseeing on the days where there is nothing scheduled or maybe just hanging out with Audrey.

It looks like we are flying for 2 straight days when we go and in a way we are. China is 13 hours ahead of our time here so you have to take that into account. However, on the way home we leave China on October 22 and we get home on October 22. Anyway, we are glad to have the schedule and the flights booked. We are on our way now!

Roller Coaster

Well the adoption roller coaster is still going, but I think it is about to stop! Sorry to everybody for telling you we were leaving Tuesday October 4, but it appears we are not leaving then now. The final word is that we have to be in China on October 9 which means we will leave Nashville either October 7 or October 8. I could explain why our date was pushed back on here, but it is an extremely long story so I won't. The easy way to say it is that the officials in China moved the date of one of our important appointments while we are in China which results in us having to leave later. We are a little disappointed, but it is just 4 days later and we are still getting Audrey! I guess we have more time to pack now!

We are going to China!!

As the title says, it looks like we are going to China on October 4! That is one week from today!! There is a lot we have done and still a lot to do. We got our Visas back with no problem. We made a huge Wal-Mart trip last weekend for our trip. We also have 2 showers at each of our workplaces this week!

Today has been a big day! We got a copy of our Travel Approval from China today which is what we have been waiting on. The original is supposed to be in our hands tomorrow. We have plane tickets on hold right now, but we cannot purchase them yet. It is a little confusing, but since we were placed with the group we are going to be with a little late, the agency has to make sure that they have room for us in the Consulate appointment on October 17. I am assuming that if they cannot fit us in then that we may have to stay an extra day or two which is why we can't book plane tickets yet. Don't worry we barely understand this ourselves!
We are excited! We are on our way Audrey!

Shower!!

Our wonderful church hosted us a shower on September 18. It was a huge blessing to us. The support of our church during our wait has been awesome. Thanks HHC! 

Time For An Update!

I looked back at our blog and realized we have not updated it lately! Well, as you can see we got our referral for Audrey at the end of August! She is from Huazhou City which is in the Guangdong Province of China. Where she is at is in the south part of China somewhere between Guangzhou and Hanoi Vietnam. The orphanage she is in right now actually has a website at http://www.orphanage.org/asia/china/huazhou/index.html

After getting her referral we had to accept the referral. We pretty much had already accepted it after seeing her, but basically that means we had to check a box saying we accept her and send it back to China. Before doing that we had to wait to get the translated medical information about her and then have a doctor look at her medical information just to make sure. Here are some quotes from her paperwork from China about her personality...

"She has a quiet personality, likes to play with staff, smiles a lot. She loves caretakers and smiles beautifully when playing with them". Favorite toy "bell toys"- not sure what that is? On one of our other papers it has checked that she "laughs aloud, is quiet, fond of listening to music, having a ready smile". I know that's not much, but that is all we have.

She sounds very sweet and I'm sure she will be the best behaved baby in the world! The doctor that looked at her medical information was very positive overall and she said she saw no reason why we should not accept our referral. So I sent our acceptance/confirmation letter back to China a couple of weeks ago. 

Last weekend we received ESTIMATED travel dates of leaving October 4 and coming back October 19! Wow, that's soon! We will do it, but we have a lot to do between now and then. After hearing that we started on getting our Visa stuff prepared which I did over the weekend and yesterday. I got all that in the mail yesterday afternoon. Basically you have to send a bunch of stuff to a company who walks your information to the China Embassy in Washington DC. Once the Visas are done they send it all back to you. We used the company The Assistant Stork to do this for us.

Well, I guess that is it for now. We are waiting for our official travel approval from China and I'm sure there is other things we will be doing in the coming days. Oh yea, our wonderful church is throwing us a baby shower this next Sunday night which will be a huge blessing! We will keep you posted!!

Every good and perfect gift...

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, Who does not change like shifting shadows."  James 1:17

Referral day has finally come!  We received our referral yesterday afternoon.  It is virtually impossible to explain in words how it felt to see pictures of the baby we've had in our hearts for the past 5 years.  She is beautiful & we know that she is God's good and perfect gift to us.  Of course, we were believing to receive our referral this month, but we also knew that our agency tends to receive referrals later than other agencies.  So, we were absolutely surprised to get that phone call yesterday!  As I meditated on that this morning, I began to think about being a parent.  One thing that all parents love to do is surprise their children with the things they know will be a blessing to them.  I think of all those Christmas mornings when my parents would sit back and watch with a smile as my sister and I excitedly opened packages containing all we had been desiring.  God is our Abba (Daddy) and the model for all parents.  I truly believe that in His great love for us, He absolutely delighted in surprising us with those pictures of this sweet baby girl!  He is SO good!

"You parents--if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?  Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake?  Of course not!  So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him."    Matthew 7:9-11

Still Waiting Part 2

We are still waiting! We should be getting good at waiting by now! It has been a time of confusion with our referral (match with our baby) and we really don't know much more now than we did before. Basically, our referral was skipped, but we do not know why this happened. Our Log In Date in China was 7/12/06 and they got to that date- we just did not get our referral for some reason. Our adoption agency checked with the officials in China and they have agreed to go ahead and process our referral. That is great news! The thing now is that we have no idea how long it will take China to match us with Audrey and send the information about her to us. Our agency representative said it could be a month still before we get the referral in our hands. Anyway, we are hanging on and staying busy with work- Both of our jobs are busy right now since school has started. In the scheme of things another month is not too bad, but we were disappointed of course that we did not get our referral information when we were supposed to. We are ready to see pictures of her and to get this thing going! There is still a chance we will get to travel with our original group (the people that got their 7/12/06 referrals at the end of July), but that depends on how quickly China gets us our referral and if they are willing to expedite our paperwork or not. We are praying that we will get to travel with our original group so please agree with us about that. We will post when we know more.

We are close, but still waiting to hear!

We began hearing news that referrals were coming out last Wednesday which was 1 week ago. It finally became apparent that our log in date in China was included in the last batch of referrals which was great news, but why had we not got a call? We contacted our adoption agency and we were told that due to something to do with DHL delivery the agency that our agency partners with in Utah gets referrals a few days after many other agencies. I wish we had known that, but we do now! Since Saturday we have been hoping and praying it was our day, but still no call. Our agency contact has been very nice and she assures us that we should hear something any day now. These last few days have been exciting, but difficult. It is wearing us out an it is difficult to concentrate on work or other things. We are just so ready for the confirmation that our Audrey is officially on her way! We know it is still going to happen it is just the waiting that is hard right now. Anyway, we hope to have news and pictures very soon!

We're Getting Closer!

Well, the latest batch of referrals was released last week.  For the third month in a row, referrals have come during the last week of the month, which is wonderfully predictable after years of never knowing when the latest batch would arrive.  As of the end of June, China has processed referrals through July 6, 2006 (again, our date is July 12, 2006).  If things continue in this way, I firmly believe that we'll be matched with our precious little girl when referrals are released (hopefully) at the end of this month.  How exciting! 

As is always the case when waiting, it seems that the wait becomes agonizingly longer and slower the closer you get to what you are waiting for.  The same is true in our case because this summer has gone by extremely slowly.  Being a teacher, this should be a true gift because summer usually flies by before I have a chance to enjoy it.  However, I would gladly speed this summer along if I could sooner see the face of our China girl!

Here is a portion of scripture that was shared with us by a dear friend.  It has been an encouragement and a reminder that God ALWAYS does what He says He will do.

“Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such things?  Who has ever seen things like this?  Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment?  Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.  Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD. “Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God.     --Isaiah 66:7-9

It’s Christmastime!!

Hey, this is Kyle. We don’t have any new news right now, but I thought I would post something that has been rolling around in my head the last couple of days! In case you did not know it really is not Christmastime right now, but in a way it is for us. Here is what I mean...

I have always loved Christmastime! I remember hours of looking at the Sears toy catalog as a child and dreaming about all the things I wanted. I just remember the great feeling of anticipation and excitement. Although it is somewhat different now as an adult I still get pretty excited starting about mid November each year! Just ask Paige, she will tell you! I love having the tree up, listening to Christmas music, & all the other things that go along with that magical time of year. As great as the time with family, getting and giving presents, and all that stuff is, I also enjoy the time before the holiday and all the anticipation that goes along with it.

How do you like our ultrasound?

I’m starting to feel that way again right now… we are in the season waiting for the day we go to China to get our little China girl and it’s really a nice time! As much as I can’t wait for the actual day we go get Audrey, I am also enjoying this season we are in. It is kind of like it was when Paige and I first started this process in 2005-06 when we were talking about it, making plans, buying baby stuff, etc. before we discovered this adoption process was going to take so long. It is nice to feel like we are in that season again! Please pray for both of us that we are able to enjoy this time of anticipation and just be able to take it all in!

Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. – Psalms 27:14

And we're blogging...

We have titled our blog "Our China Girl" because we have been waiting for a sweet baby girl from China for almost 5 years now.  When we started this faith journey, we never dreamed we would have to wait so long before becoming parents.  However, God has been in this every step of the way, and we trust that His timing for everything is perfect.  We've always known that we are not waiting for any baby, but rather THE baby He has ordained to be part of our family.  In this revelation (and in Him) we have found the strength to press on.

We've also grabbed hold of a word that God spoke to us several months ago that He was putting an anointing of acceleration on certain processes.  Since this has most definitely been a process, we took that word for us and believed it.  In recent months, we have begun to see that acceleration manifest in our adoption.  China has begun processing referrals (matches) once a month again (instead of every 6 or 7 weeks), and they have been processing more referrals lately.  In short, we are 12 calendar days away from receiving a referral ourselves.  If China continues matching as they have been, it's very possible we will receive a referral this summer and travel in the fall!

If you are reading this blog, you are most likely one of the faithful family members or friends who has prayed through this process right along with us.  We want to take this opportunity to say a huge THANK YOU!  We could never express in words how much we appreciate your love and faithfulness.  We pray THE BLESSING over you as you stand in faith for whatever breakthrough you are believing to manifest in your own life.