Kuddos to Dear Hubby!

I have to give kuddos and hugs to my Dear Hubby, Tim. Our washing machine broke about 2 weeks ago and I have had to laundry at my Mom's house on my days off work. I was glad to have her just a few houses down and do laundry at her house, but I needed to be able to do it at home. Tim and I considered buying a used washer or new, but did not wnat to have the extra expense. Tim started trouble shooting the washer and took it apart and to his suprise found a sock stuck in the motor or some important part. So he took the sock out (now we know the truth...it's the washer that eats all the missing socks!) and ordered a pump for the washer. As soon as the pump came he stayed up all night after coming home from work and fixed my washer! Yea!!! Now, I don't have an excuse not to do the laundry. Now my Hubby does not have the excuse that he cannot fix things when I need a handy man. He did a great job fixing my washing machine. I am so proud of my man. Awwwwe!

This is a recent picture of us at church. Jordyn loves going to church and loves her Bible class. Anna looks so pretty and she is such a lovely person. Anna has a strong relationship with God and I am so proud of her. She is a good influence on her friends and her little sisters and brother. Anna is very studious and has Bible studies with her friends. She lad 2 of her friends to know the Lord. I pray that she stays inocent and sweet.

Today we visited Dr. Dibs at Children's Hospital to have her review You Yu Jailynn's medical report from China. Dr. Dibs specializes in adoption medicine and has adopted a little girl from China herself. She was wonderful in explaining all the medical report to me and Tim. According to her review Jailynn's health lookd good and she is on target for her milestones and age appropriate development. There are a couple of concerns but we will not know anything for certain until we see her. I am glad we went because it just answered some unknown questions for me and makes everything seem more real. I am anxious to bring her home. Dr. Dibs was wonderful and I wish I had known about her for Jordyn. She is also going to write prescriptions for our trip to China. Well, that is all the news today.

Today was my Birthday. Overall it was a good day. Anna made me brownies and let me take a much needed nap today. She cleaned the kitchen for me and watched the kids. What a sweet daughter. That simple gesture made my day. My mother cooked supper for us the night before and made me a cheesecake. So much for my dieting this week!! My Dear Husband plans to take me out to dinner for a date. It will be nice to go out together alone. We have not been out on a date in a long time. My family is so sweet and my greatest gift.

My China Dolls...I Love this picture because it makes me think about what it will be like when we finally have Jailynn home with us. We will have two China Princesses running around! How much fun will that be?? The reality that we are going to China to bring Jailynn home is beginning to set in. At first it seemed unreal or like a dream and I was focused on the paper chase. Now, I am thinking more and more about meeting her, the reunion for both girls, and seeing them together. I am starting to feel the anticipation and excitement of bring her home. I am starting to get things together for her and get the room ready. She will share a room with Jordyn and Amanda. I am debating if I want to get bunk beds and a twin bed or have three twin beds in the room. Space is a little limited now that there will be three dressers as well. Hmmm....decisions...decisions. I bought another dresser this weekend for her clothes. I also happened upon the best garage sell ever and bought the cutest dresses and clothes for Jailynn. They are name brands from The Children's Place, Gymboree, and Baby Gap. Jordyn is so excited as the time is getting closer to bringing Jailynn home.

Yes...I admit it...my girls are spoiled! We ended up havinig not one but two birthday paries that week. My plan was to have the girls parties together to save money and time. A great idea as far as I was concerned. Not so for Amanda. She was happy at the chuckie cheese party but I learned later that she wanted her own party at the skating rink. I did not know this at the time so when I found out how she felt I decided to give her a special party at the skating rink. She was very happy and felt that she had the party she wanted. Amanda and Jordyn had a great time and they learned to skate. Jordyn had never been skating before so it was a new experience for her. She caught on quickly and Amanda was happy to skate with the support thing and play games.

This is a slide of Amanda's and Jordyn's birthday party at Chuckie Cheese. We had so much fun! Jordyn turned 9 yrs old and Amanda turned 10 year s old. Jordyn loved all her gifts espescialy her baby doll and panda bears. Amanda really loved her horse. She loves anything to do with horses. Andrea (my sister) was staying with us at the time for Hurricaine Ike. So she came to the birtday party with her two boys Elijah and Caleb. Nanna came with all her kids Micheal, Jeremy, Elizabeth, Cameron, and Justin. Everyone had a fun time playing games, eating cupcakes and pizza, and dancing with Chuckie.

We are finally DTC!!! (Dossier to China!) Hooray!

This means that our documents are on their way to China and we are closer to bringing Jailynn home. I am relived that we have made it over this hurdle. It has been a long time coming to get our paper work completed. Now, we wait for our Dossier to get logged in and for our LOA (Letter of Acceptance). After the LOA we will get our Travel Approval. This is the count down to China time. This process can take anywhere from 2.5-5 months depending on how quickly our Dossier is processed. I would love to bring Jailynn home by Christmas, but I am not sure if that will happen. It could be January or February before we travel. Next, we need to raise money to bring little Jailynn home. We have a portion of our travel money saved up but we still need at least 10,000 more to cove airfare, hotels, travel fees, and legal fees. The biggest expense is airfare. The children want to come with us again and it is very important that Jordyn travels with us. We are a close family so it would be very difficult and hard to leave them home for 2 weeks. Of course, the most important focus is to bring Jailynn home no matter what and that is my goal. I hope we can all go together and experience it together the way we did with Jordyn. It really bonded us all closer together, but we will have to wait and see. SO far my plans for fundraising involves working extra at a staffing agency and maybe have a bake sale in November. I am still looking for fundraising ideas. I can't wait to see Jailynn reunited with her forever sister Jordyn and her forever family.