Weekly Update

I heard from Leah yesterday. She had gotten the revisions from Jaime at CCAI and had a few questions for us. I hope I have gotten everything she needs, so it can be finished on Monday.

Special Thanks

I wanted to say a special thank you to Nanna and Poppie and Mitch and Carissa.

A few weeks ago Kevin's parents came to Birmingham. They gave us two special books listed below.

Why I Chose You by Gregory E. Land - This book contains such neat pictures of transracial families. One of my favorite lines is "I chose you because I knew that without you in my life I would not be as happy as I am now." Although our baby girl is not with us yet, she has already made me so happy.

Our Chosen Child by Judith Levy - This is a life memory book. It allows us to document our family tree, things about us, our adoption journey, and our baby's growing up.

It is so neat how God brings new people into your life at just the right time. Mitch and Carissa are special friends that can understand what we are going through. They gave us the below book. Thanks so much for your support and advice as we go through this adoption journey.

Shaoey and Dot by Mary Beth & Steven Curtis Chapman - This is a beautifully illustrated book about Shaoey, an Asian baby, and Dot, a special ladybug friend. Dot finds Shaoey and travels with her as she is found in the village, taken to the place where mommies and daddies come to find special babies, meets her new mommy, and travels to the place they will call home. This is based on The Chapman's story to get their daughter Shaohannah (Shaoey, for short) from Changsha, Hunan, China.

Thank you for the books. I know our baby girl will love these stories as much as I will enjoy reading them to her.

Home Study Update

Good news. I spoke with Leah today. She has received comments from the first reviewer. She had a few additional questions for us. She is going to address those comments and should send it to CCAI by the end of the week. I was so excited to hear this. Thanks for the prayers!

Snow Day 2010

It is a rare occasion to have a snow day in Alabama, but Friday we received 3 1/2 inches of snow. Our daughter is lucky to have a dad that is a kid-at-heart. As soon as Kevin got home from work, he immediately changed clothes to go outside to play. I hated for him to have to play alone, so I joined him. It was a lot of fun. Tanner, our dog, loves the snow. So I have posted some pictures below from our Snow Day.

Authentication Clarified

I have received many questions about my previous post, so let me explain.

We will send a dossier to China. This dossier contains a number of documents listed below. These documents have to go through a sealing process which is outlined below.

Dossier Documents:
Adoption Petition
Birth Certificates
Marriage Certificates
Employment Letters
Financial Statement
Physical Exam forms
Police Reports
Home Study
I797C


Sealing Process:
1. Notarization - The above documents have to be notarized.
2. Certification - The above documents have to go to the County Clerk for them to certify the notary. Then the documents go to the Secretary of State for their certification of the notary.
3. Authentication - The above documents go to the US Chinese Consulate for authentication. This is the blue seal that is attached.

There are a few documents that have a six month expiration date (Marriage Certificate, Physical Exam forms, and Police Reports). We are approaching that time marker, so to avoid having to redo these documents I went ahead and sent them for authentication. This is what we received.

We are waiting to have the home study and I797C form completed. These are the only documents that have yet to be completed to begin the sealing process. Once these forms are received they will go through the same notarization, certification, and authentication steps. Then we will have all the documents compiled for our dossier.

Documents Authenticated

I was surprised when I checked the mail last night to find we had received the package with our documents from the Chinese Consulate. There is a nice blue seal (see picture below) on the back of our documents. A lot of work for such little things.



As a church, we have been reading through Psalms. The below scriptures have meant a lot to me over the last few weeks.

Ps. 20:4,7
May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Ps. 21:2
You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips.

Ps. 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Home Study Update

Leah called Friday with a few additional questions. She told me she was emailing the draft for first review on Friday. She did not mention how long that would take, but that she hoped everything we be completed by early March. Please pray that there aren't any issues with the home study and that it goes through the review process quickly.

Authentication of Documents

I have gotten the copies made of all our documents. I am only authenticated those documents that are near expiration (police reports, marriage certificate, physical exam forms). I will authenticate the remaining documents when I receive the last documents for our dossier. Kevin got the money order, so I am ready to put the documents in the mail tomorrow. Yea!

I sent Chaunda at CCAI the completed I800A form today and she emailed me that is looked great. So that is ready to go when the home study is sent to Alabama.

I will try to give Leah a call/email tomorrow to see how the home study is coming along. We have not received any questions from her.