Preston's last tournament

Preston wrestled his last tournament of the season early in February. It was the Bear Creek tournament, the one his club hosted, so we made an exception to our "no tournaments on Sunday" rule and let him participate. We were sad to find out, once the season had started, that every Sunday had a tournament. Wrestling is definitely a sport with a big time and money commitment and we weren't quite prepared for that. Preston is really good at wrestling, he has some natural talent, but the weekly tournaments on Sundays (there were a few on Saturday) and the money required to really invest in improving are discouraging.

Preston did well in his final tournament. He placed 4th out of 8, but he never got pinned, and he got 2 pins!

 

We are really proud of how well Preston did in wrestling this year. It was a long season (October-February) and he hung in there till the end! He improved a lot and he's a fighter for sure, he doesn't give up when he's on his back and he's not afraid of a challenge! Way to go, buddy!

Fully funded!

Praise God, He has provided every last penny that we need to complete this adoption and bring Kailin home!! Some friends of ours, who have one adopted son and have a HUGE heart for adoption, gave us the final amount we need to pay all remaining fees and pay for all travel expenses. It was an incredible blessing, so much generosity from people we know love God, love us and love adoption. We are blessed beyond words, thank you just doesn't seem adequate, yet that's all we can say.

After we received their call this morning and let the fact that we are fully funded settle on our hearts and minds, we reflected on all the ways God has provided for all our needs on this adoption journey. We have received two grants, countless sacrificial and generous gifts from family, friends and complete strangers, more fundraisers than I care to count, and opportunities for additional income through Chris' work and side jobs for me. We can no doubt say that God has been with us all the way and He has shown Himself strong on our behalf.

I'm reminded of this verse that I wrote about in one of my first adoption blog posts:

2 Chronicles 16:9: For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.

 
We knew when we started our adoption that if God didn't come through, there was no way we would be able to complete it. We struggled for months weighing the faith it would take to trust God with the financial aspect and the reality that we might fail if God didn't provide. Ultimately (obviously) we took the step of faith anyway, knowing that God was asking us to trust Him and start our adoption process. It was not an easy step to take, but I'm so glad that God gave us grace to trust Him more because I have learned to lean on and trust in God more in these last three years than I have in my whole life.

I remember telling God that I wanted to give Him all the glory for every little thing in this adoption, that it would only be because of Him if this thing was a success! TO GOD BE THE GLORY, GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE!!!! This verse became one of the verses I clung to from early on in our adoption:

Psalm 27:13: I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

So......we are officially no longer fundraising!!!!!!! There were days it felt like I would never type that sentence! Now, we can't wait for God to use us to be a blessing to others in this area, just as so many have blessed us.

We have decided to write every person's name who has supported us with any amount at any time in our adoption process on Kailin's bag. Originally we intended it just for a specific fundraiser, but we feel like this would better represent not just the gifts from the last few months, but from the whole 3+ years, which are all a part of our adoption story. (don't mind the messy bed in the background - that's our dumping grounds for things we are bringing to China but haven't packed yet!)

 

 

As I stated above, thank you just doesn't seem like enough. We have been humbled, driven to our knees in gratitude and strengthened in our faith through the generosity of so many people, sometimes people we don't even know. Though we may never be able to convey exactly how we feel in words, know that we have thanked God for each and every one of you and we will remember your generosity and sacrifice always.

 

Now, let's get travel approval and bring Kailin home!!!!
 

7:47 on a Wednesday night

Couldn't find Preston. Went looking for him. Found him. Fast asleep.

Chris' birthday

My main man had his birthday on Friday and we had a fun time celebrating him as a family.

Isn't he handsome? Lookin' good for 35!!

I had planned on using one of our gift cards from Christmas and going out on a date with him, but Ashten ended up having her cheer camp performance that night, so we did family stuff and went and watched her instead. It was really fun and I'm glad we had the time together as a family!

After school, Chris came home and we opened his presents. We got him a new adoption t-shirt and a new coat (the one he had was HUGE - from before we lost any weight!). Then we went to dinner at a pizza place near our house. After that, we went to the basketball game at Dakota Ridge and watched Ashten cheer! She did such a great job on the dance they taught them and had fun cheering with the cheerleaders in the 2nd half!

Then we came home and had some birthday cheesecake. I tried a new recipe for Reese's cheesecake - a combo of two of Chris' favorite desserts! It was a hit!

There were a lot of candles, the kitchen smelled a little smoky for a little while!

Every year I get to be married to Chris and celebrate his birthday with him is a huge blessing and I'm so grateful! Happy birthday sweetie!

Blog privacy

I have gone back and forth about this for quite a while now, and I feel like now might be the time to switch over and make my blog private. As our kids get older and we bring Kailin home, I think to protect all of their privacy, I need to make the blog private and control who reads it. If you would like to continue reading this blog (which I hope you want to!), please either comment on this post with your email address, send me an email or message me on FB so I can add you. 

I plan to be blogging daily from China, so now would be a good time to make sure you get on the reader list! I will leave it public for one more week and then on or around March 10th I will change it to private.

Thanks for going through this extra step for me!

2015 - our biggest year yet!

Chris and I have had some big years as a married couple:

But I think 2015 might top them all. This year we will:

• both turn 35
• finalize the adoption of our 5th child
• celebrated 15 years of marriage
• take our first trip just the two of us since our honeymoon - to China for 2 weeks!
• see our oldest start middle school and have 4 kids in school at once

Crazy, fun times! There's not a single person in life I'd rather take this ride with! Love ya, sweetie!

Hair salon

Ashten got out all her hair stuff the other day and had so much fun playing hair salon for an afternoon. Thankfully Preston was a good sport and the fact that he didn't have very much hair didn't deter her.

Such a cute little hairdresser, I'd totally go to her!

More patience needed

"It's just a waiting game at this point"

That's what our case worker said to us yesterday when we finished up our travel phone call with her. Encouraging, right? I feel like I've gotten pretty good at waiting, and I've told God so plenty lately, I think it's about time to GO!

Right now we are waiting on our Article 5 paperwork to be picked up from the consulate in China. Our pick-up date is scheduled for 2/26/15. The reason we are waiting a little longer for this step, which normally only takes 2 weeks, is that the Chinese government shuts down for one week for Chinese New Year, which is the 16th-20th.  After we get our Art 5 pick-up, our travel approval (TA) will be issued anywhere from 1-3 weeks after that.

After we get our travel approval, we will work with our case worker to schedule two appointments: our gotcha day appointment and our Consulate appointment (CA). Once those are scheduled, THEN we can book tickets and we will finalize our itinerary!  We will leave for China around 1-3 weeks after we receive our TA. Things will be moving fast after we get our TA, I'm really praying we receive it the first week of March.

So we're getting close, but not close enough for my liking. We got updated pictures of Kailin this week and oh man, she is so cute. I'm not going to go to all the trouble of putting hearts on her face and posting them on this blog, but if I see you in person, I will gladly show her off! She is totally adorable, and getting so big! She is still a tiny little peanut (about 18 month size), but she's grown up so much from when we first saw her picture almost 1 year ago.

Sleepy Sadie

When we first got Sadie, I longed for the day when she would get out of the puppy phase and just. calm. down. I think she may have swung too far the other way - haha! I kid, I love a dog that can just lay down and doesn't have to move every time someone else does. She does still love to play, go for walks or runs and anytime anyone is outside, she better be out there too or it's pity party time.

National Anthem

We were watching football the other day on TV and I look over and Logan, Preston and Ashten have all risen for the national anthem, with their hands over their hearts. So adorable!

Games, games and more games

Oh gosh, you should see the amount of games we play around here! Preston is the one who enjoys them the most and usually asks (daily) to play something with someone. Anyone! 

The favorites lately are Hero Quest (one of Chris' old game from his childhood), Bananagrams, Sequence, Stratego, Skip-Bo, Monopoly, Apples to Apples and on an on and on.  I try to introduce a new game every so often just so no one gets too bored playing the same game. But Preston would play the same game all the time if he could find someone to play with!

He almost always wins at Monopoly

Fanning himself with his 500's

Games at breakfast

Ashten loves to play the "big kid" games too