Yard Sale Pictures

Here are a few pictures of the Yard Sale .....


This is how my house looked for about a month before - I was very HAPPY to have the yard sale - everyones generosity with donations was amazing though - Thank you so much.

The help of some good friends :)

Fears

Our adoption agency sent a letter from our cardiologist today requesting our paperwork be expedited. Now just waiting to see what happens, things could move pretty fast.

Talking with the cardiologist again yesterday reminded me of how fragile and serious a state lily's health may be. There are so many unknowns. The only thing I do know is she is ours, and with God's strength we will be able to face whatever is in her and ours future.

I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say a little fear didn't creep into my heart when I spoke with the cardiologist yesterday, all the what ifs. When I shared this with Chris he reassured me that it doesn't matter about the what ifs. It doesn't matter if her future is to be long or short (but man do we pray for it to be long), what matters is she is the daughter God has given us she will no longer be an orphan, our family will be more complete, and we will love her with all we have. She has a destiny and no matter what it is we are now a part of it. Gosh do I love this man.

You see like with a lot of adoptions, I (the wife) first initiated the idea of adopting again. At first he was hesitant, life was good, Mia was amazing, what if this time it is harder. Once he knew this was what we were supposed to do(which didn't take long :) ) we discussed what we felt we could handle as far as a special needs adoption. He again was more unsure than me about what degree of physical need we could handle, which I totally respected it's a huge thing to take on, and both parents MUST be in full agreement. So we started the process, we received a couple of referrals of beautiful children with less serious physical needs, but didn't accept them (a heart wrenching experience) as we just knew they weren't ours. Then when Lily's referral came, with the seriousness of her condition, he barely blinked -I would even have to say he was for a split second more sure than me that she was OUR lily. He has remained certain through out this process he has been my rock, and I can not tell you how lucky I feel that I get to discover this journey of life with him beside me.

The road to adoption is not easy, it is full of many unknowns, but the rewards are immeasurable. The orphan crisis in the world is an epidemic, if you have questions about adoption, please ask me. If you know adoption is not for you, but want to help in some way, I can point you in the right direction.

One More Step Closer

We are getting closer.

We arrived home from our family camping trip yesterday to find the last document we have been waiting for sitting in our mailbox. It was a letter stating that our immigration approval had been sent to the US Consulate in China :)!!!!

What next??

Now we wait for the US consulate to issue our Article 5, that then gets sent to the Chinese Center for Adoption in Beijing, and they then issue our travel approval (TA). Once we have that we buy tickets and go. Usually you travel with the next group that is going from your adoption agency, we know America World has a group going at the beginning of July and one at the end. If we need to travel outside of those dates we will use an independant company. This is what we did for Mia's adoption. There are pros and cons to both, either is fine with me, I just want to go and get my girl. Each of these steps usually takes about 2 weeks, but they are requesting for them to be expedited so who knows.

It is all becoming very real. We will very soon be in China holding Lily. Mia is SO excited to see her sister, she is very concerned about us having baby food, diapers and bottles for her. I guess we need to go shopping.

Thanks again for all your love, support and prayers, we know it is all in God's hands, our lives are about to change again, and we can't wait.

So Excited

I just got a call from our adoption agency, to say that they have a team going on a mission trip to China, and they are going to be visiting Lily's orphanage. They will actually be there this weekend. One of the ladies has been specifically assigned to visit Lily, she will take pictures for us, and give her lots of hugs and love. Oh I wish it was me, but this is the next best thing.

This was great news today, my heart has really been aching for my baby girl today.

Please God don't let it be to much longer, this mommas heart is being stretched.

We Did It !!!!

I am so excited to announce our yard sale was a HUGE success - we raised a grand total of

$2280

We still have a few larger items which we will sell on craigslist so the total will probably be a little higher. It was a lot of work, very hot, but very worth it.

Thank you again to all our wonderful family, and friends that donated items, prayed for us, and supported us.

A huge thank you to those that helped us on Saturday, Peggy, Sara, Kym, Barry and Adeye (she came at 5:30am and left at 4:30pm) - I don't know what we would have done without you.

It meant the world to us to see friends come by and support us, shop, and give so generously - it truly touched our hearts.

The rain held off until just after we packed up all the remaining items :).

Now that all the yard sale stuff is out of my house, I'm feeling the urge to clean, sort, and get the kids rooms ready for Lily - Benjamin is moving to his own room, and we need to make Mia's room, Lily and Mia's room, something miss Mia is very excited about.

FUND RAISING YARD SALE

Saturday June 12th

8am-3pm

Fund Raising Yard Sale

Rain or Shine

If you live in the Richmond area

come on out and see us

Mayflower Drive, 23235

Update on Lily : We received our USA immigration approval on Monday to adopt Lily, she has been approved to become a US citizen. Our baby girl is coming home soon. Please spread the word about our yard sale.

For those of you who are new to my blog and don't know about Lily. We are adopting a 2yo girl from China, who has a serious heart defect. She is very weak and needs surgury soon. We are hoping and praying to go in July and bring her home.

Rain Date or Not

So all week they forcasted rain for last Saturday. We waited until Thursday night to decide we had better reschedule the yard sale. It was a hard decision, as thanks to the generosity of friends and family our house is over run with stuff. As you can imagine I was pretty excited about finally getting everything out of the house.

Well Saturday morning arrived - Blue Sky and Sunshine - could the weather man be more wrong????

Benjamin said "I told you mom we should of just had it and trusted God" ummm from the mouth of babes.

Anyway on the bright side - I was completely exhausted last week, so an unexpected free Saturday was a blessing, plus we have more time to organize, as items are still arriving - Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

I can just feel Lily getting closer - I worked on travel documents today, visa's, flights etc. No date yet, but it's getting close.

So our yard sale is now JUNE 12th - RAIN or SHINE (it had better NOT rain :) )