Saturday, May 31, 2008

Prayers needed

Sunday is the craft fair and I have to work, Bill is feeling puny with allergies and Acer is feeling grumpy probably for the same reason.
Prayers of strength, healing and patience for Bill and healing and co-operation for Acer. They'll be there for quite a while and while Acer will happily go up and down stairs for hours, he will probably get bored.
Also, please pray that people BUY!
We need to bring Little Miss home!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Acer's picture going in contest

We had our pictures taken earlier this year thru the Celebrating Adoption (link on side bar) program that our photographer, Once Upon a Time Photography (link on side bar) participates in. Tonight she sent me the following note in an email.

I am entering a photo contest and wanted to know if I could use Acer picture that I used on my newsletter. ... Anyways I have several others I am entering and wanted to ask permission to put Acers in the mix.

It is a really good picture of Acer, if you want to see it, click onto her site & then go to galleries and then Children. he's on the second page, left column.

Makes him look so quiet and angelic. (Hah!)
Heather BT

PRE-APPROVAL

Today we received notice from our agency that we have pre-approval to adopt He Chun Bin, our darling little girl. I think this means we can now post pictures, but I'm going to double check first. I also think this means we can send a package, will be checking on that too.

Here's the Official verbage
The application of WAB and HABT for adoption of He Chun Bin from Hefei Children's Welfare Institue, Anhui of Anhui province that you submitted was received. It is hereby advised that with a review of the basic family situation and the Rehabilitation and Nurture Plan for the Child, the China Centre of Adoption Affairs agrees to handle and process the case as an adoption of a special-need child after the application file arrives (deadline X that day inclusive)
China Centre of Adoption Affairs

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Many beaded bookmarks!

Last night my friends Kristen and Vicki came over just to help me get ready for Sunday's craft show in Bill's Library's parking lot. They worked with me to make up about another hundred or so items for sale. I was glad for their help because they made combinations of things I wouldn't have thought of, so we should appeal to more people.

Also, the knitting club has added another item to their list of items they're selling, cat toys. Yes, somehow from milk bottle caps they've made them and tested them on real cats and have gotten good reviews.

I'll be making more myself tomorrow and on Saturday night, Bill and James will be making cookies and Acer will be 'helping' wherever he can ;)

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Update from someone who's seen Chun Bin

Howdy!
My friend Velletta is over in China right now adopting from CB's foster home. She actaully met and talked to Little Miss in person. She took time out of her busy days to drop me this line (she know's I've been wondering what size she was and whether she was a doll baby girl)

I promise a fuller report late, but CB is adorable! Her English is not as good as Jenna and Rosanna's but I think you won't have a lot of trouble communicating in person. I was able to understand her. She is a little smaller than LuLu, and I think a size 6 or 6X would fit her well. Maybe even a size 4 or 5 in pants (at least at the waist). A 7/8 shirt and dress fits Jenna well, but a size 8 pants literally slide off. We are going shopping for shorts and pants today. I think CB would like dolls too. You are going to have a blast with her.

Can't Wait!

Heather

Friday, May 23, 2008

LOI has been sent!

Okay, now a new clock starts ticking.
We have three months from yesterday to submit our dossier to be able to adopt Little Miss.
This should be no problem time wise, how ever should be's rarely are, so please keep us in your prayers.
Also, Please pray for our booth at the upcoming Independence Twp Library parking lot craft fair. The Library's knitting group is knitting facecloths, bibs, and maybe hats (?) and they're letting us sell stuff too. We have our Bookmarks, jewelery from the Diggins' and we'll be selling some of Unca James' delicious oatmeal, walnut, chocolate chip cookies. Yes, He bakes all that into one cookie of goodness. Prayers that people are inspired to buy and donate. we need to bring Little Miss Home!
Heather

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Revelation

Today I figure out something pretty dern incredible to me. There was a reason for the delay in getting Little Miss' paperwork. Yes, it was indeed according to God's plan. If we had gotten her paperwork when we first asked for it, we wouldn't have had any way to get it done in the three month time limit. Our Immigration paperwork alone will take that long. So we have this delay, which makes us fret and wonder, and then when we do get her paperwork, it should give us just enough time to finish our dossier within the time limit. Once again God is Good!

Oh yes, we're not allowed to post pictures, but if you google Bethel Chun Bin you'll find pictures of an eight year old blind girl who should be coming to a home near us this year ;). These aren't posted on our website, they're on other sites completely so you can check them out.

Monday, May 19, 2008

BIG NEWS!

WE HAVE LITTLE MISS' PAPERWORK!!
About 11:30 this morning I received a call from Tina, our adoption agent at CHI, she said that the CCAA had given her paperwork to CHI. This is super news, we don't have to vie with other agencies for her like we thought we'd have to when they first said they were putting her on the multi agency list. Thank heavens that they changed their minds. I am walking on air. Bill says I was pretty dern incoherent when I called him to tell him.
Can't imagine why.
Heather BT

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Baba's Sweatshirt



'Acer' got Bill a new hoody. Here he is modeling it for Bill so Bill could see what he got. Acer and Bill went off to church band practice right after; he pulled the hood up and we called him Obi Wan Acer.

Acer Cooking



The day after Easter, Acer had another cooking lesson, one he really enjoyed. We made drop bisquits and the mixing, grabbing handfuls of dough and then dropping them onto the pan were really up Acer's alley. I love the fact that you can still see the squeeze marks even after they baked. We had delicious blueberry pie filling thanks to Bill's mom sending it home with us, so we had pseudo blueberry shortcakes. Yum and Fun, how much better can it get?

Acer's Interesting Hangouts


Sometimes, I'm just not sure where I'll find Acer.
Picture one, Acer has climbed into a computer box. He lets us know he's hiding by saying 'Oh No, where's Acer?" Then we have to track him down. Sometimes he 'hides' by putting my robe, that I'm wearing, over his head and saying it. It's not hard to track him down then ;)
Picture two Acer is sitting on/in Rugby's food bowl. Yes, really I do have a concrete moose birdbath in my kitchen. Rugby likes it because he doesn't have to bend down to eat; despite the fact that we have two dogs and there are two bowls to the birdbath/dogfeeder Lobelia doesn't eat out of it at all. She has to eat in another room, she used to require we feed her on a different floor, but now we've progressed a little.

Acer and Cane - Video



Here we are with Acer's first trip around the block with the cane a couple weeks ago. Acer seems far more interested in using it for whatever he can think of instead of how it should be, but he is improving.

Acer and Kiera At the Park Again!


Our first park get together with friend Kiera and her Dad Mark Two weeks ago. Kiera's gotcha day is the day after ours and she's nine whole days older than Acer. We got together fairly regularly last summer with Kiera and Mom Kristen so we're glad to start the fun again this year. Both kids are fairly comfortable with both parents so at one point, I was pushing Kiera on the swing and Mark was listening to Acer bang on the metal railing with a stick.
Aren't they just a too too cute couple of kids?

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A FAMILY FOR ONE YEAR - TODAY!

Wow, a whole year with Acer.
Seems so hard to believe, from the days when he wouldn't sleep unless he was up on our shoulders to the six months of nights sleeping with his wiggly self in the bed with us to now when we're back in our bed and he's in his bed across the hall.
From the begining when he spoke three precious words in English, 'I love you' to now where he speaks in complex sentences.
Some people think we're doing this for some sort of obscure good charitable purpose, we get a lot of God Bless you's from people. The truth is, we are simply doing this to to be a family with children; and God did bless us, he blesses us every day with our little three foot blessing of Joy - Acer. He gives us so much love we know we're blessed every day of the past year.
Heather BT

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Humbling - Continued

I know that I promised this many days ago, but I was struggling putting it all into words, and so I took a little long, and I left you in suspense, but I appreciate all the patience.
B


I will admit, the idea of going through the second adoption was daunting to think about when Heather approached me with the idea of Little Miss. As you all probably guessed, it was in regards to whether or not we could pay for another process. I asked her if she thought we could afford it, and she said that we would have to trust God to provide, if He felt that we should do it. I had just changed jobs, and H was still on layoff, so I had to make that choice. Well, if you have read this far, you know the choice I made. :) We have been going along, selling our bookmarks and other things, and at every turn I have been seeing that the choice I made to “lglG” (let go & let God) provide was the wise one. As you have read before, some of the costs of this process have been reduced, like the home study, and some of the paperwork is exactly the same, so it is slightly easier.

But.

What has me really humbled, have been the ways that He has provided for the actual monies that we are putting out to bring LM home.

To start, there have been the unbelievable sales figures of our bookmarks. We (H mostly) has been making and selling (ok, H is making, we both are selling) bookmarks that were designed and created by her. They are selling in numbers that I couldn’t have predicted. We have received donated items to sell in our store from one of the other families that we went to China with the first time, and those are selling pretty well as well.

However, the largest outpouring of His Love has been in the other people around me. Let me tell you about a couple of things that happened recently. There is a group at my work that comes in twice a month to knit and chit-chat. This group is made up of people I work with, and others who come in for the company and the discussions. They recently came to me to ask if they could knit and sell washcloths, the proceeds to be used as a fund for the adoption. As a kicker to this, the Library where I work is having a parking lot sale at the end of the month of May, and the organizers of the sale have donated 2 parking spaces for the group to sell their facecloths and for us to sell bookmarks, or anything else that we want to sell. I know that I didn’t ask for, or deserve, this blessing, but they found it in their hearts to do this for LM.

This was humbling enough, but there IS more.

I was in my office, and an envelope was given to me. I was told that it was sent anonymously, and that it was for the adoption. I was thankful at the time, and decided that I would open it when I was on my way home from work that day. I probably should have waited till I got home, for when I opened it, there was cash in the envelope enough to pay for the home study update, the 1 year update for Acer, with a little bit left over. I have never felt so blessed and humbled in all of my life. Here was something from someone that I don’t necessarily even know, and they had given me the faith to continue. I was starting to get concerned about that particular outlay of money when we did it, and here it was, provided by God, directly to us. That doesn’t even take into account all the donations that people have given over the last several months, those are reminders of the fact that we are doing the right thing in trying to bring LM home.