Slowly but surely!!

We are at the end of the wait to bring Faith home and life has been busy...
-Owen started Kindergarten and Cade started 2K two days a week. They both LOVE school and Brian and I couldn't be happier.
-Cade celebrated his 3rd Birthday! We enjoyed spending time with our friends and families during the crazy festivities. Ashley and Gaines were able to spend the weekend with us.
-Brian and I have started teaching a Young Married class. Brian is doing an awesome job and the couples are amazing.
-We are taking a class on Sunday nights, Growing Kids God's Way, so we should be great parents in a couple of weeks.
-We are enjoying the wonderful outdoors fishing, cooking out and 'camping'. Owen and Brian actually slept all night in the wild wilderness aka backyard. Which leads me to... allergies. Owen asked the other day, "Mom, why do we have to have allergies?". Good question! Lately they have made all of us sick but we have accepted that as part of life and are learning to manage.
-I have hit major nesting! Trying to finish projects that I have wanted to do. One of which is the nursery...the nursery is a slow work in progress!! I finally ordered a few things today so hopefully I will have pictures to post in a few weeks.

Faith, this is a glimpse into our everyday life as we are waiting to bring you home. We are weeding out our schedules and enjoying time with our family and friends. Can't wait for our days to revolve around you.

Update of the paperwork part of the adoption: A couple of weeks ago, we received a letter from Immigration letting us know they received our paperwork on August 23rd and that they were processing it. Monday, the 12th, we received our official approval, the I-800, from Immigration. Now, we are waiting on the NVC letter to come in the mail and once we received that we will scan it to our China Coordinator for her to send to China so that they can take our paperwork to the Embassy. I sent an email tonight inquiring about our NVC letter since our CC said we should have it by now. So, hopefully we will get a reply soon. She explained all of the little steps to follow and feels we should be in China late October. I am getting excited thinking that we could meet our baby girl next month however trying to stay grounded...days can turn into weeks in adoptions.

After we received our LOA we partnered with the grandparents to send Faith another care package. I wanted to send a Forever Family Celebration Cake so we used a service in China called Ladybugs n Love. They have been great to work with. We sent a cake, books, clothes, blanket and a letter. Faith should have received the package Friday Sept. 2nd or Saturday the 3rd. Most orphanages will send Ladybugs n Love pictures of your child celebrating and enjoying the cake with her friends. It usually takes 2-3 weeks so hopefully we will hear something soon. I really, really, really want to see some more pictures of Faith! I would love to see a smile, just to know she is happy.