May Adoption Update

China matched referrals for dates June 21-30, 2006.  10 days is a LOT considering they were only doing 3 or 4 days a month for awhile.  I sure hope this trend keeps up and they continue to move this quickly!  IF, and I say IF very loosely, they keep this up, we could receive a referral as early as January 2012.  That is UNREAL to me :)  If this were a pregnancy in my womb, then I would probably be just taking a pregnancy test and getting a "+" result.  8 more months to go!

Fundraiser #1

We had our first "official" fundraiser this weekend.  Our neighborhood was having a yard sale so it seemed like the perfect time to get all of our "treasures" out to sell.  We had several families donate some of their things as well as friends stop by to shop (and donate)!  We were a little nervous about the weather so we managed to fit everything under our carport and in our garage.  Other than a few short...very short... showers the weather was perfect.  We know God was watching over us because we had several people stop by to say that in town (probably 2 or 3 miles away) it was raining so hard that they had to pull over off the road until it passed.  I'll soon post a picture of our "no named art project" to show you how quickly those squares are filling in. We've still got a garage of goodies if anyone needs any home decor, clothes or toys....I'll give you a good deal ;)

Sickness

We are in a season of sickness around here.  As absolutely frustrating as it is to have my babies sick, I have so much to be thankful for.  Don't get me wrong....I am SO NOT THANKFUL for the stomach bug, strep, fevers, ear infections....but I am so, so thankful for God placing me in a place where I can make one phone call, pull out one little plastic card and be in to see a doctor in a few short hours.  Whenever my girls are sick...you know the kind of sick where they are absolutely miserable with pain and burning with fever????  I always think "what if I lived in some mud hut in the middle of nowhere with no doctor around for hundreds of miles"?  I imagine that someone who actually lives in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere has a sick child at the same time.  Then I go to the doctor and they are left, alone, to do the best that they can.  As a mother, I-just-cannot-imagine!!!!  I try to tell M1 when she's sick that we are so lucky to have doctors and medicine and that her baby sister won't have this at the beginning.  It makes her really, really want to bring her sister home!  I hope one day Doug and I can go on a medical mission trip...actually, we hope to spend our retirement years in the mission field.  I hope I can just help ONE of those momma's who needs help for their sick baby!

May Update

The CCAA (well, it's not really called this anymore, but I can't remember the new title....bear with me) has matched referrals for LID's June 16-20, 2006. They only matched 5 days this month which is a little disappointing, but, they matched sooner than we were expecting, so that's exciting! Hopefully, they will make 8 more matches this year. Hopefully, they will make a match in Dec. before 2012. If that's the case, then we will DEFINITELY be in for 2012! They will hopefully make it through the rest of June and all of July by 2012. Then, we watch August tick away and then into September to the 19th!!!! We're working on some fundraising ideas to help with some of the costs that have recently gone up.  Unfortunately, waiting for 4 1/2 years has caused us to pay for many, many updates that we weren't expecting.  We've also decided to take M1 with us so we have extra travel costs.  We've decided that this will be a once in a lifetime trip and bonding experience for her so we couldn't pass it up!  As frustrating as this wait time is, we're so enjoying this time as a family of 4!