Hockey and Hairbows

Friday, December 10, 2010

Ms. Wang sent more pictures!!!

Ms. Wang sent more pictures from when she and her husband took Finley home for the weekend for the Autumn Moon Festival. They are a couple months old but such a treasure. Finley will love to see these pictures of her main caretakers when she is older.

I love seeing the street market and all the hustle and bustle!!

Mr. and Ms. Wang with Finley. I love having this picture!!

My beautiful girl!!!

So, we have confirmation that our file is at CCAA and we are now waiting for TA. Our amazingly phenomenal China Coordinator Sabrina said she thinks our TA will be send before Christmas and we will get it after Christmas which will get us travel mid January. We are hoping for early January but we will see! Moving along :)

We have a crazy weekend with a program at Church tonight, tomorrow night and Sunday. It is an awesome program called Bethlehem Marketplace where everything is transformed into the time of Jesus. All of us are involved (the boys are carpenter assistants and Kevin and I are making the food with my bother Brad-- Ill take picture) but tonight we have to leave the boys (their grandparents are coming and taking them home) and we have a big Christmas party to go to. Last night our great friends Chris and Lia took us to the Nokia Center in downtown LA (where the Emmy's are) for a big dinner event and a show. We saw the Rocketts Christmas program and it was amazing. Plus we had a massive buffet and open bar with all you can drink and all the concessions (candy and popcorn) you want. It was a wonderful night and we thank our pals for taking us!! So we have a crazy busy weekend but we are really looking forward to it!!

I had to throw this picture in. It was a lazy day a few weeks ago and the kids were watching movies all morning by the fire because it was cold and raining out. Mia was on the computer looking at pictures of Finley. It was so cute that I had to take a picture of it-- on my phone so the quality is poor but I had to post how cute it was!!!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Another random picture arrived this morning

** Update-- I forgot to mention that we had a size update as well for Finley. We asked for very accurate measurements with no clothes and no shoes so we can attempt to get shoes and clothes that fit. So here they are:

Height- 37 inches (30th%ile)

Weight- 31 pounds (50th %ile)

Foot- 5.7 inches (about a size 8 which is the same as Mia-- exactly)

Very happy to have exact measurements and this time she actually shrunk from the last measurements which I am sure she was measured and weighed with clothes. The dress she is wearing in the picture below that we sent her is a size 2T just to give perspective. I think she is going to be smaller than we have been thinking-- but the same as Mia so that will make sharing clothes easy :)

I have been communicating with a wonderful lady, Maggie, who will be our guide while in Shenyang (Finley's province). She has been instrumental in helping me get info on Finley as well as setting me up with the nanny who has been so wonderful!! Anyway, she responded to some questions I had this morning and asked if I had this picture of Finley-- which I did not!! It is from the time they took pictures of her when she got the last care package, but I never got this picture.

I also looked at her adorable feet and was surprised to see that she has her toenails painted!!! That is so darn cute and speaks to the amazing care Finley is receiving at her orphanage!! Look at those adorable little toes-- I'm so in love!!

To update you on where we are in the process, we are moving along very quickly!! Our paperwork will be picked up from the US Consulate in Guangzhou in a mere 12 hours and will be overnighted to China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) for the final travel approval. Waiting for the travel approval is the absolute last thing we have to wait for in this adoption. All CCAA does is check with the orphanage to make sure Finley is still healthy and available and as soon as the orphanage confirms her availability, CCAA issues our travel approval (TA). As soon as we get our TA, we are able to travel. Currently TA's are taking anywhere from 11 days to 4 weeks but the average is about 2 to 3 weeks which will give us a TA right around Christmas or the week after. We are looking at airline tickets leaving January 6!! That date may be pushed back a week depending on when we get our TA but we are looking at travel about 1 month from now!!!! HOLY COW!!!! I am soooooo excited!!!!!! We have been getting things together for travel and trying to get the key cold weather gear we need since the average temperature in Shenyang during the month of January is about 1 degree Fahrenheit!! WOW!!! So, since we are southern California wimps, I have been getting warm clothes to attempt to stay warm.

Anyway, that is where we are. We still have quite a bit of fundraising to do in order to be able to purchase the plane tickets which are looking to be around $5000 for Kev and I and Finley on the way home. They are about twice as much as we were expecting-- so please pray for the fundraising effort-- we are far from being where we need to be.

Big Hugs!!!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Ethan is growing up!!!

So far my experience with junior high boys is that they are slow to mature but there comes a time where it just seems to click. My main school as a psychologist is a junior high and I see it all the time where the boys just finally take things seriously. Some boys hit that stride in 7th grade, others in 8th and some never hit it till high school. Ethan has been a kid that has been slow to have things click. He is a great kid but just the responsibility issue has been our struggle. A number of weeks ago Ethan told us he wanted to be baptized. We were thrilled!! In our church kids are able to get baptized when they are ready. There is no magic age just when they are mature enough and want to make a public display of their faith. When Ethan spoke up and wanted to do this, we were just about as happy as can be. It really showed a level of maturity that we have been hoping for. Ethan has grown in his walk with the Lord. Being at a Christian school has been phenomenal for him and he just seems really focused on maintaining his walk with God. Here is his baptism this past Sunday at our church. Hard to hear ever thing but you can see most of it!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

We are so proud of Ethan and his commitment to the Lord. He is really maturing!!!

OK, so now the next level of maturity has come but we missed it -- uggg!!! Ethan has always done well in school but has realized he does not need to try at all and he can get all A's and B's. He has always been on honor roll at his old school but at Upland Christian Academy they only do honor roll for GPA's above 3.5. We looked at his grades a few weeks ago online and it did not look like he made the 3.5 so we did not attend the awards ceremony this morning. Well, come to find out from my dear friend Lia that Ethan had in fact made honor roll and we were not there to celebrate for him---- ugggggg-- totally bad mom and dad!!! I feel horrible but am just as happy as can be for him. Tonight we will celebrate. Here is the picture Lia took for me!

So my boy is finally maturing and really tuning into what he needs to do. I am so very proud of him. Now if I can divert him from the girls-- yikes--!!! He's at that age-- ugg!!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Thanksgiving

Tradition in our family is to travel to the Central Valley of California each Thanksgiving to visit my dads side of the family. We have been doing this for years and it is a tradition we love and look forward to each year. We have a ton of cousins and it's the one time a year we get to see each other. We only live 3 hours away from each other but with our busy lives it is just hard to get up there more often.

The central valley is beautiful and our family owns quite a bit of land up there. Each Thanksgiving we go to the land and pick pomegranates, shoot guns and take the hike to the Owen monument. The monument has been weathered heavily but still stands. We add new family member names each year (this year we had 2 births and of course we had to add Finley) but it was so weathered that none of the names were visible. So, we decided we would have a professional sign made and erected next year.

This is a picture of my parents with all the Owen grandchildren at the monument

My sweet girl! She loves running all over the place up there!!

I thought this was a cool picture with the rays of sun. My handsome hubby!!

My mom with the 3 girls-- 4 next year!!!

All the Owen grand kids on the monument

Taking a walk on the land. I love it there-- open, beautiful-- awwww!!!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

I800 Approval!!!!!

I forgot to post this as it has been a crazy busy week but on Tuesday 11-16 we got our I800 approval-- yaaaaaa!!!! What that basically means is that Finley has been approved to become a US Citizen upon arrival in the USA!! So, now our file is 2nd day aired to The National Visa Center (NVC) where they do something-- no one really knows but it takes about a week to 10 days for them to do this and then they send a cable to the US Consulate in Guangzhou that your file is coming. Our agency reps in China then hand delivers the file and some other papers to the Consulate and then we wait exactly 2 weeks. Once the 2 weeks pass, they pick up our Article 5 from the consulate and then they deliver the finalized papers to China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) where we then wait for our Travel Approval. Travel Approvals (TA) are taking about 2 weeks right now-- sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Once our TA comes we could literally be on a plane within a week to pick up Finley. We wont know when we travel until right before we leave but the way it is looking, we will probably be traveling right at the new year. For sure January and probably early January!!! We are sooo close to our beautiful little girl!! I cant wait!! Finley-- we are coming very soon!!!!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Spina Bifida

Many within the adoption community are scared of the words "SPINA BIFIDA". I know I was scared to death of the disability thinking children with spina bifida were in wheel chairs and were cognitively impaired. This preconceived notion could not be farther from the truth. When we completed our special needs check list that indicated the disabilities we were willing to take and those we were unwilling to take, spina bifida was defiantly a disability we were NOT willing to take. It scared me and I didn't really give it a second thought. Then, Finley found us. We didn't go looking for her-- instead through divine arrangement of circumstances, she was placed in our laps and it was so obviously God's leading that we knew she was our daughter-- EVEN WITH THE DIAGNOSIS OF SPINA BIFIDA!!! Finley is about the best case scenario of a child with spina bifida but there are things that could come up in the future that may require action on our part and even possibly surgery. We knew Finley was our daughter and even if she was affected more with her special need, we would have dealt with is-- she was our daughter God had given us!!!

Anyway, this is a video explaining spina bifida and what life is like living with this special need. The first mom on the video is a mom who gave me lots of info when we first found Finley and she made me realize spina bifda was not scary and could easily be managed. She is a wonderful mom and this video is a great resource for those who want more info on SB. There are many many children and babies on the China special needs list with spina bifida and many of them sit there for long periods of time because people are scared of the disability. These are highly desirable children-- beautiful-- many are very young-- bright as can be-- but they sit on the list and are not adopted because people have the same view of spina bifida that I once had. I try to advocate for these kids and let people know this is not a scary need and that people should open their hearts to these children. SB can be an extremely minimal need!!

Thanks for watching the video.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Happy 4th Birthday Mia!!!

Mia celebrated her 4th birthday with a small tea put on by a friend from Church who does this on the side. She did an amazing job with the tea and had the 10 girls in the palm of her hand the whole time. I was amazed-- she was so organized and made the food and cupcakes and brought everything. I literally just had some food for the parents. It was a great party and Mia had a blast!!!