Retail Therapy?

One of the surprises of this referral is that Gracie is not an infant.  I feel sad that she has had to wait so long for a family.  We are thrilled with her, but I am realizing that all of the cute little outfits I bought through the years as "Retail Therapy" are not going to fit her.  We received her translated medical information yesterday.  It gave her measurements from last June when her first picture was taken.  It said she was 10.2 kg (about 22.4 lbs.) and 75 cm high.  That would have put her in 12 to 18 month size back then.  So by December she could easily be into size 2T or maybe some large 18 month sizes.  Unless she wants to be wearing big brother's hand me downs it looks like I need to find a few things.  Fun!

Here she is!!!

Introducing Grace Anne, her chinese name is Dang Guo Chan.  They put the last name first and then her given and middle names.  She is 1 3/4 years old.  Her birthdate is February 3, 2010.  She is in the Datong SWI in Shanxi province.  She and Daniel will be great playmates, as they are only 17 months apart. We couldn't be happier.  She looks like she has plenty of spirit.  What a cutie.  I can't wait to bring her home.

Waiting for Gracie

Many of you know that we have been working on adopting a baby from China for many years. We first started the process back in 2003, but we were blessed with the domestic adoption of our son Caleb in 2004. When Caleb was one year old we started the process with China again. It took us a while to get all of the paper work done, and little did we know that each month longer it took could make our wait with China up to a year longer. Our official LID (Log In Date) with China is August 2nd, 2006. That is when they received and accepted all of our paperwork, and we were officially "in line."

Now here we are in October of 2011. Our lives are very different then when we started this process, but we are still very excited to welcome Gracie into our family. Our oldest daughter Sierra is 15 and a sophomore in highschool. I think she gave up long ago that she would ever have a sister. Adam is 13 and in 8th grade. He has been the man of the house for a while, since his dad has been deployed to Iraq and gone since last January. Caleb is 7 and in 2nd grade. He is a busy, active guy as always, and excited for a little sister. Daniel (our blessing that came along to make the wait more bearable) is 3 years old and enjoying his time at home with Mommy. He says he is ready for Gracie to come, but little does he know how his life is about to change. :)

The great news is that our LID has finally been matched and the referrals are in the mail. That means our referral is somewhere between China and our agency in California. I am really hoping that they will get it tomorrow. Of course we are in South Florida so half our day will be gone before business is going in California. I think I will be a basket case all day long. When I get the information, the first thing I will do is email it to Tom, even though in Iraq he will probably be asleep and wont' see it until the next day. It doesn't matter. He gets to hear first. Then I will post it here and send the link around for everyone else. Let's just hope it comes tomorrow or I think I might go crazy!