Today, I turn 31 years old.

Today, we also celebrate that our home study is done!

I’m just gonna hook up to a coffee IV for the day, ok?

Hopefully, sometime in my 31st year of life, we will bring home our new son.

We have our physicals with the doctor tomorrow (me) and Tuesday (Keith).

Last night, after our home study was over, I whipped up some favorites of ours (buffalo chicken dip, fresh salsa, tacos, spinach-artichoke dip) and we had friends over to celebrate with us.  (Not pictured are a ton of kids and a couple moms who were supervising those kids and Keith, who took the photo)

We’re happy to be a few steps further along the road to our baby!

Our home study is TOMORROW!!!! Well- it is Thursday through Saturday. I’m so ready to have that over with!

I was making a handwriting font for a teacher friend (hi Kristin! yes, I know you are stalking me and will embarrass me at rehearsal by mentioning something from my blog!! I love you!!) and Eliza asked me to make one for her. I’d made one for her when she was 4, but obviously her writing has improved since then.

I have to admit, the mommy part of me was just “awww” over this when I got them done and looked at them side by side.

I wanted to do Kate’s but she didn’t have the patience to follow my directions.   Ha.  That girl- we all adore her and love her just the way God made her, but sometimes she does make me want to rip my hair out!    She had to miss recess for being naughty in class and she was SO proud to tell us that evening at home that she “got to miss recess” and that it was “so fun!”  Sigh.  I don’t think that was the intended goal!!

Oh!  And along with our home study being tomorrow, we also got back our Chinese police clearance!  Yay!!!  Now we just have to harass the bank to send the letter we need from them.  They deducted money from our account nearly 3 weeks ago, but Keith called to ask where the letter was and they said they “forgot to send it”.  Soooo, hopefully they will UNforget to send it and we’ll have that soon!  So, enjoy some coffee (I’ve got some delicious Ethiopian Harrar right now!  Loving it!) for us!

I like to have good “theme songs” for things in life.    Maybe that sounds weird, but I think to some extent, we all do this, I think.

Anyway, for our adoption, we’ve been looking for good songs that reflect our new child’s Ethiopian (and more broadly, African) heritage.  The South African world cup this year influenced several African-themed songs.  Here’s a couple we love:

Akon’s Oh Africa- such a cool video!!

Shakira’s Waka Waka (official theme song)

I know you can’t lump Africa’s many diverse nations into one giant heap and say “This is African culture” but I love the images, dancing, and culture in these videos!

Now I want some Ethiopian-specific theme songs, but that might take a little bit more digging!

I don’t think I ever mentioned on here that our Korean neighbor disappeared.  She went back to Korea for her son’s first birthday and then -poof- they never came back.  She was having a hard transition to China life and I am fairly certain she stayed in Korea.  It was sad to not say goodbye, but this is part of life here.  I emailed a few times to see how she was doing, but then gave up so I didn’t look like a stalker (ha).

We have a new, single Korean female neighbor.  She’s nice.  I do miss our old neighbor though!

Meanwhile, our girls have befriended a sweet 6-year-old girl named Wang Mei Hui.  She lives in our building and her parents run the noodle and dumpling shop on the first floor of our building.   It is a delicious and cheap restaurant and a recently “discovered” family favorite.    Dumplings and fried noodles for a total of $5 for the whole family- you really can’t beat that!

She is a smart little girl- she often takes our order and then delivers the food to our house.  I was worried she worked all day and didn’t go to school, but she’s on summer break right now as Chinese school hasn’t started up after summer vacation yet.  She’ll be in first grade- the same as Kate.  As you can see, she fits in perfectly as a playmate with our silly girls– and yes, those are socks on Eliza’s head.

All 3 girls like to play together on the playground, and she came over to play this afternoon.  Despite the language barrier, they make it work.

4 days till our home study!  Whee!

There are a world of unknowns in adoption.  I knew this going into adoption.  I’m pretty educated on the process and how it works and the potential pitfalls along the way.

But the hard part is the unknown.  Since we began our journey toward child #3 in July, two countries have closed their international adoption programs- Nepal and Rwanda.   For those families in those programs, and the kids in those countries (whose need for adoptive families has not changed, whose current living condition has not changed, whose desire to be loved in a family and a home has not changed), this is devastating.

The news of Nepal was on the peripheral range of my radar because I’d never considered Nepal for our adoption so it didn’t really affect me.  But Rwanda is a different story.  We were so close to pursuing Rwandan adoption.

Seeing these things happen, the “what ifs” can be a bit overwhelming.  But we feel at peace that this is the road we are supposed to walk, and so we keep going- one step at a time.  I try not to think about those “what if” situations and try to focus on the positive adoption outcomes in my world.

And I try to celebrate the little milestones along the way so the walk doesn’t feel so long!   Our home study is in 6 days- it is a 3-day process done in one chunk.   I will have to celebrate after that one with a couple pots of strong coffee!  I don’t think one cup will be quite enough!

I’m also trying to surround myself with positive, faith-affirming music and words.

Today’s song on repeat is Kutless “What Faith Can Do”:

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason for someone not to try
Everybody’s scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It’ll be alright
Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

About 4 years ago, I was selling custom handwriting fonts.  I’m trying to get in touch with a few of those people, but am not sure if I have the right contact info.

If I made you a font with any of these names, please let me know!  I have terrible records due at this point- it was too long ago!  And I’m sorry for doing this via my blog!

KGD Amber

KGD DeeDee Print

KGD Julie

KGD Kirsty

KGD LaurieM Script

KGD LaurieB Script

KGD Lindsay

KGD Lisa E Script

KGD Maggie M Print

KGD Stacy

KGD Tiffany (and Tiffany Script)

KGD Bee

KGD Bobbi Script

KGD Candie Print

KGD Chrissylea

KGD Joanne

KGD Julie Script

KGD Kate

KGD Lori

KGD Renee

If you can leave a comment here I’ll get back to you! :)  Thanks!

Thanks so much!

This summer, the girls and I made the milk/vinegar cheese a few times (it is like paneer- Indian cheese).   I looked up a recipe for mozzarella and wanted to make that but we didn’t have rennet.    Grandpa Bill & Grandma Cindy mailed us some in their most recent package of goodies.

So tonight, we had a girls + mom cooking time and made mozzarella.   We made a few mistakes and our cheese ended up a bit crumblier than it should have, but it was still tasty.  We made a small amount of ricotta form the remaining whey.   We served our creations with sliced tomato & freshly ground Tuscan spice blend (I have an obsession with these little spice mills they sell here!)  Delicious.

The best part?  Well, this is slightly obnoxious and braggerly, but the best part is leaving the kitchen a giant mess and letting ayi clean it up tomorrow when I’m at school!   I do tend to plan messier meals for nights before she comes (she comes every day, M-F- so F, S nights are my less-messy cooking nights).   And I feel spoiled rotten by her cleaning up my messes!

Yes- I’ll happy pay a few dollars tomorrow to not have to deal with that!

Thank you Grandma Cindy for the rennet!  This was very fun- and we have enough left to make it 31 more times!

Kate has lost two teeth prior to today.  Both were lost in injuries (separate injuries).  She’s also chipped a tooth, hit a tooth that subsequently died and is now greying, and hit a tooth (the chipped one) again and it is impacted into her gums.

But she’s never lost a tooth “normally”.

Until today.

So this was kind of a big deal for our little first grader.

She ran in my room squealing “It’s finally wiggly enough mommy!  It’s making cracking noises!”  I asked if she wanted me to pull it and she said “YES!!  But first I want to watch Eliza play 1 game of Mario Kart.”

So we watched Eliza play and then she crawled into my lap, opened her mouth and asked me to pull it.  Two seconds later, it was out.   Nice and normal, just the way she’s wanted losing her teeth to be!   Our version of the Tooth Fairy is that she gets to spend 15 RMB (about $2) at her favorite stationery store- Morning Glory- a Korean chain of pens, notebooks, and girly stuff galore.

In adoption news, we’re just inching along, keeping as organized as humanly possible.  Everything that can be requested (bank letter, criminal clearance, child abuse clearance, birth certificates, marriage certificate, reference letters, employment letter, Chinese criminal clearance, etc…) has been requested.  And now we wait for all of that to come back.

We have written our letter to MOWA (Ministry of Women’s Affairs) in Ethiopia that accompanies our dossier to Ethiopia.  This was a hard/strange letter to write- basically a letter requesting a child from Ethiopia and asking their permission to adopt.  But it is done now.  We’re halfway done with our required adoption classes online.

We’ve chosen the pictures of our home & family that will accompany our dossier.  We’ve compiled our tax forms and bank statements proving our financial status.   We’re waiting on insurance cards (our insurance provider changed August 1 and we don’t have cards yet) and then we’ll get our physicals done.

And in the meantime, life keeps rolling along.   I can’t help but think back to the girls’ pregnancies and marvel at how different this is from being biologically pregnant with our daughters.   With Eliza I was so focused on having that first baby and didn’t have tons of things to distract me from obsessing over the pregnancy.  With Kate, Eliza distracted me, but I still had bedrest and other things that reminded me of her presence on a constant basis.   With this adoption, I think about it a lot, but it is different.  I have school, students, the girls, and so much going on that I’ll stop myself and go “Whoa, in 9-24 months you’re going to have a baby and life is going to be super different!”  or  “Wow, we’re really doing this!”    It is like I forget and then remember over and over.    Honestly, I love having a million things going on that help me not obsess or get impatient.  The adoption will be complete in God’s perfect timing, and until then, we have lots of other great things in our lives.  I much prefer that to being discontent and impatient!

Somewhere in the midst of the adoption stuff, we’ve been preparing for the first day of school.  Today, school is in full gear.  Yesterday, just the new students attended for a half-day.

I have some photos of today and one lovely one of Kate being silly.  She informed us she was going to sleep this way…

She didn’t last very long in her sleeping position, as you can imagine!

Here are the girls this morning all ready to go this morning.  Eliza was up and ready and dressed at some ridiculous hour.  I was dragging myself toward the door, hair half-combed, coffee in hand… not quite the picture of first-day-of-school pep and enthusiasm!

At the bus stop (yes, cars are parked in the middle of the bus stop, why not?) with Jadelin and Rebecca.  Rebecca is in Eliza’s 2nd grade class & Jadelin is in Junior Kindergarten.  Their family just moved here and they live a couple buildings away from us.

Keith has a nice full class this year (not all kids fit in the frame here).

Eliza’s teacher taught in Africa (in Gabon, Nigeria, and Senegal) for 16 years and is new to our school.  She should be a fun teacher for Eliza.

And Kate is far, far, far too cool for this mommy-taking-pictures-in-class business and told me with rolled eyes to “please, just leave my class, mommy!”  But I did manage to get her to stand (not smile, but stand) with two of her friends.  Can you see the exasperation oozing from her face?

So school is underway and our lives are about to kick into overdrive as we try to juggle adoption stuff and school stuff.   We get in that ridiculously lazy summer mode and have to remember what it is like to actually have obligations on our time and work and stuff when school starts again.  Ha, the woes of being a teacher.

So we have finished all of our written stuff for our homestudy, and scheduled the homestudy for September 2-4 (one 3-day session- quite different from most US homestudies).    You can have a sip of coffee for that one.

And we notarized some more papers at the Embassy and have our child abuse clearances ready to mail to Texas.  Another sip of coffee there.

So two sips of coffee today- we’re too tired and ready for bed for any more than that! I’m way too exhausted after a full day of trains and subways and heat.  Memo to Tianjin and Beijing: It is really hot and humid outside.  Turn on the air conditioning in the train and subway station!  Perhaps they were just helping us out- you don’t have to go to the bathroom all day long when you sweat insane amounts in the heat!  And seriously, avoiding the train station bathrooms is probably a good thing!

As an aside, we had the NICEST vice consul at the US Embassy help us today.  She was super smiley and while looking over our papers she noticed our permanent address in Arlington, Texas and said she was from Plano, Texas and then told us she was adopted from China as a baby and thanked us for adopting a child.

School starts the day after tomorrow.  Cramming in adoption paperwork on top of the normal back-to-school madness has been interesting!  Keith is the only 3rd grade teacher this year, so he has the whole grade level to himself.    Thankfully, we have super supportive bosses who give us grace and freedom to run to Beijing for the day!