So much to blog about!

It's been busy week, but so many wonderful things are happening! Today we got some really great news. We received our immigration approval in the mail! If you haven't done this before, that may seem like no big deal. Trust me, it is a BIG DEAL. We've been waiting to hear from our agency about travel. In the back of my mind I kept thinking "What if we get travel approval but can't go because of immigration?" Today, those fears are gone!

I can remember just 3 months ago, the first of May, that Chris and I didn't think we would be able to move forward at all. We had some huge immigration road blocks that we didn't think we could get past. (Long boring story that I won't go into.) It was so frustrating! We finally got approval to move forward, just in the nick of time. Even then, we had to jump through a bunch more hoops. To get that piece of paper in the mail today was amazing. I guess we appreciate it so much more because we had to work so hard to get it!

The rest of this week has been BUSY! This weekend, Chris and I painted Lucy's new room and the girl's play room. Basically we are both covered in pink and green paint. Chris is going to work on Lucy's closet later this week. Hopefully we will have the house in order within 2 weeks. Lucy is very excited about her new pink room. Once we get it done I will post some photos.

Last weekend was cookie-baking weekend. I thought I had the recipie perfected. I didn't take into account that different brands of butter would respond differently. Who knew? Apparently store brand butter and Land 'o' Lakes butter are not created equal. Batch #1 was perfect. Batches #2 - #4 were not the cookies I had hoped for. But, I boxed 'em up and mailed 'em out anyway. Hopefully they got to their rightful owners before turning to stone! Oh, all except the cookies for my sister Mary. I mailed them to an address that she moved out of over 7 years ago. Slowly. Losing. My. Mind. Oh well, I have to bake new cookies again this weekend because UPS accidentally mailed my double-batch to the wrong address. I knew this was not going to be a well-oiled-machine.

Speaking of, if you happened to purchase blueberry bread from me at the church bake sale only to discover that it was a nastly pile of uncooked goo, please let me know. Apparently one batch was severly undercooked. I'm willing to make good with a fresh batch of cookies made with Land 'o' Lakes butter. (Far superior to Publix butter!)

Are you thinking that I should just get out of the kitchen and stay out? Yeah, me too.

We are making enormous progress toward the adoption finances. I don't even know where to start! I've always known in my heart that God would provide for us. He's proved himself to be so faithful! But I will admitt that there have been moments of panic when I couldn't see clearly how that money would come. I guess that is why we are to walk in faith, not in sight. I have to record some of this, mostly for my own sake, but also because people have been asking how things are going with the fund-raising, and what types of expenses are involved with a Chinese adoption. (If you don't like to read about finances, skip this part!)

We held the ebay auction to raise the required $5000 orphangae donation. After it was all said and done, we cleared about $5200. Thanks to EVERYONE who had a hand in this!

When we got our Referral Approval from China, we had to send our final orphanage payment of $1800. Thanks to the donation of my wonderful friend who started all this, we were covered for the payment. (Thank you wonderful friend!!)

After doing some research, it looks like our flights to and from China will cost around $5500. We found out this week that our tax returns for 2008 will be, you guessed it, just over $5500. I am SO HAPPY that we filed an extension on this. And to think that I was frustrated with my husband earlier this year for taking so long getting all this information together. Silly me. The timing on this is perfect.

We need another $2000 to take to China to pay for legal fees, paperwork, immigration etc. Guess who just found some old Starwood stock valued at just over $2000? Yep, that's me. We will cash this in to cover those fees. I had completely forgotten that I had this.

Did I mention that we need $460 for our Chinese Visas? Good thing we raised $400 at our church bake sale!

The only other fee that we need to come up with is $5000 for in-country travel (hotel, food, flights inside of China etc.) Some of this has come our way through donations of friends and family. We may hold one additional small fundraiser to wrap this up. We'll see. We are just so excited and grateful to be this close to our goal this quickly. Its more than I ever hoped for. It makes me think of a quote currently on the white board of a co-worker. It goes something like this: "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen." (Tarre - feel free to correct this if I've stated it wrong!) Or, as I like to say, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28.

One more thing before I go to bed. My dear friend Jennifer gave us an awesome little photo album. It is soft and cushy for a little one. Last week we filled it with photos of our family. Then Lucy and I went to Target with the gift card Jen gave us and Lucy picked out a pink blanket with red lady bugs. We packaged it up with one of Lucy's stuffed animals and mailed it off to Rita. We used a serviced from www.blessedkids.com. Very cool service. Rita should have a package from us early this week. We hope this will help her recognize us on gotcha day.

Now we wait to hear from our agency for a travel date. Maybe tomorrow...