New Name, New Look, New News!

I decided that it was going to be easiest to just keep one blog going instead of trying to do separate blogs for My China Blessings.  I hope you will enjoy joining me on this wild adoption ride once again and continue peeking in on Anna's latest feats.  For those of you that follow by e-mail you may also receive a post that includes the "Announcement Info" I first posted a few months ago about Samuel. I wanted to make sure that ended up on this blog as well since I shut down the other account.

News!

Today is a big day for Anna.  She finally gets her casts off for good!  Three weeks ago she got the long leg casts off and got new "walking casts."  I talked them into making them waterproof so that she could have a bath again.  With the warmer temps and a girl who likes to play outside the sponge baths were killing my back!  The first 4 weeks in the leg casts weren't easy, and Anna definitely got bored, but she quickly learned how to crawl around thanks to her amazing upper body strength.  She even figured out how to stand up, but we had to tell her not to do that- Doctor's orders.  Much to our surprise she was in pain in her right foot with the walking casts.  It was hard for me to see her struggling and unable to walk for several weeks.  I had thought that since she wasn't in pain before that she wouldn't be in pain in the new casts, but apparently her achilles was still hurting making weight bearing too hard.  She eventually started being able to put weight on her foot and began eagerly riding her tricycle.  Her bright pink and green casts drew a lot of attention.  Especially once she started walking with them.  She just figures out how to make things work.  I can't wait for her to be out of casts and back in her braces and shoes again cruising around with her crutches!

Our other exciting news is that we are DTC! That's a fancy adoption acronym that means our dossier was sent to China!  Three months of hard work and the first trimester of this paper pregnancy is finally over.  We will now wait for our dossier to be logged in and then the wait for LOA (Letter of Acceptance) starts. This part should be shorter than it was with Anna's adoption because we were matched with Samuel prior to our dossier being logged in. The time frame on LOA is anywhere from 45-100 days. We are praying for 60 days or less.  If that happens we could actually go to China in September! This photo of Samuel was taken a few days ago at an outing to a local park.  His birthday is this Saturday. I can't stand it that he isn't home for his birthday, but thankfully his birthday presents are there for him and I've been promised more photos.  Love this little guy so much!