Our Family Blog – Mike, Louanne, Nadia, Amelie, & Dani
We are very excited to announce that we were matched with our third daughter last week! It’s very exciting and we have received pre-approval from China to adopt her. Now we wait for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) which should take about 7-10 weeks. Then we will be allowed to show her photo. But trust me, she is ADORABLE!!!
Dani is 18 months and from the Jiangxi Province, just like Nadia was. We will most likely travel in March, but I am hoping for February.
As of September 22, 2013 our dossier was logged into China for us to adopt little girl #3 for our family (who we plan to name Dani). We are now officially waiting in line to be matched and pray that will happen soon. We are all VERY excited!
Back in 2010 on the day we got Amelie’s referral a random thing happened. We got her file and were scrolling through it on the computer and in my head I thought, “Great. We can adopt her, she’s so cute, her hands aren’t really a special need, but HOW in the world will I teach her how to use scissors?”
Now trust me, I understand that I was totally hyped up from waiting and knowing that this would be the day we would be matched and it was all so exciting and that affected my thoughts so randomly. But the problem was that I didn’t say anything out loud. So after who knows how long Mike says, “Louanne, are you going to say something? Are we going to adopt her?”And I am like, “OF COURSE! Yes, sorry, I was thinking about scissors.” I instantly felt bad that I was ready to go get her tomorrow, but left Mike hanging there wondering.
Fast forward to last year and I am thinking about working with Amelie on new fine motor skill practice like scissors and that kind of thing. Being the supply loving person I am, I start checking out scissors everywhere. And I buy various types of “special” scissors. Some that are supposed to help toddlers or people with hand issues or whatever.
Turns out all it was all a waste of time and money. She does an awesome job with plain old school scissors that I picked up on an extra buck deal from CVS.
I am sure there is a lesson here for me on worrying 🙂
Waiting for our turn to go in the courtroom.
Today we went to Dallas for Amelie’s re-adoption hearing. In Texas it’s just a formality to be able to get a Texas birth certificate for her. That way when she is older and needs a birth certificate for various applications and other needs she won’t have to deal with her Chinese one. We did the same for Nadia in 2008 and the same lawyer friend took care of everything for us. We got there early and the girls got a lot of attention and smiles because the hearings happen at the Dallas Juvenile Justice Center – and let’s just say there isn’t a lot of happy stuff going on in there.
We waited in the courtroom with several other families and we were called first to go before the judge. Jonathan asked us all the questions and the judge said that she accepted it, we posed for a photo – then bam we were out of the courtroom.
We filed our paperwork with the clerk and received the form we need to mail to Austin. We left the courthouse and headed for the Paris Coffee Shop in Fort Worth for breakfast and PIE!