The furniture made it! The crazy thing I didn't need to go anywhere today until 4:45 so Robin could go to Great Skates and when do you think they came? You guessed it......4:40! Doesn't it always happen that way : )
No big deal, it all worked out. The furniture looks GREAT! I'll post pics tomorrow.

OK, it's 4:12 and still no sign of the furniture delivers....why am I not surprised.

Last night Mike and I celebrated our 14th anniversary by going out to dinner and buying the laptop computer we will be taking with us when we go to China! Poor Mike, we stayed up until 1am messing with it...and he had to get up at 4 this morning to work, so i'm guessing he's pretty wasted today. I didn't need to get up, but did at 5. I felt guilty sleeping in when he was up working. I think we'll both be ready for bed tonight. (Just so you know he hasn't complained about his lack of Zzzz , but I know he's tired.) So that's what I've been doing off and on while doing the daily chores : )
Grace's furniture is suppose to be delivered this afternoon! We are the last stop for them today so it should arrive between 1-5. Don't you just love how they want to make sure you're home and give you a 4 hour range on when they'll show up. It makes it hard if you need to go to town for something. If you leave they'll come early, if you wait you'll be the last one. Well thankfully I don't have anything I must do in town today so we're good.
I'll try and post some pictures today of what Tina and Nicole sent me this week and the furniture in the room.

We got our PA (Pre-Approval) from the CCAA today! We didn't even know we were waiting for it...LOL! This means we have been pre-approved to adopt Fu NiShuai and have been moved into the room that sends out the RA's (referral acceptance)! Let's pray that RA comes fast!!!!

Here's what the letter said.....

Dear Michael & Tonya,

The CCAA has processed the Pre-Approval (PA) for your family’s request to adopt Fu Ni Shuai! The PA is issued once the information from the electronic acceptance has been reviewed and approved. Once the CCAA has fully reviewed your Dossier and application to adopt a specific child, they will issue the Referral Acceptance (RA). As a reminder, this step is currently taking anywhere from 2-5 months from the date of your electronic acceptance. There is no guaranteed time frame from the CCAA on when your RA will arrive.

This letter was from our FC, Lauren from AWAA. We also received another email and so we pretty much know that we have been PA and are at least in the room that issues RA's which is what we need now! Please pray along with us that we receive it quickly so we can go get Grace out of that orphanage and get her home with her family! We would LOVE to have her home for Christmas....that would be a miracle, but we serve a Big God and He is able accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think! I'm praying for a miracle!!!!!

I have a wonderful book, Parents on their knees by Vi Goodrich, it's praying scripture for your children and I love it and thought I would post some of them every once in a while.

Day 1

Dear Lord, Thank you for the privilege as a parent to place my children in the safety of Your arms in prayer. Give these children favor in my eyes as a precious gift from You (Ps 127:3) Let me joy in parenting and raising them for You. As they grow, help me to instill into their hearts the depth of Your love (S of Sol 8:7; Jer 31:3, John 17:23; Rom 5:8). As only a heart can gain a heart, I pray that I would grow to love You with all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength (Deut 6:5), and that I might, in turn, diligently teach my children (Deut 6:7).

For my children - I pray that from the earliest age, they will be saved - that they will be sorry for their sins, accept Your plan of salvation, pray to ask You to live inside their heart where they will nurture a personal relationship with You (John 3:16; 2 Tim 3:15; Rom 10:9,10,13), and understand the depth of Your love for them. Teach them at a young age to hear Your voice (1Sam 3:10; John 10:3-5,27), to discern the desires of Your heart for them, and to follow the path You have chosen for them (Matt 7:13-14). Remind them that they're not here by chance, but by Your choosing, that Your hand formed them and made them the person they are, that You compare then to no one else, that they are one of a kind, lacking nothing that Your grace can't give them, and that You have allowed them to be here at a time in history to fulfill Your purpose for this generation.

Today is a day of celebration!!!! 14 years ago I married the most loving, thoughtful, incredible man! And 1 year ago our dossier arrived at the China Center of Adoption Affairs! 14 years ago when we got married we would have never in a million years guessed that we would be gearing up to fly to China and bring home a daughter!

To my honey,
I want you to know that I think you are an amazing husband, father and provider! You are a very hard worker and I appreciate all you do! Thank you for letting me be a stay at home mom and not expecting me to work outside of our home....that means soooo much to me! One more thing....thanks for being patient with me and helping me download pictures from the camera and helping me with all my silly questions about the computer and blog :)
Happy anniversary honey, I love you!!! xxoo

Tina sent miss Grace a onesie that says, Jesus Rocks!
I'll post a picture of it soon!
Thanks Tina :)

Shoot! I deleted a post on accident!! I can't remember what all I said, but it was Thursday that Mike and I went to Portland to Homeland Security to be re-fingerprinted. While we were down there we bought Grace's car seat and some outfits to take with us to China!

That was so sweet of my hubby! I'm not loving the picture.....but he is sweet!
I love you honey : ) xxoo

A beautiful wife and mommy enjoying a beautiful ocean.......

(this is not Tonya posting this....by the way)

Not too much is happening this week yet. We are taking a two hour drive to Portland on Thursday in hopes we will be able to be re-fingerprinted at HS. While we are down there we are going to buy Grace's car seat and maybe an outfit or two!

Mike and I are going to try walking everyday until we get so busy with getting ready to leave for China that we can't. Yesterday we walked 4 miles and today 3.

Baby's name

After hours of talking and praying we have officially decided that we will stick with our original plan and name our daughter.... Grace Olivia NiShuai :)
Thank you so much Nicole and Tina for your thoughts. It was a huge help to me! You ladies are a blessing and I'm so glad we've become friends through our adoption journeys!

Thanks to the ticker factory I don't have to type each day in as we count to our RA! It will do it for us!

I got an email today and Grace's furniture is on the way!!! So we NEED to get the trim finished in her bedroom ASAP! I don't want to take any chances of having something fall on it and cause a dent or chip. I think I would cry if that happened.

I talked to Nicole on the phone yesterday for the first time. We are DTC and LID the same time. We've been swapping things for our babies each month for a year...it's been a lot of fun! Anyway...thanks for calling Nicole. I really enjoyed talking with you and I will be praying for your family and your decision.

This is a wonderful video about domestic adoptions!

This was a blessing to me, I just had to post it! We are going to China this time....only the Lord know whats in store down the road. Maybe it will be China again or maybe a domestic adoption :)

* a little note....we are working with AWAA, but I've heard great things about Bethany too *

This is Mark Schultz singing "Everything to Me" and he was adopted.

We have the translation of Grace's chinese name

We got Grace's name translation tonight and now know how to pronounce it :) Only problem now is we think we may want to use her name and not change it. We don't know what to do.

Her last name is Fu (foo) and it means...“luck; happiness; blessing; good fortune”.

Her first name is NiShuai (knee shy) and it means...“an elegant and smart girl; a girl of remarkable abilities”.

We really like her first name. So here's what we're thinking.... Grace Olivia NiShuai , Grace NiShuai , NiShuai Grace , NiShuai , NiShuai Lee .....as you can see we don't know what we want anymore :/

If anyone has any suggestions let me know!

Day 5 waiting for RA

Trying out the slide show to see if we can get it to work : )

This is a gift from Angel and her family :) It's called "Our Gift" I absolutely LOVE it!!!!! Thank you soooo much!!!! What Angel didn't know is that I had looked at that a few weeks ago with my mom and I told her that when we got our referral I wanted to buy it and add it to our collection! We got our referral for Grace on Monday, Oct. 8th and she gave me this on Tuesday :)

Shereeee brought us flowers :) Thank you...they are beautiful!

Day 4

Day 3 waiting for RA

OK, so I know I have posted several video's already...but there are sooo many that I love, and this happens to be one of them! For those that don't know this is Steven Curtis Chapman. He and his wife have adopted three beautiful little girls from China. Shohanna's Hope is a foundation they started to help families financially with their adoptions. He is coming to Lowell,MA on November 10th for a concert and he is asking everyone to bring their spare change to donate to Shohanna's Hope. So if you live in the area....come! Anyway enough of my rambling.....enjoy the video!

This is Point of Grace "How you live"

NewSong Visiting an Orphange in China

Day 2 waiting for our RA.

This is the bedroom set that we ordered for little miss Grace today!!!! It is sooo girly and cute : ) It should arrive anywhere from Nov.2 to Nov. 21. I'm ready to start settling her room!

Angel made me register today for a baby shower...which was so fun! But it still doesn't hardly seem real. We went to Baby Depot, Target and Toys R Us.

Oh yeah....we are officially counting the days until our RA (referral approval) comes! Today is day 1.

Please, Please pray that it comes fast and that we are able to travel in December! We need to get Grace out of that orphanage and get her home where she belongs!!!!

On Monday October 8th at 4 PM Tonya gets "the call"............

(and Robin just happened to have her camera.....how cool!!!!)