Dossier!

   It's off! We finally mailed our dossier off to the Department Of State and on to the Chinese Embassy. Now we are praying it goes through everything in time. Please continue to pray that we get Henry home!

                                                                                                                      -Alli

Passport Applications

   Whew! Long morning! Preston and Daddy had a two hour delay for snow today (yes, I said snow. In the last week of March! Grrr... I am so ready for spring!) so we thought this would be a good time to turn in our applications. At first we were just going to get a passport for me and Preston. But while we were at CVS getting the picures taken, Mom decided to go ahead and get passports for everyone but the baby. "Just in case," she said. Right. So we were filling out applications at the courthouse, with the kids scampering around and being noisy. Adalee sat down in a corner, and Baby Isabela immediately came and sat on her face, causing quite a ruckus. But we finally got everything filled out. Hopefully they will get here in time! I'm going to have to do some serious fundraising if I plan on going on this trip!

Secretary of State

   Today the dossier came back from the Viriginia Secretary of State! Now we are waiting for one document to come back from Tennessee. It came last week but it was damaged and we had to send it back.
   Hopefully the last piece will get here soon and then it will be off to the Department of State and then the Chinese Embassy. We are getting nervous about meeting our deadline. As you know, Henry turns fourteen in June and he will "age out". We praying to be in China before then. Please continue to pray that we can get Henry home before his fourteenth birthday.

Babysitting Isabela

   Oh Isabela! You are such a stinker!!! Only today she has:

1. Snuck into the pantry and eaten almost an entire box of raisins.

2. I wrestle her diaper on her. Two minutes later it's off again. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And of course she peed in the floor.

3. Followed me around "helping" get lunch ready. In other words every time I put someone's plate on the table, she sits down and eats all their food. She loves to eat everybody's food but her own.

4. One of my favorite things she says is "Peetaboo, Waw-wee," (Peekaboo, Alli). She said this ALOT today because she knows it makes me smile :)

5. When I rock her for her nap she almost always sings "Jesus Loves Me." Oh, I wish you could hear her belt it out at the top of her lungs! "Jay dzu wuvz we!".


   Sometimes when I babysit it's a little hectic, but I love it when she calls me Waw-wee.


                                                                                            -Alli

Learning Chinese and Other Stuff

   Every morning we start the day by reviewing our Chinese vocabulary list. We have a book on teaching yourself Chinese, and we try. We really do. But it's hard not to laugh. I have to say the kids are picking up really well. So is Mom. But Dad and Preston... well that's a different story. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Mom: How do you say hello?

Jesse, Jaynelle, Adalee, and Alli: Ni hao!

Mom: Very good. Daddy? How do you say hello?

Daddy: Yee haw. No, no, ni hao, maybe?

Mom: Very good!

   Jesse says Henry is going to laugh at us trying to speak Chinese. I think he is probably right. So far we have learned to say Hello, Goodbye, Goodmorning, Goodnight, Please, Thank You, You're Welcome, Do you speak English?, I don't understand, water, and bathroom. Of course, we are most likely saying seventy-five percent of that incorrectly.
   Last time I said that I would tell you a little bit about Adalee. She is so quiet and sensitive! Like the other day we accidently took home a dish that belongs at my grandma's. My jokingly said' "I guess we're thiefs!". Poor Adalee. She began to cry and wouldn't stop until she was reassured that we were not thiefs and we were not going to jail. Adalee will go to her prechool dance class I help teach. All the other little girls will leap gracefully. Then here comes Adalee, who is pretending to be a frog. "Ribbit!" and she jumps and lands in a squat. Oh my. She will go to church pretending to be a dog, and growl at the preacher when he tries to shake her hand. Everyday she comes down from her room dressed in a different tutu. She has come up with some truly unique combinations. I have to say my favorite was the super man outfit, topped with purple fairy and a pink cowgirl hat.

Never a Dull Moment

   Never a dull moment. Jaynelle is six and she is something else. I don't where she got the idea, or where it came from, but last summer she turned into Zechurial Knuckle. In her words he is a "five year old man from Pluto." She would don a pair of old 3d glasses from the movie theater, and voila! She became Zechurial Knuckle. I guess some kids pretend to be super heroes or princesses. Nope, not Jaynelle. 

   The story keeps getting more and more elaborate. Supposedly Jaynelle and Zechurial switch places every couple of weeks or so. Zechurial has a family on Pluto. There's Barbara Knuckle, his sister; Cracker Knuckle, his mother; Billy Bob Joe Knuckle, his father; and finally Garlic Knuckle, his little brother. 

   Zechurial even has a sort of a theme song. I would write it out for you, but it's mostly a bunch of nonsense words.

   Well, that's Jaynelle for you. Next time I will give you some Adalee quotes!

Introduction

   Hi! I'm Alli. I'm fourteen. I have five brothers and sisters. They are all biological, but this October we stumbled across Henry's video. Henry is thirteen years old and was abandoned at a Chinese welfare institution at two months old. If he isn't adopted by his fourteenth birthday in June, he will "age out" out of the system to make room for infants and younger children. So we began the long adoption process. We are at the point when we re getting ready to send our dossier in to the secretary of state.
   Three of us are homeschooled. Me, Jesse, and Jaynelle. I'm in eighth grade. Preston is my older brother. He is sixteen and goes to the local public school where he plays sports. Adalee is four and in preschool. She is in preschool and genuinely believes in unicorns. For example, the other day she sighed loudly and squeaked in her little four year old voice, "I will NEVER get a pet unicorn! They live so far away! Even farther away than GG and Pop!" Isabela is almost two. She has curly hair and is always into something. She wouldn't get away with so much if she weren't so cute! I'm really excited to have another brother, and I think the rest of the gang is too.
   All your prayers would be appreciated as we go through the adoption process. I will do my best to keep you updated!