A long time in the making

Barb with the finished quilt

Well, it may have been a loooooooong time coming, but Maimie's 100 Good Wishes quilt is finally completed! Back in 2005 when we were waiting for a referral from China the first time, I read about 100 Good Wishes quilts. We decided to make one for our little sweetie from China... Before we knew her... Before we had seen her photo... Before we had decided on her name. We asked family and friends to send us squares of material and good wishes/blessings/prayers. We knew that someday our daughter would look at her quilt --at each individual square--and know that it represents someone who loved her and was praying for her arrival into our family. And now little Miss Maimie has been in our arms for 3 years. We couldn't love her more!
Over the last several months, I spent some time planning Maimie's quilt and finding someone who was handy enough to actually pull it off. Barb was quite a find! The photos certainly don't do justice to the quilt. It's absolutely gorgeous.


First Barb arranged our immediate family's squares around the center square containing Maimie's Chinese name and characters; then she randomly placed the other squares all over the quilt. We labored over the border and finally decided on a lovely pink check. The backing is a versatile neutral. Barb finished the quilting with a scroll design over the entire surface. Maimie was so pleased with her quilt. We laid it on the floor in the piano room and got out the box of wishes to see who donated each square. What fun! Now for my next project, I need to arrange all of the wish cards in a little book.


I'd like to thank each and every one of you reading this that may have donated a square for Maimie's quilt. Know that she loves her quilt and that she is very excited matching the wishes with each square. Someday when she is older she will understand and appreciate even more the love that each person showed to her before she even joined our family.

Xin nian kuai le!...Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day, too!

Happy Chinese New Year! Yesterday we celebrated the Year of the Tiger with a great Chinese meal and Valentine's Day with a pink frosted, heart shaped cake. The house was decorated for both holidays. We set the table with fortune cookie candles, chopsticks, and valentine heart napkins. Instead of red envelopes with coins in them, we opted for Valentine's. Maimie chose a lovely outfit for Church that was given to her by one of Daddy's work friends.

Comic relief

Well, I had a great laugh today. Sometimes Maimie says things that just make me split a gut. Today was no exception.
During my homeschooling with Joseph this morning, Maimie was putting together puzzles on the kitchen floor. Joseph was having a hard time focusing on arithmetic. He was itching his nose, moving around in his chair, and itching his nose some more. I told him to leave his nose alone and sit still. Several times. Then Maimie looked up at me with furrowed brows and a serious expression on her face. She asked, "Mom, are you sure my Fodder (father) is not your cousin?" heh heh...good question.

Prayers and names and families

Maimie certainly is looking forward to her baby sister joining our family. Actually we all are, but I think the rest of us learned enough from Maimie's adoption to know that it could be a pretty long wait. Or maybe we are guarding our hearts until it's a sure thing. At any rate, Maimie is excited and often talks about her new little sister. When she outgrows clothes, she wants me to put them away for the baby. Every night--and often at other times throughout the day--Maimie says the following prayer: "Dear Jesus, thank you for our new baby. Please keep her safe and healthy until we can come and get her. Amen." Tonight she embellished it a little. After the usual, she added something like: " Thank you, God, for my whole family and help for the baby to have food and clothes and somebody to bathe her." It was way too cute.

Another thing that seems to occupy Maimie's thoughts is what we are going to name her little sister. This has been going on for months. At first, she wanted to name the baby "Mikaela" or "Daddy" or "Jacob" or "Joseph". Eventually after telling her that we already had enough Mikaelas, etc., she decided to try for other names. Then when she asked me what we should name our baby, I told her maybe we should wait until we see her photo. That seemed to work for awhile. Now, however, she is back to giving suggestions again. The current favorite is "Kai Lan" after her favorite character.

For probably over a year now, Maimie has been intrigued by families. She is often found hugging one of us saying how much she loves her family. She notices other people and wants to know if they have a family. After watching the movie, "Monsters, Inc.", Maimie asked me if Boo had a family. I told her that Boo did have a family but they weren't shown in the movie. It took weeks of convincing before she let it go and moved on from asking about Boo. Sometimes Maimie will be playing with a stuffed animal and will say that the animal needs a mama. Then she will look through the animals for a suitable "mama" for that animal. The other day she was watching Sesame Street and came running in to the kitchen to hug me and tell me that Dorothy (Elmo's pet fish) has a family. Then she says, "Just like Maimie!" It gets me every time. I know our older children probably asked some of the same questions and had some of the same fascination with family that Maimie does (although I don't really remember it specifically). There's just something about this little one's concern for others having a family that grabs at my heartstrings. She used to ask me if her family loved her. Often. I mean, very often. I continually reassured her that we did indeed love her very much. Then the line of questioning turned to "why does my family love me so much?". It seems Maimie never grows tired of hearing the "whys". But fortunately for her, we will never grow tired of telling her.

There's good news and bad news...

Checking Horsey's temperature

Last week I had hoped to get news that our homestudy had passed review and was ready to send off with the I-800A application. Not so. Instead there were about 15 points outlined that needed to be added or changed. Ugghh! I felt frustrated and bummed for 2 days then pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I spent a couple of hours late Thursday evening getting my information and sent it out on Friday morning. I'm not sure if I had enough documentation or not.
And now for the good news. Every one of our dossier documents has been certified and authenticated-including Steve's Ohio birth certificate. After sending it to the Chinese Consulate in New York, I was informed it would take at least 4 weeks to be completed. What a nice surprise for it to arrive today! We will, of course, need to have our homestudy and the I-800A approval certified and authenticated eventually before our dossier can be sent, but God is proving to me that I cannot speed up His timing. {Wouldn't you think I'd have learned that lesson by now?!}

Jacob at the spelling bee

Another real praise in this whole process came a little over a week ago. We have been planning to take all of the kids with us when we go to China again this time. Maimie, however, didn't have a birth certificate or a passport. After taking all of her documents to Springfield and hand delivering them, we eventually were issued a birth certificate for her. Early in December we applied for a passport for Maimie. We were notified that they wanted to see the original certificate of citizenship. I wasn't excited to let that out of my possession. But about a week or so ago we received the original certificate along with Maimie's passport. Yippee! Maimie was excited that she would get to travel with us to get her baby sister.

Disgusting looking "groundhog loaf"...and, yes, we ate it!

3 YEARS!

Last night we celebrated Maimie's third Gotcha Day anniversary. We picked up our usual order from Fast Dragon: sweet and sour chicken, pork fried rice, fried dumplings, pork egg rolls, and crab rangoon. Yummy! In the center of the table, we lit a candle for Maimie's Chinese mama (and family). At one point when everyone else was talking, I leaned over and asked Maimie if she knew why the candle was on the table. She shook her head "no". I told her it was for her China mama. Maimie leaned in to give me a big hug and said, "Thank you so much, mother!"



We continued our celebration with a little cake. Next we viewed our China photos on the tv, and concluded our evening with Maimie's movie choice..."Kung Fu Panda". Normally we would give her one of her China treasures to unwrap on her special day, but we decided to give her the good wishes quilt in a couple of weeks when it is finished instead.


Earlier in the afternoon Maimie and I looked through her "China Book" (the lifebook/scrapbook I made her). She has changed so much in the last 3 years.
I can't imagine our lives without her.
We love you, Maimie Beth GuoZhen!

My Children

Last week I came across this verse:

Isaiah 29:23
"When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel."


I often feel this way when I look at the children God has entrusted to me. My children are the handiwork of God. He has a special plan for each of their lives. I can't help realizing how unworthy I am to be given the privilege of parenting these blessings. And it truly does make me stand in awe of my God.

Hello, February!

Joseph enjoying another day of homeschooling

Fun with beans and rice

Already February! Three years ago on Groundhog Day we were on an airplane bound for China. Later this week we will celebrate our Gotcha Day for little Maimie Beth GuoZhen. February 10 marks 30 years since I began my walk with the Lord. On February 14 we'll enjoy the dual celebration of Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year (year of the Tiger).

All dressed up and ready to go

On the adoption front, our homestudy is completed and being reviewed by our placing agency Great Wall China Adoption. We hope to hear something this week so that we can send it with our I-800A application (the final step). Hopefully all of the other dossier documents have been certified and authenticated in Chicago and will be returned this week. Last week Steve's Ohio birth certificate was sent to the Chinese Consulate in New York for authentication. We are getting so close! I'm estimating that our dossier will be completed and ready to send to China by the end of March or early in April. Our agency has told us that we could get a referral anytime even if we don't have a logged in date in China for our paperwork.
While we waited for Maimie, we asked friends and family to send us squares of fabric for a quilt and wishes/prayers for her. I had every good intention of having it completed long before now....but alas, I'm lame about things like that. Also I have no skills in this area and made it harder by chosing to highlight each square with sashing. I did manage to locate someone to help make the quilt, though. I'll be meeting with Barb this week to see how things are looking so far. It will be so exciting to give this quilt to Maimie along with a book of the wishes so that she can see how much everyone cared for her and loved her before she even came into our family.

Maimie's new "do"

It is my hope that after Maimie's quilt is finished, we can ask everyone to start sending us squares and wishes for our new little one. Perhaps I can have the second quilt completed in a more timely manner!