It's a boy!

We are thrilled to announce that we are the very proud parents of a precious baby boy waiting for us in China!

With much prayer and in God’s perfect timing, we felt led to allow greater room for God to do His handiwork in growing our family. In May, we applied to the Waiting Child program with our adoption agency. Just a little over two weeks later (WOW – we’re still in shock!), on Friday, June 5, we saw our son’s face for the very first time and accepted his referral with great joy! There is a bit more to the story (which I'll post about later), but when we received the call from our agency – we knew immediately he was our son! God is so good!

I was running a garage sale on Friday morning, went upstairs to grab a cup of coffee and came back down with a son! Well, there was some calling back and forth with Eric, our agency, and a lot of tears, and then I went back down to the garage and shocked my sister-in-law who had been waiting for her cup of coffee for a half hour. :)

Back to the baby, here are the details about our son:

Chinese name: Only to be shared upon receiving referral acceptance (about three months from now)
His face: Only to be publicly posted upon receiving referral acceptance, but stop me when you see me, and I’ll show you a picture! He’s SO handsome!
Name we've given him: Zane Leland (Zane - God is gracious/Leader & Leland – Grandpa’s and Eric’s middle name)
Age: 9 months
Resides: Fuj*an Prov*nce
Special need: Unrepaired cleft lip and palate
Fun facts about Zane: He’s active, loves listening to music and playing with musical toys, laughs aloud and has a ready smile, and his favorite activity is being cuddled. Oh, and he’s super cute! :)

As you can imagine, we are very eager to get to him and bring him home! Please pray protection and care over Zane and that we receive all our approvals timely or sooner! Current timeframes could send us back to China in late October, about the same time we were there in 2006 for Elle.

After the day's excitement and an exhausting garage sale, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Alicia took us out to celebrate Zane at our favorite bbq place. Rejoicing! -Eric, Kate & Elle

Happenings with us...

I know, it's been awhile.... Thought I'd post a few pics and news about things around here, let's see....

We did an Easter egg hunt in the rain - Elle didn't mind. She plowed through that field and filled that basket full! We also enjoyed going through Resurrection Eggs leading up to Easter - I made them in MOPS and they were my favorite craft that we did -- something we'll keep and do every year! In the middle of April we had a visit from my parents as they were here for my Grandma's funeral.

Right before school was out, we took an extended weekend trip to Omaha to visit their zoo and children's museum. (On our way up, we stopped at Immigration to update our fingerprints for the adoption.) But back to the zoo, 'Everyone' says it's one of, if not the best, zoo in the country. It was really great and we did enjoy it a lot, but I think Elle loved the pool at the hotel even more. Both nights of our stay we had the entire pool and hot tub to ourselves - it was a blast. We also ate at a couple places I searched out - the places the locals go to. One was 'California Taco', that was on Food Network, Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. I had their infamous California Taco and it was delicious - but how can you go wrong with deep fried flour around all your favorite taco ingredients?!

The next week Elle finished her first semester of one-on-one speech therapy at the preschool. Ms. Beth was an excellent teacher, so patient and kind and Elle's language has really improved these past months. From February till now some of the things we've noticed/she's accomplished are, in no particular order...

We used to have to guess from facial expression and objects pointed at or context, what she was 'babbling' about - now she gives us understandable key words.
She started saying 'no' - this is good! :)
Began using pronouns - I, me, you.
Uses possessive pronouns - my, mine - this is good too! :)
She is praying and we understand some of it - so sweet - 'Ga, mama food, dada food, Elle food, AA, Tetin, Amen!'
Counts to 10.
Says the alphabet.
Overall, increased vocabulary.

Pronunciation and proper sound use is a big challenge, but we are definitely getting her language now and when we challenge her, she almost always tries. We are certainly very proud of her and noticed what a blessing she was to her teacher and the other therapists she came in contact with three times a week. They all expressed to me what a dear, sweet girl she is and Ms. Beth always talked about how well Elle followed directions. Ms. Beth won't be returning in the Fall, so we're praying about who God will bring for Elle in August. Elle brought flowers and a card to Ms. Beth and on the last day of school told her thanks and gave her a kiss on the cheek - I did not prompt any of the appreciation (Well, I bought the flowers.) - she's a dear.


The following week, Elle and I celebrated the beginning of summer by visiting the cousins for a few days. Elle just loves being around her cousins and she and Ami are learning to play together well and enjoy each other more and more. I forgot to tell a story from a previous visit with the cousins...when we arrived, Ami looked at Elle and said, 'Hey, she has black hair like me!' And this visit, Ami told me that she was born in China and I turned to Elle and asked, 'And where were you born?' She said 'Shina' and they both looked quite proud that they had a similar story. Very sweet!

Since then, we've been enjoying the parks/playgrounds immensely - Elle has a new level of physical coordination this Spring and is appreciating the climbing apparatuses and slides on a whole new level. Every day she asks to go to the park - sometimes we visit twice, once in the morn and then after dinner with Daddy.

I know, we're so exciting around here! LOL! :) We did have a humongo garage sale last weekend - that was very exciting. Seriously, I've got a good story about that - but that will wait till next post...very soon, I promise! Stay tuned - seriously, this story can't be missed! :)

Oh, almost forgot - Elle moved into a big girl bed! She's done incredibly well - hasn't gotten out of it, sleeps through the night - the transition is such a confidence booster, ya know? A lot of toddler fun around here!

Leaving you with some random pics of this and that....