Finally, some new photos...

We (ahem, I mean Tom) got the card reader working again! Here are some belated photos of Lilly's completed room, some of the cute clothes my book club surprised me with last week when I hosted book club, some fun ones of Jared and Anna just being cute, and the new vehicle we got last weekend after Anna's big championship swim meet in Pensacola (her last 8 & under championship meet!) It feels good to have a new, reliable car, as we look ahead at traveling for medical appointments and ever further ahead at Tom's deployment early next year.

Finally, some new photos...

Here are some much-belated photos from our recent birthdays and other happenings in our home. No word yet on our TA, but I am happily following blogs of those families that are in CHina right now getting their new children. Feel free to check some of them out if I can figure out how to post them on here!

Here is Anna with some of her Barracuda teammates celebrating after last week's swim meet.

And here is Anna helping me paint Lilly's room...hope to have "after" photos of the finished room soon!

Here we are celebrating my 40th b-day at Osaka Japanese steak house--yum!!

And the rest of these are of Jared and his friends celebrating his 12th birthday. We initially tried to take a group of them paintballing, but when we got there the painball field had to turn us away as all of their guns were checked out. Yikes! What's a mom to do when she has 8-10 boys ready and eager to play paintball? We went home the the same eager boys played "Capture the Flag" in the woods behind our house for HOURS! They had a blast. We proceeded with the pizza, cake, presents, and an impromptu nerf gun war around the cul-de-sac, and rescheduled the actual paint ball outing for a few days later. They had a blast! Tom sported some pretty nasty bruises from all the fun! Jared has such a nice group of friends--he is truly blessed.

And, last, but certainly not least, is the photo of Lilly we received most recently. This photo was probably taken even earlier than the referral photos I posted back in October, but it is new to us and it is a joy to catch another glimpse of her sweet face. And she has hair!!

Dossier has passed the critical review, undergoing translation!

We received word late last week that our dossier is entirely in order! It has been submitted for translation and will soon be on its way to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA), the Chinese government agency that oversees adoptions. Once it is logged in at CCAA, our wait begins for a "match" with a child...the wait could be anywhere from just a month or two, up to nearly a year... I am personally hoping for a short wait for our match!! Once we are matched with a child, we wait another 3-6 months until we are able to travel.

The waiting is still a struggle, but it's a chance to learn to rest on God's sovereignty and trust His timing.

In the meantime, we celebrated Anna's 8th birthday this week!! She had a pool party here at the house for a few friends, and we had a fabulous time. I can't believe she is 8 years old already! We also bought hiking shoes for Jared last night since he leaves next weekend for a week at Boy Scout summer camp. Not only can I not believe that he will be away from us for a whole week at a camp in Georgia learning to shoot a rifle, drive a motorboat, ride a horse, and live in the mountains, but--get this--his shoe size is only a size and a half smaller that Tom's!! Yikes! When did this happen??

Thanks for the comments some of you have left for us...always fun to hear from friends!

Happy Father's Day to any dads who are reading!

Enjoy the photos! There are some from the last day of school, the black and white of Jared is his 5th grade portrait (isn't he handsome?) and some are from Anna's birthday.