While We Continue To Wait .............. Yard Sale, Love Offering, Tanner graduates from Pre-K, Sandy graduates from High School and Tanner turns 5...

I apologize for not posting in almost a month. I have had several people ask why I have not updated the blog lately. Part is because we have been extremely busy the last few weeks and part has been because I have been so frustrated because of this wait. So I do apoligize and I will try to do better. We are waiting to hear from CCAI (our agency) that the Consulate in Guangzhou has sent our second LOA (Letter Of Acceptance) to CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs). Once CCAA receives our second LOA, they will start working on issuing us our Travel Approval. We are so praying that we travel by the end of June. This has been such a hard wait.

We have been busy the past few weeks. We had a yard sale on May 16 to raise money to help with the adoption expenses. We raised about seven hundred dollars. We are so thankful and appreciative for all the people that donated so much stuff for our yard sale. We would not have been able to pull it off without all of you. Also to all the people that help us the weekend of the yard sale, thank you so much. Rick, Heather, Sheryl, Mark, Sandy and Justin, Thank you guys so much. I don't know what we would have done with out you all. We love you guys and appreciate all you did. Miss Sarah Bell, thank you so very much for helping watch the boys while we set up everything. Samantha, thank you so much for babysitting the day of the yard sale ands Austin for playng with the boys. All of you were so wonderful and we are so grateful for you all. If I missed anybody, I am sorry. Know that we love you and appreciate all you do.

Our Church had a love offering for us on May 17. What a blessing. We have such an awesome Church family. We were blessed once again. We ended up with a little over eight hundred dollars. Thank you so very much. We love you guys so much. we are so blessed. After the amazing baby shower in April, then this. We can't thank you all enough. Most of all we thank God, because without God, none of this would be possible.

Tanner graduated from Pre-K May 17th, 2009. It is hard to believe that he starts kindergarten in the fall.

Sandy graduated from High School May 23rd and will began collage June 14th. This is really hard to believe. She graduated with honors and we are so proud of all she has accomplished. She is planning on majoring in Special Ed.

We celebrated both Sandy graduating from High School and Tanners birthday May 23rd after the graduation. Tanner turned 5 on the 25th. We had a great turn out. Lots of friends and family came and celebrated with us.

We are all hanging in here as we wait. Tanner ask everyday when are we going to get LeahJean. Heather is doing good and planning a wedding in October. Parker is doing great and will start Pre-K in the fall at Cleveland Road Elementary in the hearing impaired program. We are praying that he will be able to transition over to Oconee County School system when he starts kindergarten. He has made so much progress this past year in the hearing impaired program. He is talking so well. In July 2008 he was evaluated at 1.9 years and in May 2009 he was evaluated between 3.4 and 4.4 years. He is such an amazing little boy. We are so thankful for all of our children and so proud of all of them.

Sorry this post is so long. I will attach a slide show of different pictures over the past month. We have no updated pictures of LeahJean but we do have updated measurements. She weighs 30 pounds, 34 inches tall and her feet are 5 inches. She has really grown in the past year.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We ask that you continue to pray for us as we wait and pray for safe travels when we do travel. Also continue to pray for LeahJean as she waits for us to come get her. Pray that the transition goes well for her. She has had so many changes in her short life.

LeahJean, we love you so much, and I promise we will be there soon to get you and bring you home to your forever family. I promise that we will always love you and care for you and never leave you. Hang in there baby girl.

LOA!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, we have our LOA!!!!! Yahoo!!!!!!! On Monday, April 27, 2009, we received an e-mail and a phone call from our agency saying we had our LOA. We should, and should being the key word, travel in 6-9 weeks. This was the most amazing news we could have gotten. We will have our baby girl soon. I have been having a very hard time with this wait, then what happened with our Dossier getting over looked in the last batch of LOA's, I was really having a hard time. Very frustrated and all my patience was gone. After our baby shower on Sunday, I was feeling better. It just lifted my spirits so much. Then when we got the news Monday that we had LOA, well that really lifted my spirits. I was definitely on cloud nine, still am. I don't think my feet have touched the ground yet. I am so HAPPY!!!
Fed-Ex delivered our LOA to us today. Since we are a Hague family, we had a couple of extra documents that we had to fill out. CCAI sent them to us yesterday by email. We were able to get them all filled out last night and when we got our package today, we signed our documents and got them back in the mail today to CCAI. They will receive them tomorrow, review them and hopefully get them sent on there way to Missouri tomorrow, by Fed-Ex. This is were our I 800 will be approved, once it is approved, it will be on it's way to Guangzhou, China where our Article 5 will be issued, then on to CCAA so they can issue us TA (travel approval).
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. We ask that you continue to pray for us as we go through the rest of this process and please pray for LeahJean to keep her safe and healthy and protected until we can get her. Also pray for her as her little life as she has know for the past year will soon be up-rooted. That she will adjust well and quickly with us. WOW it won't be long now. Hold on just a little bit longer baby girl, we will be there soon.

Baby Shower

On Sunday, April 26, 2009, our Church family gave us the most amazing baby shower. Thank you all so much. You are all the best. We couldn't ask for a better Church family. We love all of you so very much. LeahJean has got to get home soon cause she has the most beautiful clothes any little girl could ask for. We got dresses, short sets, pant sets, capri's, shirts, PJ's, blankets, towel, hair bows, socks, undies, tote bag, back pack, toys, baby dolls, her first barbie, baiting suit, beach towel, sand bucket, little beach chair, beach stuff to play in the sand with, ect. WOW!!!!It was truely amazing. Enjoy the slide show.

Love,
Melissa

LeahJean, Easter and Sandy's Senior Prom

We are still waiting on our LOA from China. Once we get it, we should travel in 6-9 weeks. We should be receiving our LOA anyday now. Actually we should have had it last week, but we found out Thursday that the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs)had accidently over looked our LOA. I was so devistated. They are aware of it and are working on it. We were told it would be soon, soon as in days or weeks, we don't know. I am hoping days. I have my fingers crossed for one day this week. Please pray that it is this week. This wait has been so much harder than the other two. I am so very frustrated. Some days I could scream, others all I want to do is cry. With that being said, it now looks like late June or July before we will have our precious little girl home.

We have been staying busy the past few weeks. Last week we celebrated Easter at our house. it is always a big event. Lots of food, fellowship, family, freinds and the Easter egg hunt. We had a blast.

This weekend was Sandy's Senior Prom, so we were busy getting hair done, make-up, getting dressed and taking lots of pictures. It was so much fun, an all day event. The end results were beautiful. They had a great time at dinner, Prom and a concert after prom. A busy day for them and a late night.

Next weekend our Church is having a baby shower for us. I am so excited. Thank you Tina for doing this. It means so much to us. We love you.

May 16th we are going to be having a big yard sale at our Church to help raise money to help with the adoption exspenses for LeahJean. Please pray that this turns out well. If you have anything you would like to donate, we would love to put it in the yard sell.

Please be in prayer for me as on Tuesday I will be having a medical procedure done that requires me to be put to sleep. I haven't said anything to anyone, cause I really feel as if everything is ok. I don't want to bother anyone and cause any unnessary worring. It is one of those things my doctors wants to do to just make sure. He even thinks all is good, but gotta be sure. So just please pray that all is good.

Sorry so long. I have attached a slide show of random pictures, please enjoy.

We love you all

Random Pictures and LeahJean

While We Wait...............

Not much happening. The room is complete. The car seat is even in the van.

It has been 9 months and 1 day (a pregnancy) since we first saw that beautiful picture of LeahJean. This has been the hardest wait. The way things are going, we will hit a year before we actually get to hold this precious angel in our arms. As each day goes by, it gets harder and harder. I check my email everyday, I don't know how many times, to see if we got our LOA (Letter of Acceptance from China). Once we get that it should be 5-8 weeks till we travel.

We did get some possibly good news yesterday. There is a couple in China right now from Atlanta, that adopted a little girl that was in foster care with LeahJean. They got to go over and visit with the foster mom and nannies. See and play with the babies. They saw LeahJean and took a picture of her. Mike (the dad) got to talk to the intern, she is a college student from Ohio. She stated that she didn't think LeahJean was completely deaf. That when you make a loud noise, she turns around and when they put an Ipod on her she seemed to respond to it. Thank you Mike and Amy for the picture and this bit of information.

We will be busy the next couple of months. We will be moving my Dad from Montgomery Alabama. He will be living next to us. That will be taking place around mid April. Sandy graduates from High School May 23th, so we will be busy getting ready for that. By the way, her surgery went well and all test came back good. Praise God. She will be starting college in August, so we are working on getting all of that in line as well. Hopefully the nest couple of months will go by fast and we will be closer to getting LeahJean.

I have given up on having LeahJean here any sooner than June. I was so praying sooner, but I know it is in Gods hands and when the time is right we will go get our precious angel and bring her home. I am so way past ready. Pray that I keep my sanity as we wait.

We did get some bad news last week. Both Keith and I are employeed with the Postal Service. The Postal Service has been hit hard just like everybody has with the economy. Keith is a mail carrier and his pay is based somewhat on the volume of mail the he has. The mail volume has taken a tremendous drop due to the economy and had already started having a drop in volume due to the internet. Anyway, after a month long mail count and his route bing re-evaluated, Keith lost over six hours off of his route,(this is six hours a week), which will cause him to take a major pay cut. We won't know for sure until next month just how much of a cut it will be. We do know that we are looking at several, several thousand dollars. Be in prayer for us with this. Keith is really having a hard time with this. I am just so thankful that we both have jobs. We will adjust. We just need to come up with the rest of the money to finish the adoption. We didn't won't to put any of this one on credit, but we may have to. We didn't want that added bill each month, but we will do what we have to. Everything is covered except for our travel expenses, her in the states and in China. We just ask for lots of prayers. Our Church will be doing a love offering for us to help out. We are going to have a major yard sell, which we have needed for along time. Anybody got anything they would like to donate. :):) Anyway enough about that. I know God will provide, he always does.

Thank you for following our journey. Please continue to follow our journey to LeahJean. Please keep LeahJean in your thoughts and prayers and us as well.

LeahJean, Baby Girl, we are coming soon. I promise. We love you so much.