First baby doll!

We are still waiting on our home study to be rewritten and resubmited to USCIS for approval. Our home study agency says they should have this ready tomorrow. The waiting hasn't been fun, but in the meantime, we've been keeping busy with Kendall and Cooper! Today we went on a shopping trip to Pearland. Kendall needed a hair cut, we got a couple of new dresses for school, some party supplies for Cooper's upcoming 2nd birthday party, we had a lunch date at Panera, and we found this!!

I had seen some people mention that Carter's had this in our Lifeline facebook group, and after I had already checked out there today, I remembered it! I went to see if they had it and they did! I was super excited. This is the first thing we've bought for our sweet baby in China and Randy and I just love it. We love that she will have a baby to love that looks just like her. Now to keep it safe until she gets here...these two big sisters are ready to meet their new little sister!

Request For Evidence

Translation: NOT what you want to get in the mail from USCIS.

We got home from our trip to Ft. Worth on July 30th, totally expecting to see our immigration approval from US Citizenship and Immigration Services in the mail. It was not. So, we were confident we would get it one day that week. It didn't come.

This Monday, August 6, we went to the mailbox and DID have a letter from USCIS. So excited, thinking this was our approval, we opened it to find that it was a Request For Evidence.

Stink.

Apparently, before they can send us our immigration approval, they need more detail in our home study report - our OH SO DETAILED home study report. Our representative at Lifeline said that this is actually becoming more and more common and that she has actually had three clients lately get this RFE notice.

So what this means is that we get with our social worker here in Texas that wrote our home study report, she adds the information they are requesting to our report, fixes some wording, and when that is complete we re-submit our home study to USCIS. And then, (hopefully!!) we get our approval.

I was pretty upset at first, understanding that this was just more of a delay in this crazy road to our daughter. I am so ready to see her face. SO READY.

But....I realize that things are moving as quickly as we can possibly make them on our end, I realize that all of this is in God's perfect timing, and I am choosing to trust and rest while we are waiting. Even choosing to be thankful. We have so much to be thankful for, and we trust in our God who sees the whole picture. He knows why we needed this slow-down and we believe He will give us our daughter in His perfect timing.

Please continue to pray with us to that end. We are still praying our big prayer for a referral by Christmas. Even if we do not have our dossier in China on my birthday, we still believe this is possible for a God who does what seems impossible to us. Thank you for your support and your prayers for our family and for our daughter! We are so thankful for you!!

"Don't be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm." Exodus 14:13-14