What a journey!

Well, I'm sure you're still picking your jaw off the floor, so I'll take my time.

...Ready?... ok...

Yep, we're headed to China for a 3rd time to add child #4!!! Another little brother!

It all started...well, that's not a good way to start, it would take me too long to explain that.  How about the first time we saw him, March 3, 2013, the day we saw a picture of our newest treasure.  It's time to confess something, which shouldn't surprise any of you, I always look at pictures of the waiting kids in China.  Always.  So, this little guy was one of the hundreds of kids that I have seen over the past few years.

There wasn't anything particular about him, he's a looker, but so many (most) of them are!  We'd talked about the age of a child we might consider, and he fit into that, so that is why I read his short bio.  Honestly, it was full of a bunch of big medical words and although I wasn't scared by them, I definitely had no idea what they meant.  I showed Kevin his picture and, like he usually does, he looked then looked away.  People, I do not know how this man doesn't roll his eyes at me 100 times a day. :)

Kevin and I had a few conversations about what the next step for our family was, life has a way of throwing things at you when you least expect it, so these conversations had been happening regularly.   During this particular conversation, he said, "We could learn more about that little guy you showed me."  He knows better than to say something like that, because it takes me .2 seconds to spring into action!!!

On March 4th we officially got his file, but this was just the beginning of our decision making process.  After a few phones calls we got some specialists to look at his medical records.  Then we had to get started on some initial paperwork, which took much longer than we expected to get in order (and this was only to be considered to adopt him).  The info in his file is old, real old, which made us wonder about how he is doing now.  The adoption agency asked for updates, and got no response.  We felt like we could not make a smart decision without more info, so we prayed for an update while we were working on the paperwork.

When we started looking seriously ate this little guy Kevin said to me, "We just keeping going until the door closes, that's what's happened before, what do we have to worry about?"  Yet again, my husband of few words, says exactly the right thing!  So we keep going.

Tonight, after talking one last time about a final decision to move forward, neither of us would say a definitive yes.  But as we sat here planning our trip to China :) I said, "We're doing this, aren't we?" And the smile I got from Kevin is all I needed to know, WE'RE DOING THIS!!!

Here he is at 1 year old!  I know, ridiculously adorable! 

Hopefully soon we'll have a more current photo.