Latest Update

Since my last post, we have been working hard to bring everything together for Adam. We had Christmas at my parent's house on Saturday and I took some more photos of the family for Adam's photo album. We had a great time at mom and dad's and everyone seemed to enjoy the gift exchange. I think we will go for the same idea next year. I printed all of the Christmas pictures from the week on Sunday and finally pieced together Adam's album for his care package. I made sure I labeled everything in English and in Chinese if I had access to the translation. Monday morning John and I ran around trying to mail the package off. That was a task in itself. We have no way of knowing, but I pray that his package makes it to him. I need him to know who we are before we get there. We also put a disposable camera, a foamy football, a superman monster truck and some candies for the foster parents in the package. We are hoping the cameras will be full of pictures when we arrive in China. We wanted to send him some clothes, but we just do not know his sizes and were afraid of sending something that would not fit at all. That afternoon we made a stop at a fabric store to look for superman fabric. Since this is our 5th visit to a fabric shop with no sign of superman fabric we settled on San Antonio Spurs fabric. We will see how this pillow making thing goes. We ran some other errands and I have been working at PM&R to get some extra hours in. Tuesday I worked a lot because there really was nothing else to do. The weather was horrible. Wednesday we had the carpets professionally cleaned which had not been done since we moved in so it was time. During the week, our agency received our signed LSC and some additional paperwork. Today we stopped at Ashley Furniture to see if they can push up the delivery date from the end of January. We are scheduled for delivery tomorrow. I can't wait to work some more on his room. We also recieved an e-mail from our agency today stating that we are now moved to the travel portion of the process. We will have new agency employees to work with at this stage. Next Tuesday we are having another homestudy visit to update our paperwork for travel. Oh and I printed some homemade adoption announcement postcards that I will be getting in the mail here soon. What else? I think this is it so far. It has been a crazy two weeks and we have by no means rested, but at least we are one day closer to Adam. I will take pictures tomorrow of the new bed with the Black Friday comforter sets and post them. Until then...goodnight and Happy New Year Adam!

Merry Christmas

Today was an exhausting day for John and I both. We started early this morning and have been going non-stop for most of the day. It was great to spend the day with John even though he is still not feeling well. My mom made us a fantastic breakfast and John grilled some tasty burgers for dinner. Somehow I got out of doing any of the cooking. We painted Adam's room today and I can't wait to fill it with all things boy! I thought about him all day today. I look forward to filling up the tree with little boy presents next year. I have a feeling his sisters will spoil him crazy. As long as he understands why we celebrate Christmas I am happy with that. Merry Christmas to everyone!

Christmas Eve

Today we celebrated Christmas at my Mother and Father in-law's house. Jennifer, Johnna and Jordyn were there as well as Uncle James and Wade. This is a tradition in the Laymon family and I can't wait for Adam to be a part of it next year, his first Christmas with us. Grandma and Grandpa gave Adam a Cars blanket and a Cars themed learning laptop for Christmas. John and I opened one gift each for him. I think we are going to take the blanket with us to China for him to have at the hotel and for the plane trip home. I am still hoping to somehow piece together a superman pillow for him. This is one of my many projects for the next few weeks. If only I can figure out how to use that darn sewing machine! Tomorrow morning we are opening gifts and then treating ourselves to Starbucks with our awesome gift cards. John and I have pretty much given up Starbucks to help minimize costs and save for the trip so the gift cards from Uncle James were joyfully received. We are eating breakfast at my parent's house and then returning home for a non-traditional Christmas day of painting Adam's room. My mom is coming over to help with the bedroom and if John is feeling better, he is going to grill us some Christmas hamburgers. Tonight Jennifer and I are attending a midnight church service at our church. I filled up on a McDonald's coffee about two hours ago so I am wide awake so far. We will see how I am feeling in about an hour. This may be the last midnight service we make for a while. Next year we will have to put Adam to bed early so Santa can swing by the house.

A little bit about our superman...

As I work on Adam's bedroom, prepare his care package and finalize announcements I can't stop thinking about who he is. The last updated paperwork we received included seven beautiful pictures, one of which I posted yesterday (my favorite one) and some general information. According to the growth report, Adam is a healthy little boy who is developing well. The "superman" comes from this latest update. We were told he likes to play with cars, puzzle games and superman. He also loves to play outdoors. Sounds like a perfect match to me. We can't wait to take him camping and fishing. I am sure his Uncle Jeff could show him a thing or two on the river and I look forward to taking him to John's football games. I imagine our little superman will be an active energetic Laymon.

We have LSC!

Well, today our LSC arrived courtesy of FedEx. The LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation) is the official of all official documents and let me tell you, there are numerous documents involved in this process. We actually got the call from our agency Friday afternoon that the LSC had arrived, but were told we had to wait until they returned to the office on Monday and have it shipped to us overnight. The call Friday came during my eye appointment and quite unexpectedly. When we received our PA (Pre-Approval) on Thanksgiving Day, we were told the LSC would arrive anywhere from 30 to 100 days. John and I were not expecting it until at least after the holidays. Friday was a fantastic day! It was John and Roseann's anniversary (John's parents)and a good friend of ours graduated from college that evening. We definitely realized how truly blessed we really are. So the package arrived today and we probably freaked out the FedEx man with our silly request, "Can we have a picture of you holding our package?" He was a real trooper and agreed. Now we can officially introduce our son to everybody. His Chinese name is Bao Long Ji and he is from the Guangdong Province. His American name is Adam and we have decided to combine the Long and Ji and make Longji his middle name. We hope he is okay with this. Adam is 5 years old and will be 6 years old in March. John and I are praying that we will have him in our arms before his next birthday. If things keep moving this quickly, we may make it to China around my birthday. If I can figure it out, I will post a timeline for everybody to see from paperwork to present.

A Journey to New Beginnings

Let me begin this blog with an explanation of where this journey truly began. This may be a little long for some of you...
John and I were married in April of 2004. He has three daughters from a previous marriage -Jennifer, Johnna and Jordyn. For the first year of our marriage we lived in a one bedroom apartment. Weekends with the girls were a bit cramped, but I would not have traded the experience for anything. We had giant slumber parties every weekend and I think the limited space forced us to put up with each other. Oh, and we can't forget little miss Ginger, our short haired Dachshund. She also participated in our slumber parties. As we wrapped up our first year, we decided a house might be more fitting for this family of five plus Ginger. We moved in April 2005 to what is now our home. I knew the girls were ecstatic about their bedrooms and a second bathroom. Ginger did not know what to do with all of the yard outside. She had only known apartment life. Talk of having a baby began to stir around this time. We were both school teachers with a nice house which was empty during the week and every other weekend. Summers were also a bit quiet half the time because we only had the girls over for one month in the summer. It was time to start thinking about bringing home a baby. We did not know at that point that we would be traveling to China to bring home our son. After a couple of years of fertility treatments, John and I began pursuing other options. We had talked previously about adopting one day. I think it was something that was always in our hearts, especially being school teachers. Now the realization of adoption was heavy on our hearts. We asked questions, researched our options and we were repeatedly led to China. God was throwing China in our face every time we turned around. Finally, we decided we should probably listen to Him. It took three years to get to this point and now we will meet our son in less than three months. As I sit here and type this initial post, there are so many high and low points that we have encountered along the way that I could be mentioning. All of which would lead to the same conclusion - God had all of this planned out all along. Our Journey to New Beginnings is a constant one and we could not ask for a better guide.