i can hear their footsteps

two days ago we sent luke's documents off to immigration--wahooooo!

percy the wonder cat is guarding the documents until we can get to ups.

he did a mighty fine job of guarding them and is seeing them off now

they were delivered at 9:30 the next morning--when you are in the final stages of brining your little home, hours mean EVERYTHING to you!

his package will sit in a "lock box" for 10 days while the check for $720 clears (the fees paid to the department of homeland security for the processing of immigration paperwork). after that, our immigration officer will review it and issue a provisional approval. once we receive that, we can fill out another form for his visa. once we do this and receive the confirmation email,  we send it to our agency who forwards it to their contact in china. shortly after this, we will receive travel approval (TA). 

our agency worker is sure we will be with our children on the 18th of May---the 18th of May!!!!!! that means we'd be leaving on the 15th. leaving on a jet plane. like rocket man: except not depressing. 

i'm pretty sure there is a way to work ALL of sir elton john's songs into these blog posts. :) 

right now, it seems surreal to me. we've been in the process to bring lucy-girl home for over a year now, and though we've only been in process to bring the dude (luke) home since december it still seems as if it's been forever. every week without them is a week our home is not complete, and a week two precious pieces of my heart are missing. i can hear their footsteps now. i can hear them running up the stairs and i can hear the ruckus of their playing on the floor above us. i can hear them giggle as they feed bird-catcher mcfuzzy paws (birdie) waaaaaay too many treats. i can hear them laugh as they watch gnarls roll onto his back to avoid having to go "home" (his crate) at night. it all is so vivid in my mind now. a very probably date will do that to you. <3

she won't complain though

he's mastered the pitiful "feel sorry for me" look  :)

once we arrive home, luke will require surgery to correct some physical issues. we and the doctors agree it will be best to do the two corrections at the same time to limit his exposure to anesthesia. please join us in prayer for this--that he will understand the pain of the procedures will only be temporary and it is for his best life we are doing this. they really are necessary, and are most certainly not merely "cosmetic-preferred".

lucy is fine as far as we know and will require no immediate medical intervention, aside from a visit to a pediatric cardiologist to check the condition of her repaired hear and then subsequent yearly follow up visits. :) 

when i first meet people and the adoption comes up, the initial reactions are usually "oh, how sweet! so precious, how old are they?" and when i explain they are 8 and 11, the following responses are often of bewilderment and forced excitement. quite a few strangers really don't know how to react to hearing of an older child adoption. however, there are some amazing friends and internet friends that share in the uncontainable joyous excitement we have. i love what a dearly sweet friend said: "rather 8 months and 11 months or 8 years and 11 years, it's worth celebrating!" we agree!  we've been asked by a few people if we've registered anywhere--we hadn't, but we do need plenty to prepare our home for them! we've put together this little registry, as we haven't had 8 and 11 years to build up their rooms, lives, possession and whatnots. :)  

lucy-girl and luke-dude's registry :) 

lucy-girl and luke-dude would love anything you would like to send! 

(stores don't have adoption registries, so it is listed as a baby registry with due date of May 15th (when we expect to travel :)). 

thank you for sharing in this joy with us! we can't wait to have pictures of us all together to share!