Surprise!

I've really been falling behind on blogging since Asher's been home, but that's a good thing because it means we are busy spending time with him and our other kiddos :)  He's doing great!  He recently had surgery that went very well and he has his first eye surgery scheduled for April 14th.  We are so excited for this eye surgery and are praying for restored vision in his right eye after the cataract is removed.  Asher continues to amaze us with all he takes on.  He has been learning so many signs and shows us each day what a strong little guy he is.  Yes, there are still behavioral struggles and we still have hard days, but God has been pouring into me and sustaining me and I'm so blessed by this provision.

Not only is Asher doing great, but we have some surprising news to share.  We are adopting again!!  Are you surprised?  We can hardly believe it ourselves!  We had no intention of going back so soon (if ever!) but once again, God had other plans.  We found our sweet girl on Reece's Rainbow and we are just so excited to add her to our family.  Hannah Joy Xin Xin (yeah, that will be her new name :) ) is 13, has Down syndrome just like her little bro, and will age out of China's adoption program when she turns 14 on December 1st of this year.  We must be in China and have signed her official adoption papers before her birthday.  This gives us less than 8 months to get all the paperwork done and approved and for us to get back over there.  

We are already off to a running start with Pre-Approval coming today and we are getting started on getting a homestudy update.  If we had been smart when we were adopting Asher we would have asked to be approved for two kids because that would have made this process super easy, but 20/20 hindsight....  It's still going to be an easier process and even though I thought I'd never want to do this paper chase again, I'm feeling so ready.

Hannah Joy has a $10,461 grant through Reece's Rainbow (how incredible is that?!) and we are praying that her orphanage will agree to waive her orphanage fee of $5700-$5900.  We've also had the inredible blessing of having another adopting family offer us a very generous donation to help get Hannah home before she ages out.  God is already paving the way!  We will be doing another puzzle fundraiser (more info on that later!) and we are hoping to do a Halo Fundraiser through Angels In Disguise (again, more on that later).  We are also considering doing another garage sale if we can get some items donated in time.  Our neighborhood is having it's association sale toward the end of April, so we would have a great chance of exposure.  We also have our Paypal Donate button back up and you can find that at the top left of the blog.  

We are so excited to share the new journey with you all and keep checking back so you don't miss the info I will be posting soon about our upcoming fundraisers!  I will leave you with a picture of our beautiful girl!  Love you all.

~Carly