We have a court date

We have court on the 18th!!!!  We were told we had to be in country 2 days early so that we can have 2 supervised visits before court.  We have received confusing explanations about why we have to have these supervised visits.  I asked because I have never heard of that before and wondered if there was an issue.  From on person I was told a court representative had to watch us with Valentin since Valentin cannot give verbal confirmation that he wants to be adopted and that this court representative could 'testify' on his behalf.  That actually makes a lot of sense.  But by one of the in-country facilitators I was told that an orphanage representative would have to testify at court and therefore needed to see us interact with Valentin.  This one frustrates me a bit because what was the orphanage representative doing the 3 weeks I was visiting Valentin every day?


Regardless, we have to be in country on Wednesday so we leave on Monday.  Leaving is so bitter sweet, just thinking about leaving the kids at home again brings me to tears, but I am sooooo looking forward to seeing the boys.  I am very ready to have all the kids under one roof!  Even after court the process still takes a while but hopefully we can bring the boys home some time around the first or second week of June.


And...ummmm...have you seen the total to the right????  We have been enjoying our time together at home and had not been thinking too much about the money and had not been watching how much came in.  A friend texted me and asked how the fundraising was going so I went to check...oh my goodness!  I am sitting here with my fingers on the keyboard trying to find words to express how we feel and to appropriately say thank you.  How many times now have I tried to express how grateful we are for every donation?  I don't want to say it too much and it start to get annoying but I also feel the need to express with every post just how amazed we are at the kindness and generosity we have been shown.  It has been very easy for us to fall so in love with Valentin and Joey and want to bring them into our family, God gave us that love supernaturally.  How much sweeter to see others love them as much as we do and to work just as hard to help bring them home.  So thank you for loving our boys and ensuring that we are able to bring them home!  We continue to praise God for His provision, we know that ultimately it all comes from Him!


I do want to mention really quick an answer to people asking us what we will do with the money if we have some left over at the end.  Right now we are looking like we will not have much if any left over, especially if I come home again during the mandatory 10 day wait after court.  But if we have money left over we have been confused about whether to use it for the medical, therapy, and specialized equipment we will no doubt have to pay for or to donate it to another family towards their adoption.  Most people have told us to keep the money for the boys' medical and equipment costs but we also know that other families are struggling to raise money.  We pray that God will put the correct answer right in front of us.


Hopefully I will be back to daily blogging when we get to the boys' country, but I have to admit it has been nice to go off the grid for almost a week.  None of us have been able to get much rest, it has been a busy 6 days but I have enjoyed every minute of being home!  It was so worth it to come home, even for such a short time!  The timing worked out perfectly too so that I could make it to my cousin Lindsey's wedding.  I love weddings and it was extra sweet to see her get married!  My boys were her ring bearers and I am so happy I got to be there to see it.  We had so much fun seeing family and celebrating.  I realized it had been far too long since Tyler and I had danced so much!

My wonderful parents with the kids (notice my mom is oxygen tank free, praise God!)

My boys love "God's Not Dead" by Newsboys and wanted to share their rendition with the world...

I had to share the video below of my little boys dancing...too cute!  Can you believe our little guy from China has Spina Bifida?  When we finally got to him in China he had a sac on his back with his spinal cord coming out his vertebra into the sac.  His toes were curled under from a tethered spinal cord which would have only become worse as he grew and left alone would have been extremely debilitation and ultimately fatal.  With a little love and one surgery look at him now...