Christmas Care Package!

We are excited about the Christmas season and the opportunity to spend time with friends and family, but are also waiting in eager anticipation of the new year when the EP quota (i.e. passports given to children for international travel each year) is reset and children can again be approved to come home to their families. We now hope to travel some time from April - June and appreciate your prayers that the Korean Ministry would be generous and timely in approving more children to travel next year. It is crazy to think this will actually happen and that the sweet little boy in the pictures and videos we have treasured will actually be in our arms in a few months. It is exciting to think that all of the holidays we are celebrating now will be the last ones we experience

without Tay.

In the meantime, though, we have to love him from afar. Last week we shipped Taylor's second care package, his Christmas one, filled with some goodies for both Taylor and his foster mom.

We sent him a recordable book with us reading to him so that he is able to get more familiar with our voices. We plan to send him video of us talking to him, showing him his room, singing to him (maybe?) in the next package we will send (probably in January or February) so that we can best prepare him for the transition into our family. We tried to say "I love you" on the greeting page of the book with the hopes that that is what they hear when they open it. We sound really goofy to ourselves but I guess that is just preparing us for the crazy things we will find ourselves doing/saying when we become parents! We also got him a laugh-n-learn puppy, Thomas the Train toy, and light-up ball that were recommended by some ladies in my FB adoption group. Thanks ladies! We finished off his gifts with a couple of outfits and a book about monkeys. The outfits are usually more for the foster moms who have to recycle clothes with their foster children, and, because children are getting older in the foster homes with the new EP situation, we figure a couple more outfits would be nice.

I do not know how in the world you go about lavishing thanks and love on the woman who has sacrificially cared for your child during his first years of life, but this is where we will start. Apparently these Almond Roca chocolates are a great treat in South Korea but cost much more than they do here (Walmart $5). And what mom does not need energy, sleep, and stress relief? Hopefully this sugar scrub, body lotion, and bubble bath will allow some much earned pampering this Christmas ;)

"Itty bitty living space" - quote from Aladdin for all you Disney fans. That is what I think about every time I have to cram all of this love and fun into a small box to send halfway around the world. : ) Hoping it gets there in time for Christmas (they said it would) and that we get some cute pictures with him playing with his toys!

The train you see in this picture is different from the one above because the first one did not work, and we had to settle for a Percy train instead of Thomas because that is all they had left ;)

Also, we received 57 t-shirt orders, which will add up to about $700 that we can put towards our adoption fees and travel expenses! Yay! Thanks to all who have supported us in this way. We have also be selling all sorts of things on Craig's List and are able to raise that fundraiser thermometer just a little further towards our goal. Another praise is that Lifesong for Orphans, the ministry that awarding us an interest-free loan to help pay for the up-front adoption fees, is extending our deadline for repaying that money until June 2013 because our travel was delayed. This is an answer to prayer and will greatly reduce the immediate need for funds by travel. So, thank you all of your prayers and encouraging words. We are amazed at what God is doing in our lives and how much He has blessed us to even be on this journey to bring Taylor into our family.