Happy Thanksgiving

We are so thankful to be celebrating this Thanksgiving as a family of 3! Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Oh Happy Day!

Good news ... yesterday someone put an offer in on our house, we counter-offered and as we were walking in to close on the new house this morning our agent told us our counter-offer had been accepted! Big relief and perfect timing ... Praise God!

Big week

Lots of big steps this week for our big girl. Anna went to the nursery at church by herself for the first time this past Sunday! This was such a big step for her and we were so proud!

She also did nap time at Nana's a few days this week and did great. Anna's sleep routine is really good now, but it took many, many months before she was sleeping through the night feeling content and secure in her new home. We haven't wanted to disrupt this great routine, but we decided it might finally be time for her to try nap time at Nana's with the rest of the kids. Anna loves to do what the other kids are doing, so she had no trouble at all making the transition! Another proud moment for us!

We will be moving into our new house the first weekend of December. We have been talking to Anna about it a lot and we just ask for prayers for her as she makes that transition! We are still trying to sell our current house, so prayers for us that we get it sold soon!!

Have a great weekend!

Anna The Artist

She is already taking after her daddy...

A must read

Here is a great post from an advocacy blog I follow - it's a little long, but please take the time to read it.

Advocating for some children with our agency

We received this info from our agency earlier this week:

The China Waiting Children program has seen significant changes over the last two years. The most significant change was the implementation of CCAA's Online System. This system has allowed agencies to access information on thousands of children waiting for their families.

Now, CCAA has implemented their "Special Focus Children Program" where agencies select children that have been on the Shared List for at least two months and then request that CCAA assign them to their agency as "Individual" referrals. Agencies then have three months in which to find families for the children assigned to them. AAI currently has a list of 10 Special Focus children, both boys and girls ranging from age 11 months to 11 years, that we are advocating for. We would like to ask you, both our past and present clients, to help us in this effort to advocate for these children who are waiting for their forever families.

If you belong to a Yahoo group, forum, or have a blog, we are asking that you consider posting a notice of their availability, listing the children as
follows:

1. Benjamin, born in March of 2009, is diagnosed with albinism.
2. Christopher, born in May of 2007, is diagnosed with albinism.
3. Garrett, born in June of 2008, is diagnosed with congenital heart disease (a family currently has a hold on this file).
4. Hayden, born in November 2009, is diagnosed with cleft lip and palate.
5. Jessie, born in July of 2001, is hepatitis b positive.
6. Lily, born in March of 2003, is diagnosed with anemia and has a significant developmental delay.
7. Liam, born in December of 2007, is hepatitis b positive.
8. Tyler, born in July of 2009, is diagnosed with repaired cleft lip (no cleft palate) and an extra small toe.
9. & 10. Katie & Kyle - TWINS! - born in December of 1998. Katie is healthy and Kyle is hepatitis b positive.

Interested families can contact me directly at 1.800.677.2367 or email me at
lbussa@adoptassoc.com ... to receive detailed medical reports and pictures.

Pumpkin patch and Halloween pics