Late Christmas Present

I have to say I had an amazing Christmas! BUT - today was the icing on the cake. To our surprise we received multiple pictures AND VIDEO of Mia after surgery. She is more than 1 week post op and back at the orphanage. She looks wonderful, happy and healthy. My sweet girl!!!!

I have posted the pictures but will not be posting the video due to privacy policies. We are still waiting on the LOA from China to arrive. I am hopeful the new year will bring this document quickly to us - AND travel will follow soon thereafter.

After seeing the pictures and videos of Mia, my heart is at rest that she is being well cared for. However, it also sparks a longing in my heart to have her with me and our family. I know that God's timing is perfect and I am trusting him!

For those that are not familiar with adoption it is definitely a journey. A journey that GOD walks alongside of you and requires a great deal of faith. Through this process to Mia and our first adoption of Maddie I have grown in my faith and trust in the LORD. It is through these times that GOD is molding and shaping me; preparing me for HIS plan and purpose in this life.

Please keep praying for Mia and that the adoption process moves along quickly.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone! We spent a wonderful weekend together with family celebrating the birth of Jesus.

I witnessed many precious moments between my children this Christmas Season. Moments that make my heart full.

There are presents under the tree for Mia in anticipation of her homecoming. A few days before Christmas we received news that Mia is doing fine and recovering nicely after surgery. We did get a picture of her lip after surgery and it looks good. The surgeon did a wonderful job. I feel a little better knowing that she is okay. We are waiting for more pictures once she gets out of the hospital.

Now that Christmas is over it is time for BASKETBALL!!! Off to Lafayette for a tournament at St. Thomas Moore - GO SAINTS!!!!

Jesus is the reason for the Season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!

Surgery

Yesterday, as part of some sort of mothers intuition, my thoughts centered around Mia and her pending surgery. I emailed my Adoption Agency to find out if they had received any information on the date of Mia's lip closure surgery. I received an email today that Mia had surgery yesterday.

Upon reading this email, my heart dropped and tears immediately came to my eyes. Even though we requested this surgery be done in China, I did not realize how I would feel about not being with her during and after surgery. Knowing that she is by herself without her mom to love and comfort her breaks my heart.

I knew that the surgery was going to happen - I just did not have an idea of when it would be. Although I pray for Mia every day and have prayed about her surgery - I just wanted to be able to pray for her prior to surgery - It's just something that we, in our humanness want, even though we know GOD is in control.

So now I ask all my friends and family to stop for just a moment and pray for her as she recovers. Please pray that GOD will hold her and comfort her in my absence and that HE will heal her quickly.

As we wait for information of how surgery went, Mia's health status and hopefully pictures - please pray for us during this difficult time.

I will post more information as soon as I receive it.

Update

Our adoption of Mia is slowly moving forward. We reached a milestone in the process and finally received our I797 approval from USCIS (Immigration) and were able to send our completed Dossier to China. Now that China has our Dossier, Holt was able to secure our match with Mia. We are now waiting on China to approve our match and issue a LOA. We expect this document anytime in the next 2 months. After this milestone we have several more hurdles until Gotcha Day, but today we do not have as many as we had last month and I am thankful for that.

Our adoption agency has given us the opportunity to ask the orphanage questions related to Mia's development. I carefully crafted questions in order to get as much information as I could from their responses. I am curious if she is crawling or at least beginning to crawl, and at this point, what her weight and height is. We can expect to have the responses to our questions in approximately 2-3 weeks. I am also hopeful that I will get some information on when her lip closure surgery is scheduled for. I have asked the agency to supply updated pictures after surgery as well. Please continue to pray for Mia, especially her pending surgery. How it hurts my heart and soul that I cannot be with her during this procedure. BUT I know that GOD will be with her and have his hands on her when I cannot.

We still anticipate traveling in the Spring/Summer 2012. We will keep everyone posted as we move beyond milestones in this process and new information is shared with us.

Thanks to all my friends and family for your continued support and prayers during this journey.

Black Friday

Our Black Friday is much different than most. We don't shop - we don't even leave the house on this day. The girls and I bake christmas cookies all day long. Lizzy usually invites one of her friends and we have some good quality mother/daughter time. This year we out did ourselves. We baked 8 different types of cookies. Soooo good and so much fun.

We also have a tradition that we put our Christmas tree up on this day as well. All participated in decorating the tree. It is beautiful. Maddie is quite excited that it is Christmas time! She was so cute as she bounced around and hung ornaments.

My mantle over the year's at Christmas time has changed. It began with only 2 kids stockings and now has grown into 4 kids stockings, a stocking for each Keith and I and one, of course, for pressley the dog. We are all looking forward to the Christmas that the last and final member of the Portie family is here and celebrating this season with us - digging in her stocking for goodies left by Santa.

May you and your families enjoy this Christmas Season...

Thanksgiving 2011

This year so much has happened that we can be thankful for. This Thanksgiving is a time for us to pause for a moment and give thanks to our Heavenly Father for all the blessings that he has bestowed upon us. We also give special thanks to Him for what's to come in the new year with our adoption of Mia Catherine.

This Thanksgiving feast was a group effort. Everyone, including Maddie had to contribute to the dinner. Christopher baked the Ham, Lizzy made the Carrot Souffle, Keith fried the Turkey, Maddie made the green bean casserole and I made the rice dressing. My parents contributed too with a yummy cornbread dressing and sweet potato casserole. It was so nice to have all my children in the kitchen, cooking, laughing, talking and having a great time.

This year we did something new and hopefully started a new tradition. My mother brought over a "thankful jar" filled with coins (that we will eventually donate to a charity). Each of us had to add slips of paper of what we are each thankful for. The pink papers filled the jar.

Lizzy helped write down what Maddie was thankful for. Hopefully you can see in the below picture what she was thankful for. Grass, Noodles, Ice Packs, her family, etc ranked pretty high on her list.

Here are some things that I am thankful for:

- Each one of my children - Christopher, Elizabeth, Madelyn and Mia. They are all special and GOD has blessed each with their own gifts.

- My wonderful Husband and best friend. 20 years together, a few bumps along the way but still going strong

- For the continued health of my parents. I love having them part of my life and am very blessed to have them building a house across the street from me!

- My wonderful and supportive family

- For my wonderful friends who each add so much to my life.

- For forgiveness

- For GOD giving me situations in my life that make me better and help me grow into the person HE wants me to be.

- OH and I forgot to mention - I am thankful for our I-797 approval, which completes our Dossier. Our dossier has been sent to our adoption agency and we should have a Log In Date soon. THEN... we are on our way to Travel Approval.

I hope that each of you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

What's In a Name?

Names are important. They speak to who we are and where we come from. Most times our names have been handed down from Generation to Generation. With Maddie, we elected to keep her given Chinese name as her middle name. With our new baby, we chose a special name and chose not keep her chinese name, as her given name was truly a boy name. So here it is.... Drum Roll please....

Mia Catherine Portie

Mia was a name that we had all liked during the selection process for Maddie's name. It was a logical choice and she even looks like a Mia. Mia means "Mine" - mine to love, mine to hug, and mine forever. Catherine means "Pure".

The process is slowly moving along. As it inches forward and in the coming months I should have somewhat of an idea of when we will travel to get her. In the meantime, please pray for her - that she will continue to be well cared for and most importantly that her upcoming lip closure surgery will be successful. I'll keep you all posted as more details about the timeframe of surgery and the ultimate outcome become available.

Thanks for all your prayers!

Our Decision

After much thought, prayer, discussion and expert physician input we have decided to accept the referral of Wan Le Guo. She is 6 months old, born April 16, 2011 and currently lives in Jiangxi Province in China. As you can see from the photos she has an unrepaired cleft lip and cleft palate - but is one beautiful baby girl!!! We have many hurdles to cross before we can bring her home - now starts the paper chase. Please be in prayer for our family as we wait for the day to come where we will have her in our arms. Most importantly pray that she remains healthy and well cared for until she is safe at home.

It is almost unbelievable how GOD continues to bless my family. I am overwhelmed with joy as I prepare to welcome another beautiful child into my life.

P.S. We think we have a name for her but will post an announcement later once the entire family has bought off on it.

Referral...

Today is the beginning of National Adoption Awareness Month and I had big plans of a post that would be reflective of my journey through adoption and hopefully inspire others to consider this wonderful journey. However, this post is going to be completely different than I planned. Today we received a referral of a beautiful baby girl, Wan Le Guo, from Jiangxi Province. She is 6 months old and has an un-repaired cleft lip and palate. As soon as I received the referral, I sent her medical record to a Physician specializing in International Adoption - (the same one that reviewed Maddie's medical record and was so helpful). Tomorrow afternoon I will have a telephone conference with the Doctor to review his findings. Aside of a professional opinion, she appears to be healthy and is cute as a button. Please keep our family in prayer as we make this decision and begin this journey again....

I will post pictures once we make a decision.

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween to all. Tonight we took Maddie Trick or Treating for Halloween. Lizzy and her friend Maegan dressed in their Cheerleader outfits and walked with Maddie, who was a Lady Bug, door to door. Maddie was so excited about all the candy she was receiving and happy to say thank you afterwards. We are having so much fun experiencing all of these fun Holidays again - through Maddie.

Maddie is 4!!!

Our Maddie girl is turning 4 years old. I can hardly believe that we have already reached this milestone in her life. Time has flown by and she has grown up so much! She has grown into such a beautiful, loving, vivacious and funny little girl. We all love her so much!!!

We celebrated her big day with a birthday party at the Children's Museum in Lake Charles. We had the place all to ourselves. Maddie and her friends ran and played and had a great time.

The big kids even got in on the action.

Her very own ipad!!!

My three babies!

Happy Birthday my sweet girl! I love you more than words can say!

Spring Hill College, here we come....

Earlier this year and throughout the summer, Christopher's main focus was deciding where he would go to college. We went to a large college fair, considered several schools and even did a site visit to one. A lot of thought and prayer went into his decision. He finally decided that Spring Hill College was his first and only choice of schools. This is a small Catholic College in Mobile, Alabama - undergraduate students total approximately 1500. Everything about this school was perfect for him and his personality. They also play Division III basketball which means he has a great chance at getting to play at the college level.

In August he applied and has been anxiously awaiting a decision from the school. It arrived today!!!

He was accepted!!! To top that news, he was also awarded an academic scholarship totaling $66,000!

He was so excited!!!! I was even more excited - lots of screams of joy and hugs and pure excitement!!!!! I can't even put into words how proud I am today.

We still have one more thing he hopes to accomplish and that is to play basketball for Spring Hill. We have spoken to the Coach and will send all of his stats and game videos at the end of this season. We hope Christopher has a great Senior Basketball Season and is able to secure a spot on the Badger Team...

I am a PROUD Mama!!!!!!!!

Homecoming - 1st & Last

This year is a year of first's for Lizzy and Last's for Christopher...

Christopher's Last Homecoming...

Christopher with his homecoming date.

The Senior Group

The basketball players - they have swagger... lol

Lizzy's 1st Homecoming...

Lizzy and her date

My pretty girl...

They both had a great time at the Homecoming Dance. Both looked amazing!