Ladybug Adventures

Originally posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 5:07 PM CDT

Just a quick note to let you all know that we received Travel Approval to go to China to get Nikole!! We don't have exact travel dates yet, but expect it to be the first couple weeks of November. We will post again as soon as we have travel dates and our itenerary.

Blessings,
Lisa

Originally posted on Wednesday, May 4, 2005 3:22 PM CDT

We are happy to announce that we are officially DTC (Dossier or Documents to China). We have finished up this preliminary round of paperwork and gotten it sent off to our agency. They contacted us yesterday to let us know that our dossier is complete and everything looks good, so they sent it off to China yesterday. As soon as they get word back from CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs), they will let us know our Log In Date (LID) and that will officially start our wait. Currently the wait time from LID to Referral is running 6 to 7 months. If everything stays as is, we expect to find out who our next daughter is sometime in November or December of this year. Then we would be traveling sometime in January or February of 2006.

Emilie is extremely excited about getting a little sister. She talks about her daily and tells us things she wants to do with her little sister when she comes home. I hope her excitement and enthusiasm holds out once we have her little sister home. :)

As for Emilie, she is doing very well. She talks all the time and she is getting so big. She is quickly moving into 3T and 4T clothing because she is getting so tall.

Last week we took her to one of the local churches and got her registered for the 3 year old preschool class for this fall and she is absolutely overjoyed. Every time we drive past the church she says, "There's my preschool" in an excited voice. She also loves her children's church class and her Sunday school class. Her sunday school teacher has told us that she is quite a talker in class. :)

We have also started a Hammell Family yahoo group. The yahoo group is probably where we will post most of our updates while we are in China for this next trip. The yahoo group will allow us to post messages to everyone who is signed up and they can respond to us for everyone to see. There is also a place to upload pictures if we are able to get us a digital camera before this next trip. If it is possible I will try to post any messages we put up on the yahoo group to this site as well, but I'm not sure that will always be possible. Computers are limited and very slow in China, so we are trying to come up with the most efficient method possible. I you are interested in joining our yahoo group go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hammellfamily

We will continue to post updates when possible.

God Bless,
Steve, Lisa and Emilie

Originally posted on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 9:01 AM CST

Just a quick note to let you all know how Emilie is doing. As you can probably tell by the new photo I have put on the homepage, she is growing like a weed. This picture was taken around the first of February as we were preparing to attend one of the Chinese New Year Celebrations. Emilie is very nearly 3 years old. She will be 3 on June 13. She has grown nearly 7 inches since we brought her home, weighs about 32 pounds and is wearing 2T and 3T clothing. Other than a recent bout with bronchitis, she is healthy and doing very well.

As many of you know, we have been working on the paperwork to go back to China to adopt a second little girl. We have nearly completed the paperwork process, as we are only waiting for our homestudy from our social worker.

We will continue to try to post updates to this site periodically, however, we have also begun a yahoo group for anyone who wishes to continue to follow our adoption journey. Through the yahoo group we can post messages, as well as it makes it easier to receive responses from you while we are in China and we can post more picutres than we can from this site. If you are interested in joining our yahoo group go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hammellfamily

Hope you are all doing well and we look forward to hearing from you all when you have a chance as well.

God Bless,
Steve, Lisa and Emilie