Pictures sent to CCAA with our LOI

Kevin, Lexi, Debby, Dave, Katy, Rachelle and Kurtis!

Dave and Katy Sailing on Our Daughters Sailboat!

Katy, Debby, Dave and Lexi on Katy's 4th Birthday.

One of our Princess', Katy's 4th Birthday!

More LOI Photos!

Kevin's at UW college Graduation holding Katy!

Grandma and Grandpa with Kevin and Mom & Dad at Graduation!

Alexis

Kaitlyn

Part of the Family at Kurtis Graduation!

We sent several Family Pictures with our LOI, here is some more.

Katy and Kurtis getting our Christmas Tree 2006

Dave and Katy 4th of July Watching Fire Works

Kurtis' Graduation with Katy, Rachelle and Jonathan.

LOI sent TODAY!!!!!

OUR LOI was sent today for both our boys!!! Now we just PRAY and WAIT!!! Last week Diana sent an email to the CCAA giving them a head-up and priming them for our LOI. Both Sara and Diana are awesome to work with. Diana stated they sent a long letter with our LOI and not to get to anxious it could take a couple months to get a reply!

We will take all the prayers we can get. We are praying for a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!

Orphans of God!

'Orphans of God' by Avalon. The message is clear - God knows no orphans. He is the father to the fatherless. It gives me some comfort knowing our boys are never out of his sight, or his reach and that he has everything in control!

The Wonderful Heart of a Child!

Katy just watched the "Orphan of God" video with me and we were talking about these children not having mommies and daddies. Her comment was "We need to get those babies and bring them home so they will have a mommy and daddy!" She would tell me this with every child she saw.

What a WONDERFUL HEART!!!!

Our Letter to the CCAA requesting our sons.

We, James and Debby would appreciate the honor and opportunity to apply to adopt Guo Xiang Qi, born June 15, 2003 and Guo Wu Kai, born September 24, 2002, both from Dalian City SWI, in Liaoning Province. Please understand that we realize it is not an easy decision or a frequently granted request to adopt two from China, but we feel heartfelt to ask your valued consideration. We also understand the important decision making process that is involved when CCAA grants requests for adoptions. We have complete respect for the CCAA process of adoptions. It is with our deepest, heartfelt humble request for both of these little boys to be our sons and feel it would benefit them to be part of the same family as they are from the same city and SWI, they are close in age and have the same special need, therefore they will be able to not only have physical similarities but also share a part of their ethnic heritage of their country and province, and both of these boys are harder to place, as they are older. We respectfully request that you allow us to adopt Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai to be a part of our family. Our children are just as excited as we are about having Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai to become members of our family!

We are a strong, loving secure family with much to offer both of these boys. They will be loved and cared for equally as our other children. They will have siblings who are caring and excited with the possibility of having two brothers added to their family. They will also have grandparents and extended family who eagerly wait to meet them and share their love.

We realize we are older parents and we feel that would be a great benefit to both Xiang Qi and Wu Kai as we bring a lot of parenting experience into this family. They will be older than our two daughters adopted from China and would make a great addition to our family.

We will do everything we can to take care of Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai’s medical needs. We have already discussed Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai with our pediatrician, Dr Julian Davies and researched their condition with our insurance company. There will be no problems in getting the treatments either boy will need. Our first step will be to take Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Xiang Qi to our primary care pediatrician, Dr. Julian Davies, who specializes in health care for internationally adopted children. We have already had their files reviewed by our cleft surgeon Dr. Jennifer Keagle who works with a team of specialists at the very renowned Seattle Children's Hospital, which is only a 15 minute drive from our home. There, Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai will receive the medical attention they will need by a craniofacial team of specialists. This team of specialists offers various services in addition to surgery. Xiang Qi and Wu Kai will be assessed by specialists in the following fields: dental and orthodontic care, speech therapy, hearing, feeding needs, assessment of psychosocial needs, and nursing evaluation. We are very privileged to work with such an outstanding team of specialist, providing the best care possible for Xiang Qi and Wu Kai’s specific needs. We currently work with this team for our daughter, Alexis, also adopted from China, who now has a repaired cleft lip and palate and will be pleased to work with them again for Xiang Qi and Wu Kai.

In addition to outstanding available medical care I, Debby am a pediatric nurse and have a great deal of experience dealing with special needs professionally as well as personally as both of our daughters from china are special needs. They are both progressing exceptionally well, mentally, emotionally and physically. We have kept them active and learning, making sure they received all medical care necessary along with speech therapy and physical therapy for Alexis.

We are also very pleased to be a part of an outstanding school district. The City of Kirkland school district offers assessment and services in a specialized program for children birth to age 5 such as English as a Second Language, Speech Therapy, and Occupational Therapy. These services are also available to school aged children, which we can utilize if we feel Xiang Qi and Wu Kai will need them once they are in school.

It is our desire to cherish Xiang Qi and Wu Kai 's original language and culture. We recognize that heritage is very important. Therefore, we will be in contact with local organizations that can assist us in keeping Xiang Qi and Wu Kai 's original language familiar to them as they also learn English. Living in the Seattle Washington area we have more of these kinds of opportunities than what may be available elsewhere. We have hired Mia Nelson, Mandarin is her native language, to tutor our family in Mandarin so we can communicate with both Xiang Qi and Wu Kai on some level when we are united with them in China, this is something we plan to continue so all of our Chinese born children remain or become fluent in their original language. We also continue to keep up on current events in China, and continue to research and learn about Chinese culture so that Xiang Qi and Wu Kai can grow up being familiar with their Chinese roots.

Both my husband James and I, Debby, are very involved in the well being of our children, emotionally, educationally, as well as physically. Xiang Qi and Wu Kai will receive the same love, care and adoration from both James, and myself (Debby) as we have bestowed upon our children. We vow never to abuse or neglect Xiang Qi and Wu Kai in any way, but to love and cherish them with all our hearts, in word, in action, and in emotion, the same as if they were born to us. They already hold a strong loving place in our hearts.

We feel a strong desire to have both boys as part of our family; both Xiang Qi and Wu Kai are special to us. We cannot imagine having to choose between the boys and this is why we have asked for this special consideration. As we stated before, we feel we have a lot to offer both boys, but most importantly we feel we have an enormous amount of love to give Xiang Qi and Wu Kai.

We knew we wanted to return to China again to add to our family after adopting our daughters, Kaitlyn XiaoJing from Nanjing China and Alexis JinYing from Xuwen China, both of which were special needs children. They have been such an incredible blessing to us and are dearly loved and treasured by all our family and everyone who meets them. Having Kaitlyn and Alexis as our daughters has only increased our desire to bring home a son, and we would be deeply honored and blessed to bring home two sons. We cannot express how much we appreciate your consideration for us to adopt another child into our family, and it is our hope and prayer that CCAA will allow us the opportunity to proceed to adopt both Xiang Qi and Wu Kai to be a part of our family. We thank you for your gracious consideration and respect CCAA’s willingness and desire to find loving homes for each child, and of course, we respect any decision made by CCAA.

If CCAA feels they cannot grant our request to adopt both boys, we would greatly appreciate approval to adopt Guo Xiang Qi, though it is an extremely difficult decision for our family to choose between these two precious boys. We deeply feel Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai are both our sons and a part of our family.

We are entering into the adoption of our sons willing to accept whatever their future may bring to us as a family. In our hearts, they are already our sons. Thank you so much for your hand in bringing our sons Guo Xiang Qi and Guo Wu Kai to our family. We are so anxious to bring them home to love and care for them.

With great sincerity,

James and Debby

Boys Names

So we have been thinking about names and we are not sure what we will end up with. Any suggestions would be great. We definitely want to use David for one Middle name and William for the other but not sure what first names to use.

For first names we are considering Maxwell, Michal, Marcus, Mitchell and Matthew.

Maxwell = Greatest

Michal = Who is like God

Marcus = God's Warrior

Mitchell = Who is like God

Matthew = Gift of God

Wu Kai
born September 24, 2002
Resides in Liaoning, China

Likes Balls and Cars

"Wu Kai is clever, lovely, optimistic and generous. He loves to learn and to do
activities. He is very sociable. Whenever he goes, he is always one of the most
active children. He is very popular with little children and teachers."

He will be the oldest of the four younger children and shares a birthday with his big brother Kevin.

Four birthdays in one week in September!

IT'S TWO BOYS!!!!!

We Have Our Other Son's Referral!!!!!  Sara called and sent us the referral about an hour ago! His Chinese name is Guo Wu Kai, the other family, that had him on hold, called and said they were sorry and "did not know why it wasn't working out but he did not seem to be their boy"!  I am amazed, it really looked like it was going to be one son and now it is two!

Now the real work begins! Keep saying your prayers!

I will post a picture as soon as I can!

Happy Birthday DADDY!

Home Study Started.

Our social worker come to our home and checked it out.  We gave him some of the signed documents and have more to fill out and give to him.  He is willing to speed things along so we are one step closer to getting our dossier ready to send to China!

I still have a hard time believing we are really going to China again!

The agency called and they have placed all the other boys so it looks like maybe it is only one son, but I still feel like we are suppose to bring two home!  I will definitely leave that up to God!

Sent in Application and Started HomeStudy

Today we sent in our application to adopt again! We officially have started the process. We have also contacted an independent home study adgency in our area and Mike will be at our home on Wednesday for the preliminary interview. Our goal is to do walk in fingerpints in Yakima on December 19, 2007, at the latest by the first week of 2008.

We have started gathering all the other papers needed for the Dossier and we are praying the Dossier will be on it's way to China in January! We would love to be able to travel in May of 2008!  Before Marc's 5th Birthday!

Somehow we have to come up with the money needed, this is a big stretch of our faith!!!

It's a Boy!

We have offically acepted the referal for our son Xiang Qi DOB is June 15, 2003

He is in the Liaoning Province in China at this time and we are unsure if he is in a foster home our at the Dalian SWI.

"Xiang Qi is very handsome. With his big eyes and swarthy skin, he looks like handsome gentleman. He likes vegetable and fruit. Like most children, he also likes sweet foods. He is brave, with strong will, clever, kind-hearted, lovely, and naughty. His voice is resonant. He is loved by his foster parents and is popular with the children in the village."

We are working with a wonderful agency that is submitting a request for us to adopt two boys at one time from China. It is something that rarely happens and even when there is an agency that will make the request, China rarely approves it.   Our agency has two little boys from the same city, with the same special need and both their files are due to be returned on November 30.  

God, you want us to do WHAT?!?!?!

God, you can't really mean that!  Another Child, oh not one but two!?!?  We already have eight!  You have got to be KIDDING!!!  Are you really sure???  But Dave is past the age limit and we just came home three months ago with our wonderful baby girl and what about money?  People say it is impossible to adopt two boys from China at one time that are not related to each other!  Yes we know nothing is impossible with you!!!  But aren't you stretching it a bit here??? 

OK God, if you REALLY think this is what is best than we will have to say yes, even if everyone thinks we are nuts!  If you work it out than we will open our hearts and our home to two more wonderful children of yours!  You are an amazing Father and nothing is beyond your ability, we will leave the details to you!