Pics From The East

Tweets From The East

427 days later

In order for life to be normal, Sianna and I have “Holding Time” twice a day. When I get too busy and we skip holding time, I always end up paying for it later.

Today, we had a particularly rough holding time. Sianna wasn’t into it. She expressed that opinion, but after a good long while,

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Adoption Gift

2010-01-25@09-02-23

The day after we met Sianna for the very first time, we visited the Jiangxi Center for Adoption Affairs to continue the never-ending paperwork.

While at the Jiangxi Center for Adoption Affairs…

01.25.10
We had one interview where we answered three questions:
Why are you adopting?
Will you educate her?
Will you never abandon or mistreat her?

01.25.10
The Jiangxi Center for Adoption

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Adoption Thoughts

2010-01-24@16-19-02

November is National Adoption Month. In many community groups, today is Orphan Sunday.

Adoption is something that I’m passionate about, but it’s also a topic that I wrestle with. Yes, every child needs a forever family, but not every family should take on the challenges that may present themselves when a child is adopted.

We’re not perfect.

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Adoption Finalization: Why Hawaii?

We keep receiving questions about why we went to Hawaii to complete Sianna’s citizenship. I’ve tried to write out the process as we understood it in case anyone should ask again.

Please note that we were under the  i-600a paperwork. We are not familiar with the i-800 process or any Hague requirements.

Why did you go to

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Sianna's Visa Runaround + Disneyland

2010-09-01@22-15-08

09.01.2010

We flew through Hong Kong because it was absolutely the cheapest ticket available.

When we flew out of Hong Kong, we purchased Sianna’s lap ticket from ANA airlines – the first airline of our multi-leg flight. (International flights require lap infants to purchase a ticket at 10% of the current price of an adult ticket.) Since

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Celebrating Sianna

Today, we celebrated 6 months with Sianna.

Sianna is 14 months old. She has 6 teeth and weighs close to 20lbs. She is excellent at “cross crawling.” She’s only been crawling for two months, so we hope she will continue to crawl for as long as she wants.

Sianna also enjoys pulling up. She hasn’t yet started

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