A note to our child...

Dear Precious Child -

We know you are out there precious child...we know God knows just who you are, and we are trying to be patient as we await to see God's plan unfold before us. But, we can't help but think about you all of the time, and we long to have you in our arms and a part of our family. Tonight, your Daddy, brother, and myself went to the UPS store and we sent off all of the documents that will complete our dossier and make us one step closer to you. Now, we await final approval from our adoption agency, the state seals, and the Chinese consulate - and then, our Dossier can officially go to China, be logged in, and we will be ready and waiting when we get the phone call about you!!! We cannot wait precious child to see your face and learn all about you. We are so excited for you to join our family - we have so much love in our hearts for you! You are also going to have one pretty cool big brother named Matthew - he has the biggest heart in the world and we know he will love sharing life with a brother or sister!

Your Daddy and I talk all the time about becoming a family of 4 and we are so excited! We can't wait to share all of our traditions and we thought a lot about that this holiday season! We had so much fun with Matthew this year and he took such delight in everything we did....every night he would check out all of the special ornaments on our tree, we actually don't want to take it down because we love having it up so much. Every ornament on our tree has special meaning - so it's like the tree tells a story of our lives. We have lots of HOPE ornaments - ones that represent our desire to have you in our lives too! Next Christmas, Matthew will have to show them all to you and he will love showing you his nativity scene and how to wrap presents. He loved to use lots of tape his year, but he did a great job! He also learned a lot of Christmas signs which make it helpful for us to share traditions and make things easier to explain to Matthew. He will also teach you how to bake as he loves to do that, and he loves to shop! Matthew also learned to love Santa this year, so we know he will show you the ropes next year with him. He will also share his love of trains with you. Most importantly, he will show you something he is so good at - giving and sharing gifts! He had such pride when giving gifts, and had such patience and reserve when opening his gifts.

We are also so excited for you to be a part of Matthew's life - and be able to share in his therapy sessions and be able to play with him with both of your learning together. He loves spending time with other children, and we can just imagine the 2 of you laying together snuggled up with your pillow pets (yes, Matthew has a few, and he does share!) on the couch or the beds all ready for night night time. I can also imagine all of us singing in the car - as this is one of Matthew's new favorite "vocal" times in the car!

Oh precious child, we long for you. We want to see your face and to be your Mommy and Daddy and big brother. We have so much we want to share with you, and cannot wait to learn who you are. We are one step closer, and every step counts!!! We will keep praying for you - just know how much you are already loved!!!

Love always,
Mommy, Daddy, and Matthew