Adoption Acronyms - Take Your Choice

On May 20th, we were notified by our adoption agency, Wasatch Adoptions, that the China Center for Children's Welfare Activities had issued us our "Letter Seeking Confirmation" to adopt Kyle.  We know this in the "adoption circles" as a Letter of Approval/Acceptance.  LOA, LSC, L-whatever.  This means that China, after reviewing all of our paperwork, has made the official determination that we are approved to be Kyle's parents.  And that is a reason to celebrate!  Woo hoo! 

For those interested in numbers, we got a 28-day LOA, which is considered really fast - way outside the norm.  Perhaps it has something to do with this being a dossier re-use (which means that some of our paperwork from Zack's adoption is being used for this adoption) but there were many families who got May 16th letters.

We are on to the next step, which is another round of Homeland Security Approval.  After that, there is some visa/immigration processing for Kyle and then our final wait for Travel Approval.  Unless we run in to difficulties, we should leave for China in 6-8 weeks.  I'm calling the end of July. 

Zack's room is 90 percent ready to be a shared room.  Whether Zack is any percent ready to share is something that remains to be seen. I have a few more things to buy/hang up/rearrange, but we are nearly there. 

We got updated measurements on Kyle yesterday - he weighs 24 pounds and is 33 inches tall.  He is about 2 inches shorter and 7 pounds lighter than Zack.  If the measurements are correct - which might not be the case - Kyle is small for his age, but not alarmingly so.  All reports and photographs evidence a very healthy and happy child. 
We met Zack for the first time on August 26th 2012 - we're reasonably sure that we will meet Kyle before the 1 year mark.  We'd really like it if our boys' "Family Day" was around the same time. 
I was just thinking how things had changed for our family in the space of a short time.  Lee and I came to England in early 2011 as "empty nesters".  Laura has come back home and by the end of the year, we will have two new little birds!  Life is good and we are ready to be a "party of 5"! 
If you could keep our fundraising efforts and our grant applications in your thoughts and prayers over the next few weeks, we would appreciate it.  We've got some substantial expenses to shell out over the next month and our grant applications are probably a month plus from being up for review.  We have our two local fundraisers in early June that we are hoping are successful & we have our necklace sales/restaurant gift card sales still going on.  We will make it through...but the dollar signs are overwhelming.  All of the scrimping and scrambling will be worth it when we get that little guy home, though.  

So...are you ready to see our handsome little man?!?  I thought so!  Introducing Kyle!