grace led in life: Meet our Cutie Pie :)

It has been almost 6 weeks since we first read about a cute little boy in China! We quickly fell in love with this precious little guy! The file we got about him said he is an active boy who loves to laugh!We read over his "file"{over and over}, so thankful for any information we had about him. It was, and still is, such an exciting time! Within a week: we saw his file, said yes to pursuing him, filled out all the paperwork to move ahead in asking for approval to adopt him (LOI - letter of intent), and received our PA (pre-approval) for him! {pre-approval basically means that this little one's file is put on hold - not seen by other families or agencies - while China decides about our approval} It has been 33 days since receiving our pre-approval. The month has gone fast, and yet feels so long. We always knew the wait would be tough (more than ever) once you see that little face and read about your little one...you just want to get to them! We have felt so blessed that we already are at the point we are, in the adoption process. We have seen and read about so many families that wait so much longer, even up to this point. Our hearts go out to you, families!

We have done everything we can to prepare for when we receive our LOA (letter of acceptance saying we can continue ahead with paperwork to adopt our little guy)! We cannot wait for that day, and are praying for patience as we wait for it :) the estimated time for receiving LOA is about another 2-3 months...but that is an estimate. No time can be set in stone...so thus we wait without expectation, but hope of SOON! All in all, the estimate time of travel to China for our little boy is in about 4-5+ months, but there again...estimate ;)

We are so thrilled to get to share with you, pictures of our little guy, a bit of information about him, and also the name we have chosen for him!

We had so much fun discussing names for our little guy! We decided on Zeke!

The meaning of Zeke is {God will strengthen}

We love his name, the meaning, and felt that it really was him! :)

We are keeping his Chinese name as his middle name, but won't be able to share that until we adopt him :)
We cannot share too much information on our Zeke, but would love to share a bit! :)

Little Zeke is 1 year old! :)

He was born with bilateral cleft lip, palate, and alveolar ridge. He had surgery to repair his cleft lip when he was a few months old. We are blessed to have one of the best cleft teams in the world working here at Seattle Children's! From what we understand so far, Zeke will need multiple surgeries, with one needed very soon after we get him home. Another reason we are praying to be able to adopt him SOON! :) We were able to send Zeke a care package...so fun! We sent him shoes, blanket, toys, a book and also got to send him a book with pictures of us and our home in it! Each photo was labeled in Chinese in hopes that the nannies will be able to read it to him! We also were able to get an update on Zeke, and five new pictures of him! Those are such a treasure to us!

So we keep waiting...in anticipation for this little blessing to be able to come home!

Our precious Zeke! :)