Updates

Well, I am just not good at keeping our blog updated through the adoption process. Our family is soooo busy all the time that finding a minute to update is nearly impossible. There are always long waits and not much to report at times so I just push it off thinking I will make time another day. Well that day has finally come! We are in the final wait to meet our daughter. We have received travel approval from China and leave in just TWO DAYS!!! The house is being prepped for our return and all of the many bags are being packed, checked, and rechecked for weight limitations and needed items. Amazon should be delivering the last few things I need today, nothing like last minute, but there are always things I forget so I am thankful for Prime!!! I have been to the store more times than I would like to admit in the last week and I DO NOT want to go back for a long time. :) I am not a shopper, unless it involves the Goodwill or Garage Sales, so it was torture hunting for all the things we needed to take and wanted to pick up for the other kids in the orphanage that are still waiting to find their Forever Families. Here is the status of my hallway:

We will be the massive crazy family with lots of luggage trying to navigate the airport in a foreign country. I tried to narrow everything down to three suitcases, but I don't know what I was thinking since I had to rush out Saturday and pick up another suitcase putting us up to 5 checked bags in total. Trying to stuff a family of 7 into 3 suitcases was just impossible when 4 of them have medical special needs and 2 are in diapers!

Sammy and Sera will be Vlogging our entire trip and taking lots of photos so as long as we have internet, we are going to do our best to keep you posted on a daily basis of all the adventures we are having.

Our GOTCHA DAY is set for March 20th in the afternoon (not sure on time yet which is Sunday the 19th here in the states as China is one day ahead. After just over 10 months and loads of paperwork and bumps in the road, we will finally have our sweet little girl in our arms!

ONLINE CRAFT SALE!!!

We are holding an online craft sale to help us bring Brooke Lynn Faith home! My mom has been hard at work sewing some amazing rag dolls, princess capes, and swimsuit cover-ups for your sweet little girls. All of our items for sale can be found on our website on the Rustic Decor page:

Our Invisible Red Thread

If you are interested in purchasing an item, please contact us via email @ marnsmumbles@hotmail.com. We will determine sales on a first come first serve basis. I will ship out within one day of receiving payment. Payment can be made through paypal to marnsmumbles@hotmail.com or in person. 

These are a few of the dolls that are available. 

 

These are a few of the capes that are available. Please be sure to check out all of our goodies on the website.

Our Invisible Red Thread

We know your little princesses are going to love these special, hand made gifts!!!

TAG THE BAG

What is "Tag the Bag" you ask, well it's simple, you make a donation to our adoption via paypal or in person and we write your name on a special, keepsake suitcase that will hold all of Brooke Lynn's special things we bring home from China. This suitcase will serve as a time capsule of sorts for her and will be a unique and important puzzle piece to her adoption story. Every time she looks at this suitcase, she will know just how many of you loved her long before she met her Mommy, Daddy, and big sisters and that it was because of your obedience to the Lord in caring for orphans that she now has a forever family! Julia Ann also has one of these special suitcases and it was such a huge blessing seeing it come down the belt in the airport knowing that all of the people on it were praying for our family!

Any donation amount will get your name on this bag and every single dollar, yes even $1, will help us to bring our daughter home! We are leaving on a jet plane to China in a few short weeks, and we are trusting that the Lord will provide this last little bit that we need to be fully funded.

Donations can be made through our paypal @ marnsmumbles@hotmail.com. Please choose the gift option so that we don't get charged a fee. If you would like to make a donation in person, please contact me via phone, Facebook message, or at the above email.

We are so grateful for all those that have given to us over the last year; without all of you, this adoption would not have been able to proceed!

With Love,

The Nollette Family

THANK YOU!!!

Adoption is expensive, there is simply no way around it and we are ok with that because it means that there is a team of people behind each step in the adoption process ensuring that the family they will be placed with will protect them from harm rather than inflict it upon them. These kiddos need advocates and sometimes those advocates are people working behind the desk of the FBI or an adoption agency making sure that families will be a good fit for the child that is coming home.

However, this also means a lot of fundraising for us. God has blessed us with good jobs to care for our family and ensure that they have a place to live and food to eat, but we are not able to simply pay all of the adoption fees to get our children home. This is where the Body of Christ comes in and fills in the gaps to accomplish the work He has asked us to do. When God asked us to begin this adoption journey over three years ago, we were scared and overwhelmed by the thought of all that we would need to do paperwork wise as well as taking our family halfway around the world to a foreign country to bring home a child we had never met, not to mention the cost that we would incur. However, God provided every penny we needed to bring Julia Ann home and he continues to provide as we walk the adoption journey to bringing Brooke Lynn home too.

We are so grateful for all the Lord has done and for all of you who have stepped out in faith and partnered with us to give these girls a loving home and the opportunity to know Jesus! Each of you have been such a huge blessing to us and we are so grateful for all of prayers and support. We would not be able to do this without your obedience to the Lord and what he placed on your hearts.

THANK YOU!!!

VISAS All Around!!!

I have not been very diligent on keeping our blog updated in regards to Brooke Lynn's adoption process, but after a long wait, we are very, very close to getting our final approvals necessary to board a plane and fly to China to bring her home! Right now we are waiting on our Article 5 process to be completed at the US Embassy in China. This is the part where they issue a visa for Brooke Lynn to leave the country and enter the US to gain citizenship as our daughter.

We had some bumps in the road on this part of the process due to a misspelling of Isaac's name on a key document that allows Brooke Lynn to be adopted. China issued a revised copy of this to us and we received it on Friday via Fed Ex. We overnighted it back to our adoption agency and they are forwarding it back to China today. We need prayer right now that this would get back to the right people in China on time this week for our Article 5 to be picked up on time this Thursday. At this point, we are unsure of whether or not there will be a delay due to this document, but we know God has a plan either way! \

This is what we want to be celebrating Thursday!!! This means that we will officially be awaiting travel approval from China! These have been coming in about a week for other families so we are hopeful the same will happen for us!

We are coming very soon baby girl!!!

Gotcha Day . . . One Year As A Family!!!

I feel like today has been just as emotional as the day we first met Julia Ann. As many of you know our adoption story is not over as we continue to wait to bring home our second little girl from China, Brooke Lynn Faith. I tried to focus today on all the things on our plate, while still planning a special day for Julia Ann, but, alas, we were left with nothing fancy, no balloons, no streamers, no presents, just time together as a family and, in the end, this is what this day was truly all about, FAMILY!

Over the past year we have faced many challenges and walked through many valleys, but God has been with us every step of the way and we have found a lot of healing and hope along the way. That said, I can barely remember what our family was like before Julia Ann was a part of it. I love how we can look back and see how God chose her specifically for our family and then to watch it play out and continually get confirmation that she is a perfect fit.

Julia Ann is adventurous, giggly, sweet, spunky, and full of life. She definitely keeps us on our toes, but also helps us to stop and enjoy a lot of things in life that we would not have otherwise noticed. I love that she wants to fall asleep in my arms each night. I love that she has a passion for singing and dancing and adds her own flare to everything. I love that she wants to dress up all the time and get her hair done and I especially love how this has helped her to bond so well to her sisters.

Can you see the spunk? :) 

I can't believe it has already been a year; time has literally flown by, but it also feels like she has been here forever. If you would have asked us a few years ago what life would look like now, I could have never imagined something so amazing and I would have told you that we could never do anything like this. Thankfully God is so much bigger than us and He knows so much better than we do what is good for us. 

Thank you God for all that you have done for us, for our daughters, and for our family. I can honestly say that God has blessed us beyond measure, not with worldly treasures, but with something so much more important, children.

A Family for 6 Months!!!

Today is a day of celebration . . . we have been blessed to be Julia Ann's family for 6 months today! She is amazing and wonderful and spunky and a joy to be around. She lights up the room and her giggle is infections.

I vividly remember the anticipation waiting for the orphanage staff to bring her up to our hotel room just a few months ago and how my heart leapt and my breath caught when I laid eyes on her little face for the first time.

She was smaller than I thought she would be and looked different from the pictures I had memorized. She was scared and curious and had no idea what was about to transpire. Nothing could have prepared her for the changes that were coming and nothing could have prepared my heart for the utter destruction that was coming my way.

If you see us now, you would never suspect that Julia Ann utterly rejected me those two weeks in China. Posting the picture above is hard and I never intended on sharing it. It was a moment caught during a hard time. Sleeping was usually the only time I could touch her without her having a meltdown. She would put up with me changing diapers and feeding her, but would scream when left with me and fight her hardest to escape my touch.

She fell in love with her daddy after 15 minutes and clung to him with all her might. Her sisters were next to capture her heart (how could they not!), but my time would not come for several more weeks. So many mommas had been in and out of her short life, she was just not ready to let another one hurt her little heart yet again.

Her story is long and deeply woven with things no three year old should have to endure, but we are slowly working wonderful bits into it through God's help. She is strong and courageous and has shown us so many things in the last half year, most importantly, she is teaching me yet another layer of what true love is and what it means to love like God loves.

I will be forever grateful for all of the people who listened to God's urging to help and support us through our adoption journey to bring Julia Ann home. You have given us the gift of family, a daughter, a gift so valuable, we will never be able to repay you for it. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!