I-800 Approval and HER NAME

We did it! Finally, on Wednesday last week, we received a call saying our I-800 had been approved. The official document arrived in the mail on Saturday, and I posted it to our portal today! What does this mean? It's a small step on our journey towards Travel Approval, but an important one! 

Next we will be working on getting our daughter's immigrant visa. This process has a few steps. We will wait for our I-800 to arrive at the NVC in New Hampshire. Once it arrives we need a GUZ#. This number shows our case has been assigned to the Guangzhou consulate in China. (Guangzhou is a city in southern China where ALL adoptions are finalized).

Once we get our GUZ# and Invoice ID, we can fill out a form called the DS260, which is the application for our child's US immigrant visa. After this form is submitted, there are just a few more short steps until we get Travel Approval from China! 

We are still hoping to travel in December and it's still a possibility!

We are also getting our applications for our Visas to enter China ready. We went to Costco this weekend to get our visa pictures taken (only $4.99!). We had some leftover passport photos we were going to use, but we were smiling in those. Turns out, you can't smile in your visa photo! So, we took some mug-shot-like photos and had to laugh at ourselves. Travis made me laugh on the first one, so the photo guy had to take another one. Travis said I look mean in my photo, but I can't ever think of a time where I've posed for a photo without smiling! It was so strange! :) What do you think, do we look tough? 

We also had another photo-op this weekend. Travis's mom took our family pictures out at their farm! Before we took pictures, we had all three kids crying, a poop explosion followed by rinsing clothes and waiting for them to dry, and a kindergartner who got his outfit dirty playing with worms.  I said, all we need is ONE GOOD PICTURE! I think we got one...just barely. Paxx isn't looking but it. will. do.

Jhett with his worms. Shortly after this he got dirt all over his pants. 

Ayin, our best poser. 

The good one. Thanks to Grandma Ginger for taking the pictures for us!

One more little photo I snapped was of our daughter's coordinating outfit. We were thinking about her and how the next family photo session will include her!

 We have some more exciting news regarding our sweet girl! We have decided to give her an American name in addition to her Chinese name. Her full name will be Rynn Jiani (pronounced John-ya) Waltner! Rynn is taken from my grandma's name, which was Matilde Catherine. Rynn, short for Catherine. :)

We will probably call her both names for a while until she gets used to Rynn. 

Stay tuned for some fundraiser announcements. My sister and friend are organizing a shower for Rynn and will be selling puzzle pieces for the home stretch. Check out the facebook event. 

We'll keep you posted, as usual, on the next steps. Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers!