Less than 3 hours to go!

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your ways to the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass...Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him." Psalm 37: 4,7

Erin Hemmerly sent this passage to me yesterday in an email and it is just perfect. These last few hours seem like forever but are nothing compared to the years we have waited. We know it is all in His perfect timing. We are so thankful to all our wonderful friends and family all over the world who are praying for us and thinking about us and sending tons of loving fun emails. Little Amanda--you are SO loved already. We can't wait to meet you!!

Passing The Time

One last foot massage!

We are so thankful and amazed that Angela and Matt and her parents on our this trip with us. We met Angela and Matt through my friend Orie (who met Matt at PWC). At the time, they had lived in China for a year and a half. Angela gave me wonderful advice prior to moving to China and we became great friends. Angela and Matt were six months "ahead" of us in the adoption process. So, they helped us a ton with all the paperwork. Angela's mom even helped by sending in some stuff since she knew what to do and had done it for Angela with stuff that had to be sent from the states. We never in a million years thought we would get our daughters at the same time. We did. And our daugthers are from the same province which is why we are able to travel together. Another beautiful miracle in this blessed journey to our baby girl.

As we are 4 hours away from getting our babies at the time of this post, I just cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have our dear friends to share right along with us in all that is happening. We are so thankful!

The last dinner without sippy cups and bottles

The group--our dear friends Matt and Angela and her parents Linda and Foster. And the other family who is in our group--They are from Australia (go Aussies!) and have an adorable 5 year old Jorja. They currently live in Macau which is down near Hong Kong and have lived in China for 4 years. So we are a group who knows China well! And, since I am part Aussie (or so I think) it works out well. Jorja has become my little sidekick. Last night when they were getting ready to go up to their room I said "What are we doing tomorrow?" to Jorja. And she said "We're getting our babies!" and we jumped up and down. This morning she came running over to me at breakfast and said "We're getting our babies today!" and we both jumped up and down. She is going to be a great big sister!

There were chicken feet in the black pot. And in the red sauce it was supposed to be tofu, but they decided to through in some stomack and other intestines. Delicious--not really. Luckily we think we found a pizza place nearby for something a little more familiar.

Theres a CRIB in here...and so much more!

The Crib!

The sheets--a shout out to Aunt Kitty I think!

A baby bathtub!

And a baby potty--just in case she is potty trained at 8 months old:-)

Next Stop--Nanchang where we will get AMANDA!!!

First Stop- Beijing

I DROPPED our brand new camera right before this picture. Apparently I didn't put the stap on right. Typical! But apparently it still works!

Technical Difficulties

For some reason I am unable to load pictures up onto the blog! We are going to try and use a different VPN as blogspot is blocked in China and see if that works. In the meantime, we are in Nanchang and as of right now, at less than 18 hours til we get our baby girl. We walked into our room this afternoon and there was a little white crib with Hello Kitty sheets. It just seems almost like a dream. Anyways, hope to get some pictures up soon and figure this out before tomorrow!!

Amanda Here We Come!!!

Although it looks like a lot, Daddy, Mommy and Amanda each got one suitcase with a couple of carry-ons. Not bad for three weeks in a hotel with a baby plus three different cities with different climates!

Amanda's Room Ready and Waiting

We can't paint the walls in our house in Tokyo so we did the best we could. The letters above her crib are actually wall stickers rather than wooden. We also can't hang anything about her crib because of earthquakes. Thanks goodness Wall Stickers have become so popular! And thank you Orie for helping me find these!

The three paintings were done by Mike's Mom!

We love Amanda to the Moon and Back! Or as our wonderful wise little friend Maddie Zito (age 4 years) would say "Love you to China and back!"

Some friends in the crib waiting for Amanda. Lots of wise little owls. Notice there are no keys Aunt Sarah!

Amanda Lauren-Xiao Moxon

This is our beautiful baby girl! We received our referral December 17. It was quite the Christmas Miracle! We leave January 29th to head to China and will meet Amanda on January 31st. We can't WAIT! We created this blog for those who wanted to follow us on the amazing journey of parenthood. We feel so incredibly blessed and cannot wait to share more pictures of our daughter with everyone!