What an awesome day...and ONE YEAR!

Yesterday, I woke up to pictures and updated measurements on Mallorie from the volunteer at her orphanage. She sent three photos of this precious girl. In the update it says that Mallorie will smile when you tell her she is beautiful, she is not as stubborn and she is playing well with the other children. In her photos, she looks like she just had a fresh haircut with sweet bangs and three hairclips in her hair. She has the most beautiful eyes, cheeks and pouty lips ever. My heart melted to mush when I saw those pictures. Then, that evening, our agency called. Our LOA has been issued!! This means that in the eyes of China, Mallorie Grace is officially ours. I am so, so thankful for this coming so quickly! I believe that as our file was already translated from that other referral we had to decline, it helped speed things up somewhat! Next....we work on some papers to send to immigration, visa's and then the wait for TA (travel approval) begins! We are over a HUGE mountain, and I am just humbled and thankful today!

I just noticed on the Lilypie tickers at the top of the blog that today is our 1 year anniversary of starting this adoption! Looking at our timeline on the sidebar, 2-28-12 was the date our application was accepted at our agency! How remarkable that we got our LOA one day short of it being exactly a year since we started our paperwork. Hannah's adoption took three years. My biggest fear going into this adoption was running into that type of wait again. I am thankful that that fear is relinquished...thankful that as I look at that timeline that we now know who our Mallorie is. Amazed that one year ago today, we didn't know it, but there was a beautiful little angel waiting for us, and she was only 8 months old at the time...probably having her cleft and lip surgeries and going through a lot of trauma at such a young age. I wish I could have been there to have comforted her through that time. Wow...what a year can do...what it can bring...what we've accomplished! Thankful that wait has now almost come to an end, and our daughter is only about 10-12 weeks from being in our arms!