Hi, everybody!

Hi there! No, we have not fallen off the face of the earth. I honestly did try to post while we were in Taiwan but kept getting distracted (gee, wonder why!) and never got the post finished. And since we've been home, I've been a little focused on the new joy of my life! :-)

Kaley is now home (YEA, GOD! THANK YOU!) and has adjusted beautifully! She bonded with us almost immediately in Taiwan and since we've come home, it's even better. She knows we are "her people" and even calls Michael "baba" (Chinese for "dad"). She's said "mama" a couple of times, too! She's a verryyy happy baby and her smile just lights up the room.

We have such a wonderful church family at Crossmark that we arrived home to a clean house, happy dogs and food in the fridge...even flowers on the counter! (Love you all! Thanks again!) It sure made the first week sooo much easier.

When we arrived at The Home of God's Love, Kaley, as well as several other babies and a couple workers, were sick. Within the week that we were there, Michael and I caught the tummy-bug, too, but by the end of the first week home, we were all healthy and had made it past the jetlag and time change. Getting a baby to turn her days and nights around on a permanent basis is a challenge but Kaley did beautifully (in SC, we are exactly 12 hours different than at the Home of God's Love in Taiwan, so the first several days we were all waking up at 2:00 in the morning wanting lunch! It's nice to be back on a normal time schedule now.)

Kaley is a very active, alert and inquisitive little girl. She's very good at army-crawling; gets up on her knees, too, but then can't seem to get it all to work together...too cute! She loves to run around in her walker and bounce in the jumparoo to anything musical. She's eating well and loves to feed herself snacks (when she's not sharing them with the dogs).

I've not been able to upload the pictures yet but we are taking lots, so I'll get some up in the next day or so. For now, here's the first picture we took as a family, at a tea field up the road from the Home in Taiwan.
Thank you, God...you amaze us every day!

Alright, here's the scoop! This is the e-mail we received from Ted this morning:

Dear Michael & Kimberly,
“Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land.” Proverbs 25:25

Praise the Lord! Everything went very smoothly today. The court docket was about an hour behind schedule, so it was almost 6:00 P.M. before we got out of court. (It’s now 7:00 P.M. as I write.) The new judge turned out to be a judge that we had had a few years back and he was just transferred back to Luo-Dong. He knew us and we him and it was a very amiable time in court. You can praise the Lord together with us.

The judge did have some difficult cases today, so I’m not sure how long it will be before
we get the first court paper but we will just keep trusting and praying, as God’s timing is always best.

What a blessing to have a good and known judge! What a relief! So we still don't know how long the rest of the process will take but at least we know that things went smoothly and that God has returned a good judge to this court (so smile, Dwayne, Melanie, Matt & Janie! God is handling all of this.)

I know several of you were up in the dark of night praying as we were. Thank you so much. Michael and I sat in Kaley's nursery and prayed and I promise, I could feel you all there petitioning at God's throne with us. I'm still tearing up at the incredible sense of peace and love we feel. Thank you.

Please keep praying. We're moving forward! Go, God!!

Court is tomorrow!

As some of you have noticed and already commented about, our court date for Kaley is tomorrow, Wednesday! Ted (our agent there) will be before the judge at what equates to 4:45 AM in Columbia, SC.

We will be praying and waiting to hear. I certainly don't expect you all to wake that early and pray but please remember Kaley, Ted & Bev, the judge and us in your prayers today and tonight.

I'll post any news as soon as possible; hopefully Ted will be able to find out how this new judge will handle things and we'll be able to guess at a time frame. Right now we are all in the dark as to what to expect. Michael and I just continue to make preparations and pray.

We know this is all in God's timing but honestly, my stomach is a bit tight right now as we wait to hear how the court appointment goes and find out how this new judge acts. In Kaley's room there is a decoration that simply reads "Trust"...that is what we are doing now. Thank you all for trusting along with us.

More soon! Here we go, God...

Our first court date is set!!!

This morning we received word that our court date is set for March 25th at 4:45 p.m.! This is the initial court date; we do not have to be there for it. We will be there for the finalization later.

The thing is that this is a new judge and it will be the first time the Skiles have taken a case before him. In the past, the paperwork wait has only been 2-3 weeks after the court date but then a new judge was placed who apparently wasn't as favorable toward international adoptions and paperwork took longer to arrive afterward (more like 2 months). Now that judge has been moved and yet another new judge is in place, so we don't know what to expect.

PLEASE join us all in praying that the new judge will understand that the goal is to place these children (Kaley and the others waiting) in loving families and the country in which those families live should not be an issue. The love and care of the children is the utmost matter here. Please also pray that everything follows God's timing and that we will be patient in the waiting. With all you prayer warriors covering this process with us, we truly feel blessed and humbled.

Now for more fun stuff...PICTURES!

Isn't she precious?!?

These are the babies at The Home of God's Love right now. Our Kaley is third from the left. The two in the middle are our friends' daughter Kaylee and our other friends' son, Chase.

You can see why we are passionate about praying for the judge and these beautiful children. Thanks for praying with us!

Don't know how she keeps getting cuter...

Lookie what we got this week! It's Kaley's "official" picture; the one they took for the court, visa and passport applications. It's extra cool for us because she is wearing the outfit we sent to Taiwan with the paperwork. :-) More pictures of our baby girl. Looks like she's going to be mobile soon.

Still working on the registries but the ladies at work have decided to hold a baby shower for me this month. After so many years, this whole thing is taking some getting used to, but this is going to be one very loved and cared for little girl.

Now THEY have the papers!!!

We woke up this morning to the following e-mail:
_____________________________________________

Your paperwork and Kaley’s new outfit arrived yesterday. Michelle put the outfit on her right away and in fact, when we had her pictures taken yesterday that will be used for her passport, visa physical and U.S. visa interview, she was wearing the new outfit you sent.

As soon as we received the paperwork yesterday, we prepared what was needed and took it to the court to apply for your adoption. Let’s keep praying! God’s timing is always perfect.

In Christ’s Love,
Ted for Bev, Kaley, Michelle, Carolyn, Anna and all in
The Home of God's Love
_____________________________

YIPPEE!!! Please keep praying! It is now all in the hands of God and the Taiwan government. Lord willing, we'll have her home when she's about 9 months old.

And for those who have asked what size she is, Kaley is now 7 months old (on Feb. 14th) and the fleece onesie we sent was a 6-month size. We know she is small so we took a guess and apparently were right. We did not get a picture of her in it; I'm hoping we'll get that soon.

Here are pictures of the bedding (before the room was painted). The room is now a beautiful yellow that goes with all the colors in the bedding.

I was telling Michael I HAD to find the camera dock so I could offload the photos and put them up here. He said, "why don't you just take the disk out of the camera and stick it in your computer?" (at which point I thought...DUH! I knew I could do that!) I hate it when I get so fixated on doing something a certain way that I miss the obvious alternative! By the time I got home yesterday, he had them all saved to the compter for me. (He's so good!)

After several friends and family members asked me last week where we were registered and when the baby showers were, I finally got around to starting the registry last night. (Karen, I am listening to your wisdom; Target and Wal-mart. :-). Not much on there now but I'm planning to work on that tonight and tomorrow night.

Love you all. More soon!

WE HAVE THE PAPERS!!!!!

The authenticated papers arrived from TECO yesterday!!!!! Can you hear my screams of excitement?!?

Today we'll send them to The Home of God's Love in Taiwan and the final leg of this journey can begin...the court date and visa paperwork so we can go get our daughter! It will take several weeks to get through that part but at least it will be out of our hands and we are soooo close! I can't even describe the feeling when I got home last night and saw the authentication stamps on the documents.

And the nursery is now a beautiful yellow (thanks, Roxanne!). I've got pictures of the bedding and nursery-in-progress but since we moved all my office stuff out of there and merged it in with Michael's home office, I'm not sure where the camera dock ran off to! I'll be searching for it this weekend so I can download the photos from the camera to the computer and share them with you all.

Have a great day! I know we are! :-)