Happy Thanksgiving

Here is another picture of Kiah when he was around 6 months old. Don't you love the color choices? Don't worry, Kiah. Once I get a hold of you, I promise you will never wear red, orange and pink at the same time. Mommy doesn't DVR "What Not to Wear" for nothing!

We've had a nice weekend visiting with my aunt and uncle from Kentucky who Laney has decided to call "Tish" and "Pop". These are actually the names Laney's cousin calls her parental grandparents, but Laney felt that Aunt B. and Uncle J. deserved those titles as well.

We are ever hopeful that good news will come our way this week. We will let you know.

Happy Birthday Kiah!!

Today is Kiah's first birthday. We really thought we would be with him on this day, but as this was not the plan we are going about our day and thinking of him often. Kiah, we love you and we will be with you soon. May this be the last birthday you spend without your family surrounding you and showering you with gifts, love and cake! This picture of him melted our hearts the moment we saw it. It was taken in early June when he was a little over 6 months old.

Still no news, but we're hanging in there!

We still wait anxiously each day for any news from our agency. Our last update was last week, and all we were told is that we are still waiting on the Thanh Hoa police to sign off on some forms. There are two other families with our agency who have children there, so it is comforting to vent with them about all this craziness. I had held off on posting a picture of Kiah, thinking that it would be more exciting to debut him when we had some positive news, but I have changed my mind. Just the fact that God has called us to be his parents is exciting news enough! So here he is, in all his cuteness. I will post a different picture every few days, so as not to overwhelm everyone. This is the very first picture we saw of him. It was taken in early March, when he was just over 3 months old.

Please indulge me.

I am going to try and post 2 videos of Laney from the RiverFest demonstration. We are trying to get used to our blog before traveling, because when we get there, all the directions will be in Vietnamese! These are two (short) clips of Laney performing some gymnastics moves in early October 2008. Please let me know if you have trouble viewing them. Thanks!

No news, so here's some info on Laney

Things continue to stagnate in Kiah's province, so I thought I would give a little update on Laney and her gymnastics. She has been in gymnastics class since she was 2 years old and has loved it ever since (despite the fact that I (Emily) was with her the first 1 & 1/2 years in a "Mom and Tot" class which surely kept her from her potential!). Here are a few pictures from her debut on "Tiny Team", which is an invitation only team of 4-6 year old girls at her gym. They did a demonstration at RiverFest. Her look of posing is actually how she looks when she is scared silent, which, believe me, is very rare. Enjoy.

In a nutshell...

We are the Allen family (Perry, Emily and Laney). On November 28, 2007, we submitted our dossier to adopt a child from Vietnam. On July 24, 2008, we received a referral for a baby boy, Kiah Thanh Allen. Our little guy will be one year old on November 23. On October 2, 2008, we received our I600 preliminary approval. Currently, we are waiting (patiently!?!) for our Giving and Receiving Ceremony to be scheduled so we can travel to Vietnam and become a forever family. We can hardly wait! Laney has been practicing her big sister skills on our Schnoodle puppy, Scuttle.