Happy Chinese New Year!

Well we were DTCd on January 5th (dossier to China) but we are still not LID (log in date) so we probably will not be until after the Chinese holiday in which the whole country shuts down and people travel to spend time with their family. Before Christmas I contacted Ann of red thread to send Jinbao a gift. It included a warm jacket, hat, scarf and gloves because it is very cold there, like -20 degrees. It also included a letter, camera and diary type book so he can write down his friends information. The orphanage gave Ann his measurements and he is already 5 feet tall, about an inch and a half taller than Matthew.


Just last week I sent him a gift for Chinese New Year including candies, cookies and some comic books that came with a CD for learning the comic books in English. I hope he enjoys it. I wanted to send a few more items but Ann said the shops were already closing down for the holiday.


I hope I have more news to post after CNY. Thanks for following! Donna

Introducing Jinbao

Hi! Welcome to our blog. We are writing this blog to document our journey to a little boy living in Harbin CWI and bringing him home to our family. His name is Zhang Jinbao which means gold treasure. Jinbao was found at the age of 5 at the back of the Jile Temple yard in Harbin, China. He has been living at the orphanage since then and is now 11. We think we have decided on a name for Jinbao. When I first looked at his picture I said he looked like a Manny. Not knowing that I said that my husband, Andrew, said exactly the same thing. So we knew we wanted to call him Manny, but that seems more like a nickname to us and Emmanuel didn't seem to fit so we looked up names that start with "Man" and we came across the name Mannix. It is an Irish name (I'm half Irish) and the meaning is "little monk". How fitting since he was found at a temple. We will keep his current name as his middle name so his full name will be Mannix Jinbao Po. I hope he likes it! This is not the first visit to China to add to our family. In 2005 we adopted Makenna from Nanchang SWI at the age of 5 1/2. She is now 12 years old and is doing well. We also have Matthew age 11, Heather age 22 and Heidi age 27. The girls are grown and out on their own so when Jinbao comes home we will have three kids with birthdays within 11 months of each other! Fun! We started on this journey again in June after a friend of ours announced she was adopting again from China. As we were looking at her picture on her agency web site we saw another girl who we became interested in. By the time we called the agency she was already placed. However, Matthew mentioned he would like a brother instead of another sister. I started looking and realized that there are many boys in China waiting for families also. The majority of people go for girls or younger children so the older boys have a very small chance of being adopted. Although there is very little information to go on, I searched for a boy that I hope will make a good fit into our family. We came across Jinbao's report and watched a few very short video clips and made our decision. We received pre-approval from China on June 22, 2011 and have been doing the paper chase ever since. Gosh, the paperwork seems so much more involved now since Makenna's adoption with the new Hague requirements. Our dossier finally went to China on January 5, 2012 and we think we will travel in the summer. The city Jinbao lives in is known for it's Ice Festival which just began this week. Here are some links to see pictures of it: http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/harbin-snow-ice-festival_2012-01-06 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/china-ice-festival-photos_n_1186533.html The ice sculptures are spectacular! Thanks for following! Donna

Video clips of Jinbao and his best buddy

Thanks for following! Donna

Short video clips of Jinbao

Thanks for following! Donna

Pictures of Jinbao