Her name

The only pictures we have of her are from a few years ago; we can't wait to see what she looks like now! 

We are getting very close to the end of the very long paper trail for adopting our new daughter!  If all goes as we are hoping and expecting, we should be able to travel in about 7 weeks to pick her up and bring her home.

For a while we referred to her as "Chinese Rayna," since the American adoption agency had given her the security name Rayna.  But we knew having 2 Raynas in the family wasn't viable long-term, so it came time to determine what we would really call her.

The name that the orphanage in China gave her is Jin Rui, which means "the golden center of a flower."  Since she is old enough to probably be quite attached to that name, we don't want to confuse her or cause her to feel greater loss by losing that part of her identity, so we are going to keep the essence of it, and just add to it a bit.

As with all of our other children, we want to give her a name with meaning and significance, so, balancing these two goals -- giving her a name with meaning and letting her keep a recognizable part of the name she has grown up with -- we have settled on Jinna Rose.  Jinna means "The Lord is gracious," which seems appropriate on many levels here!  And, following along the literary character theme with our other children, "Rose" is a character in a couple books by Louisa May Alcott that I love.

(In the book called Eight Cousins, Rose is orphaned and comes to live with extended family -- which includes SEVEN loud and rambunctious boy cousins.  At this point Jinna Rose will also have 7 boy cousins between the ages of 0-17!  (There are also a few other adult boy cousins, but they may feel more like uncles to her.)  Unlike the Rose in the book, our little Rose will also have a bunch of girl cousins, too, not to mention several siblings, so her blessings abound!)

So, unless she vehemently objects when we meet her, the plan is to call our new little girl Jinna Rose Rui Frank.  May the Lord be gracious to our little flower!