The Great Outdoors

It's gettin' cold here so, the girls needed coats. Check out these pretty pink coats, now they can play outside in the leaves...











And at the park...














And go pick out their very first pumpkins!

What a fun weekend we had!

Glad to be home!

Only 3 days to go!

If you stay at the White Swan, Mattel gives each adopting family a Going Home Barbie. Barbie is holding a Chinese baby. We were able to get two!

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Celebrating at the Cow and Bridge Thai restaurant was a lot of fun. The FTIA travel group came. What a special day! We are so glad we got to be with them today.

Getting to know you

We are going to China!

We finally have our travel dates to our girls!

We leave Aug. 24th and return Sept. 8th.

My niece

We got to spend some time this weekend with my niece, C. She is a cutie! We took her to the 2006 Family Reunion. She was so much fun to watch. Still no hair at 14 months! She is a real sweetie with a strong determination streak.

Here's Auntie giving kisses to C.





And here's C. with Uncle C.














Well, we are hoping this will be our month. It's almost been 12 full months since our LID. Everyone seems to have their fingers crossed with us that we will receive our referral this month. I sure hope so. I have started to buy some clothes. I just couldn't wait any longer!

It's official!

Today, it was finally posted on the CCAA's website that placement had been made through May 30. That's FIVE days later than the last post. If you go to www.china-ccaa.org, this is what I check EVERY DAY. And today it was updated to read the following:

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before August 31, 2005.


The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before May 30, 2005.

That last date is what you have to watch. Thankfully, our dossier has been reviewed. And no phone calls to update any information or no missing information. Now we are just waiting, like a lot of folks, for that second date to match our LID, 6/20/05.

I appreciate everyone's prayers during this time, but please don't pray for patience for Chris or I. Please pray for anything but patience. Especially now that we are 9 months paperwork pregnant and are "due" to have our little ones. Pray for a quick and painless delivery! Although I have never been pregnant, I have known quite a few pregnant women and when that ninth month comes they are always ready for the baby to come. I can only imagine the physical discomfort they are in. Now that we are in our ninth month, I, too, am ready for this baby to come. I don't have the physical discomfort that some would, but I am definitely at the miserable point.

I am hopelessly in love with this child that I do not know. I long to see her face and to hold her. I want to rock her to sleep if she will let me. I want to play with her and teach her. I want to sweep up crushed cheerios and change dirty diapers.

Again, please pray for a quick and painless delivery!

March Update

This update I have decided not to dwell on the fact the CCAA worked a whole month and only finished 5 days worth of dossiers.

So, I wanted to show everyone the baby's room . We just got in the furniture for the baby's room a couple of weeks ago. What do you think? Cute? I am working on new lamp shades and the black lamps are only temporary. I think once I hang the shelves and pictures, the room is pretty cute. I know, I know very pink, but pretty.

Sorry, the last pic a little blurry. We are trying to figure out how to download video on here as well.

I have also finished taking down the wall paper in the bathroom. The walls were a mess underneath. If you have any advice on what to do next please let me know. I had plan on painting.

Chris's basketball season has come to an end. His team won three games with their last game being their best. He is very proud of the boys on his team. They all showed a great deal of improvement over the season. Last Saturday, he got to award each of them trophies at the Championship game. It was a big commitment with practice two nights a week and games every Saturday or Sunday. I really enjoyed going to the games with him. He was a great coach!

And then you may be wondering, how's the Snuggles? Well, he's just fine. He's eight years old now and still loves to sit on our laps for hours.

Well, until next time.

February Update

I have waited to post an Adoption Update because the newest word is that the wait is longer. On February 28th (my birthday), the referrals came in for those whose dossiers were logged in through May 25th, 2005. That means China only processed 12 days of dossiers. At this rate, it could very well be 3 months until we receive our referral. That means 5 months until we travel. Again, these are only guesses.

So, my routine continues from before. Checking all the blogs and websites. Although, I have decided to paint the upstairs bathroom. This means taking down wall paper! It has been interesting. We are going to decorate it in little ducks.http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_8/602-3739681-9739038?%5Fencoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B0006B5UAI

We also have picked out furniture for the room. We ordered a bookcase and chest from Ashley Furniture. http://www.ashleyfurniture.com/Showroom/LargeProductImage.aspx?PageId=Showroom&SetDomTab=2&ItemNo=B213-63
Chris's mom and step dad have graciously offered to supply a crib.

So, we are doing what we need to do, now we just need to bring our girls home!

Chinese New Year

Chris and I wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year for our children. So, we thought and thought how can we do this?-go to a Chinese Buffet of course! We had visited The Forbidden City Buffet a week before and it was really good. We went back for more. This time we would be more adventurous because we were there in spirit for our girls.

Okay, so I wasn't as adventurous as Chris. He tried the frog legs, sushi, and clams. I stuck with crab legs and fried rice. By the way, Chris exclaimed as he took a bite of the frog legs, "It does not taste like Chicken!". And he was happy as a clam eating the clams. That is until it came to the last one on his plate. He scooped it off the shell and made a discovery. A baby crab had stowed away inside! Was this a sign of good luck? we wondered?

We began our adventure to Chloe and Jasmine February 2005 with the paperchase. On June 20, 2005 our finished Dossier was "logged in" in China. We are in our six month of waiting and are not sure when we will travel.