No Ordinary Family

I'm having a hard time waiting for that precious PA, not a sad depressing wait but like the night before Christmas wait.  I know she is our girl but I just want to make sure that China knows she is our girl.  This has really been the longest week.  I can't believe that only one week ago that I had that frantic day and we locked her file.  So much has happened it is kind of tough to process it all so in my mind time has just stretched out to where it feels like a month ago. I was expecting a PA early next week based on when we submitted our LOI (letter of intent) and looking at when others are receiving theirs, however, I have heard that there is a national holiday in China until the 5th so it is probably more like the middle of next week, ugg. After the PA I can show off her picture to all of her already adoring fans.  I think we have settled on a name and we hope to announce that soon as well.  I am sorry if I am gushing.  There is just something so different about this proce

First, I know you are all dying for a name but it is harder than we thought it would be.  We are working on it and as soon as we know, you will too. Today is Little Miss's first birthday.  I am sad that we are not there but I am so happy to know we will be there soon.  I wish we could share her picture with you because she is just perfect but we have to wait until after we get pre-approval. Lets see what do you want to know that I can share?   She is from the Hunan province in Chenzhou SWI. She was about 14lbs at 9 months old Her favorite toys are brightly colored and make noise :) She is not strange. She is a vivacious and cute baby.  LOL, that is a direct quote from the report :) I can not wait to meet this little one.  This is the time line that we expect but they are just estimates, I am thinking in total 3-5 months.  We are ready to go any time! Letter of Intent (LOI) - 9/25/10 Pre-Approval (PA)- 1-2 weeks Letter of Approval (LOA) - 1-2 months Travel Approval

So in my previous post in which I left you all hanging, mwah ha ha ha,  I left you at the call.  I got the call Thursday about 11:45 at work.  My agency never spontaneously calls us, I mean NEVER, so I was a little perplexed.  I was told that they had a file of a little girl, one year old, with an ear deformity but that looked like her only special need (SN) and would I want to look at it?  Let me think, it took me about 1.6 seconds to get out the words "YES, SEND IT NOW"  The funny thing is that ear deformity was not on our list, not that we were not ok with it but for some reason it was left off the small list we gave our agency just 2 days before. I got the file and quickly opened it.  Jim was teaching 5th graders at Moxee that day and when he is teaching elementary I am not able to get a hold of him as easily.  I texted him and told him to get to a computer and call me as soon as possible.  I then forwarded the email with my personal email account which by the way is in

I have been waiting to write this post until we had final confirmation that everything important was sent and we were on our way.  So here it goes, where do I start, I guess the beginning works.   If you have been following our blogs or know us at all you know that we want to have children.  We have been trying for more than 10 years and the last 4 of those years have been spent on adoption.  In the beginning we did our research and we learned as much as we thought we could and we made some decisions.  We decided that the best option for us was International adoption and specifically China.  There are many reasons for this and I in no way think that because we choose this route it is right for everyone.  There are lots of adoption options out there and all I can say is that it is an extremely personal choice. We started collecting paperwork, known in the adoption community as the paperchase, however we had to wait until I was 30 in April of 2007 to officially apply and get our Log in

Jim recently got his "precious" camera  by doing some extra jobs like painting signs and selling some things we no longer needed.  As it happened he was able to get enough money, plus some, so he told me that I should get something that I would enjoy.  I am not very good at getting things for myself.  I thought about it for a while and I decided that it would be really nice to get an electronic book.  Jim and I had the VERY first versions of Sony's ebookman years ago and they were not that great however, they have come a very long way. They are more user friendly with many more books to choose from.  I love reading but I am not good at using the library sometimes it takes me months to get through a book and sometimes days, sometimes I read 2 or 3 books simultaneously and I often read the same book 2-3 times.  So the library has not really become a practical option, for me.   With an electronic book I can carry a personal library in my purse!  No more searching for the

I am hoping for a better week this week because quite frankly last week sucked.  I am a funny person, I crave change and yet I am scared to death of change.  I love the progress and the growth that change often brings, however I mourn the loss of what was.  I grieved for ideas and hopes that may never be this week which made it long and miserable.  I hope that everything happening, is for the better but I am constantly worried that we have again made a poor decision, we don't have the best track record when it comes to family planning.  We are doing the best we can with the information that we get but that information is very limited.  Often, we just have to make that leap of faith into the unknown.  Being a very scientific person I don’t like the unknown, I like to have facts to base my decisions on and lately those are just nonexistent.  I know this is all very vague but I am just not ready to be more specific.  I am sure soon enough it will all be clear or maybe it is just a dre

All of a sudden life seems really, really complicated, more complicated than stealing this picture from my husband's blog.  I think I will drown myself in a in a pumpkin spice latte this weekend, in the mean time I think I will spend as much time as possible in my bed under covers waiting for the weekend.

So I was inspired by trying a new recipe that Diana had posted and I thought, why not do this regularly.  When it comes to somethings I guess that this family is pretty ordinary.  I am sure that we are not the only ones but I feel we get stuck in a rut and eat the same things week after week, after week.  Most of what we eat is very good but just always the same.  Our big ones are tacos, beef stroganoff, grilled chicken, marinated steak, and pork chops with apple gravy.   Occasionally we mix it up with chicken enchiladas or spaghetti but as you can see it is not every exciting.  So the creamy chicken is going to be new on the list and I am going to make a list.  And remember what we make so that we can eat it more than just once, if we like it of course. So last week I revived an old recipe from last year that we have not made for a while.  I got it from my mom who got it off TV but I don't remember which program. Crock Pot Carnitas (my name) 1 pork shoulder roast 1/2 cup T

I guess I don't have much to say so I will just post some pictures.  The first is Jim's camera the others are what I see when ever we go anywhere :0).  Hope you are all having a great holiday weekend.