ATTN: WE HAVE OUR ITINERARY!

Adoption Itinerary
December 7th- December 20th

Thursday, Dec. 7th: Depart for Beijing

Friday, Dec. 8th: Arrive in Beijing

Saturday, Dec. 9th: Beijing Sight-Seeing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden
City, & Summer Palace (Lunch & Dinner Included)

Sunday, Dec. 10th: Church service & Great Wall (Lunch & Beijing Duck
Dinner Included)
Evening flight to Hunan

Sunday, Dec. 11th: Meet AnnaClaire Chenhui H.
Civil Affairs Appointment

Dec. 12th – Dec. 14th: Paperwork, Sight-seeing, & Shopping

Friday, Dec. 15th: Afternoon flight to Guangzhou

Dec. 16th - 17th: Fill out Consulate Forms & Medical Exam

Monday, Dec. 18th: Consulate Appointment 10:30am

Tuesday, Dec. 19th: Pick up Child’s Visa

Wednesday, Dec. 20th: Depart from Guangzhou
Depart from Beijing
Arrive in the US at 10:48!

Our guides are Rosa and Maggie for Beijing and Guangzhou. For Hunan, we have Amy!

We are staying at the Guangxi Hotel in Bejing, the Grand Sun City in Hunan, and the China Hotel in Guangzhou!
WE ARE LEAVING IN A WEEK.

The travel meeting was good. As everyone knows, we can't have water, ice, fruits not peeled, things washed in water, etc.

As for packing: Each person can have up to 2 suitcases weighing a total of 44 pounds. Children under 2 may not have their own suitcase (but you can count theirs are yours). Carry ons are up to 2 a total of 22 pounds. AnnaClaire's suitcase weighed in at 18 pounds. We are most likely carrying hers on, but if not, I can manage to pack lighter than 26 pounds and so her suitcase will be "mine". (Which it really is.)

CHINA HERE WE COMEEEEE! ONE WEEK. Also I am quite excited because our Civil Affairs Appt. is the same day as Gotcha Day. So Gotcha Day and Adoption Day will both be on... (DRUMROLL PLEASE) DECEMBER 11, 2006! woohoo. 11 days, 11 days, 11 days, 11 days, 11 DAYS!

Just checked out our hotels. We have some niceeeee 4 and 5 star hotels! WOOHOO! I like our one in Changsha the best but I can't pull up the Beijing one. I'm a little bummed that we won't be in the White Swan in Guangzhou, but I think the China Hotel is actually nicer!

1 week until CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are leaving for China in 1 WEEK!!!!

1 week. 1 week. 1 week. 1 week. 1 WEEK!!!!

As heard from Chenzhou... (and packing)

Today we packed meds, food, diapers, wipes, etc. It looks like a lot less when it's all in bags!

New sockies

2 new onesies and a sweater and tie-hat from Hanna Anderson... cute cute!

Today we felt like getting something else accomplished. After school we did some China shopping and got a few last minute things. We un-packaged all the things (we already had a lot) and put them into baggies to save room. We have meds, 3 bottles with extra nipples, little organic juices, fruit puffs, organic teething biscuts, 2 changing pads, 12 diapers (will buy more there) a pack of wipes (will buy more there), 4 boxes of antibacterial wipes, tons of miniture toilet paper rolls,
a bowl and spoon (for AnnaClaire, can be reused after washing in boiled water!), shampoo, soap, teething gel, teething tablets, toothbrush and toothpaste, formula dispenser, formula, all the gifts (lotion, candy, Panthers hats for the men, nuts), red bags, red riboon, tissue paper (will get the gifts ready there.), bibsters, and I could be forgetting something.... Okay another shoutout to BTDT people. Anything in the medicine/bath/food/random categorey that you recomend or don't recomend? Any comments regarding this would be greatly appreciated. Okay, so we are totally packed for AnnaClaire. Now Mom, Dad, Will, and I need to pack a suitcase, toiletries, and a carry on or 2. Sounds not so bad... but I am starting to feel overwhelmed. We are leaving in 8 days. Oh my goodness, WE ARE LEAVING IN 8 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was on "Journey 2 Me" a few mintues ago and was clicking on random journals. Low and behold, I came across the website of a family just getting home with their Chenzhou cutie! I have taken a few parts out, but here is their description of the orphanage.

After breakfast, 3 dads took a 4 hour drive to Chenzhou, Alexis' hometown. We rented a van and one of our gudies (the one who speaks good english) went with us. She is a sweet and funny young lady. She kept us entertained the whole way. Our drive on the highway was no different than in town, wild..... We must have changed lanes 300 times and hit 90+ several times. We arrived in town and we were met by the Orphange Director and staff. We went to a restaurant where we dined on sauted squid, papaya filled with clams and rice. Hey when in Rome. After lunch we had a meeting with the orphange staff and presented our gifts to them. This orphange has ~180 children from infants to 16yo. We were instructed not to photo any of the babies or workers. We made our way through the orphange and visted each of girl's rooms and saw their empty crib. Each room had about 6 cribs in them. The rooms were well organized and cheerful. All the babies were in walkers in the play rooms. You could tell the staff loved the children and they were well cared for. Still it was very emotional knowing that these children would not be in a mommy or daddys arms tonight. After the tour we went into town to look at where each girl was found. (the guide) said Chenzhou is an agriculture town where boys are very prized, That's why there are so many girls in this orphanage.

I thought this was all very interesting. It makes me sad that AnnaClaire was one of those babies in the walker not going into Mommy and Daddy's loving arms that night. It also makes me happy that they could tell the children were loved. It is a tad bit strange that they were not allowed to take pictures, because someone else I followed had TONS of pictures of babies and directors when they visited Chenzhou... hmmm, makes you wonder.

I walked in the door from swimming and there were diapers, wipes, a blankie, and a pink card sitting on the table. One of the people Dad works with gave that to us! I thought that was just so nice. I'll add a picture tomorrow.

8 days until CHINA, 12 days until GOTCHA DAY! woohoo.

"AnnaClaire" the story of her name

our AnnaClaire -from China

Anna with Claire has always been the name of my sister. When we first starting thinking of names, Mom said, "I like Mary Grace." I answered, "Nah..." No one in the family except Mom was too wild about it either. There's nothing wrong with the name, I do like it, don't get me wrong, I just can't see someone in our family being named Mary Grace. That was the end of that. Our sweetie wouldn't be Mary Grace. A few days later we again got into the name topic. By now we were sure we wanted a double name. (I have ALWAYS wished my name was EmilyAnn or Emily Ann. At first I was called Emily Ann, but after a month or 2, it was shortened to Emily. I have actually tried to get friends to call me EmilyAnn and signed things EmilyAnn, but to no avail.) We didn't really throw any names out there. Mom just said, "What about Anna Claire?" I answered, "I LOVE it!". So for awhile she was Anna Claire. But then one day, someone called her Anna. Back to the drawing board (we still wanted the 2 names Anna and Claire.) We thought about Annaclaire, AnnaClaire, and Anna Claire but AnnaClaire just stuck. Annaclaire looked a little jumbled, and we did NOT want people calling her Anna. So we just put the 2 together and now we have AnnaClaire. As for her middle name that went back and forth. We have always decided that she would have 3 names. First middle and last. We have also always known that her Chinese name would be her middle name. We never wanted Xun to be first, as in Xunhui or XunHui, because Mom didn't want an X in her monogram (hahahaha that makes me laugh that that is why!) We thought about ChenXun or Chenxun and ChenHui or Chenhui. ChenXunHui, ChenXunhui, and Chenxunhui were to long and jumbled so none of those. Hui and Chen just sounded strange (AnnaClaire Chen? nahh AnnaClaire Hui? that is okay...) I have always liked the Hui part. I think it is so pretty sounding. But we liked how keeping Chen would link her to where she is from and also her initials would be ACH even though the C isn't for Claire. So we decided on ChenHui. AnnaClaire ChenHui it was. We actually sent the travel paperwork writing AnnaClaire ChenHui. That really bothered me though. I didn't like how it was 2 names with 4 capitals. Dad liked Chenhui better, Will liked ChenHui, Mom didn't care, and I liked Chenhui. Drew didn't care. So we went with Chenhui. For a second we thought it would have to stay ChenHui because we weren't sure if it was going on a passport or something as that since we had already entered the travel stuff with that. But Ashley told us it was no problem. So there we have it. AnnaClaire Chenhui H. I think it is a beautiful name.

Anna means gracious and Claire mean bright, shining, or star. So AnnaClaire is our "gracious shining-star"!

As for the pictures (I have now taken them out), I googled AnnaClaire hoping to find something spelled AnnaClaire. They just had stuff spelled Anna Claire. But I did find 3 babies and one older girl all named AnnaClaire (spelled like that.) And wouldn't you know, 2 of the 3 babies named AnnaClaire were adopted from China!!!! How cool! (I think they were different from the 2 I talked about in the lower post!) And then of course I put a picture of our AnnaClaire!

AnnaClaire Chenhui... dreaming of her... 8 more days until we leave for CHINA!!!!!! and 12 until GOTCHA DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kinda cool...

I found this on Journey to Chynna and thought it was cool. To be exact there are 311,967 Emilys in the US and 23,997 in the US with my last name. There are 25 with both my first and last name. AnnaClaire is a different story. There are 0 AnnaClaire's in the US. Of course, I know this is wrong because I have come across not 1 but 2 AnnaClaire's (spelled the same way!) and both from China! And that is just what I've come across....
Here's my little counter thingy.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 25 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

A little packing.. (funner then for me!)

Sweet little clothes and teeny shoes!


all the fun toys!

Today it started feeling real. We are leaving in 9 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course I felt like we had done absolutely nothing and needed to get something done. There is no way I can start packing because I need to wear the clothes I'm bringing. So, I thought, why not pack for AnnaClaire? I decided I would surprise Mom and get her all packed. I packed all her cute little clothes and zipped up the suitcase. Then I walked into the bonus room (where Mom was typing away on the computer) with the full suitcase. (She is using one of my suitcases, the smaller one.) Anyway, Mom was very happy and then we finished doing AC's bows, Robeez, the rest of her tights and coats that Mom had, her mittens and hat, and then we had to decide on which toys to bring. We went with her butterfly teethy toy, stacking cups, finger puppets, a book with puppet, a cloth feely book, who loves baby book, a blankie, a blanket, 2 lovies, a mirror, a small beach ball, another small fingery ball, a blanket to sit on, an American flag (for waving when she's in her CA dress.), a turtle pushy toy, links, her ladybug rattle thingymabober, bubbles, and I think that is it. But... it is all condensed to it doesn't look like THAT much.

So we have one thing to check off our list. AnnaClaire is packed! We still have to pack all the meds, diapers, formula, and all that. How in the world do you do this? I think we need about 12 suitcases to get everything over there. But... we will manage! BTDT people, how did you do it? Any advice on things to make sure to bring?

It's not even funny how many people have said, "PACK LIGHT!" but how am I going to do it?

9 days. It's feeling real. REALLY real. 9 DAYS!!!!!!!! And 13 days until we get AnnaClaire! YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:) God is good :) all the time :)

Oh and our travel meeting is on Thursday! We'll get to hear everything we need to no..that'll be nice! Our final itenary should come tomorrow or Thursday morning. I'll let you know our itenery right away!!!!

9 days, but who's counting? ;0

She's 13 months!

1st things 1st...
Our sweet AnnaClaire is 13 months old today!!! We will go not one more month birthday without her! Yay! I bet she looks a lot different from this picture now... I can't wait to see her!

1 week ago, we got the call that we are going to China. In 10 days, we will be leaving! And in 2 weeks/14 days, we will be given AnnaClaire to have FOREVER!

When people ask when we are leaving, I can say, "NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!" Because it's true! :)

Happy Sunday!

Oh look at that... a present for AnnaClaire! :)

Wreaths hanging in AnnaClaire's windows. We've never had wreaths there! (used to be the foyer window.)

^those are the pictures I tried to add last night.^

Oh, how I love Christmas! It's just the best holiday in the world. There's not much to say right now. We went to Church and then went to Five Guys (we had to go with Drew, he just had to taste it!) It was so good as always. Last night we stayed up pretty late watching college football. My 2 least favorite teams of all time (Notre Dame and USC) were playing. USC won but I still have hopes that UCLA will ruin their national championship chances. If not, I will be cheering for OSU because I DO NOT LIKE USC AT ALL! We watched downstairs by the fire with stockings hanging and the tree aglow. It was nice! I downloaded tons of Christmas music on my ipod so now I have 194 songs/10 hours of just Christmas music. That should be great for China, otherwise I would really miss hearing good ol' Christmas tunes. No fear, I have enough to cover most of the flight and by the time I've played the last song, I'm sure I can stand to repeat some. Besides, Christmas music just never gets old.

Church was good. We only had 3 kids. (2 girls, 1 boy). Nothing agaisnt boys, there are some really sweet ones, but the one we had is a wild thing. He was hard to maintain. Our girls were much easier but all three were very cute. But I know that there are sweet boys because one of ours, Nathanael is just a doll. He wasn't there though. And I do have two brothers and their not so bad ;).

We are now watching the Panthers game. They are winning 6-3 against the Redskins at the half. Go Panthers!

Drew leaves today :(. I'm sad. I have really enjoyed him being home, it feels so normal. In less than a month he'll be back though, and then we'll have our sweet BABY home too!

11 days until China, 15 days until gotcha day. Yahoo! Today is AnnaClaire last day being a 12 month old. Tomorrow she turns 13 months!

Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is up!

Our bundle of JOY in the middle of the tree! :)

Decorating the tree!!!

The completed tree!!!

Our mantle... 6 stockings!!!!! AnnaClaire's is smack dab in the middle!

AnnaClaire's stocking :) Isn't it cute?

AC's stocking-up close

"Little Tots Baby Goods" village store!!!

Babies First Christmas banner on the side. The blue thing is the little swing!

At exactly a month before Christmas, it's about time to DECORATE! In our house we never decorate before Thanksgiving. So the Sat. after is always "Christmas decorating day". First I had swimming though. When we got home, Mom made me and her turkey sandwiches with our leftover Thanksgiving turkey. It was yummy. Then we realized we needed 2 more wreaths and candles for the wreaths in AnnaClaire's room. We also needed a stocking hook for AC's stocking. We went to Peppermint Forest to get the hook, but we didn't find any there that we liked. (We had found some really good ones there 2 years ago!) While at Peppermint Forest we did find 2 cute "Village houses" that we just had to get. If you remember, I posted a picture of a fall house awhile back. It was a "Village house". Well, we are huge fans of those and have so many that there's hardly anywhere to put them!(As for our Christmas ones...) We have about 5 houses, a church, a Krispy Kreme, a diner, a Hersheys shop, an ice skating rink, a log cabin, and now a baby store! One of our houses is interchangable so we can use it for every season. Of course we have a lot of different accsessories for them too. (Cars, the people to go in front, manger scenes, trees, snowmen, etc.) We also got a second fall house today. It was retiring and on sale and really cute, how could we not? It's an apple picking place and SOOOO cute. As for our new baby store, how could we not get it? It's called "Little Tots Baby Goods" and has cribs, crib bedding, bottles, booties, bears, diaper bags, and strollers in the window, a bag and ballons on the front step, a swing on the side, and best of all... A banner on the side that says, "Baby's First Christmas!" How could we not get it? The funny thing is that I saw the house and was thinking what a cute house. So I showed Mom and then we relized it was a baby store! So in honor of AnnaClaire being home for Christmas, we got that village house to add to our collection. I love it.
We then went to Michaels, got the wreaths, and candles (forgot the wreath hangers but went back when we realized it.) We also found a good stocking hook at Michaels, but I'm glad we didn't go there first or else there'd be no new villages for us! I saw my friend, Stephanie, and her Mom at Michaels so we talked for a little. We also found a darling ornament to put AnnaClaire's picture in. I picked out the one that said "JOY" because she is such a joy. (I know it already.) They had one that said "Baby's First Christmas" but it was shiny and ugly. We found a ton we liked but just had to get the joy one. So we got that. Then we went home and it was decorating time!!! Dad and Will brought down the tree (yes, we are bad and we have a fake tree. The limbs always dropped on our real ones, so we went on and bought a fakie a few years ago the day after Christmas. It's worked out really well for us...it even has prestrung lights- what a treat for Dad!) I decorated the entire tree. It's a tradition, I ALWAYS do it while Mom does villages and Dad does wreaths. But this year we have no villages. Mom decided (much to my dismay) that the more we put up, the more we take down, and it would be hard to be getting home with AnnaClaire and having to take down ALL the decorations. The villages are the hardest thing, so we didn't put them up. I was so sad, they are my favorite decoration. But I understand how it would be so annoying to take down ALL the decorations with a new baby! So we did simple this year. Of course we HAD to put up our new baby store village, and our different seasons one is always up so that one stayed. They looked a little scanty, so I added one more house, promising Mom that I would take them down. I put a few "accsessories" with the houses/store, but not a ton because I couldn't find all the stuff. It looks cute though.

I also had the honors of hanging AnnaClaire's stocking!!! I don't think I ever mentioned we got her a stocking! We got it a few weeks ago from LL Bean. It just caught Mom's eye. Then I was online looking for a good stocking, and not knowing Mom had really liked it, I showed it to her saying, "I think I've found the stocking for AnnaClaire!" It even has a little black haired beauty on it. We got it monogramed which adds extra cuteness. At that point we were SO hopeful that we would have AnnaClaire for Christmas... which we WILL!!!!! I LOVE the full of stockings mantle. 6 stockings hanging. :) I LOVE AnnaClaire's stocking. It looks so great with all the rest. It is just to cute and even has a pocket for a Santa letter. We also got out our little Santa and Mrs. Claus. So just simple decorations up this year, but as long as the tree is up, I call it Christmas! I just love Christmas. Only 1 month away! Oh.. and we have our first present under the tree...guess who it's for? Yes, AnnaClaire! It's something Mom got her at PB Kids yesterday (a toy) but I'm not telling what... I can't ruin AC's surprise! ;). I also wrapped Will's moniter, so it's not the only thing under the tree anymore... But it was the first!!!

4 months ago today, we got the call with the file of a sweet baby girl. Now 4 months later, we are just 12 days away from going to China and getting her! WOOHOO! And in 16 days, she'll be OURS... FOREVER! EEK! China, here we comeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Merry 1-month-away-from Christmas!

more pictures will be added below. (well they were going to be added below. I can't get my photo adder to show up, so none tonight. I'll try again tomorrow!)

Baby clothes!

Sweet floral dress and onesie from Janie and Jack

I love this aloha fabric dress from Gymboree!

Sweet giraffe dress from Gymboree

Onesie, socks, and tights from Janie and Jack

Mom went to the mall this morning and soon after I posted the last post, Dad asked if I wanted to go to the mall with him so he could get a radio transmitter for his iPod. We also went in a few other stores including the luggage store where Dad got a huge suitcase to take to China.

We went and picked up some pizza on the way home and came home and ate it. It was delicious! I was so excited when I saw a Janie and Jack bag, a Gymboree bag, and a PB Kids bag... Mom just had to go into Gymboree when she saw the %25 of purchase sign. She got the ADORABLE pink and green giraffe dress (I had actually seen it online and almost showed her, but I knew she'd say, "no more shopping for AnnaClaire!" so I was happy to see we are now the proud owners of the cute dress.) She also got the DARLING aloha print dress for next summer. We had been looking at that dress for awhile now and Mom said she just had to get it when she saw it was $11! (Keara, the twins have yet another matching outfit!) Mom also went into our very favorite store, Janie and Jack. I love what she got there as well! An adorable floral dress with eyelit onesie, another really cute onesie, ruffle tights, and cute socks. The 2 Gymboree things are for the summer and the Janie and Jack stuff is for now.

We are now watching "China's Lost Girls". (For the 5th? time!) It's just so good :) and we wanted Drew to watch it.

I can't believe it... only 13 days until CHINA!!!!!!!!!!! and 17 until GOTCHA DAY!

Keara~I loveeeeee your blog! (I loved it yesterday too!)

What a Black Friday morning!

Wow, what a night/morning we had! For Christmas, Will really wants a moniter. The exact one he wanted was on sale, $300 cheaper than normal. Well Best Buy opened at 5, so we decided that we'd leave around 4 to go there. We (Dad, Will, and I) thought it'd be fun to just stay up all night since it was already almost midnight. Our big outlet mall opened at 12:01AM and Dad brought up the crazy idea of going there. We thought it would be fun, so left around 11:55 to go.It's about 30 mintues away. We cranked the Christmas music and sung along on our way to the mall at midnight. We were amazed when we saw a huge traffic jam 1.5 miles away from the mall. We waited in that thing for about 30 mintues and finally got to the mall just before 1. It was maddening because the bigger stores weren't even open! You should've seen how crowded it was. I was amazed. There were thousands of people. I have never seen the mall that crowded, much less at 1AM! There were also a lot of people in their pjs. That was very, very strange. We walked around the whole mall and Will got a book, I got sweatpants, Dad got one of those waist wallets for China (its not a fanny pack, its a wallet that goes under your shirt). We also exchanged Will's pants. We decided that we would leave because it was just much to crowded. So then we went on to Best Buy. The line was pretty long, but we were in no mood to wait 2 hours in line. We had planned to get donuts, so we went to Krispy Kreme, but they were closed (Since when did they close at midnight and open at 6?) So we went to Walmart. Walmart hadn't started their Black Friday sales yet, but there were quite a few people there. We got extra rechargable batteries. Will had some free breakfast cupons for McDonalds, so we tried there. Closed. Closed. Open. We pulled in the drive through, but no one ever asked us what we wanted! We obviously weren't the only people whoe thought they were open because someone was behind us! All the lights were on and there were workers inside. We drove up and the worker was staring right at us, but no one ever asked our order. So much for McDonalds! We went and checked another McDonalds but it was closed. (That's fine, I hate McDonalds!) So we went on to Best Buy. By now it was 4:10, so not much longer before it opened. It was freezing out so Will stood in line while Dad and I stayed in the car nearby. I fell asleep in the car... I think Dad stayed awake though. Then at 5 we went and got in the line. Will got in and Dad and I waited til the very end. Then we went and joined him. We were all thrilled because Will got the moniter that we pulled an all nighter for! He got the last one, and people were trying to tell him that that wasn't the one he wanted..lol. Will didn't budge, and he walked out with his Christmas moniter. Well we didn't exactly walk out. There was an extremely long line that took just about 45 minutes to get through. You should've seen all the people at Best Buy. I mean there was over 1,200 people. It was insane. We finally got home around 6:15. By that time it was time to take care of Fenway, so I did that. Then home we came for some much needed sleep. We had a lot of fun, but I am really glad that Will got his moniter which was the whole reason we had our Black Friday excursion! (Or course now he's disappointed that he can't have it until Christmas!) Oh and Best Buy was even giving out donuts, so we got our beloved donuts. :)

So that was how our Black Friday was. Wow I can't imagine trying to actually buy a ton of stuff... I'm not patient enough. So we have our new tradition. (Except normally we will just wake up at 4. The mall at 1 was a on time thing... lol)

Happy Black Friday! ;)

I'm very disappointed Texas lost to A&M! That was pitiful.

Turkey Day 06 is coming to an end...

Drew, me (with AC), and Will.

The beautiful table :)
Yum, yum, look at this yummy meal!

My pumpkin pie..yum!

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had corn pudding, green bean casserole, turkey, mashed potatos and gravy, and stuffing. It was all delicious. We all got our food and brought it to the lovely decorated dining room table. We had a wonderful prayer thanking our Father for all the blessings he has bestowed upon us. Especially this year. Of course most of all, we thanked him for our precious AnnaClaire.

Then we dug into our feast. It was so delicious. Mom, you did a great job making it. Your gravy was fabulous. It was so nice knowing that this is our last Thanksgiving without our sweet AnnaClaire. After talking at the table for about an hour, I brought out the pumpkin pie. I am excited to tell you that it turned out so good. It was so tasty, much better than store bought!

But there was much of our day before our yummy feast. I woke up pretty late and watched the Macy's Day Parade until 12. It was good. Then the dog show came on. My favorite dog was the PBGV. It was so precious with a huge smile on its face. It was a challenge to keep Maggie from barking (she watches T.V. and barks when she sees dogs.) So we switched to the football game. I then went to go take care of Fenway. I stayed over there for awhile and then came back, watched more football, redesigned my blog (like it??), etc. Then was our yummy feast.

After that, we watched football. I went and took care of Fenway again and Mom, Dad, and I played Sequence until "Trip of a Lifetime" came on at 10. It is very good. It's about a family with an adopted daughter from China. She is 5, and they go back to visit China with their Cai. It is very good and especially cool because Cai is from Hunan. (Not the same city, but same province as AnnaClaire.) It was cool watching the beginning also because they were showing all the places we will tour when we go. I'm so excited to go to China! In just 2 weeks! Wow I'm thrilled.

I hope everyone had a very nice Thanksgiving. Ours was great. Now we are ready to hit the malls tomorrow morning! Shopping.. here we come!!!

Happy Thanksgiving again :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The bird is in!!! The Macy's Day Parade is on, I can smell the Thanksgiving air... HAPPY THANKSGIVING! It's our last Thanksgiving without little AnnaClaire!!!!

In 2 weeks, we will be boarding our flight to Beijing!!!!!! Oh my goodness, 2 WEEKS!

Have a great one... I know I will! (The sky is finally blue again! No more rain! YIPEE!)

Anxious, overwhelmed, excited...

...thrilled beyond belief, nervous (about the flights, about getting sick, about overpacking, about AnnaClaire not liking me, etc), happy, blessed by the Lord, EXCITED! Just a few ways to say how I'm feeling right now... BECAUSE WE ARE LEAVING IN 15 DAYS! That's right, 15 DAYS! A day shy of 2 weeks. Oh my goodness, I cannot believe it. I am on cloud 9!!!!!

We found out we are now not only on the flight to China with the Howards, but also with the Fletchers! (both from our travel group) YAHOO! Our flight is going to rock! I am so excited. Only 15 days until we are off to CHINA!

Wow, I've never been a big sister. I've been the baby all my life... I wonder what it will be like to have a baby sister. I can already tell it is going to be AMAZING.

Well, Drew is home! Boy, is it nice to see him again. His flight was a little late because of heavy rain (it even snowed about 6 flakes yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bet it'll snow this year..) Drew's friend, Laura flew with him and her parents and sisters were waiting for her. We are good friends, so we talked a lot while we waited for Drew and Laura. Finally, we saw Drew wave. Drew came over and of course gave us hugs. He looks no different. Maybe a little skinnier, older, and longer hair, but that is it. We got home and Mom was really excited to see him. We showed him the house tour, and he liked it. He thought it all looked so different and good. He even said the nursery was "very cute!" Within 15 mintues of getting home, the phone was in hand (the home phone, because he dropped his cell phone in the toilet) and he was off to go meet Laura and some other friends. (I guess that's just college kids... we were warned!) It is so nice to have him home.

Today I woke up and had swimming. It was good. We came home and Sydnee, Meredith, and Sadie wanted to see my room and the nursery, so we all came over here and admired it all. Everyone loves the nursery and things the colors are "sooooooooooooooo cute". We brought them back home (why oh why is it so rainy?) and came and had bean soup and pumpkin bread for lunch. Then I had a piano lesson. I informed my teacher this would be the last one of the year because we were going to China on the 7th and coming home right before Christmas break started. She was slightly disappointed that I'd miss our Christmas thing at the nursing home because she had really wanted me to play this beautiful Christmas medley with "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "We Three Kings of Orient Are", and "Good Christian Men, Rejoice." But she was so excited that we were finally going to China after having showed her AnnaClaire's picture almost 4 months ago!

We came back home and I checked a few sites and went over to Sadie's house. We kinda hung all day and started making the pumpkin pie for tomorrow (until we realized we had no sugar! Dad picked some up later though.) Mom went to Dicks to get a few comfy outfits for China and got a really pretty hot pink North Face! I'm so jealous!!!!!! Sadie went home and we had a nice dinner with 5/6 of us. ;)

I finished making the pumpkin pie. Not sure how it turned out, but it smells and looks good. The batter seemed a little watery though... Sure does look absolutely delicious!

I can't wait until Thanksgiving tomorrow! Wake up in time for the Macy's Day Parade, relax and cook all day, eat yummy dinner, thank God for all the wonderful things He's done for us, watch some good football... Ohh I LOVE Thanksgiving! It'll be wierd not having Grandma here to make stuffing with though... :( Grandma is ALWAYS here for Thanksgiving! Not this year :(.

I still can't believe just 15 days until we leave for China. And only 19 days until GOTCHA DAY!!!!!!!! YAHOO, God is so good.

Flights are booked!

Well I had a nice little post all ready to save, and then poof, it's gone. ugh.

This will be a shorter version because we are off to pick Drew up from the airport in 10 minutes.

Gymboree is getting a new ladybug line!!! We are dress people, and the line includes no dresses which is disappointing, but the little love bugs sure are cute! I also noticed a mie mei model under "baby girls". First The Childrens Place, now Gymboree! Exciting and precious!!!!!

Dad booked our flights today!!!!!! WOOHOO, WE ARE OFFICIAL!!!!!!!!!!! On the way to China, one of our friends, the Howards, are on our flight. That is really exciting! :) It should be so much fun! the flight details are as follows.
here to Newark at 7ish.
layover then to Beijing.
Arrive in Beijing at 3PM on the 8th of Dec.
from GZ to Beijing on the 20th (it's cheaper to fly back to Beijing and out of there instead of flying to Hong Kong and out of there.)
Beijing to Newark (funny here because we land 40 minutes after take off! But when you add the time change- 13 hours, it's a 13 hour and 40 minute flight.)
Newark to here
We land here around 11 on Dec. 20!!!

I'm so excited. It's feeling OFFICIAL!!!!!!!! YAHOO!
Well, we are off to get Drew. I'm so excited to see him!

I'll be home for Christmas...

Like my new blog music?

I'll be home for Christmas
by Frank Sinatra (the real version!)

I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents 'neath the tree
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
And you'll be in my dreams
I'll be home this Christmas, darling
I'll be coming home to you
And there's nothing in the world
Gonna get in my way
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow
And mistletoe
And presents 'neath the tree
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
And you'll be in my dreams
I'll be home for Christmas
Till then you'll be in my dreams
(new version, I like it much better then the Whitney Houston version I had..thanks Mom)

.....And we will be home for Christmas. Home from China. With a sweet baby girl! :)

What I've done all day...

...absolutely nothing.

What can I say, I'm just so excited. 16 days!!! Oh, and Mom hasn't done much either. We have decided it's hard to do anything when we are 16 DAYS AWAY FROM TRAVELING!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness, I still can't believe it. Oh, check out our website, AnnaClaire's pictures are posted there, and boy does she look cute in the corner against the red!!! She matches :).

You know that ultimate ladybug sighting we had on Saturday? God must have been giving us that sign that our TA would come REALLY soon......... Maybe ladybugs truly are good luck. Except not really good luck, but a good sign from God!

We got tentative travel flights earlier! Boy, it's all happening quick! it seems like we were at a slow point just waiting and waiting, but now that the TA is here, everything is going into high gear! And in 4 and a half hours, we are going to go get Drew from the airport! YEAH!!!!!!! What a week, that's all I can say.

Yesterday, they did some poly touchups on our floors. I think we were all a little over excited about TA, and so when Mom went downstairs, she stepped in the wet poly..whoops. It's just a TINY, barely noticable line, but Mom decided to not get it fixed so that it will be a reminder of TA day! :)

I am extremely excited that our CA came so that we can start planning our trip and so that when people ask when we are leaving, we dont have to add the word tentatively.

Maybe I will post again tonight just because I need to get a lot of posting done because there won't be much once the sweetie is home!

Like cold water from a weary soul is good news from a distant land. Proverbs 25:25!

Thank you Jesus for all you have done for us!

CA!!!!!!!!!!!

WE JUST GOT THE EMAIL... AND WE HAVE CA (non adoption people, CA is Consulate Appointment)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our CA is on December 18 at 10:30AM, so our Dec. 7 date is FOR SURE! We will leave on December 7, 2006 and return home on December 20, 2006. We are travel group 120sn! WOOHOO! 16 DAYS FOR SURE! HIP HIP HOORAY, CHINA, HERE WE COMEEEEEEEEE! 20 days until AnnaClaire!!

I am OVER THE MOON at the moment. Let the packing begin, we are going to China in 16 days. Wow, GOD IS GOOD!

I just can't get enough

Look at that FACE!!!!!!!!

20 days and we'll be seeing it in PERSON! AnnaClaire Chenhui, WE ARE COMING!!!

16 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and... Drew comes home TONIGHT! YIPEE! I miss him so much!

What an exciting week it will be/has been!

Mrs. Liptack, I LOVEEEEEEEE your blog too! :)

I'm still in shock!!!

^That is my favorite picture. Isn't she just precious!!??
Come on, you gotta love the shoes. I love her already =)


I am still in shock of today. I still can't believe the coveted travel approval came. I still can't believe that AnnaClaire is coming home in a month (a month exactly, tentatively!). I can't believe how awesome our God is. I am thankful for the 11 families from AWAA who received TA today and can't wait to meet them all in China. I am thankful for all the other families who got their TA today as well. It was such an amazing day. Of course, I wasted no time in telling alllllllllll my friends that it came. Everyone is so excited and I am so thankful for all the support we have had during this process. I am so excited to begin our life with our sweetie. She is such a blessing to our family already and God is so good to give her to us. Mom was telling me a Bible verse today to announce our TA on bringinghomeannaclaire. It is the most perfect verse. "Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land." It seems like this verse is especially meant for us getting our TA.

Thank you everyone for all your prayers for our TA. God is so good and He has answered our calls!

Now we just need our CA, and we can start making final travel plans and dates. We should hear of that either tomorrow, Wednesday, or Monday.

This will be a Thanksgiving to remember, and Christmas, oh boy, CHRISTMAS as a family of 6! YIPEE!

God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He's so good to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And thank you for all the emails, ecard, phone calls, etc of congratulations. And Mrs. White, I LOVEEEEEEE your blog. =)

Still shaking, but typing better...

WE CAN POST PICTURES! HERE IS OUR SWEET PEA. ISN'T SHE DARLING?!

I can't get the actual referral pictures to post, so this is a picture of the picture. There is one more that I'll post later.

Anyway, I feel like I have cooled down a bit and I can type.

I still can't believe it came. I am shaking. You should've heard us screaming. I wouldn't be surprised if AnnaClaire heard us! I am truly in awe of all God has done for us. He is so awesome, and all the credit goes to Him! Thank you, Lord.

We are tentatively going to China on December 7, 2006. There were 11 TAs that came, so we have our own little group going out then. Gotcha day will be on the 11, and we will fly home on the 20 (Mom and Dad made the final decsision to adopt at their anniversary dinner at PF Changs on Dec. 22, 2005). This is all tentative.

That means 17 days until.. CHINA!!!!!!!! Wow. I am amazed. I never thought it would come. PRAISE THE LORD. Also.. WE WILL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. And boy, what a Christmas it will be, with our sweet baby home! I am still shaking although it has been almost an hour and a half since our call came.

So here is what I heard...........
(2:40PM, the phone rings)
Mom picks it up.
"Hello?"
"This is she."
"IS THIS OUR CALL?"
"AHHHHHHHHH OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!"
(I run in, "IS THIS IT?")
"YES!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

I still can't believe it. God is SO awesome.

17 DAYS UNTIL CHINA!!! 21 DAYS UNTIL GOTCHA DAY! I need to switch my tickers... lol

And a special thank you to Mrs. Stephens who called Mom to say congrats.

And congrats to the other 10 families who got their call! YAHOO, can't wait to meet you all in CHINA! (Am I really saying that? WOW)

We have so much to do! These 17 days should go FAST! We need to Christmas shop, decorate, (because we get home right before Christmas!) pack, paperwork, etc.

Wow. I am so amazed. Still shaking.

102 days, and the countdown is OVER! Now the countdown until travel begins!!! 17 DAYS!

I am also really excited because one of my new friends, Staci (she is 14), got their TA today also and she is going to China too! So I'll have a friend in China! =)

THANK YOU LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHH!

WE JUST GOT THE CALL AT 2:40....

AFTER 102 DAYS OF WAITING IT CAME!!!!!!!

WE ARE LEAVING ON DECEMBER 7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S IN 17 DAYS!!

and now let the screaming begin....

WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!

THANK YOU, GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How good pumpkin pie tastes...

...especially after serving for 5 hours!
Day 101...
Church was good. One of our sweet little ones, Piper, gave me a smooch as I left which just made my day. :) We went to lunch at Salsa's (Mexican). It was delicious. We went home and watched the Panthers game until 2:45 when Mom took me to the Church to serve dinner. At our Church, in the highschool gym, there was a HUGE Thanksgiving feast. We were setting up from 3-5, drinks, pie, silverware, salt, pepper, I mean everything. The people starting coming in at 5, and we served them, cleared their dishes, etc. It was a huge hit, and there were over 800 people there! (From what I heard.) Our Pastor spoke a little First Thanksgiving thing, and we sung. There were families speaking, 1 of which the husband had just returned from Iraq etc. and giving their thanks. Of course Dr. R, (our pastor) a huge OSU fan, (BOOOOO!) was going on and on about the game. He actually just got home from the game today! Someone even gave him a Thanksgiving present: an OSU hat to wear at the feast. (Mrs. White and Mrs. Stevens, I added that part for you!) We servers had to wait until the very end to eat, but when we did, boy were we hungry. Our feast included turkey, sweet potatos, green beans, cranberry sauce, rice, gravy, and I think that is it. For desert there was pumkin pie (my favorite), pecan pie, cherry pie, pumpkin cheesecake, and cinnamon pie. I had pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake. It was so much fun serving everyone. We had to wear "uniforms" of black pants with white shirts, so it seemed official. I have to admit, 5 hours of that is exhausting! Whew! Piper was there and of course coming over and giving everyone in my group hugs and kisses. She is just too cute. Talking away while we are praying..oh the joy of little ones. I can't wait for my sweet sister to be home!!!!!!!!!!

Day 101. This week, come on TA! I am FEELING it!

Triple digits!

Looking into my room! :)
And my bathroom. :)
What could that bug be?
It's a ladybug!!! HAPPY 100!

This will be short (and sweet) because I need to finish cleaning out my old room.

After swimming, Mom and I went to Qdoba. I didn't have shoes with me, but only slippers, so had to wear slippers there. I got a few stares.. Anyway, we got home, and cleaning it was. A total of 6 trash bags + 3 goodwill bags have come out of my room. Not too shabby. Now I just have to finish up, and I'll be totally moved in. I LOVE MY NEW ROOM! I have one little picture posted, but I don't have my b-e-a-utiful new dresser (backorderd, 12/26) and since I gave AnnaClaire my mirror, I need to get a new one. I also have a few things to hang. But, I love my room. I also posted a picture of my beautiuous bathroom! :)

And then there was our ladybug sighting. :) We hung AC's curtains today, and Mom went in to fix something and she saw a little ladybug on AnnaClaire's curtains!!! Dad and I kindly let it go and it is now residing on the pumpkin. We figured it wouldn't be good to flush our "lucky" ladybug down the toilet. Anyway, ladybugs are so cute, how could we?! So.. I hope it's a good sign! :) Come on TA!!! Day 100!

Happy 100 to us. Keep praying that our travel approval will come this week!

NINETY NINE is not our day.

(sorry the image is so blurry, I wanted the 99 to be big! lol)

Well firstly, I want to say a huge YAHOO to our AWAA WC friends who arrived in China today! Addison, Lucy, Caroline, Shaohannah, Sara, Allison, and Esther will be getting their forever families on MONDAY! God is so good! HIP HIP HOORAY! We are praying for all of you! :)

It is looking like our TA marker will reach triple digits. Today is day 99. Tomorrow will be 100. I can't believe it. I NEVER thought we would reach triple digits. NEVER. And look at us! 1 day shy of 100, I can't believe it. Hopefully Monday or Tuesday will rain a flood of TAs for AWAA and other agencies as well. I heard Harrahs got some today! Congrats to all those families!!!

Today AnnaClaire's lamp shade came in the mail. My lamp base and a sham came also. For some odd reason they sent us a sham instead of a lampshade! WIERD! And on the receipt it says "lampshade", but we got one teal quilted sham. Strange... They are rush shipping my lamp shade though. :) Anyway, AnnaClaire's lampshade looks SOOOO good on her lamp and the whole thing looks amazing in her room. Pictures tomorrow when the room is (drum roll please) COMPLETE! (we are hanging pictures and curtains tomorrow. We will still have the mirror to hang, but I'll still consider it complete.)

I slept in a little today which was nice. Then I got up and started school. After I finished, Mom gave me a book to start. It is by the lady who cofounded All God's Children Intl (adoption agency), and it is their story to their daughter, Hannah, from Romania. So far it is really good. It's called The Strength of Mercy and is by Jan Beazely. Mom and I ran a few errands before picking up Will. We got a new trashcan and shower curtain rod for my bathroom and Mom got a steamer. We also got some flannel PJs from Old Navy for my swim party gift exchange. They're cute. They have scottie dogs on them :). When we got home, I started the huge task of srubbing my bathroom. (I can finally move back into it!!! For my 13th bday, I got a bathroom makeover but we got it painted when the painters came for the rest of the house, so it is just now being finished. I also got a medicine cabinent/mirror, new faucet, and new light fixture along with the towels, shower curtain, bathmat, and basket thing that I got on my bday.) So now besides a few last minute details, my bathroom is done! I LOVEEEEEEE it. Anyway, Sadie and Mrs. P. came over to see the nursery and Sadie helped me scrub until I had to leave for swimming. Swimming was good. It was hard. I came home and had mac and cheese for dinner. I also finished up with my bathroom. It looks so good. I can't wait for tomorrow because I AM MOVING! (into my new room, that is) YIPEE!

I hope everyone had a good Friday. I do just love Fridays! :)

99. the last time I can only type 2 numbers on this TA wait. Tomorrow it will be 3 numbers. Sad with that thought. Here are the latest TA stats...
Minimum-73 days
Average-111 days
Maximum-143 days (I've seen more, but I think this is the average maximum)
99. 99. 99. 99. 99. 99. 99. 99. 99. Happy day 99 to us.

We like to shop!

^sweet AnnaClaire's new dress :)

^It's REVERSIBLE!!!
^This is the cross stitching on the pink side (on the front)
^This is the cross stitching on the floral side (on the back)
^Little Corolle doll and blocks!

You probably seem to find it hard to believe I get any school done during the day... NO FEAR, I do! :) But after school and Grace, Mom and I went to the mall quick to make some returns. While we were there, we ran into Belk Baby because we had a gift card there. We found this realllllllllly cute floral jumper by Ralph Lauren. The gift card was $30 and the dress was on sale for $32.99. I held it and then we went into another department to see if they had a baby Lilly dress we liked. They didn't have any baby Lilly in except for some summery pants... So we went back to the main baby department to pay for the dress we had found. On the way, the Corolle Chinese doll caught Mom's eye. We had been looking at this doll to get for AnnaClaire and were so pleased to have found it without having to pay for shipping! Mom also saw some blocks that we added to our stash. So we went to pay for AnnaClaire's things, and we had a little surprise!!! The $32.99 dress ended up being $24.79, the doll marked at $24.99 was further marked to $17.47, and the blocks were the normal price. We were VERY pleased with our "treat" and were extremely glad we had gotten these things. Instead of having to use the gift card and having to pay additional money, we got the whole dress, and most of the blocks with it! So we really only had to pay for the doll! Of course, this excited Mom and I. We hadn't even gone in to be "bargain shoppers" and we made great bargains!!! :)

So we get to the car, and I take out all our AnnaClaire purchases and set them on my lap. (I do this everytime either me or AC gets something.) I was admiring her b-e-a-utiful new dress when I noticed the tag was kinda strange. I kept inspecting it and realized it was REVERSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! Reversible things make me so happy. I don't no why. So AnnaClaire has basically 2 new dresses! I like the flower side the best, but I think the pink wide with the cross stitched rose is cute too.

So our shopping excursion went quite well, and AnnaClaire has a new dress (2), a new doll (for when she is older...), and new blocks! We also got her lamp. It is SOOOO cute. It is the PB Kids Madison base. We ordered the shade because they didn't have it at the store. We exchanged one of the pictures we got last time (it was broken) too.

It was a good day. After our mall trip, we picked up Will from school. Then we ran to the grocery and got some dinner stuff, cereal, and ice cream. We came home and I got on my computer a little then practiced piano. Swimming was so fun. It was specialty night which for me meant BREASTSTROKE night! :) It was quite fun. Now I just finished some yummy ice cream with homemade hot fudge-yum yum. We are watching college football too. Of course now it doesn't seem like any of the other games matter because Colt Mccoy got injured last game and the Longhorns lost! :( But I still love football!:)

Agencies (including AWAA) are telling people TAs could be arriving next week! YAHOO! Please pray ours will come next week... Day 98!

Something worth smiling about :)

No.. it hasn't come... but still, we have some GOOD news!
Part of the email from Tabitha:
Since we have approached 3 months from your log in date, we have inquired with China to find out an update on your travel approval status. We have been told by the CCAA that they are currently finishing the processing for families' TA's whose dossiers were July LID. There is no specific timeframe that they gave us to expect the TA's, I just wanted to inform you of the current status.

(remember, they are doing TAs by LID instead of LOI) WE ARE JULY 22 LID! THAT MEANS US!
Ohhh come on TA!!! Day 97!!!!!!!!

turn up your speakers...

Because my music is back! It's God Bless The Broken Road by Rascal Flatts. (The same song I had before)
The song I wanted, I couldn't get, but this one will do. It seems so adoptiony to me although I think it's really about a husband and wife.

Away until AnnaClaire's turn!

After giving up my dresser on Sunday, my room has been a MESS. I mean a MESS. Since I'm about to move into Drew's room, and Mom wanted me to go through everything before moving, I did a HUGE cleaning today. For 2 years now, my American Girl Dolls have been sitting in my closet and all the clothes in a tub under my bed. I FINALLY put it away in storage. It was a little sad because I loved these dolls. You can tell because their legs and arms are loose, their hair is a mess, and they don't have the same shine. But, I didn't need them taking up so much room in my room. So Samantha, Lindsey (my girl of today), Kit, Felicity, Lindsey (the year only one from like 4 years ago), and Molly went into the storage along with with the tub of clothes until another 5 years from now when AnnaClaire can play with my dollies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I folded all the clothes and put the tights and hair things in baggies along with socks, accessories, etc. so that nothing would get more snagged or lost. I even dressed each doll in my favorite outfit for that doll. I hope AnnaClaire loves my dolls! :) I can't wait to pull them out again and play with them with her! Such fun!!! So now there has gone from things hanging out from under my bed to NOTHING under it. From 8 baskets (I have all my stuff in gingham baskets) FILLED with stuff, to 5 filled half way. And from clothes thrown ALL over my floor to all put away in my closet. The total: 3 huge trashbags!
That is basically all I did today. It took FOREVER, but now I feel all clean (and like I have NOTHING, of course I really do, just not any JUNK!) That, school, Grace, Latin, lunch, dinner, and swimming.
The handyman finished up the jobs today. AnnaClaire's closet, my closet, and my bathroom look AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's coming back soon and putting a "window" seat in my new room, hanging AC's swing outside, and hanging my mirror in AnnaClaire's room. (My dad is not so handy...)
I am so enjoying this weeks "Adoption Week" with Focus on the Family. On the way to Grace we were listening to 106.9 (one of our Christian stations) and they had SCC on talking about his adorable Shaoey, Stevie Joy, and Maria. OH MY, they are so cute. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Then tonight after swimming, on 91.9 (our other Christian station) they had SCC on! I didn't even want to get out of the car! I'm loving this Voice of the Orphans thing! I can't wait for tomorrow!!!!!!!!! :)

Dad and Will were home sick today. Will was sick yesterday too. Poor guys! Will has a sinus infection and Dad just is miserable. Pray they will be all better tomorrow!

Day 96 for TA (I think). It's getting LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG. I want my sister!!!!!!

Ninety-five and needing to relax

I found this cute little picture and it just went perfect with my impatient self. And even better, the baby is Chinese!!! :) :) :)
Day 95, and I need to relax. I am getting SO impatient here!!! It's all in God's time and if He says we wait longer, we wait. I'm so ready to get my sister, but I know she will be worth however long we must wait for TA and then gotcha day!

Today we got some pictures for above AnnaClaire's crib! They are so pretty. They are from PB Kids. They have different flowers on them. We also looked at lamps and decided with the Penelope hot pink shade on the Madison base. Cute, cute. They didn't have the shade at the store, so we ordered it. We also ordered my lamp and dresser (My dresser was the changing table which went to AnnaClaire, so I get a new dresser! yay! It is backordered until Dec 26 though... wah!) Today, the handyman came and did a closet system in my closet. Tomorrow he is doing AnnaClaire's closet and my bathroom mirror and faucet. YIPEE!

I am so jealous of my dad. He is at the Panthers game!!!!!!!! No fair!!! His boss had 4 tickets and invited him and some other work people. I'm watching the game on TV. Come on Panthers! They are playing the Bucs. I'm looking for Dad on TV! Haven't seen him yet...
It's 3rd and 3, STOP THEM!
(2 seconds later) YESSSSSSSSS THEY FUMBLED IT! PANTHERS BALL!

Okay sorry.
Well I am still so in love with AnnaClaire's nursery. It hasn't gotten old. It is so beautiful and I just go in there and sit there. I can't wait to sit in there and play with her! Ohh, AnnaClaire, I love you!!!

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.

Mom and I were admiring AnnaClaire's nursery, when my Dad called us in to look at Maggie. Yes, she saw the blanket and jumped on the table and laid smack dab on the blanket. And no, we don't let her jump on the table. No one knew she did it. She looks as if to say, "What?" while her tail is wagging away. I love our dog!!!!!!!

The nursery is coming along!!!!!!

I'm not showing the whole nursery until the curtains are up.. but, here is a little view of the corner. I think it looks so nice. We have been putting it together ALL day and it is just so sweet. I love it. Now we just need a lamp, curtains, and ANNACLAIRE!

Today was a good day. After Church we had lunch at yummy Jasons Deli. Then we went to Home Depot. We got the pad things for the furniture and a shop vac. When we got home, it was AnnaClaire's nursery set up time. It was so much fun watching it come together. We had to re put together the crib since it wouldn't fit through the doorway, but it went easier the second time around. The rug fit better on the floor than we invisioned, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! We set the chair up and decided we didn't like the ottoman, it was an off color from the chair, and it took up a lot of space in her room. We got out the new table, that I adore, and set it up with the chair. Dad started putting up the curtains, but we realized we didn't have a piece (they didn't have it in the box!) So we have to go back tomorrow and get a new piece and then those will be up. Other than that, we need her lamp which we picked out already. Then I will show you the WHOLE nursery. :) I have to admit, it looks SO good. I think it's the prettiest nursery I've ever seen.. I am a little biased though!
After doing the nursery, I had TP. It was dinner night. It was fun!!! Then it was back to help with the nursery. I put away all AC's clothes in the dresser, put her toys and books in the baskets and ohh it looks so good! I love it. Now........if only I could come in and see AnnaClaire in her crib.......
Day 94, come on TA!

LADYBUGS!

On Thursday we had a biggg ladybug sighting!!!!!!!!! Not one, not two, not three, four, or five, but 100s of ladybugs. I was at Latin, and was coming out when I noticed that some people from the next class had ladybugs on there hands. I noticed one on the door too. I noticed them flying ALLLL around me. And then, someone pointed out that they were ALL over the cross on the patio! (my Latin class is at our Church.) There were 100s of ladybugs ALL over the cross, flying, on the doors, on peoples hands..etc. I was thrilled. I hope it's a sign that our TA is on its way! And then we went to the mall today... at a kiosk, there was a ladybug ornament. At another, there was a ladybug watch, it had ladybugs as the band and a ladybug on the face. I even found a shirt with ladybugs on it! My GOODNESS, I've seen a lot of ladybugs. Come on TA! 3 months down........

3 months today

This is a baby doll AnnaClaire got at her baby shower. It is from the Smiths and is yet to be named. I think we'll let AnnaClaire name her. Anyway, I like to begin all my posts with pictures and I found this one and had to post it. The doll wants to be played with!

I can't believe it. When we first sent our LOI, I never thought we would get to the "maximum" TA wait. What was supposed to be a 1-3 month wait will hopefully not reach the 4 month mark. Come on TA, come on!!

It was a good day. Caroline and I woke up after 11 and Mom called to say she was going to the mall and if we wanted to go. Of course, we said "YES!" We went to South Park. First we had lunch at Villa Pizza. It was delicious! :) Then it was shopping time. I didn't have a ton of money because I paid for half of the fur fest I got last week. Those are expensive. But I LOVE them. And because Dad's bday was last week... But Alexander did come over this morning and ask if I could "watch" him again tonight. Of couse Mom answered, "yes" for me. So anyway, my Mom lent me some money. They didn't have much at the mall, but I did find 2 shirts at Hollister that I got. One is pink striped and the other is a plain pink knit shirt. We went into Joseph-Beth to look for Betsy and the Emporer, the next bookclub book. They had one copy left so I got it. Caroline and I enjoyed Haagen Daaz at Brookstone, but annoyingly, the lady came over and said, "Excuse me, you must be 18 to sit in those chairs." Ugh, what is wrong with sitting in a massage chair? Last time we went, we sat in them for hours and the man was kindly fixing them all up for us. We left right away and went to Sharper Image, where they are nice enough to let us sit in their chairs! Then Mom called to see if we were ready. We were, so we left. I was so unbelieveably happy when Dad called me and said Auburn was CREAMED by Georgia! YAHOO! Now if only South Carolina could beat Florida..then Texas should be number 3 which would give them a great chance at the BCS title game against whoever wins the Michigan/OSU game. A OSU/Texas rematch would be nice, Mrs. White. Of course, Texas would win this time. Anyway, just hopeful that **OVERRATED** Southern Cal and **OVERRATED** Notre Dame will show that maybe they aren't as great as they supposedly are..
I'm so mad..can you believe this? The replay officials are STILL talking about calls from the Rosebowl. That makes me so mad. It's over, TEXAS WON, get over it, Pete Caroll.
here is the article. It makes me sick.

What a day!

Whew. I am exhausted. First of all.. THE FLOOR GUYS CAME THIS MORNING, ANNACLAIRE WILL HAVE A NURSERY..AND IT'S ALMOST DONE!

I had bookclub this afternoon. It was great.. I got to see my friend, Abby's, brand new house. It is so pretty. We had a great time.

Then I went home with Caroline. We had a blast together, worked on projects, etc. It was fun. :) Caroline had a banquet/party thing for her cheerleading, so I went home for a little (and helped Dad with his iPod) until her thing was done. I'm now at Caroline's and we are having a sleepover! :) We are going to do something fun tomorrow. yipee!!!

Day 92..come on TA, come on!!

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday

Today was good. I slept in (pretty late, whoops...) and then started school. I had a delicious banana chocolate chip muffin for breakfast. It was yummy (and healthy! they are sweetened with honey!) Anyway, then I started school. I finished in time to go to Grace. Design was good. We beaded a lot, which I love doing. After Grace, I went with Caroline and her mom and brother to Mcalisters before Latin. Latin was fun. We are learning Christmas carols in Latin (oh goody) I think we might be in China for when we go carolling (yes, in Latin). Anyway. After Latin Mom and I went home. The Hutts (our next door neighbors) were on their driveway with a few other neighbors and TILLY!!!!!!!!! Mom and I stayed over their a lot and played with sweet Tilly. When I first met her (I was the first one besides their family, I feel so special!) she was 1.5 pounds. She is now around 2.5-3 pounds! She's SOOO cute. Awwwww, I need to take a picture of her and post it on here. Anyway, Mom went to pick Will up from school and I went home to read. (I am NOT a reader. I really can't help it... I just don't take after my mom and dad in that way, maybe AnnaClaire will.) I read for awhile. Then I got on the computer and checked a few Yahoo group emails (I just joined a one for siblings getting adopted siblings from China and other countrys. I'm so excited. I had been looking for a good one for awhile and I got recommended AsiaBlessings. It is GREAT, if any of you siblings are looking for a good yahoo group.) I then got ready for swimming. Today we had a pizza party and Operation Christmas Child thing. We and a younger swim group got together and people brought all kinds of stuff in. Then one of us were teamed with one of the younger ones, and we put boxes together. It was fun. The little girl I had, Kylah, was so cute. She was around 9 and she was so excited. When we left she gave me a huge hug and said she couldn't wait to see me again. :) Anyway, we did 2 boxes. One for a 2-4 year old girl and one for a 5-9 year old girl. We stuffed them with soap, washclothes, toothbrushes (spongebob for the 5-9 year old, Dora for the 2-3 year old), notebooks, crayons, markers, stickers, etch a sketchs, all kinds of stuff. My favorite thing was for the 2-4 year old. It was a reindeer stuffed animal with a shaker in it. It was so cute. :) Anyway, after that, we started swim practice, which was great. I got home around 9 and have just been hanging out since. I had a nice bowl of ice cream with hot fudge, yum. Well that's about it for this 91st day of waiting for TA.

I love you, AnnaClaire :)

90 (long) days....

....and we got an email from Tabitha! Here's what we no:

-AWAA is expecting another batch of TAs soon. (expecting is the key word.)
-Our TA should be included in that next batch.
-They can check and make sure all is well in China with our dossier at the 3 month marker (Sat) so they will check on Monday.
-It is supposedly VERY rare for AWAA families to reach over 3 months of waiting.
-They asked about why there was sudden switch to looking at LIDs instead of LOIs, and that is true, I guess it's the new thing... (why it started right before we were to get TA, I don't know... it's in God's timing =])
-AnnaClaire can't wait to have her family =]
(okay so I made the last one up...)

That's it for now...more later

What's YOUR soundtrack?

(my picture of my pink ipod mini won't post =[)
I saw this on Maggie's Red Thread and on a Buckeyes in China... liked the idea and decided to join along!

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool… if you do it, post it in my comments so I can see your answers!
*The subject is bold, the song and artist is normal and my comments are italicized.*

Opening Credits: Unwritten, Natasha Bedingfield (That seems like a good one for the opening credits)
Waking Up: Hoopes I Did it Again, Relient K (haha)
First Day At School: Falling Out, Relient K (makes since)
Falling In Love: Trust Me, The Fray (Yeah... When you fall in love, you have to trust)
Fight Song: Dani California, Red Hot Chili Peppers (To bad I don't have the Texas Fight song on my iPod :) )
Breaking Up: Here and Now, ZOEGirl (That would make since)
Prom: Girl Next Door, Saving Jane (haha, they are talking about how shes jealous of the prom queen in that song)
Life: Trademark, Relient K (That makes since...)
Mental Breakdown: No Better Place, Steven Curtis Chapman (see Birth of Child, it makes more since to go here, but this one could make since too)
Driving: Better Days, Point of Grace (definatly was thinking that while driving yesterday)
Flashback: Right Where You want me, Joanna Martino (That's a good one for that catagorey)
Getting Back Together: Carry Me, Scott Krippanyne (Makes since)
Wedding: All of These Things That I've Done, the Killers (That was the song that I had on my iPod Halloween costume!!! Can't really see it playing at a wedding though...)
Birth of Child: Welcome to my Life, Simple Plan (uh.. no, this and mental breakdown should switch)
Final Battle: We Sing Alleluia (good one for this subject)
Death Scene: Brand New Day, Forty Foot Echo (Okay... since when was this on my ipod?)
Funeral Song: Love With Justice, Rita Springer (That's one of the songs on the Adoption CD we just got)
End Credits: Pressing On, Relient K (love that song, perfect for the end credits)

~Some of those songs I never even knew were on my iPod............... and some of them are ANCIENT!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

Yummy dinner at the "Horner's Kitchen" ;)

We had a wonderful birthday celebration tonight. We made Dad's favorite dinner... Mac & cheese, creamed spinach, applesauce, and ham. We had pumpkin cheesecake for desert..Dad's favorite. The dinner was delicious! This has been Dad's favorite since he was a little kid and this is what he picked for dinner over going out. I got the cheesecake all ready and brought it out. Dad made a wish, and we dug in. It was SOOOOOOO good! While we were eating cake, I asked Dad if he knew what his presents were. We were putting out all these options and Dad finally came upon cuff links. How he came to that, I don't know. I guess the smaller present could look like a cuff link box..... Anyway we lead him to believe he had guessed right and we all had a big laugh... He opened a book from Mom first. He had actually almost gotten this book (we didn't know that!) He was excited and is planning to read it on the way to China (if we ever go.)

Then he came upon the "cuff links". Well first he opened his card from "AnnaClaire" and the other card from me. Then he opened the present from all of us kids (and Mom).........

THE NEW IPOD VIDEO!!!!!!!

Of course, he is very excited. He loves both his presents, and had an excellent birthday. Would've been better if TA had come, but he still had a great birthday! :)

((Bad day))

Can't get the picture to post... It was a ton of happy faces, with a little sad face in the midst of them....

While I am SOOOOO excited for the 9 families who got TA, I have to admit it was really hard watching all these people get us and have not one of our phones ring (well it rang when Will called..and got our hopes up that it was TA...) It was not the best day... All day, I felt today was "the day". I was praying all morning that our TA would come, and I was overjoyed when the first announcement came just after 11am. Then every 10 minutes it was someone else announcing their good news. Of course at this point, we were like YESS, IT'S FINALLY COMING! But when someone said that Ashley told them there were 9 familes who got it, we lost a little hope. When no on announced TA for 20 minutes, and the phone never rang for us, we went to Costco to get Dad's cake. No call on the cell phone, no call on the message machine when we got home. One more person had heard about TA making the total 6. 3 more families left. Someone else (LOI the 25th) posted also and we couldn't figure out why people with later LOIs were getting it and we weren't. By 2, we knew ours hadn't come because they would for sure have gotten all 9 calls in in 3 hours. I am over the moon for all the people who got their calls today, don't get me wrong, just please continue to be in prayer that ours will come really soon so that we can join all our new friends for a Thanksgiving in China!

To tell the truth it was a bad day. I knew this was a possibility, but I didn't really think it was going to happen. The song, Bad Day reminded me of this day... It's the song that they always play when a contestant gets off American Idol... lol
Because you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

I'm still holding out a glimmer of hope for Nov. 16 travel... I might be silly, but AWAA did say the TAs don't all come out at once, they trickle in. So maybe, just maybe, we and the rest of the AWAAers who didn't get it today will get it in time to spend Thanksgiving in China. All I want is to be with my sister, I don't see why it should take this long. Ugh! Oh and now they say the CCAA is looking a LID dates instead of LOI dates (which would explain why we didn't get it. All the people who got it from AWAA were LID 1-4 06, but LOI 8/11-8/25) I really can't believe why they would do that. It doesn't seem fair, but life isn't always fair, is it. I still can't believe that ours didn't come. It was an emotional day. I just don't understand...

I am SOOOOO excited for Dad's birthday celebration later! We are making his favorite dinner- mac and cheese, ham, creamed spinach and pumpkin cheesecake for desert! Happy birthday, Dad! I love you! (I'm sorry that we had to experience a bad day when really it's a great day, because my dad was born 44 years ago on this day!)

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Dad, happy birthday to you!
We love you so much!

nope

Today was probably the hardest day of the adoption. We watched quite a few other families from AWAA get TA but ours never came. Both of the other 8/11 LOIers who we were hoping to travel with got it (including one with a baby from ACs orphanage.) Many 8/18ers and an 8/25er got it also. It was really hard, but a huge congrats to all the people who got it.

Happy birthday, Dad!

Maybe more will trickle in this week...

TAs are coming...where's ours

TAs are arriving. Still no call.
COME ON TA!
AWAAers with 8/11 and 8/18 LOIs have gotten it. Ours SHOULD come. COME ON PHONE, RING!

Chilling :)

This is what we have been doing all day. With football on TV in front of us. (I'm even in one of my new shirts and my new super comfortable sweats.) This is basically what every Sunday is like in our house. (And Mom is right next to us sitting at her desk on the computer... well she took this picture so she wasn't sitting there right then.) We also snacked on candy all day (which explains my orange pumpkin right next to me) My goal is to finish all my Halloween candy by Christmas (I still have candy from last Halloween!) And so far, I'm doing good. Maybe little too good... But, I am sharing, no fear. So, today has just been a day of chilling. Ahh I love the weekend! The Panthers had a bye week, but we watched the Redskins/Cowboys game and boy, was that a game. in the last 4? seconds, a blocked kick (kick by "the most accurate kicker in the NFL"), 15 yard penalty for holding on the Cowboys, giving the Redskins an extra play even though time was out, setting up a 47 yard FG by a guy whose career long is 40, and the next thing out of my mouth was, "HAHAHAHA Mr. Accurate missed and Mr. Not-so-good made it!" Yea, I don't like the Cowboys. They beat the Panthers. I don't like people who beat the Panthers. So I kinda started this post in the middle of the day... this morning I woke up pretty early because I heard Mom and Dad say "TA" and "AnnaClaire" and "November 16" and so I bounded into the bonus room (in my brand new snowbird, fleece PJs from Old Navy- the ones I got yesterday). I got on the computer for a little and got ready for Church. I made some hot cocoa and then we went to Church. I had barnyard. All the little ones were so cute, as always. Piper and Lindsey were wearing their adorable smocked dresses (I LOVE smocked dresse) and I am so jealous that AnnaClaire doesn't have 20 billion smocked dressed! (I have never seen Lindsey repeat a dress!) But not to overshadow our cute little Stephanie, Rachel, and Davis! I may be a little biased, but Caroline and I sure have the cutest group of kids. But yaddy yaddy yad, you have no idea what I'm talking about, so on with my day. We went to Five Guys for lunch and had a yummy one. We ran into our neighbors there and Mom talked for a long time. Then we left. That's wear the first part of the post comes in......... I'm about to go get some dinner (ugh, its OYO- own your own...) Good day. Day 88 for TA. I believe it will come this week, THIS WEEK!

Happy Sunday :)

Some updates on the website

Yesterday I did quite a few updates on our website. There are new timeline updates, photos (from ACs birthday), and journals.
I have also recently updated both the quilt and nursery blogs.
So if you want to shimmy on over to any of those websites, you won't have to X out right away... I do have new stuff on them.

Hopefully.

Mommy and Daddy

Big brothers: Drew and Will

Big sister: Emily and dog: Maggie

Hopefully AnnaClaire is looking at these pictures right now.

Hopefully she is staying warm, as I am freezing.

Hopefully our TA is on it's way right now and we'll get it soon (as in THIS WEEK!)

Hopefully. Hopefully. Prayerfully.

Today I had swimming at 8am. It was so cold outside. 28 degrees. Do you know just how cold the pool felt? Very cold. Even though it is indoors, just knowing it is 28 outside, makes the water cold. Anyway, swimming went well! The air was horrible and I was coughing so hard, and couldn't stop. It was a fun practice and I felt so good after. Like I had actually accomplished something! Anyway, Mom picked me up and told me that we were going to go on errands. I LOVE errands. I asked her where... Babies R Us, Mcalisters, Costco, Cocord Mills, and the post office. First we went to the post office to mail this months AWAA swap goodies (recipes). Then we went to Mcalisters for lunch. It was so good. I saw 2 "mei meis" there. After lunch, we ran to Costco to get gas ($2.05, cheapest in Charlotte that we know of. Most places are around $2.15-$2.19). We ran into Costco to get waterbottles and gatorade. We also thought about what to get Dad for his birthday on Monday. Then on to Babies R Us, about 30 minutes away (Why they closed the one that was 10 minutes away, I do not know.) We returned our baby moniter because we got one from a neighbor. (Did I tell you about that? It just so happened to be AnnaClaire's birthday when our neighbor called and told us to come to our other neighbor's, who we didn't know, house. She said they had tons of toys to give us. They have a 3 and 6 year old girls and the 3 year old outgrew her toys. So they gave us loads of all different kinds of toys. It is overwhelming and awesome and we will forever be thankful to this family. Anyway, with all the toys, they included a baby moniter, so we returned the one we had bought.) Then we went across the street to Concord Mills Mall to exchange a dress we had gotten for a bigger size. We shopped around a little. I got 2 shirts, a belt, and sweatpants at American Eagle and fleece PJs at Old Navy. YAY! We also exchanged tons of clothes we got Will for bigger sizes... Gosh, he's taller than Mom and I thought! We got AnnaClaire nothing :( although we did find a little something that we had to get. But Mom says we should save it for her stocking... So I can't tell you what it is. It's cute though :). We got Dad's birthday present... can't tell you where it's from and I can't say what it is... just in case he is reading this. I'll tell you on Monday. I know he'll REALLY like it though.

When we got home, I watched college football with Dad (Michagan and OSU so should've lost.) We had dinner around 6:45 and I babysat my neighbor, Alexander at 7:15. They surprised me with... not only Alexander to babysit, but TILLY! THEY GOT A PUPPY! Her name is Tilly and she is the smallest, cutest thing. She's about 8 inches long... AWW! She'll be 7 weeks old tomorrow and she's a mix between 2 breeds, but she's from the pound, so they don't know what breed for sure. I'll have to post a picture of her sometime... she is so cute. Anyway Alexander and I played with Tilly until he went to bed. His parents came home around 10:10 and I came home and watched the rest of the Texas game! WHOOP WHOOP! Domination :). They were the only top 7 (BCS) team, today, (besides Auburn) to beat their unranked opponent by more than a touchdown (Michigan won by 8 but that could be a TD with 2 pt conversion). Texas won by 26.
So today was a fantastic day. Tons of people are in China right now... but I'm not in the mood to follow them. I want to be there. I did take a little time to check one cutie, Allison. She is getting cuter by the minute!!! She's just a little older than AnnaClaire, so it gives me some ideas on what AnnaClaire will be like. Anyway... I might just have to follow some other people because the babies are mighty cute! And referrals. Ahh, referrals. I've seen some adorable babies (with adorable names!) So congrats to all the families finally seeing their little ones!!!

tickers and links

Ever since I switched my blog look, I have meant to add my tickers and links back. I finally figured out were to put the tickers and I finally got around to putting my links on the side. The tickers are at the bottom, because they cover my header at the top, and my links are on the side. I don't have my big list of links I just have links to the quilt, nursery, and main websites.

On a sad note- Look at my "How old is AnnaClaire" ticker... I had to put the 2 on the side... 2 sounds so old... aww I want to be with her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fortune cookies and travel approvals?

After swim practice, Dad and I went to the Wok for some Chinese. At first when he asked me if I wanted Chinese, I said no. I honestly told him I couldn't possibly have Chinese food. I'm just really sad that we still haven't gotten TA. I never thought it'd take over 85 days... But then I decided not to feel so pitiful and told Dad Chinese sounded good. And it was! I debated between sesame chicken, sweet and sour chicken, and Hunan chicken (in honor of AnnaClaire.) I ruled out Hunan chicken since *obviously* it was spicy. The lady said they could make it unspicy, but I just went with good ol' sweet and sour. It was good. I also tried a spring roll (egg roll without the egg) which was good. I liked the outer part of it the best. After dinner, I opened my fortune cookie and ate it. Here's what it said... "Patience is the key to success" I thought about what it said for awhile, and finally I decided it was God's little hint that our TA was coming soon. Patience (I think 80 something days of waiting for a slip of paper is long enough!) is the key to success (I think that getting TA is a "success")

Thinking positive

My calender. (This is how I know which day it is everyday.) After day 80, I have a "?" next to the day and starting with day 90, I have "???")

Did you notice this? I wrote this way back in August before I even knew there was a group going out then...
I added 4 days and got us here (back in August) I think it's meant to be...


Today is SUCH a beautiful day. The trees are covered in fall leaves, the sky is a bright shade of blue... Mom and I met Dad for lunch at La Paz... no school... This is the day that the Lord has made... Rejoice in it and be glad in Him!

Trying with all my might to think POSITIVE. POSITIVE is the key word. 85 wasn't our TA day like we thought... did get a little info though... AWAA is expecting TAs ANY day now. They really feel as if they will come next week. If not, they are going to call the CCAA.

I'm ready to go to China! Our next TA chance will be day 88 (it can't come on the weekends) Day 88 is... Dad's birthday. That would be a GREAT birthday present, however I refuse to get my hopes up. (Maybe they are up a little... just a wee bit?!)

And yes.. did you see my calender? Way back (in August, right after sending the LOI) I made guesses for TA, travel, and gotcha. We missed my TA guess (10/27/06) but I'm determined to be right for travel and gotcha. (and I didn't even know a group was going out on the 16. We HAVE to go then. HAVE to)

.......think positive with me... pray for a TA Monday!

AnnaClaire's house:downstairs

A fall decoration *that I love* in our piano room
Looking in from the foyer to the dining room!
Piano/living room.
Family room Stairwell. (Don't you love our fresh new GREEN paint? It's so much better than that old cream.. bleh!)

Our pretty new chandeliar from LOWES. Yes, LOWES! Isn't it SO cute?

I'm starting a new thing that I'll call AnnaClaire's house tour. Starting with these few pictures of our house. As you can see... OUR HOUSE IS BACK TO NORMAL. AT LAST!

argh, argh, argh

Cory and I with loaded bags of candy! (Cory joined my neighborhood friends, see below, and I later and spent the night afterwards)
Birthday present from Cory: Runaway Bunny book and bunny
Emily, Sadie, Elizabeth, me, and Meredith...iPods, can you tell?


I've done it. I've made a Flickr account so that I can have pictures on this blog. And look at this. I FINALLLLLY make a Flickr, and now my pictures are loading. What's up with that? I'll take it! Anyway, I am still keeping my Flickr because I have blogger picture problems *way to much*. I know I could just switch to that awesome new blogger in beta, but for some odd reason, it doesn't offer it for this/nursery/quilt blogs and I really don't want a new adress...or to start over with this blog.

Anyway, here's some pictures from Halloween. I'm doing a post with house pictures next. Hopefully blogger won't give up on me (I already had them posted on this post, but decided to do them on the next one instead...)

I'm not complaining, I'm NOT complaining. But... still no TA (which is where the "arghs" come from) Day 84. We all have the "feel" for tomorrow. OH I HOPE! Of course haven't we had the "feel" for everyday? Well, Mom hasn't, and even she has the "feel" for tomorrow!!!!!!!! Oh other good news straight from our agency... "We are sitting on the edge of our seats waiting for TAs and will call RIGHT when they come!" Sure sounds like they are expecting them ANY DAY now! COME ONNNNNN, TA!

Eighty-three

*Still having trouble loading pictures on Blogger... is anyone else?*

I can't believe it. Honestly, I never believed we'd get in the 80's. You know, when we first sent out the LOI, I was thinking, "We are going to have the quickest TA in all history. It's going to be like 27 days, we're going to have it in time to go with the Sept. 14 group, we'll have AC in time for her birthday, etc." Now we are to 83. 83 long days of waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I can't take it any longer. (I know there are people waiting really long for referrals, but it is so much different once you have pictures...) I NEED to meet my sister, I NEED to go to China and get her, I NEED to. Our TA has to come this week or else I'm going lose it. agh. TA THURSDAY. I like the sound of it. COME ON TA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll post pictures of Halloween and give you a little "new house" (paint and all that, not really NEW) because my mom really wants me to do that and because our house looks so pretty and I want everyone to see it. So hopefully Blogger will work with pics tomorrow and I can post them then.

Thanks again Cory and Mrs. W for the adorable bunny and book, I can't wait to read AnnaClaire the book and to give her the bunny.

Sorry this has been a boring post... I'm just ready for something exciting to post about (HINT HINT: TA!)

Oh and on a good note, we've found hard wood floors and they are being installed on Wednesday. Then it's NURSERY SETTING UP TIME! WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO.

www.emilysmeimei-nursery.blogspot.com is the nursery blog if you want to check on the latest updates...

HER PACKAGE WAS DELIVERED!!!

Guaranteed Delivery Date: November 1, 2006
Status: Delivered Abroad
Your item was delivered in CHINA PEOPLES REP at 4:40 pm on October 31, 2006.