Kailee Marie

Fellow local adopters Sonia & Hugh have a beautiful new daughter Xiao Ying Wen, soon to be Kailee Marie. Checkout their blog for all the details and updated information. Congratulations to all the new parents who received their referral this month. Check out all the beautiful new babies, listed in the side bar under "We have our Referral."

What a way to brighten my day!

Last night I received a wonderful package of gifts from my July Secret Pal. Each gift was wrapped in adorable Sesame Street paper and though I tried to guess what each package contained, I was wrong on all them! The Little Ladybug finger puppet book is so cute, I know that Eammon and I will have fun reading it to Baby S. Tucker the Turtle is great, he has a mirror on his belly and his legs and head tuck into his body and he crinkles, jingles, and squeaks. I know he does all this, because I played with him for quite some time! Then there is the outfit, it is beautiful and so soft and velvety, you just want to pet the dress. Thank you July pal, you're helping to make this wait a lot easier to take.

Breakfast guests

This morning whilst in the kitchen preparing breakfast, I heard knocking at my door. Seems that Jo, JoJo and the little ones wanted breakfast too. This morning they dined on corn flakes and were so cute!!! I can't resist feeding them when they're so adorable but I do wish they'd just eat here and not leave deposits behind, turning my yard into a minefield of poo!

Seven days, seven stinking days!!

I'm really happy for the people who are going to get their referral this month and I especially can't wait to see baby Kailee's pic, but most of all, I just can't wait for all you people ahead of me to get the heck out of my way so that I can finally get my baby!!

Exactly one month ago CCAA updated their site announcing that they had finished the placement of children for families whose adoption applications were registered with their office before May 30, 2005, or a mere five days worth of applications. Now, a full month later CCAA announces that they have completed placement of children with applications through June 6th, that's only seven days and two of them were weekend days!!!

So, when will we get to see a pic of Baby S? Well, if CCAA continues making matches at this breakneck speed, we should receive our referral sometime between February and May 2007! I'm still hoping that things speed up and that we'll receive our referral in August or September of this year, but at this point, who knows. I'm now working on the don't ask, I'll be sure to tell you when something happens theory. To top off my less than stellar mood over the delays, I can't believe that I paid $2.74/gallon of gasoline this morning. By the time we get our referral, we won't be able to afford the car ride to the airport let alone the trip to China!

So, how am I handling all of this waiting, stress and delay? Well, take a look inside our refrigerator/freezer, which was repaired eleven days ago, it should tell you all you need to know!!

The 8th gathering of local adoptive families

Saturday night in Georgia brought clear skies, warm breezes and fabulous food as local adoptive families gathered at Julie's home for a low country seafood boil. A fun time was had by all and if you're ever invited to Julie's and she's cooking, make sure you don't miss it for anything!! Thanks J, it was a fabu night!






If you are a local waiting family and would like to join us at our monthly gatherings, please email me and I'll add you to the mailing list. Below are links to check out our past gatherings.

August '05
September '05
October '05
November '05
January '06
February '06
March '06

Every journey begins with one step...

Or some awesome gifts from your August secret pal! My fashion diva-to-be received a beautiful new dress and she'll also one hip chickie with a new cd and her stylin' ladybug cd case. Her new teddy bear is so soft, it may be the perfect cuddly toy to bring with us when we travel to China and the stickers will be a great addition to Baby S's scrap book. I love the tags that have been included each month and they too will be added to the scrap book. Thank you August pal, you're the best!

Ahhhh...The sound of silence

After days and days of listening to blower fans and dehumidifiers, the washing machine flood waters are gone and much to my amazement, the wood floors came though surprisingly well. We'll probably need to replace about twenty boards but thankfully I bought extra wood when we had the floors installed. Remember these pics, well look at the previously flooded areas now!





Thank you to everyone who sent emails and left posts of encouragement after the flood, they really helped cheer me up after those "eventful" days.

My spirits lifted by my Ohio friends

After what had been a few very stressful days, I was surprised and delighted to receive a package from Sonia's sister Lisa, and her family. There was a very sweet Easter card and four wonderful books. Lisa wrote a note in each book so Baby S will always know of her thoughtful Ohio friends. I immediately had to read though all the books and of course take a picture of the mommy and baby giraffe.

We have yet to meet Lisa and her family, but I know that they follow this blog and I hear all about them through Sonia. It was so kind and sweet of them to think of us and I know Baby S will adore all the books. Big hugs of thanks to Lisa, Steve, Josh, Aaron and Danny and we can't wait to meet you this summer!

We missed it!!!

We were so busy with the flood yesterday that I completely forgot that it was our 8 month LID anniversary. No matter how many ways I add it up we still have a long wait till referral. I'm hoping that we're beyond the halfway point because with each month that passes we seem to be taking a giant step backward in the wait. Come on CCAA, kick it into gear and match, match, match.

OY!!

Where to start, where to start?

Saturday around 3:45 a.m. our county tornado sirens started sounding so Eammon and I snuggled in bed and watched the local weather forecast for about 15 minutes until the satellite was knocked out. Then a second round of sirens started so we gathered up our pillows, blankets, a candle and a lighter and headed into the laundry to wait out the storm. Just as we got into the laundry room, the power was knocked out, so we settled in for about 20 minutes. With no further sirens, we moved to the family room sofa, in front of a wall of windows to watch the storm. The lightning was so fast it was as if a strobe light was going off.

Later in the morning, since we were still without power, we headed over to Dunkin' Donuts for some coffee and to be voyeurs and check out some of the damage. There was a huge tree on the power lines at the entrance of our subdivision which they were in the process of clearing, so we ventured out with the hopes of having power restored by the time we returned. Luckily things didn't seem too bad, lots of trees down, streets littered with small debris, twisted and damaged signs and a general mess. By around 2 P.M. we had our power restored, we plugged in everything and I checked items in the refrigerator and freezer, everything was fine, so day over.

Sunday morning I awoke late and walked into the kitchen to find a nice big puddle on the floor in front of the freezer. I opened up the door to find a bag of blackberries on the top shelf of the door dripping all the way down, covering everything in it's path. Items in the very top of the freezer were starting to get a bit soft but items in the bottom 2/3 were still frozen solid. So, I cleaned out the freezer, moving what I could to our other freezers and I put a couple of items into bowls in the refrigerator to defrost for meals later in the week. I put a call into the repair people and then went off for a fun afternoon hanging out with Sonia and Cindy where we were like kids in a candy store as we registered for all sorts of baby items at BRU. I copied Sonia and bought an adorable bib for Baby S but otherwise was very good and didn't purchase any of the adorable clothes.

Monday morning the appliance repair people called nice and early and said someone would arrive between 11 and 1; Perfect! While they were coming out, I added to the freezer repair that my washing machine wasn't going into the spin cycle correctly so that they would look at that too. Amazingly the repair man arrived by 12:30 P.M. and after disassembling the freezer, told me that he needed to order a circuit board and that it would take a week, no biggie. He then moved on the the washing machine where he bent some do-hickey and did a quick test to tell me everything was fine, then he was on his way. After he left I threw a load of laundry into the washer and went upstairs to make some phone calls and do some work.

Just before 2 P.M. I ventured downstairs to make a trip to the post office and saw a pool of water at the bottom of the steps. Now the wet bar is at the bottom of the stairs and my first thought was that the freezer under the bar died and defrosted all over the floor, but NO, that was not to be the end of the water.

I turned the corner to find that the newly repaired washing machine had poured out gallons and gallons of water into my family room, living room and garage. I moved what I could out of the way of the water and started using the wet vac. The appliance repair people were back at the house within 30 minutes of my frantic call and Eammon made it home in the blink of an eye to help.
Now my living room furniture is in the dining room and the living room is sporting two very large dehumidifiers and three blower fans which we get to listen to for at least the next 4 days!

I'm hoping that my wood floors can be saved, I'm not holding out too much hope right now that they won't have to be replaced, but keep your fingers crossed.

To everyone who is waiting on a package from me, I promise to get to them out tomorrow! Gosh it's only Monday, I hope this week improves!!

Amelia Rose

Fellow local adopters Cindy and Jimmy have surprised us all with wonderful news. Introducing their beautiful new daughter Lian Xin Chu, soon to be Amelia Rose. Congratulations to the new parents.

Best dressed luggage

Eammon and I are set to have the best dressed luggage when we travel to China and everywhere else with our new Red Thread Ties making our bags look snazzy and easy to find. One of my fellow dtc mates started a wonderful business making these adorable ties in not only my favorite ladybug pattern, but numerous other beautiful patterns as well. Check out all the fabulous ties and all their other usages. Thanks Denise, they are wonderful!

Got allergies?

Pollen count for: Monday, April 3, 2006

Today's count is = 5,861*

This count is in the extremely frikkin high range.

This is the amount of pollen particles measured within the last 24 hours in a cubic meter of air. The major pollen present are: oak, sycamore, sweet gum, mulberry, birch, willow, and pine

Tip of the Day: Pollen counts measure the amount of airborne allergens present and are reported as grains per cubic meter of air. In the spring, patients begin to increase symptoms as the counts rise above 30.


* POLLEN COUNT
0-30 Low
31-60 Moderate
61-120 High
Over 120 Extremely High