What a surprise!

China sent out matches early this month :) I wasn't even expecting to hear any news until after Jan 1st. But I had 5 minutes on my lunch break to check my e-mail and what I saw was exciting. China has finished February 06 LIDs. Yahoo, February is done and on to March 06. Which is just so close to our LID of 4/3/06. There are about 500 families that are waiting for a baby in March so I'm not sure how long it will take for China to match all those families with a baby, but I'm hoping it won't take more than 5 or 6 months. If that is the case we should expect a match in 6 or 7 months.... Oh that would be so wonderful. I just hope it isn't longer than that... we have waiting so long already. I'm so ready to see my babies tiny little face and hold her in my arms and sing to her and play games with here. I bought a mommy and me yoga video many months ago and I can't wait for us to do it together.

Christmas Party

My work christmas party was last weekend. It was SO much fun. The theme was High School prom and everyone that wanted to was encouraged to dress in prom attire. I had fun buying a this dress. The top was sparklie silver halter and a black long taffeta skirt. Don looks so sexy in his shirt & tie. Everyone looked so nice and our company gave out a ton of gifts. I got a $50 gift certificate from Macy's :) Plus we got a year book of everyone with before/after pictures. They were so much fun to look at. Us girls pretty much danced the night away to 80's tunes while the men sat and talked. It is funny how many of the husbands/boyfriends don't dig the dancing thing. Thank goodness we didn't need them to shake our groove thing!

Referrals

Well China only advanced a few days again this month. They are through 2/23/06.... Our LID of 4/3/06 seems very close to that, but it looks like our turn will still be many months away :( There are a lot of LIDs from March 2006 so I expect it to take quite a bit of time to get through those! At least we are at the beginning of April but I can't help but kick myself that I didn't move quicker when we were getting all our paperwork ready in January 2006. If I would have done things differently we may have had a March LID date and that could have shaved months off our waiting... But, alas... I can't do anything about that now, so I just must quit obsessing over it.

I am exciting about my company's upcoming Christmas Party. It is a High School Prom theme so if you want you can dress in prom attire. It will be fun to get dressed up and go out! Maybe I can pretened like I'm 18ish instead of 40ish!

Hubby's Masterpiece

I just wanted to share the beautiful bookcase Don created for our baby's room. C had an idea of what she wanted and D being the great mind reader he is, created this awesome bookcase. He designed and built it from scratch and it matched perfectly of what I pictured in my head. Our baby's room is so ready for the baby now. I'm formulating a letter to China in my mind...

"Dear China- The bookcase is done so please send us our daughter!". Hmm wonder if that would speed things up a little. Haven't heard any news on how many matches they made this month yet. I wish they'd hurry up, I look forward to this time each month in anticipation. I wish I could just avoid that whole scene and just pretend I didn't have access to that info and when it was our turn well we'd get the call. But I can't so I'll just look forward to the beginning of each month and sometimes I'll be happy (cuz they match a bunch of days), but most of the time I'll be sad (cuz they only match a few days).

In Loving Memory of my Grandpa

Our family lost a great man yesterday. My Grandpa will be greatly missed! He was one of those guys who would give you the shirt off his back. He was always helping his kids and grand kids if they ever needed anything. And his stories… He always had a good story to tell us or a joke. He loved his family and was truly excited when anyone came to visit…. Cuz he loved to talk. Even though he has had breathing problems for a long time and has been on oxygen for over a year he never complained and always had a smile on his face. Don’s softball teams #1 fan will be truly missed. He loved coming out to the ball field in the summer. When it got too hard for him to walk that far, my awesome father-in-law picked up a wheel chair so we could push him out there! He brought joy to so many people because he was always so friendly and could strike up a conversation with anyone.

I’m so saddened that our daughter won’t get to know her wonderful great grandpa.

I should know better!

For some reason I had high hopes that this month that there were going to be alot of referrals from China. Nobody told me this, I just had a feeling. I fought this feeling, but it just kept coming back. So I was on pins & needles to see how many days were referred this month.. every day checking my adoption agency website and reading the rumor websites. Well referrals came through yesterday and it totally bursted my bubble. They referred the normal amount of 5 days of LIDs. Well at least that is what is speculated. We have gotten the official word yet. But the unofficial words is 2/20/06. Ugh! I really was feeling pretty bad last night. I know we are getting so close, so I shouldn't be feeling bad... But I would just like to see things go a little better than normal for a change. Another issue that added to my dissappointment is that I am sponsoring a foster child in China right now and she is turning 12 months old this month and I'm wondering... "Why hasn't she been adopted?". There are so many of us waiting and waiting and there is this gorgeous little sweet princess that needs a forever family and she remains in foster care. Don't get me wrong I'm glad there are foster parents in China careing for these girls, but let's get them to there forever mommies & daddies SOONER than later. I decided to ask about this from the agency I am sponsoring her through. Maybe there is a perfectly good reason. I will update more on that when the get back to me. Bye for now!

Trip to the Beach

We went to the Oregon coast for a 3-day getaway with my mom and her boyfriend. We were hoping my sister & hubby could come to, but it didn’t work out for them to come. It was a l-o-n-g drive from here to Manzanita, OR… 6 long hours in the car. I think that is the thing I hate most about going someplace. I wish I could be like our dogs and just crash in the back seat and sleep the trip away. Or even if I could read or do a craft of something… but I have horrible motion sickness and every time I’ve tried that I’ve ended up regretting it! We rented a house on the beach. We found one that was dog-friendly so I was a little worried about how clean it would be… but it was great. It was clean & homey. It had huge windows that looked out over the ocean and a big deck. The weather was beautiful and sunny. It was a little cool, but I expected that so brought lots of warm clothes. On Saturday my mom & jim went to play golf and Don and I rented 3-wheeled fun cycles and rode around on the beach. It was a good workout! Especially trying to maneuver these things with a dog on a leash. Saturday afternoon I just sat in a cozy chair and enjoyed watching the waves roll in. It was sooo relaxing! The trip went far too fast! And then the l-o-n-g drive home L But it was worth it, I had a wonderful time! It was fun to watch the kids on the beach building sandcastles & playing in the sand & just have a good time. I can’t wait until we can share that with our daughter. We will definitely be planning another trip next spring and hopefully my sis & her hubby will be able to come. I think it would be fun to plan an annual family trip to the beach.

Good News from USCIS

We have been told for the last 6 months or so from our adoption agency that when our petition for adoptions through USCIS (United States Citizen & Immigration Services) expires (2/09) and we haven't finalized our adoption (we more than likely won't have), that we'll have to apply through a new process and new form. This was going to cost more money in homestudies, background clearances, physicals & 10 hours of additional parenting training. But the adoption community banded together and started a petition to allow all of us who started are adoption process before the rules changed (in April 2008) to be 'grandfathered' in under the old rules. I signed the petition and e-mailed our state senator & congressmen. And WOW, it really works. USCIS announced today that all parents who started there adoption before April 2008 (we started ours in January 2006) to be grandfathered in under the old rules. What great news for so many parents that have been waiting and waiting and waiting. Having to renew immigration paperwork several times before our adoptions are finalized. This is what America is all about. Speaking out and making change! Thanks to everyone who was behind this effort. Now we can proceed with our adoptions without having to redo a lot of work we've already done.

Final Camping trip of the summer

What a fun trip we had to Lake Mayfield last weekend, four fun-filled days. The weather was beautiful and it was so relaxing. Only a couple minor glitches... Our little Beagle, Faith, got a bladder infection on the second day we were there so she had to pee all the time.. even in the middle of the night. I guess it is good training for getting up with a baby :) But, fortunately with a baby I wouldn't have to take her outside in the pitch black up in the mountains where who knows what kind of wild beasts were lurking in the shadows!! I know what imagination I have. BUT... we were attacked by a wild beast on our last night there! We were all (me, Don, Grandma & Grandpa Staggs, Jake & Faith & Brandy) were taking a walk about 9 pm. We saw a heard of deer off in the distance and we were trying to see them.... When all of the sudden a rabid cat jumped in front of us and it was hissing and screaming and then it jumped on poor little Faith. I was holding Faith's leash and I started pulling to get her away from that crazy cat. It finally let go and ran off with Don chasing it. Poor Faith cried for what seeme like 5 minutes after the cat ran off. She is such a little princess and she was so scared. I took her back to the trailer and cleaned up her ear where it bit her or scratched her or something. I think she was glad when we got home... it wasn't one of her favorite trips. On the other hand.. Jake had the time of his life. although he has fun no matter what he does. He loves the water and got to swim in the lake for hours on Saturday. He looks so funny when he is wet.

When we got home we got the news about referrals for October. CCAI made referrals up to 2/16/08. Another 7 days, not too shabby. I can see the end of this tunnel. Don't want to get too excited yet, alot can still happen. There were rumors that this tainted milk incident my affect referrals. My heart has been so saddened by the formula that the babies were being fed in China that was tainted with that Melamine. How can a company make something that would poison babies! I just don't understand the way people think. I pray for all the babies in China and that have been adopted that may have been exposed to this milk... that God protects them from any ill affects. Our adoption agency is contacting the Orphanages they work with to find out who used this formula so they can warn potential parents who adopt from there to have their babies tested. It is scary not to know if our baby has been born yet and may be exposed to this formula. I just pray she hasn't been born or at least wasn't given any of that formula.

October is going to be a busy month. Going to Seattle to visit my wonderful Grandma Marybelle this weekend and the 18-20th we are going to the OR beach with my mom & her boyfriend. That will be so much fun. And we have lots of stuff to wrap up around our property before winter. Don is finishing our sidewalk this weekend and hopefully finish our fence this month. Then we will start on finishing the nursery. So it will be all ready for our little China Angel!

Woo Hoo!

The CCAA made referrals for a whole 9 days this month. That is more than they've done in a long time. Although part of those days they were closed in 2006 due to Chinese New Year. I just hope and pray that they will continue at that rate. Let's see if they keep doing 9 days a month, and there are 54 days between 2/9 and our LID 0f 4/3.... We would have our baby referral in 6 months!!! That would be in March 2009. That still seems like a long ways away... but I'll take sooner than later!!

Colette & Wendy... Then and now

It is hard to believe that my sister is all grown up and married. As she walked down the isle at her wedding I saw all our fun times as sisters flash before my eyes. Like the time we went to Sears to have this picture taken. I was excited cuz we were going "shopping" at the mall, our favorite thing to do and then get our picture taken. I had her hair all fixed and we got in the car to go. Well she thought it'd be funny to "hide" by putting a nylon coat over her head that I had in the back seat. I was trying to drive down the road and get the coat off her, which only caused her hair to stand straight up with static! So anyway we had to redo her hair in the women's bathroom at the mall. Luckily I had this handy red ribbon to try to calm down the static. I thought they turned out pretty good. So check us out in 1989 and now 2008!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Cantu

My sister got married on July 19, 2008... What a beautiful day and a fabulous wedding. All her hardwork over the last 9 months paid off. It was probably the funnest bestest wedding I've ever been to. She looked gorgeous!!! He was handsome!!! Our cousin sang and she has such a beautiful voice! They make a great couple and I wish them many years of happiness & joy.

Baby Update

I've updated the adoption timeline date. China matched a few more days of LIDs this month... 8 days.... The rumor was 10, but 8 is better than 5. They are up to 1/20/06. So, there are only 76 days of LIDs for them to get through before us. Wow, that is ALOT. I never looked at it in days before. So if they only match 5 days per month it would take 15 more months for us to received our baby match. Oh that is totally depressing! I'm just going to forget I even mentioned that.

With that said, Don and I did decide to send in a medical conditions checklist and are open to adopting a baby with certain special needs. We did a lot of research and soul-search on this and feel good about this option. So now we continue to wait and see what God has in store for us.

We are also mid-way through becoming licensed foster care providers. We have completed the training and now have a boat load of paperwork to fill out, home visits etc.

So with all this underway, hopefully we will have a baby before we are both too old to parent them. haha

Bridal Shower

I gave my sister a bridal shower a couple of weeks ago. I can't believe she is getting married in a month (7/19/08). It seems like just a few years ago she was this darling little girl who always barged her way into my bedroom and wanted to mess up all my stuffed animals and "pretend" to talk on my phone. I'd always be yelling "mom, get her out of my room!" Now she is grown and on her own and I miss her a lot. I wish she'd come in my bedroom now and mess up my stuffed animals. The shower was great fun! We had a chocolate fountain and all sorts of stuff to dip in it. I think her friends really liked that part of it. She got lots of cool presents and we laughed a lot. Here is the invitation I made. I was so excited when I found this clip-art couple that looks just like Wendy& Steve would if they were cartoon characters. Aren't they an absolutely marvelous couple? I hope my sister knows how much I love her!!!! And wish her all the happiness in the world.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's day to all my friends out there. I had a GREAT Mother's day. My children (Jake, Faith, Rocky & Sawyer) and Husband showered me with love today! I got cards from each one of my puppies and they were so sweet. The one that Faith (our Beagle) gave me was just like one a daughter would give a mom and it made me cry. I am so looking forward to being a mom and have kids to celebrate holidays with. Don't get me wrong my animal children are oh so good to me (thanks to my hubby), but I can't wait to experience that daughter/mother bond.

I've had the good fortune to snuggle with 2 newborn babies in the last few weeks. Don's cousin had her baby on April 2 (Hallee) and I got the honor of holding her at a family function a few weeks ago. Although, I did start bawling for some reason (oh I guess because I really want a baby too). And my boss had her baby on April 28 (Millicent). Both babies are so cute! Here is a picture of Halle & Shadow...her dog sister :)

The GOOD and the BAD

The bad news is that a very small number of LID's were matched this month. Only 3 days. You know I've never really had to deal with this type of wait for something. The type that doesn't have a set amount of time or a set date at the end. The length of this wait just keeps stretching further and further out. It's like when you are dreaming and you are trying to catch something and you run as hard and fast as you can but you just seem to run in slow motion and can't seem to get anywhere. For the most part, I try to keep a positive attitude and trust in God's plan for our lives. But I do have days when I want to scream and cry and throw a temper tantrum (like that is helpful).

The good news is our social worker e-mailed me and let me know there is a couple in town that is putting together a group for families who have adopted from China and asked me if I wanted to be included. I said YES!!!! I have had that on my heart to start a group as soon as we had our daugther. I want her to have connections to other's in the community who can share her background. I was excited to hear that they have 10 couples that are interested in the group. I knew there were others in Yakima I just didn't know how to find them.

I took the dogs out for a ride in our big truck the other day. We are all getting spring fever and want to go camping. Jake gets so excited when he gets to go for a ride. The other day we were out washing the cars and jake jumped in the car and wouldn't get out. He must have stayed in there for an hour, thinking that if he was in the car he wouldn't get left at home. We finally had to coax him out when we were done and readyto go back in the house. We are excited for our first camping trip that we have planned in June (although we may have to take a mini one in May... June is just too far away). We are anxious to see how this new truck will pull our RV. Our Tahoe could barely make it up the pass... people behind us would get so annoyed as we putted along at 35 mph. I'm feeling more comfortable driving it now. At first I was scared to death to try to maneuver this 100 foot (exaggeration) long beast. Going into a crowded parking lot was out of the question. But now I'm feeling a little more comfortable driving AND parking it. Althought I don't go into any tight spaces! And if I do go to a store I park out in the north 40.

Sisters Wedding Invitations

My mom, sis and I got together on Sunday to put Wendy's wedding invitations together. It took us about 3 hours to put them together and make pretty bows. We had so much fun! I wanted to share a picture of the invitations. They are just beautiful.

Well the CCAA has finally started on January 2006 LIDs. So our April 2006 LID is getting closer. Although it took about 2 years to refer babies to all the parents with 2005 LIDs. So we are in for still a long wait. I still hold out hope we will get our darling angel this year (2008), but it could be as late as the spring of 2009. Our immigration paperwork will expire again in February 2009. So if we aren't able to travel to china to pick her up before that we will have to reapply to the tune of $1,000 or more. We'll have to get another homestudy update etc. I guess time will tell.

We have also begun classes to become a licensed fostercare family. We have talked to several couples who adopted through this program and we are hoping that this might be a possibility for us. We have had a lot of mixed feelings about doing this. The most fearful being that a child is placed with us and we become attached and then the state gives it back to the birth parent. Hopefully a lot of our questions will be answered in these classes and will either put our mind at ease or scare the daylights out of us. Either way we will trust in God to guide us through our journey to become parents. Boy it hasn't been as easy as I thought it would be. But life is full of challenges and this is ours.

We also started a sponsorship of a foster child in China through CCAI (our adoption agency). I got her picture & bio earlier this week and she is just precious. She is 3 months old and healthy. She is from the Nanching Orphanage but in there foster care program. It is a blessing this foster family is able to take her in so that she is getting to live in a family environment rather than the orphanage. I hope our baby, wherever she is in China is being cared for as well.

The weather has started to warm up and I can see spring taking shape. I love spring & summer and can't wait to take our RV out with our furbeasts and do some travelling this summer. Also, I'm looking forward to my sister's wedding in July. She got her dress last night and it is just the most beautiful dress I've ever seen. She is going to be the most beautiful bride!

I will keep everyone updated on our foster licensing. Pray for us during this process.

My adorable little nephew!!!

We have a new baby in the family. This is Tank! My sister's new son. Her Fiance' surprised her with this little bundle of joy. I haven't met him yet but she sent me this picture. Isn't he adorable. I told Don we needed a new puppy, maybe that would ease my mommy pangs!!! But he pointed out all the reasons why another dog wouldn't be a good idea. Like when we go camping our current 2 dogs sleep on the bed with us. Can you imagine 3 dogs!!! Ok, I get it.

Happy Valentines Day to Everyone!!!

Really! I'm done with winter!

We had a huge snow storm this weekend. I think we got about 6 inches. And week before last we had sub-zero temperatures. And, well I'm really done with winter. So I've put my order in for some warmer weather to melt all this snow that has hung around all winter. Now that it is February I'm hoping we are on the down hill slide of winter. We did have a fun weekend tho. On Saturday we took our kids (Jake & Faith) for a ride in our new truck. We've been wanting to take them out to see how they will ride in the backseat together (we used to have a tahoe that had much more room, now we have a crew cab pickup). Jake looked like a person sitting on the backseat looking out the window. We went up to the Naches feeding station to see the Elk. There were probably 600 of them feeding and the babies were so cute. Jake just stared at them, but Faith felt she needed to bark and whine hoping we'd let her out so she could show them how tough she is.. haha! Then on Sunday we went to Don's parents with my sis & her fiance' to watch the superbowl. Well I mostly just wanted to eat & watch the commercials, but hey I won $100 in the superbowl pool Don's family always does. And they weren't too happy because I always complain about participating cuz I hate throwing money away on a chance to win. So I guess I better shut up, since I've won 3 times now. Thank goodness the scored stayed 3 to 7 until half time.. which honestly I never thought would happen.

Well, on the adoption front things are still moving like frozen molasses!!! Maybe it is because of all the snow??? I just got the updated numbers for February and China has only made referrals through 12/27/05. And my agency has retracted there prediction of a referral for us between april & october of this year (08). They are saying we might not see our referral until 2009 now. Oh, that just is rotten. I was so hopeful that it would happen in 2008. Well enough about that subject right now. I can hardly bare to talk about it. We are looking at some other options to start our family. We had signed up for foster parenting licensing classes in February, but then they cancelled them because of lack of enrollment. So now we are signed up for March. Not sure if we will pursue that for sure, but we are keeping our options open.