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.