It's Monday!!!

The waiting is the hardest part.  First you wait on your spouse to say yes, finding the perfect child, finding out if she is available and if you qualify.  Next you wait for the ruff draft of the home study and then back and forth until all corrections are made.  You wait over 2 months on immigration, then on notarizing, certification and authentication.  You finally send in your dossier and wait, some more, until they tell you it is safely in China, translated and in the governments hands!!  Then you WAIT some more.  We are on day 32 of a process that can take well over 100 days.  I am already doing crazy!!  I am currently working on the girl's bedroom.  As soon as we get our LOA, Letter of Acceptance, I will go and buy a baby bed, sheets and car seat.  I am trying really hard to "forget" about it. but it isn't working well.  I have done well with every step, until now.  I just can't get it off my mind!!  I am glad tomorrow is a working day, so maybe we will hear something tomorrow.



I finally had to get Hannah's hair cut.  On the 30th of December, I took her to Great Clips.

At this point, they had only combed her hair and she was trying to cut the first part.

It took about 30 minutes of screaming to get the whole style cut.  She is now tired but very cute looking.  I already miss her long, curly hair, BUT she can't get it wrapped around her finger.  She had been twirling it while I was getting her in the van.

Loudly complaining and fighting for 30 minutes, really wears a girl out.



We are only 2,480 dollars from being fully funded!!!!!!!!!  THANK YOU--- HEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!

Suzanne

Happy New Years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I can't believe it is 2012.  I feel like we just started our adoption and than other times, I feel like we have been at this for years.  We had a wonderful time with our family and friends New Year's eve.  We ate, played games and laughed the night away.  I also realized we are getting so much closer to when we get to go and get Clare. 

Our Log in Date, or LID, was December 5th, 2011.  This means our dossier is in China, translated and at the CCWAA, waiting to be looked over.  Now, I have to just sit and wait for our Letter of Acceptance.  This is going to be hard,  I currently have no paper work to do, and nothing to look for.  I do however have other children to keep me busy.

Hannah is scheduled to have surgery on Wednesday.  This was suppose to have been done before Christmas, but was cancelled, because they ran out of ICU beds.  Please pray she will get to have her surgery and that everything will go well.  She is suppose to be in the ICU for 2 days and then a day on the floor. 

Aaron will head back to pre-school on Wednesday.  He is going nuts being home all the time.  We have been lucky here in Missouri and the weather has been awesome.  It has been in the 60's for 3 days, so he has gotten outside. 

Abby will start  back going to ballet 2 times a week for 3 hours as  well as her youth group activities.  Daniel will do the same, minus ballet.  He will restart Boy Scouts next week and is getting closer to working on his Eagle project.  We will resume school, next Monday.  Neither of them are looking forward to that.

I heard from a friend tonight that her son, who was home schooled, was appointed into West Point, starting this June!!!!!!!!!!!!  We are very proud of you Ethan!!!   Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!

We also found out a week before Christmas that we had been blessed with a much needed grant.  We are now currently only $2500.00 away from being fully funded!!!!!!!!!!  Can I hear an AMEN to that.

I am going to try and be better about blogging this year.  I am not sure what happened, other then life, since I last blogged.  I do have a lot to tell you and tons of pictures to load.   I am working on another fundraiser and will hopefully get it up and running soon, so I can quit worrying about money and just get everything set up and ready for Clare.

I am praying everyone has a wonderful and BLESSED 2012!!

Suzanne

Look what Saturday brought.

One of my facebook buddies was in China last week and took these pictures of Clare.  

Thank you Shannon!!!!!!!!!

Suzanne

WE ARE DOSSIER TO CHINA as of November 16th!!!!

We are coming soon to get you Clare!!

I can't wait to hold this sweet baby girl!!

Suzanne



A surprise this morning!!

I woke up this morning and this is what I found in my email.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!!!!

Suzanne

Blessings

I can't believe it is November, in Missouri, and I am still harvesting tomatoes!!!!!  Can you believe it??  This is the best year ever.  It has been a strange year too.  I didn't get a single tomato until September 5th and now they just keep coming.  Two nights last week, I had to cover them to keep the frost off, but they survived.  I only did it because the weather is suppose to be good for a least 10 more days and I wanted to leave them on the vine a little longer.  Anyway, here are pictures of my plants and the last two harvest.

I really think if they grow much longer, they are going to grab us and eat us one day.

I have never and I mean never had plant this big!!!

One small section of tomatoes left on vines.  I also, still have blooms.

This has been the most fun I have ever had gardening.  Everyday I go out and see what I can find.  I will be sad when it is all over.

Here are some fun pictures of Hannah.  She still hides when she sees the camera, but I got a couple of good ones anyways!!!

I hope you have a great day!!

Suzanne

Happy 4th Birthday

Not sure if I am ever going to get this blogging down.   I have every intention to post daily and then days turn to weeks.  It has been a very busy week!!  So, I am just going to blog about one day and will catch up, hopefully, later.  I have some cute Halloween pictures.


Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy Aaron!!!!  He turned 4 on November 1st.  Wow, I can't believe he is really that old. 

The day started off as usual, except Hannah decided to get up early.  I was putting on Aaron's shoes and he was telling me to go and get Hannah, over and over.  I went to get her and when I picked her up, I realized she had twisted her hair so much it was caught in her hair.  So, I took her to the living room and Aaron's bus showed up.  I had to leave her in the chair, crying and take Aaron to the bus, our school district requires that anyone under 5 1/2  must be escorted to the bus.   I get him to the bus and realize it is his birthday, tell him Happy Birthday, kiss him, wave and hurry back into the house.   Hannah is standing in the chair, screaming, I try to untangle her finger and then it hits me, IT IS ONLY HAIR,  I NEED TO SAVE HER FINGER!!!  I go and get a pair of scissors and cut the hair and untangle her finger.  I don't have any idea how long her finger had been like that, she often wakes up and plays in her crib for awhile.  Here are pictures, they aren't great, but you get the idea:

Her finger still has a mark, but it pink and doesn't seem to hurt her.

Aaron is a shy little guy.  He loves candy and would eat it all day if allowed too.  But, he is not a Halloween man.  So, we only went to 3 houses and he was ready to go home!!  (Pictures to follow)
We went to Aaron's parent/teacher conference and learned how sweet and well mannered our little guy is.  His teacher loves him and told us how he plays with all the children, regardless of ability, and hugs everyone.  I really can see this, because he is so good to Hannah.  When we went to my parent's house on Halloween, he was watching TV when grandma took him candy.  She said he took it and started to hand it back to her and asked if Hannah got any, she told him yes, so he took it and ate it.

We had a small birthday party for him on Tuesday.  I made him a cake, just like he wanted, with train candles.  He loves to blow out candles and will have you light them over and over, but not tonight.  Tonight he wanted presents.  We gave them too him one at a time and he told us that he loved each of them.   So he are the pictures:

Suzanne