Easter Weekend

Having some bubbly fun while coloring my Easter eggs.

My first community egg hunt at church

It was over in like 30 seconds, but I snagged 10 eggs!

There were lots of other fun things to do: face painting, a jump house and petting zoo.  Mommy & I got to ride in a cute little cart pulled by a llama.

 Hunting for eggs at home is fun too!

I love the expression on your face when you found this little chickie egg

Look over there . . .  how about look down, LOL!

 

I found a cute little bunny watering my garden . .  .

 Thank you Uncle Randy and Auntie Lori for the chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and Minnie Mouse t-shirt, I loved them  can you tell?

Log-In-Date & Spring Fever

We received an email from our agency that we have our LID 3/26/2012 from China!!! This is important as we can now be matched with our daughter!  We don't have an exact timeline, but our agency is receiving lots of good news of multiple files coming in April and May of children with minor needs.

 We've got spring fever in our home as we've had a colder and longer winter.We had our first weekend of spring weather in our neck of the woods.

We headed to the Sound to show Liliah all about throwing rocks into the sea.

It was good entertainment and nice to soak up some sun.

 

It was a great start to our spring.....since then, we've mostly had rain :(

Batter Up!

Don't you just love her uniform.  It was our first really lovely Friday night since the time change and we were all ready to get outside and play. 

S W I N G......

And......a miss.... strike one . . . . Oh well, she's still smiling

Let's try that again....maybe I need to keep the bat off of my shoulders . . .

Swing, crack of the bat and zoom!

The J O Y of success! Priceless moments of our girl on a Friday night in her backyard.

The Good Little Patient

This is 1 day after Liliah's ear drum surgery.  I took a picture of it as she wanted to see what it looked like.  She is not a dramatic child and I knew it would not scare her to see it.  It helped us explain to her why we needed to be careful and protect her boo boo

Two weeks later, it is healing up nicely.  She had her post-op with her surgeon and he wants to see her in a month.  He said the gel that they placed over the skin graft to hold it in place looks fine.  He needs to wait another month before removing it to make sure it was a success.  There is no infection so that is a good sign.  Our job is to keep water out of her ear for a while.  She was such a good little patient and never complained or cried.  She did need pain meds off/on for the first week.

Liliah's Surgery & China News

Today we headed off early at 6AM for your ear surgery.  It was discovered at your 4 year old check-up that you had abnormal hearing in your left ear @ only about 70%.  You had a perforated ear drum we believe from ear tubes that were put in your ears when your palette was repaired at age 2. The doctor had to lift out your ear drum because of something like a bone spur that had formed due to a past infection.  He also cut away about 50% of your ear drum and using your skin, patched it with a skin graph from you!  It is hoped that you will regain hearing in the normal range once you are fully healed. 

 You were such a brave and easy-going patient.  You never act afraid and or complain.  You came out of anesthesia just fine, but slept ALOT today.  We are going to be spending lots of time snuggling this weekend!

The other great news is that we are D T C today.  That means Miss M.'s paperwork headed to Beijing today.  A whole 7 months to get that baby gathered and finally on its way - Praise the Lord, can I get an AMEN! Up next, a referral, hopefully soon!  The last couple of days in a month China releases their new referrals so....end of March will be our first shot to be considered for a match.  It could take a while, but I am hoping in the next 3-4 months, we'll find out her our daughter is - can't wait!

Preparing for Miss M.

We recently took a family field trip that included eating out for breakfast and a trip to a quilt shop to find just the right material for your quilt. You and Liliah will share the same room for a time and so I needed to find similar colors to match her quilt.

We scoured the shelves until I found this cute little ballerina fairy.  Liliah found the purple material with the multi-colored small dots.  It was a perfect fit and she is so proud to have found that for you.  Daddy found the purple fabric with the large white polka dot pattern.  It was so special to be doing something just for you.  It makes it all the more real that you really are coming to join our family.  The other thing that makes it real, is that I mailed off our dossier to our agency today!!! We hope it will leave for China this Friday.  I wanted to kiss and give that package a hug as I sent it on it's way.  Six months to complete this part of our journey to you.  Adoption is like climbing a BIG mountain, you get all your gear on and the equipment ready and get the right mind-set to start the ascent.  It's a steady effort up and there are no quick routes.  I am so excited to have made base camp! We are now waiting to be matched with you so we can start the final ascent up top to you!  You are in our thoughts and prayers daily.  (BTW, I have never climbed a mountain!)

USCIS APPROVAL /Happy Valentine's Day

We received the best Valentine gift yesterday by receiving our approved I-800A from the U.S. Government. It only took 5 weeks. Liliah and I are headed to the state capital tomorrow to get 1 more document certified and then overnight our final few documents to the Chinese Consulate.  We are hoping to make next weeks deadline to get our dossier to China. 

My Funny Valentine 

(first attempts to get her picture)

You made your hat in class today.  You love the heart symbol right now.  You tell me that you like hearts because they mean love. We made treats for your preschool class.  We used construction paper and made hearts and glued tootsie pop suckers to the middle of them and attached little construction leaves on the stick.  It looked like a little valentine flower. We spent a few hours over a couple of evenings to complete.  It was a fun and easy project to do together.

I love you, my little sweet valentine

You insisted on taking my picture.  This is my valentine gift from daddy....thank you, sweetheart!

Flowers, Glasses and Fingerprints

We went from snow a couple of weeks ago to very mild and sunny weather this week.  We couldn't wait to head to the local nursery to buy some flowers to color our world!

Liliah loves to do projects with Mama and that makes me a happy girl too.  We potted up some pinks and purples and strategically placed them in the backyard so we could see them from inside. 

 

  

The other big event, was Liliah got glasses on this day.  We discovered at her 4 year old check up that she is near-sighted in one eye.  She is now the proud owner and wearer of two pairs of glasses that she picked out. 

We then headed in to enjoy some noodles. Liliah decided to try out her noodle slurping skills

slurping, slurping . . .

Yeah, I did it!  Liliah, you are beautiful inside and out! The other BIG event was that we visited the USCIS this week and got our fingerprints taken.  Hopefully, in 4 weeks (or sooner) we will have the coveted I800-a in our hands.  That means our dossier can be sent to our agency and then on to China. We also have been given the gift of what Mei, Mei's name will be!

Ah, Back To The Beach . . .

We spent the last few of the holidays in Carlsbad, California. We spent a day at Sea World and had wonderful Mexican dinner in Old Town, San Diego.  Our favorite past time though, was at the beach.  Our hotel was situated just across the street.  It was heavenly . . .

My prince for 25 years! 

Liliah wanted to take our picture.  We have a few bloopers, but these are her best.  I love that she took our picture

She saw me writing in the sand . . .

She was very proud of her success. It surprised me . . .