YEAH BABY, HERE WE COME!!

MINA, HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!! in 25 days we will be holding our new precious daughter!  As the little kids would say in 25 "sleeps".  I just can't wait.  Hold on baby girl, Mama's coming!

HOLY COW,  WE GOT OUR TA (TRAVEL APPROVAL) ON MONDAY AND TODAY WE HAVE OUR CA (CONSULATE APPOINTMENT).  This is very exciting stuff.  Marc is busy trying to find the best flights for us right now,  We will be leaving on March 21st, which is C's first day of spring break, which means he can go on this amazing trip with us and only miss 5 days of high school.  Yet another amazing gift in this process!  Can you believe in less than a month I will be posting pictures of the Great Wall of China again, but next time, we will be standing on it!!! Outrageous!  My bags are nearly packed and I am busting with excitement.  I am forcing myself not to freak out about the flight, since I HATE to fly.  Thank God for modern medicine!  I will be comfortably "sleeping" the entire way.   

Mina's Room

Ok, here are a few pictures of Mina's room...  I had so much fun decorating it,  although I am not completely done,  I still need to get a mattress in the crib and finish off a few things. I am hoping to get some pictures while in China for her walls. I painted her crib, which has been the same crib that all of my kids have used, I was REALLY over the light oak color, so I painted it white and "shabby'd it up a bit"  although you can't really tell in the photos. Right now it is more of a packing station (hence pictures of only one side of the room).  Everything we are starting to collect for our trip, suitcases, baby clothes (the fun part), gifts, snacks, medicines.  It is a multi-purpose dumping ground of sorts.   We are getting very excited for our upcoming trip.  We are really hoping to travel in Mid-Late March.  It would be great if "C" was on spring-break,  that way he will only miss 1 1/2 weeks instead of 2 1/2 weeks of classes, it will make all the difference for him making up all of his work and tests.   Hopefully I will post again very soon with news of our travel dates!  

Yeeeeeeeeeeeee-Hawwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

We got our LOA!!! Which means we are going to get our Little Girl... This is the biggest WAIT in our adoption process, and now it is O-V-E-R!!! Those who know me well ,know that I have been a shell of my former self waiting, and waiting for this... and now it is here!!! I am in shock.... Thank God!!

It is bitter-sweet, because a dear friend who has really helped me through this process, should have gotten her LOA along with mine, but it wasn't in the package, I am keeping the faith that it will come as soon as Chinese New Years is over and that we will still tavel together... I am very sad and I know if rolls were reversed she would feel the same way... We just have to travel together, we have matching outfits for our girls for goodness sake!

Now we await our Travel Approval (TA) it usually comes in about 3 weeks.. then we will get our dates for travel!!! I can't believe it!! I will keep y'all posted!!

Prayers for Mina

I am asking everyone to say a prayer for our Sweet girl waiting for us in China... China has seen horrible storms in the past few weeks leaving much chaos, and Millions of people without power or access to food.
The Mother instincts in me are in full swing.. I want so badly to care for my baby and make sure she is warm, safe, and fed... I have been praying and worrying about her. (Yeah, I know these things shouldn't go together. but I am a wreck when it comes to my kids) I did get some good news today... Someone with a connection to her orphanage called and got word from her foster family that "she is doing good" not much information, but this process is surely not full of reassuring information, so that is good enough for me right now. Mina lives in the Hunan province, one of the worst hit by the storm.. You can see it here on the map. I have posted pictures of people dealing with the storm close to where she is living now...

I also had high hopes that we would recieve word this week about our LOA, which is just the next step closer to traveling to go get our girl... Once we recieve our LOA we travel in 5 or 6 weeks . So again I had high hopes at the beginning of the week, and have heard nothing. Also China pretty much closes down next week for Chinese New Year celebration.. So I most likely won't hear anything for a while.. So needless to say my Mommy nerves are SHOT!
I usually post more Happy Hearted things here on my blog, but it has been quite a while and wanted to throw out there that this is where we are now with our adoption/waiting journey. Thanks to everyone for your words of encouragement and support.


A young Chinese villager holds a snow covered shovel at Zhangjia village at the Jiangsu border with Anhui province, Friday Feb. 1, 2008, in Nanjing, China. Snow storms that have battered many parts of China over the last three weeks have killed at least 60 people and caused billions in damage,. the Civil Affairs Ministry said Friday