The cutest hat.

Do you remember me blogging about knitting a hat for Zoe?
Here it is on Abby. Forgive the blur, the girl moves a lot. It will end up being Abby's hat since she lives in Germany and needs something to keep that little noggin warm.

Also, now that it looks like Zoe will not be coming home until late March, she has no need for it. March around here calls for shorts. March in Germany, however, may still be hat weather. Now I'm the crazy aunt that knits things. Look out Jeffrey and Georgia....I see a bunny suit in your future!!!

Rumors

I know lots of people frown on rumors, but I don't. They have been very helpful for me, and this month more than ever. The current rumor of the cut off being 12/19/05 seems more and more solid and I have had a few days to readjust my brain to the idea of missing this batch. It appears a January referral is not in store for me.

It isn't set in stone yet, but when it is announced in the next week, as I suspect it will, it won't be such a heartbreaker.

The Ergo

I got to test my Ergo today. Niece Abby was very obliging. I can't get you a far away picture, because although it's very comfy....there is nothing flattering about it. The waist has to be snuggish to hold her up best, and that does bad things to chubby ladies! But once I got over myself, I had a wonderful time. She fell asleep pretty quick and we had the sweetest little nap right there in the carrier.

Ergo....thumbs up!!!

Good news and Bad news

The bad news is that the rumor du jour says the cut off could be the 19th. I know that's not much of a rumor. "Could be" leaves a lot of room, but in my experience, the bad rumors are the ones that prove true. I'm scared.

Fortunately, the good news outweighs the bad for now. My sister and her family are here. Including the long awaited for baby Abby. Is that cute or what?

17lbs of love! I figure I'll let her get settled, but over the next few days that baby's going to be my little model for all of Zoe's stuff. You know I'm itching to get her in that Ergo. My stroller is practically crying for a baby to stroll.

It's a stinking shame I have to work, (or perhaps fortunate for Abby) because if I stayed home with that girl, I'm not sure I could stop messing with her. Expect many pictures over the next 2 weeks.

Merry Christmas!

This is how we're spending Christmas morning. Kickin' back with the kitties. You can't see the others, but trust me, they are close by.

Most people probably don't enjoy being smothered by their cats, but we do. I hope you get to spend the day doing whatever it is you enjoy.

Merry Christmas.

Fun Pictures!

I guess nesting is setting in and I felt the need to organize closets and drawers. What a task! I'll never finish, but I got a good head start.

You know how once you start, you begin reminiscing about everything you find. Especially pictures! Here are a few that held up progress today.

I love this one of my niece. Its so cute with the Pooh slippers. Its like she's saying, "Enough with this bib! I've got stuff to do."


Same niece, but showing her more feminine side.


And this is nearly everyone I love in one place. I love this picture because if this were taken in the future a few months from now, there would be 3 more babies in there. THREE!! The couple in the back (my sister) has a new baby. The couple in the very front (Jeff's nephew) are due in a few weeks, and then you know about us already. Its very exciting.

12/20/07

Two years down. Two weeks (hopefully) (give or take a few days) to go!

Happy Anniversary to all of my 12/20/05 buddies.

Funny!

I used to have a cat who would bite my ears and lick my eyes until I woke up. Maybe this is funnier to me for having lived through it, but I thought you might like a laugh.

uh, oh.

Have y'all been to the Rumor Queen lately? Seen the latest poll? Have you seen how big my LID is? It's big. BIG big. It has me a little uneasy about a January referral. I'm still putting my money on January, but a little seed of doubt has taken hold.

Jeff says, "Who cares?...It's 30 more days. What difference does it make?"

Umm....yeah....Big difference! Wanna see me cry for a week? Wanna see me eat chocolate in bed until I fall asleep for 30 days? Didn't think so.

So, if you've been in the adoption community awhile, what do you think? Am I in? I need them to do 6 days and about 100-120 people on the RQ polls (the last couple batches have been slightly under 100)

Really, what do you think?

Pssst... I told you I'd get a little crazy at the end.

Still Counting...

Less than 3 weeks to go.

This week will be crazy at work. Packages galore. We'll be getting ready for house guests. And I have a bunch of little crafty projects going on.

Next week, my sister and her family come into town. We haven't seen them since March, and we've never seen the newest member of their family. And of course there's Christmas, too.

The week after that....Zoe!

And because every blog post should have a picture, here's one of my newest niece who I get to hold in 10 days.

Hooray! I'm Horrid!!

The Rumor Queen has come out with her latest predictions! And even January's horrid case includes ME!!! 12/20/05. Yeah!!! The Horrid case scenario is a relatively new category that needed to be added since things were getting even worse than "bad". But as long as this has been going on, it has never been worse than "horrid" and I'm in the "horrid" So.....Yeah!!!


If my prediction of a January 4th referral comes true, that is a mere 25 days away.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Check out this beauty! She belongs to our friends Mick and James, and they saw her for the first time today.

Now run on over to their blog for more information and pictures!

Antsy...

Referrals are coming in! Finally! But at a trickle. Tomorrow should be the big day! I know we are not in this batch, but we are so close that one day here or there makes a big difference.

The first rumor that the cut off would be December 14, 2005, was a little disappointing. It still means we are most likely, but not certainly a January referral.

Today, as the referrals start coming in, the rumor is that the cut off is the 15th. It's only one measly day's difference, but I think it makes a January referral for us a sure thing. A slam dunk. And I'm pretty excited.

I'm going to spend the next few days being happy for Mick and James who will see their daughter for the first time tomorrow, and then the countdown for Zoe will resume!


****Update*****
The CCAA updated their website. The cut off is the 14th, not the 15th. Bummer. January is still most likely for us, but not the sure thing I was hoping for. We'll know soon enough, I suppose.

Happy 4th Anniversary to us!

Jeff's first 5K

I wish Jeff's first road race had been more exciting. It was pretty small. Without a lot of frills. And the T-shirt is kind of bland. But it was sponsored by Sweet Tomatoes, so the post-race snacking was good. And....he wants to do it again, so, yeah!!! We're so pathetically out of shape that the only reason I could see for going through with it was to motivate us to do better next time, and it worked!

There was one exciting moment for Jeff when this Lamborghini parked next to us. He couldn't believe someone would drive a $150K car to a road race. "It's not for transportation." He says. And we had a good laugh at the driver. Everything about him screamed, "LOOK AT ME!!!" From his car, to his outfit, to his prancing all around warming up. He even put on this "ah, shucks" grin when folks asked to take pictures of his car. And plenty of people did. Jeff and I couldn't bring ourselves to ask, so we just waited until he wasn't around.

Christmas tree 2007

Our tree is done! We bought the train because Jeff remembers having one around his tree as a boy and wants something similar for Zoe.


Eddie loves hanging out under the tree, but isn't so sure about the train.


If you marry at Christmas, prepare yourself for a bunch of "Our First Christmas" ornaments. We have 5 hanging on our tree.

The Pediatrician

I took today off to meet the pediatrician. It was fine. He was nice. I had my list of questions which seemed silly when I got to them.

We talked about what will happen at referral... He'll look over the medical info even though it is usually pretty general as well as notoriously unreliable. I still want it looked at in case anything weird jumps out at him. I forgot to ask what we would do if something weird did jump out at him. Oh well.

We talked about how to get help in China. E-mail. I was really hoping the man would offer a more direct number, but, no. Also, he won't write any prescriptions for a child he hasn't seen. I'm sure he's right, but every other adoptive family is trekking to China with a virtual pharmacy in tow. He won't even pony up some antibiotics since every kid pretty much has a cold in winter and we shouldn't be so willy-nilly with the meds. hmm. I know of other families who take syringes with them to China, since China is known to reuse needles. He said we didn't need to take them since we wouldn't be giving her shots. Duh! I'd still like a nice clean needle for a doctor to use on my child.

And we talked about when we come home. He'll run every test imaginable. Revaccinate and send me on to the developmental specialist if need be.

Overall, I like him okay. I wish I liked him more, but he's fine.

He started talking about how I should take care of myself right now because we're about to go thru a major change in our lives and if I needed to talk to someone, counselors are available. I could tell his being nice to me was going to make me cry, (it comes easily these days) so I tried thinking mean thoughts. I had a second of the lip quiver and I think I passed off a tear as being a contact lens problem, but he kept going on about me, me, me. And it was nice.

I'm about to have a baby here. It is emotional. So now that I have the rest of the day off, I think I'm going to put my PJ's back on, find a Law and Order marathon and knit that bunny at the top for Zoe. In pink, of course.

So much for daily blogging...

In my defense, we have been out of town, and it *is* the Christmas season at the post office. Most days I'm dragging myself home late with a tired body and sore hands. Besides, there's not much to blog about. How many fun ways can I say, "still waiting."?

Today, however, was a freakishly light day at the post office, and I'm home by 3pm. Hooray!! I called Jeff, asked if he could come home early, and he is currently enroute.

We're going to spend the afternoon putting up Christmas decorations! This is exciting because we haven't put up Christmas stuff in 4 years! We figured, we have no kids, so why bother? I'm not sure why this year is different, but I'm loaded with the Christmas spirit and I want a tree! We even bought a train to go around the tree. You know I'll post pictures later.

In the mean time, here is our tree from 4 years ago.

23 Months

Today is another LID anniversary.

23 months.

It hardly seems worth noting. If you asked Jeff what today was, he would probably say, "Tuesday." But still...23 months down is nothing to sneeze at.

Do they ever grow up?

Today Jeff and I went to ToysRUs and started looking at Legos. One of the Lego sets said it was for ages 14 and up. I turn to Jeff and ask, "Do 14 year old boys really want to play with Legos?"

He says, "Heck yeah, I wanna put that together!"

So if you're looking for a present for Jeff...try the Lego Ferrari.

48 days

Anyone who knows me personally, knows I have started the daily countdown until referral. I know it's silly since we wont be in the next batch, and we can't be sure of the exact day anyway.

But for the purpose of counting down, I have chosen to focus my energy on January 4th as our referral day. For the past year or more, referrals have arrived during the first week of the month, and January 4th is the last weekday in the first week of January.

Make sense?
Bare with me....it gets worse.

When I got up this morning, one of my first thoughts was that today is 48 days until the Jan. 4th.

I also know that when I return to work on Monday, it will be 46 days.
When I get back from my Thanksgiving vacation, it will be 40 days.
From the beginning of December, it will be 34 days.
From Christmas it will be 10 days.

Back at the beginning of the wait (706 days ago) my minister friend told me God was teaching me patience. Obviously, after nearly 2 years, the message still has not sunk in.

Look at This!!

Yesterday I got to visit with a good college friend who I haven't seen in years...I'm ashamed to say. Only an hour's drive separates us, but it is so easy to put things off, isn't it?

Look what she gave me? A Zoe book!!! With a Chinese girl!! What are the odds of that? Her son found it at a book fair. I'm in love with it and can't wait to read it to Zoe.

Pediatrician Quest

I started the hunt for our pediatrician today. I have an appointment at the end of the month with my first Dr. who came highly recommended from another China adoption Mom.

I'm pretty stoked to be doing something so proactive and Mommy-ish. I'm also nervous. I'm really rather meek and the idea of interviewing doctors to see if they're good enough goes against nature somehow.

Also, I need to ask them if I can be sqeezed in IMMEDIATELY after getting our referral info and, oh...by the way, can I call you from China? That will be the middle of the night. I will be a first time Mom in a foreign country. My baby will just have gone through a very tramamtic event and I want to know that I can get ahold of you in an instant.

How do you think that will go over?

Other adoptions

The China adoption process is so very straight forward. You do the paperwork and then you wait your turn. China matches you with a baby and off you go. Nearly everyone who reads this blog knows the process.

But other countries do things differently. Guatemala, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Russia, and India. They all have their own rules and procedures. Right now, I'm following a Ukrainian adoption blog and it's very interesting. The bloggers are friends of my sister's and it's worth taking a look. They are in county right now and believe they have found their son.

Go have a look.

Late Halloween Pictures

Poe went as Superman.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Babies!

Each month when the referrals arrive, the Rumor Queen posts links to the new family's blogs. Follow the links and look at all the gorgeous babies!!!

Babies!

Our Incredibly Busy Weekend

It started with me yelling at Jeff to hurry home on Friday because I needed help getting ready for my Bunco party. It was my turn to host the neighborhood ladies bunco and like before every party we have (all 2 of them), I'm desperately scared 1)no one will come. 2) They will think my house is dirty/unattractive. 3) No one will have fun.

So Jeff was ordered to come home and help clean and to go pick up the neighbor ladies' spare card tables. He was a champ. Calm and helpful, while I was coming unglued. In the end, the party was great. My house looked great and everyone had a fabulous time. The only flub was when someone had to leave because of the cats. I should have warned them we had so many. I like having parties so much, you would think I would do it more, but those pre-party nerves are hard to deal with. (Wine helps.)

Saturday, we went to someone else's party. Our friends Mick and James had us over for the day and we had a super time. Jeff and James played their own version of "name that tune" on their computers by digging up all those old tunes you should be embarassed to have in your itunes library. I won't tell you who James has (achoooneildiamond) , but I did her Jeff stumping James with a little Debbie Gibson. (I can't make the transition to Deborah Gibson...did you hear she's dating Constantine from American Idol?))

Mick and I planned our German dinner, went to the store and came home to cook. You all must know I don't really cook. Jeff was even worried, but Mick kept a watchful eye, and everything was lovely. We had schnitzel, spetzle (sp?), and this gravy thing. I don't know what it was called, but it was very good. Dinner was topped off with Apple Fritters. And I must say I sprinkle some mean powdered sugar! Good Stuff! I wish I'd gotten a picture of the food, because it was also a very attractive meal

Sunday, was the home improvement day. Will this stuff never end?!!! We put new lighting in the hallway, and we continued to work on turning the old office/dumping ground into our new guest room. I wasn't going to post a picture until it was all done, but you'll get the idea of where we're headed. Here is the office before and after, and the hallway lighting.

It's Official

The CCAA just updated their website. The cut off for the November batch is December 8th, 2005. We've known this for days, thanks to the Rumor Queen, but it is now official. It's another small batch. We were all hoping things would speed up when they hit December '05, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The good news is that our LID is December 20, 2005. Only 12 days away from the current cut off. Surely....SURELY, they can manage at least 6 days per batch over the next two batches. Surely, we are guaranteed a January referral. I can't imagine that they could go any slower when they could manage 7 day batches in November.

Do any of you "in the know" think there is any way would see anything other than a January referral? Any chance they could manage 12 days in December???....I don't think so.

We have already seen a few referrals for this batch, but tomorrow should be the big day. REFERRAL DAY!! I don't personally know anyone in this batch, but it's still fun to see the babies. Where they're from, and how old they are. And of course, the pictures!!!

Soooooo....assuming it will be January for us....that is now 8 weeks away. I'm going to go see if I can find one of those countdown thingies to stick on the blog.

Baby Abby

I had to swipe this picture from my sister's blog, because it's just that cute! Look at those cheeks. Those thighs!!

She is soooooo kissable, and I will finally meet her in about 2 months when my sister comes home for Christmas.

I hope she doesn't mind being my guinea pig for all of Zoe's goodies. Car seat, high chair, stroller, baby carrier, maybe even clothes. Even though Zoe will be older, I have a suspicion, based on the pictures, that the girls may be close in size.

Oooh, I can't wait! Abby in eight weeks. Zoe in nine.

Hiding on Halloween

Jeff and I are currently sitting in a dark living room on our respective computers hiding from the trick or treaters. We're not even turning on the TV because it puts out too much light. We have no candy, but are prepared to hand out granola bars if someone dares to hike up our long, steep driveway, approach a completely dark front door and ring the bell. We're hoping no kid in the neighborhood is that desperate.

We even had a bit of a scare as we were coming home from dinner. The kids were already walking the streets. Our handyman had left our front light on and they saw us come home!! We sped up the drive. Ran in the house and turned off all the lights.

It's not that we're total Halloween scrooges. Our front stoop is currently missing it's guard rail. We don't want some kid falling off and sueing our pants off. Our handyman tried to help us with that by taping a huge red "X" over the space, but it really just looks like Halloween decorations.

The only bad part of not participating is we have no Halloween candy anywhere in the house. I was going to pick up a bag at Wal-mart earlier today, but they were completely out!!! (Okay, they did still have some Halloween Peeps, but that's all.) And they were already filling the candy ailse with Christmas candy. Peppermint sticks and those huge round tins of popcorn. Seems a bit early, huh?

I'm off to go watch TV in my bedroom.

So much for the Spanish Rumor Queen.

So...today's rumors make it sound more like it will be 9 weeks rather than 5. Oh, well. 9 is still a lovely number. Moving on....

I think I found just the race to make up for missing the last one. It's a 5K right here in my home town. It's one month from now and Sweet Tomatoes is sponsoring it. There should be yummy after-snacks. And get this.....Jeff is going to to it with me! His first 5K!! If there are any locals out there who would like to come along, let me know!!!

They even have a stroller division, so next year.....

Either 5 or 9

Happy Monday! The start of another week.

I can now say our referral is either 5 or 9 weeks away!!

Hooray for single digits!!!

A very expensive T-shirt

Long story short....we didn't do the half marathon on Saturday.

It was up in the air for the longest time. Do we tough it out and go unprepared and sick, or just call it quits? In the end, Pam had a family emergency that would have prevented her going anyway. There's no way I was going alone, so the decision was essentially made for us. No big deal, right? Probably for the best.

I promised I would go down on race day to pick up the T-shirts. On one hand, I don't feel like should get to wear it since I didn't earn it by actually running the race, but on the other hand, I paid something like 40 bucks to do the race and get the shirt. $40!!! I'm getting my t-shirt, dangit.

Jeff was kind enough to go down there with me that morning. We pull up to the finish area about 2 and a half hours after the race start. Tons of people are crossing the finish line and tons more are milling around after having already finished. I love the after-race atmosphere. Bright eyed, sweaty people who just accomplished something. They have all the goodies out. Everyones wearing their medals and eating bagels or oranges. Getting massages. It's very exciting. Very Motivating.

And although I feel like a GIANT LOSER!! for not participating, I'm motivated to sign up for another one. Not a half marathon. A shorter one. A 5K, I think. Something close, something flat.

Self portrait

Who still does bunny ears?

Happy

Today there is this awesome rumor that the next cut off will get past the 10th of December. Possibly to the 12th. The next batch is only about a week away, so now is about the time the real rumors start showing up. THIS IS AWESOME!! If its true, it opens up the possiblity of a December referral for us. THAT IS ONLY 6 WEEKS AWAY!! I was uncontrollably giddy all day. It's like a kind of crack-happy.

I know I might be setting myself up for a big fall, but it can't be helped. I'm happy and hopeful.

Even if we don't make December, we will make January, which is only 10 weeks. Holy cow! I'm counting down in weeks now!!! Yeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaawwwww

Is it wrong to hope your friend is sick?

I signed up to do this half marathon many months ago when I was all gung-ho about running. Recently, however, I'm not so gung-ho. I haven't really exercised in weeks. I'm pretty sure a jog to the other side of the room would leave me winded.

I asked my exercise buddy, Pam, if we were really going to do this, since she's almost as bad as I am. She said I don't have to, but she's going regardless. Well, that's almost like a double dog dare. I have to go. Even though we are certain to walk the whole thing. We may not even finish in the time limit. They will certainly have run out of the freebies by the time we get there.

But then today at work, Pam starts coughing. What????? Sore throat? Ear ache? Feverish, you say? Oh Dear, that's just horrible. Such a shame. Knowing Pam, she would rather drag her sick ass 13 miles to cross the finish than say "Uncle",but maybe....just maybe, she'll come to her senses and realize we shouldn't be doing this. I'll let you know.

The only picture of all our babies.

Nikki is the lonely black kitty in the corner.
Eddie is the gray monster in the front.
Bonnie is the cocker.
and the cuddly ones in the back from left to right: Poe, Chloe, and Sydney

Daily Blogging

I decided to start daily blogging. Even if I have nothing to say, (which is most of the time) I'll dig through the iphoto and come up with something to throw up there. Everyone prefers pictures anyway, and we've got some doozies. Jeff is not camera shy. In fact, he's taken to acting goofy whenever the camera comes out. Not sure why, but it makes for some funny photos.

Here's something to start with. Jeff's high school graduation. I think he's really proud of his "Flock of Seagulls" look. I told him I was doing this, so please don't think I'm being mean. He actually likes this picture. And I like laughing at it.

Welcome to the Back Side of October!!

My plan to stay busy in order to make the time go by quicker is working!! No doubt about it, time is flying. Tomorrow is our 22 month LID anniversary. TWENTY-TWO months!!! With several more to go. I'm thinking of having a 2 year LID anniversary party in December. Everyone would come over and say, "Poor, poor Georgia." :-) and bring me cake.

I'm getting weepy again, too. I almost started crying as we picked out paint today, because we are almost finally done with our house. Soon....finally. Also, the other day at work, we got this catalog that I love called Heifer, Int. In it you can order a cow for poor farms in Romania who will then provide food for a local orphange. You can buy Llamas for people in Peru, or a water buffalo for a village in Thailand. I flipped thru (er...I mean, one fell open) and I saw where you can buy geese for people in China. And that made me cry. In short, the wait is getting to me again.

It'll be another week or so before rumors about the next batch get cranked up and another 2 weeks or so until they actually arrive. If anyone would like to wager, I think the next cut-off will be December 9, 2005.

Until then, staying busy is the key. How are we staying busy? .... Well, home improvements are back underway. We're not doing the work ourselves anymore. We're busy and we want everything done before Christmas. We will have a handyman in the house for the next month or so. He's already replaced our front door from this mauve monstrosity... To this much lovelier glass door.


He's also started on this room. Don't be scared! It can't hurt you. It has been the house dumping grounds for the past 2 years. I'll post the "after" picture later. You better tell me you like it, too, because picking the color almost made me cry today.

Today we also had a Hardscape guy come over to talk about fixing our drainage issue (which is hysterical because we're having a severe drought here in Georgia.) We thought the guys would be hurting for work, and cut us a deal. No such luck. And tomorrow we have the cabinet guy coming to tell us what he can do with our 80's kitchen nightmare. See?.....lot's going on here.

No time to think about adoption or babies.