Little boy humor....

Since I won't have access to a computer this weekend. I have to get one last post in. I won't say where I'm at right now...

So my nephews stopped by last night. We were all talking about the adoption and what their new cousin will look like and about the adoption overall..

nephew " he won't be family'

me "yes, he will be family"

nephew"so he'll be part family"

me"no, he will just be family"

nephew"okay"

nephew as he giggles "he'll be family when he farts like Uncle Jon!!!"

me....nothing. Little boy humor, I can't wait!!!!

The computer saga continues...

I am at work right now so...shhhhhhh!!!!! The home computer is going back to the shop with Jon saying "I don't care what you do, just fix it!!!!"

So I'm off line again.....crapola!!!

I really did get something done...

See I told you I got some scrapbooking done....If you click on the picture it will get bigger for ya..
I'm not so thrilled with the stampage on this one, but it was important for me to get this title in.
On the inside of Jon's wedding band I inscribed "my one true love", oh and our wedding date. No excuses on a missed anniversary, right!!
This one is of me and my bestest...Miss Island Girl herself...Jen...I titled it "True" for obvious reasons...true friendship...this is where you all say awwwww...so sweet!!
And this is a picture that I love of us on the beach after we got married..starring towards forever. Sorry about the glare, but if it wasn't there you would notice that I was barefoot(I had shoes on when we got married) I love it.

So no news on the adoption, but I am feeling very oddly good about it right now. Like it won't be forever until we get our baby. Hmmm.. wonder what that means.

And for those of you that have my bellsouth web address, please email me so I have your email address. When our computer crashed he saved everything but everyone's email address. And if you don't have our bellsouth address, email me through this blog and I'll add you.

Tootles all!!

I'm baaaaaack!!!!!!

OMG, I hated not being with my computer. Last Friday I got home from work and as usual went straight to my computer. Clicked on the internet icon, and NOTHING!!! Tried again...Worse!! OMG I thought to myself. I called Best Buy and they told me it wasn't good(I read the error message). They told me how much it would cost, so we called someone else. I asked Jen to write a message for me letting everyone know that I was cut off from the online world. I see that she hijacked the blog. Thankfully she didn't reveal too much. She's such a great friend, but we've known eachother a loong time and she could've really outed me on a lot of things. Thankfully she didn't. When our other friend pulled up our computer, he told us it wasn't good. He wasn't sure that he would be able to save anything. We were very upset, b/c on our hard drive is the scanned copy of the birthfamily album. We had intended to copy the birthfamily album for our child to see later. Anyhow...long story short. He saved everything on our computer and I'm Back. It will probably take me a little while to catch up on everyone, but I will. So for a week with out my online addiction I did get some stuff done...

1. I repainted our master bathroom a metallic silver faux paint job. Yes this doesn't sound so hot, but it looks so good. Finally!! I hated the other grey we painted that looked blue. Now it looks so modern and cool, kinda like I knew what I was doing.
2. I got some scrapbooking done. I'm still working on the wedding album. I'll post some pictures later. But I got like 5 pages done.
3. I tried to burn the house down. I had a grease fire in the kitchen...okay so this doesn't fall under the "I got some stuff done.." category, but it happened. Mind you in my infinite wisdom I didn't want to "waste" the fire extinguisher on this pan fire. But I couldn't figure out how to get the fire out....can't use water...didn't have baking soda...couldn't waste the fire extinguisher. Yelled for my husband, after what seemed like an eternity of yelling he FINALLY comes running...in his underwear...half asleep...skinny legs...yelling "baking soda"..."We don't have baking Soda!!!" So anyways I poured salt on it til it went out.
4. Learned two things....

• When you have a grease fire, place the lid over the pan to smother the o2. The fire will go out. Oh yah forgot about that one.
• If you have a fire and you need help, don't just call out "JON" yell "FIRE!" Help will come much faster, sensing the urgency of the situation.

So that was my week without my computer. See if I'd just had my computer, I wouldn't have been so dangerous in the kitchen!!! I will catch up with you all this weekend. See ya soon. I can't wait to see what's been happening.

3.5 things you didn't know about Ann...

So Ann is still without a computer, so I figure as her best friend, I should continue to hijack her blog until I get busted!! lol!! So hmmm....what should we discuss tonight? oh...how about 3.5 things you didn't know about Ann.

1. In high school, Ann used to work for Little Caesar's pizza! To this day, she can tell you how many pieces of pepperoni go on a large pizza!

2. Also in high school, Ann barely gave, her now future husband, the time of day!! I'm serious folks...she barely remembers him.

3. Ann does not like to drive far distances without a map, and alot of visual markers to let her know that she is going in the right direction.

3.5 Ann is actually certified to teach CPR! (I personally did not know this until just a few weeks ago...go figure!)

Okay...so that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Until next time (or until Ann realizes I've been blogging for her again)...have a good week!!

Guest poster....

Hi everyone! This is Ann's friend Jen. I am guest posting for Ann tonight because her computer crashed.

This is the part where we all say "awwww....."! Because Ann's world has just crashed along with her computer. It has only been 5hrs since her computer crashed and she is still whining on the phone to me about how she has no access to email and no access to her blogs. She has no clue what to do with herself now. I told her she should scrapbook....she just laughed at me!

So if you have emailed Ann recently don't be upset if she doesn't answer you back right away!!

Thanks for letting me guest post!!

Peace,
Jen

Count with me...

ONE....TWO....THREE....FOUR.....FIVE!!!!!

Five months down. We're almost half way there. Can you feel it?

Can you feel the months passing by? This is the only time in my life when I want time to speed by. After our little one gets home, we are gonna want time to slooooooow down, so we can enjoy our baby. So we have made it through 5 months. Should we count again? Okay I won't make you count with me again......

Okay, maybe just one more time.....
One....Two.... Three....Four....FIVE MONTHS DOWN!!!
And FIVE MONTHS DONE!!!


**I wrote this Tuesday night, but waited until today Wednesday August 9th to post it. So the date is supposed to be August 9th-our 5 month wait date****

So I just learned..

....that we will not receive a picture with our referral. I'm not sure where I figured this, but I always thought that we would get the medical info with a picture. Now I have learned that we will get a very detailed medical and social history on the birthmother and maybe her family. But no picture. Cathwel wants you to make a decision based on the history, medical and so forth, not on a picuture. I learned this from my yahoo group-Adopting from Taiwan. Thanks Ladies, once again you are invaluable. Once we accept the referral we will get a bunch of pictures and monthly updates until we travel. So I'm not really upset by this b/c in my infinate wisdom, I was going to try and not look at any pictures anyways. Yah, I know I probably won't be able to hold out very long, but I was going to try as weak as I may be. I have a friend who adopted and she looked at the pictures, but her hubby didn't. He never saw their little one until he laid eyes on her in person(Hi sweetie, I know you're reading this) I thought this was so cool, so I was going to try, at least. I figure we wouldn't be able to see a true picture of a baby we conceived, and it's not like we would deny a referral as long as the baby was healthy. So in his true wisdom, God made it so I wouldn't get to look, until after we accepted our child. I know this is weird but I'm kinda excited about this. I worried about how I would feel based on what he looked like (yes this sounds horrible, but at least I'm honest). I didn't want to "think" anything based on a picture. Does this make any sense? I know that I will fall in love with our child the minute I see him, heck I'm in love with him now and I don't know anything about him, but this is something I've worried about. So now that weight is off my shoulders. We will be able to see the medical and social history and decide if this is our child...and yes I'm still going to try NOT to look.

Lesson #240: if you don't ask, they'll tell!!!

We received an email newsletter update on the Taiwan program. So I've decided I'm just not going to read my email anymore!!! They wanted us to be aware that the time frame for Taiwan referrals has lengthened. Knew that. So they are letting us know that as a result, some adoptive families in the Taiwan program will have to update their Home Study and CIS(immigration) approvals. Okay, so I knew this, but I sure don't like seeing it in writing. Jon is upset even though we knew this was a possibility. But it looks like it is more than a possibility now. I'd also like to know why our fingerprints expire next June, but our I171h doesn't expire until November of next year('07). It doesn't make any sense. So I called the agency to ask a few questions. Jon and I decided we would just redo these things at the end of January and eat the cost. But I find out from our agency that we CAN'T redo our fingerprints before 1month from expiration. So if we get our referral in March(12 months of waiting) and we wait 4-6 months for the court process obviously our fingerprints will expire, but we won't be able to redo them until May. Now it takes a couple of months to process the fingerprints, putting us in the possiblity of having to wait to travel because of our freakin' fingerprints. Which is what we wanted to avoid by redoing it all in January. Can you sense our frustration? Supposidly there is a bill in congress right now trying to change all this, allowing our I171H forms to be valid for a longer period of time. It seems that all programs(countries) are running into this problem because the referral wait is increasing all around. ARGGGGGGHHHH!!! I just wish that once, just once things would go easily for us. The woman that I spoke with at our agency was so sweet and very nice, bless her heart. But this is very frustrating. At the end of the letter our agency sent it said :" At times the wait and additional paperwork may seem overwhelming and frustrating, but please know, you wil soon be bringing home your bundle of joy...sincerley..."

I know this, really I do. And I know that in the end it will all be worth it, but I just want it to go smoothly for once, just once.

Lesson #239: Don't ask!!!

So our agency as always promptly replied to my email last night. I should've just let myself live in my fantasy world where despite the trend of 9-12 months for a referral, we are very special and wouldn't have to wait that long. You see in my fantasy world our childs birthmother has dreamed of a mother for her child, she is Asian, or part Asian and her name is Ann. So the orphanage would search and search all the photoalbums until she found us. And this would happen very soon. And as everyone else has to wait 9-12 months, WE would receive our "call" somewhere around 7 months(my original fantasy was 4 months) Yes I said it was MY fantasy world. And it was very nice there. I liked it in my fantasy world. In my fantasy world I am happy. There are no let downs in my fantasy world. And in my fantasy world WE ARE SPECIAL!! So I'd like to know who gave our adoption agency the very HUGE knife that burst our bubble?

Their very nice reply:
"Hi Ann,

Yes, unfortunately it's too soon for news on your case. Currently families are waiting close to a year for the referral of a baby. Our most recent families to receive referrals waited 11.5 months to be chosen by a birth family.....

Thinking of you,

Bonnie"

So with that in mind, if we go the 12 months, we will have to redo everything. We will have to get an update to our homestudy, redo fingerprints, and the dreaded I171H(immigration). So folks, I have my comfy shoes on, a pair of sweats, and a grungy ol' tshirt...I'm buckling down for a very LONG wait.

"I'm really starting to get excited about our adoption..."

That's what Jon just said to me. It feels so good to hear him express that. He even asked me to email our agency to see if they still know we're alive. He asked me how long it had been since I even talked with them. It's been a couple of months and even though I know they have nothing to tell us right now, I emailed them anyways. Just because Jon asked me to. We'll see what they say.