Happy Father's Day

I hope everyone celebrated with their fathers today and had a wonderful day. We rec'd new pictures just in time for father's day.

Jon got the rockin' pink camouflage diaper bag from his mother. Love it!! Claire gave her Daddy his first Father's day card today. I took the above picture and made a card from Claire, because it is Daddy's first picture with his girl. It read:

We haven't met yet yet,
But I can already see
That you're my Daddy
A family we'll be.

I can feel your love,
Across big oceans blue
I know you're coming
Your word is true.

You will be my rock,
When my world is blurry.
You'll dry my tears.
Come quickly, now hurry.

Soon Daddy please,
Bring me home, hug me tight.
Your love is my haven,
My Daddy, my knight!!








<----We(I) laugh and call this the "cleavage shot" Jon didn't find it as humorous as I did.


Our baby girl didn't gain any weight on this report. Actually she did gain a little, but lost it. I'm not too worried. She is tripodding, which means we'll have a crawler soon. She can sit up steadily by herself. She's drinking the same amount of formula, 150cc, every 4 hours. But they have started her on "sub foods". Unfortunately the sub foods are in Chinese and they didn't translate that for us. So we don't know what she's eating. I am just assuming congee of some sort.

Soon Claire. It won't be long now!

Handme downs rock

A friend of mine from work told me that she was going through her daughters old clothes. She asked me if I wanted some. Sure I thought, that would be very helpful. So I figured that she would pass on a few outfits. Seriously...she sent a big lawn bag full of clothes. There are so many outfits I won't have to buy Claire anything until she's two(but then I have hand me downs from our niece for that age range). Thanks so much Gail!!

Then Jon went out and bought the mattress for her crib today too. It's really starting to feel like we are actually going to have a living, breathing, giggling, smiley baby girl in the house!!!

Simple things make me happy..

.....like sending Claire another care package. I love packing it all up and thinking about her in the outfits, or playing with the toys we send. The flower dress is the first dress her Daddy bought her. But since we aren't sure if it's going to fit her or not(now or when she comes home), we had to send it. There are also two other short outfits, socks, a bunny rattle, and the most expensive(at least I thought) bearista bear from Starbucks. I guess we shouldn't buy her stuffed animals from Starbucks.

Oh and I know I shouldn't love, love, love this bib. But I had to register for it and my sister got it for me...errr... I mean for Claire. You know she'll be sporting that ALL THE TIME!!! j/k...well sorta. Heck I'm not going to apologize I really do like. What can I say? Counting down the days in the "under six weeks" timeline til travel approval. I can't wait!!!

A gift for Claire

Lovin' the new header. It is a gift from Sarah . Thank you so much Sarah I love it. It's amazing to me the friendships that have come from this journey. We hope together, pray together, and support eachother each step of the way. We get excited for each milestone that is accomplished. And lend a shoulder for each time that things seem impossible. We're almost there. I remember watching Sarah's journey to Jerimiah and now she's journeying to Josiah. Amazing stuff.

Anticipation rising!!!

We heard from our coordinator today. My heart just dropped as I opened the email...But alls good:

"Cathwel reports that all went smoothly at the hearing. The judge was satisfied. And we are now waiting for the decree to be issued. Once issued you will be given travel approval. We estimate the wait for travel approval to be under 6 weeks. That's my best estimate."

Once we get travel approval, Meeting Claire will be approximately 4 weeks later. Or that's at least what I've been seeing with other families. So August Friends, It looks like we get to meet our daughter in August!!!!

Nada...

*Still no news from the agency. I am waiting until we hit the two week mark, until I ask them if they heard anything. That's Wednesday.

*A big Thank you to Jon's brother, for calling in a favor on Memorial day and getting someone to open a store for us so we could buy the part to fix the A.C. Seriously- Massive appreciation!!

*One of my best friends was in town this weekend. Love spending time with her and her family. Can't wait until we can get Claire into the pool and introduce her to "Ed's oyster shack".

*A big Thanks to hubby for offering(without my having to ask) to help out my sister and move her stuff into storage. I wasn't going to ask and I didn't have to, because he's just like that. Makes my heart all a flutter....

Welcome to the HOT box

Our A.C. is broken again. This is an annual thing. Seriously. EVERY SUMMER. Good thing is that it's not a terribly hot night. Our dogs do not agree. Tomorrow is a holiday. So unless Jon can fix it. We will remain HOT. He will try to fix it. I will stay away from him. But you're not interested in the humid, sticky state of affairs in our house. The mural is FINISHED. Enjoy the pictures....(if you want to see them bigger, click on the pictures)

Wait....you didn't want to see room pictures, did you? But we worked so hard on the pictures and you were a captive audience. Thanks for the indulgence. Now onto what you've been waiting for....

CLAIRE in all her glory. She's amazing. I can't wait to meet her, hold her and kiss her little face.

She's in a dress!!! Can't wait to dress her up.
Checking out the Grandparents. Jon's Dad really is in the album, even though this picture has him cut out. My folks are on the left. Jon's Mom is in pink.
Lovin' this picture for some reason. She's wearing a sleeper we sent, along with the blanket, and we also sent the giraffe.
My new favorite. She just looks like she's chillin'. I LOVE the onesie we sent. It's the "Daddy says I'm beautiful" onesie. I also made the hat and cream colored blanket around her.
Tummy time!!

No news

A few of you have asked me what happened in court. We have not heard a thing. We don't anticipate hearing. I asked our coordinator if we will and she told us that in about a week..or so, we'll hear either things "went smoothly" or that the judge is asking for more info. I asked around on my groups though and most people didn't hear a thing until travel notification. So I'm holding the impression that no news is good news. It's been several days since court and I would think that if the judge needed more info then our social worker in Taiwan would feel compelled to let us know right away so we could get all the info needed. So I'm hoping that things went well and she didn't "need" to contact us. It's a waitng game....so now onto waiting for travel notice.

On another note, yesterday we rec'd the coveted yellow envelope from our agency. I love the yellow envelope because it has pictures of our daughter. She's getting so big. So beautful. So healthy. Once we show family I'll post pictures. On Sunday the rest of the family will see her smiling face. Til Sunday friends.....

Court will now commence...

I'm not watching the clock...

I did not notice that it's now 9 am in Taiwan on May 21st.

The thought didn't cross my mind that sometime before I wake our case will be heard.

Nope not me.

I'm not thinking about the fact that in Taiwan right now, soon, our names will be uttered in a court room.

I've not even uttered a thought about the fact that someone is presenting our names in conjection with Claire's.

Not for one moment.

As court approaches....

My stomach is doing flip flops. The site of food is making me sick(not that I couldn't miss a meal). My face is breaking out and I just want to know that everything is okay. I stare at her picture and cry....it's not this end of the wait. I'm handling this end of the wait okay. We're preparing for her, it's fun getting her room ready. But when I stare at her picture and think that someone on the other end of the world is determining whether she gets to come home and we're not there, it drives me mad. If they had questions and we were there I could say me peace. She is my daughter in my eyes and in my heart. I just hate not knowing. I hate being out of control. Jon on the other hand is asking me why I'm worried. "it's going to be fine Ann""relax, try and get some sleep..." See how that just makes me want to strangle him. Jon is the opposite of me. He has that "everything's going to be alright" mentality with everything. Very rarely does he worry. "She's coming home soon, sweetie...."
Me on the other hand, I could pull out my arm hair one at time...I'm so nervous...

So this is the conversation today...

(I have just taken a shower and Jon says...)
You look real cute with that zit cream on your lip

yeah well my face is breaking out....Claire's birthmom is going to look at me and say that I'm not the one she picked out

Well good thing I'm better looking in person, then in pictures....

He can always make me laugh and lighten my mood. So Tuesday night as we sleep, they will have our hearing. I doubt I'll sleep. Say a prayer everyone that things go well. Let's pray her home!!!

Coming along

It's coming along, slowly but surely. Hope you all don't get tired of seeing room pictures..we should have new Claire pictures in a couple of weeks...til then....
So not the best side of me, but I wanted to show proof that I really am working on the room too!!

<----wood does come in purple, right?







<----this turned out so well, but it's not showing up well in the picture. We(I) still have a lot of detail painting to do though.


<-----Isn't she purty?





<----the latest addition

And last, but not least. Jon's Mom(the MIL-seriously she likes being called the MIL)...has started the shopping spree. I hear she did some major Grandma shopping. On Mommy's day we got our first car seat...yay!!! It's not out of the box yet, b/c our cars are not deserving of such greatness(they're filthy), but soon we'll be sporting the car seat! I'm sure it will make the chicks swoon when Jon rolls with the new car seat!! Thanks so much!!

Need I say more....EEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!!

Good morning,

I have an update to share with you. Your court date has been scheduled for May the 21st. The adoption decrees are generally issued between one to two months of the court date. Once the decree has been issued Cathwel will inform us and you will be able to plan your travel.

Have a terrific weekend.
Bonnie

yup..

I forget that I have a picture of Claire on my badge. On one side it's my work badge, the other is one of her referral pictures. So depending on how it hangs, it's me or her. I forget that. People at work always see her and I forget. I was in the elevator the other day when someone I didn't know asked...."is that your daughter?" I almost froze, what do I say? Seriously this is the conversation I had with myself. Do I tell this stranger that yes, she is my daughter with the disclaimer that we are adopting her. Do I tell the whole story that we still have to go through court, but in our eyes she is our daughter..can they tell that she didn't come from me? No this woman can't tell by her picture, and she didn't want to hear the whole story, and I shouldn't feel guilty, there doesn't need to be a disclaimer when people ask me this. So with head held high I answered her..."yup, that's my daughter". And it felt good. No disclaimer, no nothing. Simply yes she is ours. Cool stuff.

More fairies..

So I got a little reprimanded by the "arteast" for not displaying more of the room in progress.
So here is a look at the Daddy to be working hard on his little girl's room. <------he's doing the bottom of the fairy tree.







This little beauty we finished outlining on Friday night. She will be floating above her crib.



<----this is the finished outline of the entire fairy tree house.

-a close up of one of the flowers-

The boy fairy on his snail...going to the fairy house. So as you can see progress is slow, with lots of detail painting to do. We didn't get a lot done this weekend as we had a wedding and first communion to attend. But progress will resume soon...

Progress

We are so pleased that it is coming out well. This is the fairy that will hang above her changing table. I still have detail work to do overall, on the flowers, her skin, and on her face. Her wings are a peralescent(?) pink and I think it's reflecting the flash and that's why you can't see the color. But I'm excited that it looks descent. The tree in the post below is so detailed that I think I'm going to tackle that one last. I think we are doing 2-3 more pictures, not quite sure how it's all going to come together, but it's progress. Anyways..I said I would show progress, so here it is.

Mural preview

So here's a preview of one of the mural pictures that Jon is doing. I had to make it black and white and mess with the sharpening and stuff to try to get the outline to show up at all. It wouldn't show well at all in the photo. I know it's not a great picture of the outline, but you can get the jist. It looks soooo good!! I am so excited at how well it's turning out. I'm going to start painting later, but I can't paint while Jon is projecting/outlining. I'm a little nervous about messing up the pictures with the painting....Jon's advice to me...."just stay in the lines".....yeah...kinda figured that!

p.s. if you click on the photo you can see the mural better

An update to Melt your heart!!!

Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks and kiss her neck!! I love love love her face. I've been staring at her pictures for two days now and I couldn't wait to post them any longer. She is just so darn cute. This is my new favorite picture. I can just hear her belly laugh when I look at this.

She was 16 pounds and 24 inches about three weeks ago. She looks so healthy and that's the best thing. She's eating 150cc every four hours. She can hold objects briefly. She initiates vocalization with adults, can lift and hold her head.

Her report also says that she watches her own hands, which I am told is a good thing. Another tug at our hearts thing that Jon noticed right away was that before under Father and Mothers name, it was blank....

NOW.....we are listed as her Mother and Father!!

Bring on the tears....again...

Enjoy!!

Bedroom suite complete..

We were able to get the rest of the nursery furniture to add to the crib. It's soooo beautiful and we love it. Thanks to my parents for gifting us all this!! Right now we're trying to figure out how to arrange it in her room. We have come to the conclusion that we are big furniture people in a small furniture house. Claire is going to have to play in the drawers cuz there's not much room left. Notice she already has a stuffed animal collection going. The dogs however believe that all the new toys are for them....that's going to be an issue....haha!

We have decided that we are going to try to do the mural ourselves and have purchased a small projector. Fairies and Fairies all around is what we're going to do. Jon is going to trace it all and I am going to do the painting. Uggghhh....I hope it turns out okay! I'll show the progress b/c there's not much to report.

Our paperwork made it back to the orphanage on March 31st. Say a prayer that we get a fast, efficient judge. We don't anticipate hearing anything until July. Hopefully at that time we will know about our court date, then travel two months later. PRAY!!!

The care package was rec'd on Friday, so visions of Claire with lots and lots of new things gets met through the day...

The weepy gene?

Please tell me when that weepy gene thingy sneaks in? Because all I was trying to do was track a package from here to ....oh I don't know...Taiwan, and all I did was read this:

Your item left the United States from MIAMI at 6:52 PM on April 8, 2008.

Next thing you know....tears....

GAWD!! Seriously!! Is this going to happen a lot?

1st care package

So I'm thinking we may have sent just a little too much. Jon said he felt better knowing that we sent her some clothes. The care package included: a photo album with pictures of us and the grandparents, a giraffe that plays music, a crib toy that lights up when spun, the softest blanket eva, a homemade blanket, booties, and hat(b/c I know that she just needs a hat in the tropics), 4 sleepers with footies, the "Daddy says I'm beautiful" onsie, and two disposable cameras.
We're trying to hold off on some of the other outfits we bought her b/c we know that we may not get any of this back. We're hoping that she's home before she outgrows some of them. If it looks like she'll be too big before she's home, then we'll send them over.
It weird to know that in a little over a week, our precious baby girl will have something from us, finally!!

34 well earned years!!!

I was wrong...
I thought it was going to be a bad birthday.
I thought that yet again, being without a child, would define me.

But I was wrong.
It was not being childless that defined me, but the journey that got me here.
So now it is simple.

I was wrong.
I was never without
I just had to get there

I was always a mother
journeying to her child.
Waiting for her to find me

So I was wrong.
It was a good birthday
Because she found me.

Outa my hands..

The paperwork did make it to a fed ex yesterday and we rec'd confirmation this morning that our agency has rec'd it. WHOOHOOO!! They said they will get it to Cathwel ASAP. So you may ask..what's next my friend...How long will it take?
So glad you asked..because I was wondering the same thing..
I asked our coordinator...

She informed us that it takes(I always love this disclaimer..give or take) about two months to get a court date.
I was satisfied with that bit of information...Jon was not..
So I had to ask again..

And she told us that after we rec'v a court date, it is typically another two months until travel. So I am guesstimating August. And since our fingerprints will expire once again on August 25th, Let's hope we get a travel date before they expire.
I really anticipate having to redo them once more because we'll be so close...but shhhhhh!! Don't tell Jon that just yet!!

Not today!!

It's just not meant to be. It seemed like a comedy of errors today as we tried to get our authenticated paperwork back to our agency. It got delivered to us today, Jon dropped it off at my job, so I could make copies..
The goal was to get to the fed ex place by 5pm...
BUT....
-I had to stay late at work b/c a rep was running late. Which put me leaving close to 4pm
-All I saw were brake lights...Traffic was stopped on the highway.
-Jon was not back from trying to get meds at Walgreens when I finally got home
-Finally, get a few signatures, a couple of copies.....shooooot...I FORGOT, WE need the BIG check and one more notarization....
-Jon and I off to the bank to get a notarization and the "BIG" certified check. It's 4:45

NEW GOAL....get to other fed ex place, across the river and through the woods by 6pm
-Out of copy paper
-stop off at Winn Dixie to get paper
-Winn Dixie out of paper
-Go back the other way(by the bank we were just at) to get paper at Office Depot.
-{pass the fed ex truck picking up the 5 pm pickup}
-Back to our house, sign, sign, more copies, copy, organize...back out the door.
-Okay so not going to make it to the OTHER fed ex place by 6pm

NEW GOAL..get to the main fed ex hub by 7pm
-Drive halfway across town to what we think is the fed ex main hub...Nope it's the freight hub, with no one in the office.
Seriously?

NEW GOAL...just get to any fed ex place so Jon doesn't need to go another day without sleep and it will be ready tomorrow without an extra trip
-We're halfway to downtown, so we drive the other half...
-FINALLY....with paperwork in hand....go up to the counter..
-"we need to mail this"
-"fed ex?"
-"Seriously dude, we're in a fed ex kinkos, what do you think?"
-"Our system just went down"
-"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"
-"nope we have a call into tech support"
-"Thank you very much"
Out the door...
CAR WON'T START!!!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!

Another turn of the key and the car started, but I'm thinking that we weren't supposed to get these papers out tonight. Ya think? So off we headed home....

Never thought we'd see that!!

All the way from Taipei, Taiwan......
Making it's debut in Claire's room...


With the help of an unsuspecting new Daddy
and two unsuspecting furry siblings..


THE CRIB...
complete with a fill in Claire, and the biggest pink bunny ever...








I never thought I would see the day when there would be a crib nestled in the corner. This was always the "soon to be baby's room". It was the scrap room, the guest room, friends and relatives room, but it never seemed to get to the point of just being the baby's room. Now it is!! Now there's a crib in Claire's room!!

7..no..8..no...wait...7.....huh?

We rec'd a phone call today from TECO. We paid for expidited service for the authentication of 7 items. But apparently they counted 8. I swear it was 7. I went over in my head all the items that needed to be authenticated and couldn't for the life of me think of what the 8th item could be. But since regular service is 2-6 days, if they waited for us to send them the extra 23 dollars for the extra document we would fall under the regular service anyways. So I told them to just authenticate the 8 items with regular service(which is cheaper). They told me that they would issue us cash in the return envelope since they would then owe us some change(anyone else think that is weird...oh well) Anyways....after thinking and thinking about how I caused my child to have to stay a few days longer in the orphange I rushed home to prove that it was only 7 items. I looked again at all the documents, as we had made a copy of what we sent. 7...there were only 7 items...I made Jon come over and count with me...7...see Jon...7. Utterly annoyed with me, but thankful that the mistake wasn't his...he told me to call them and try and figure it out. So again they pulled our file...8 they tell me, there are 8 items..Seriously? What are the items....wellllll come to find out that an extra little document slipped it's way into the envelope during the midnight frenzy to get all the paperwork together. So now we will have an official TECO stamp on our agency referral acceptance contract.....which needed to be notarized, but not really TECO'd. Oh well. I'm sure they'll find that cute.

GIFTS

The generosity is already pouring in. Claire is already starting to receive great gifts from family and friends alike. I'm sure that I'll have a hard time showing them all and thanking everyone. So from the start..Thank You to everyone for all the wonderful gifts. Claire has rec'd clothes, stuffed animals, handmade blankets(one of which I don't show b/c it has our last name on it), bowls with spoons, and forks, sippy cups, clothes....all from loving family and friends. She is a much anticipated and much loved little girl already!!

TECO bound!!

On Thursday night one of my closest friends sister(who's also a friend) notarized all our stuff for us. Thank you Charlie!! We always knew that she would do it for us, but I always hate to call in favors from people. It makes me feel like I'm 'using' someone and that's why we didn't initially go to her. But since the girl at the bank was unaware of her job duties(yeah, I'm still a little irritated) we had to call in the favor. Thankfully so....we got all the paperwork together and Jon got it to fed ex on Friday. The other good thing about going to my friends house was that Claire got this...














Isn't' that just too too cute. And it means more because my friend Jennifer is a die hard Georgia fan. I'm surprised that this outfit didn't spontaneously catch on fire in her house. Thank you Jennifer!!

And I saw this the other day and thought it was so so sweet I had to buy it for her. I can't wait to see a picture of her in it.

So all is well, we should get the TECO papers back next week, then off to our agency, then back to TAIWAN and into court!! It's so weird. I remember reading all about others who were TECO bound and it seemed so far away. Now it's us. WE'RE TECO BOUND!!

To the B*t*h at the Bank today...

NO You do not know what it is like. You could not sympathize with our situation. Have you waited in excess of five years for a family, then two of those for a picture of your child that resides on the other side of the world? Because if you knew what that was like then, you would have notarized the Effin contract. Do I know what the contract says? YES!! I provided you with the translation. But just so you know. Your notary stamp has nothing to do with what the document says, only that we signed it, and that we are who we say we are. That's it. The document could say in English that my Brother resides on Mars, and you would have to notarize my signature, that is it. Nothing else. You effin witch. Seriously could you show one ounce of compassion. We are not the only people in the United STates that have needed to sign an adoption contract in Chinese. Seriously it goes on every day. You told me that you would notarize the translation, Please explain to me what the FUCK good that would do me in a Taiwanese court? Don't give me that flippant' smile, and tell me you wish you could help me. If you wish you could help me then you would have done it and notarized the contract!! You could loose your license? Seriously your license, to notarize? ARe you kidding me? It's not a license to practice medicine lady. No one is going to die if you notarize our contract. But instead, because of you, because you choose NOT to notarize our Contract, my child, my sweet sweet daughter will have to spend more time in an orphanage because now we have to wait yet another day to get our documents notarized, then copied, sent to TECO and so on. Because of you, you little witch. I will find the supporting documentation that states you were supposed to notarize it. And I will provide you with the information on what your job is. Bite me@!@!@!

RANT DONE...I normally try not to use outright profanity on this blog(even though I do in real life), BUT she warranted the F word!!

Today...

The 9th. Of every month. I celebrated it. I cringed it. I watched it's passing every month with nary a word. I marked it's coming and going every month. Today would have been 24 months on the waiting list. 24 was causing much strife and knots in my stomach. I hated 24. I knew it was coming. But it didn't see us, not this time. And I am grateful that I didn't have to post a big ugly 24, but instead a big beautiful picture of Claire. But it has visited my friends. And some of 24's friends have visited my friends. I don't like 24 and his friends. Go away. Stay away from my friends!!!
To my friends that are still waiting...I am thinking of you. I know that it is hard. I'm going to hunt down 24 and his friends and annihilate them....Banish them...roast them...
On the Anniversary of what would have been 24 months for us, I am celebrating the strength and support that you all have given me to get through each month to that call. Thank you for journeying with us, celebrating, crying, hoping, and praying. It has made the difference. And I hope and pray that you are sharing that call and photo with me very soon!!

{{{HUGS}}}

She's not missing any bottles!!

We rec'd the rest of the paperwork yesterday. I will tell you that I am a little overwhelmed and had to just put it away for a day. Jon is out of town for the weekend so we can't do anything about it right now. You would think that after 5 plus years of trying to have a family then almost 2 years on a waiting list, that we would be ready to bring little Miss Claire home...NOT!! We have so much to do, so much to buy, so many things to sign, gifts to buy........Can I just fast forward to holding her in my arms....

Our last stats had her at 60 cm, with her wt @ a whopping 14.3 pounds. Seriously, I don't think she's missing any bottles. She's a healthy little thing and that's how we likes it.

Oh yeah, and here are more pictures to ooogle over..

I don't know why I love this picture so much, she has this odd look on her face, but for some reason it's my favorite right now!

Love her little smile!!