Computer Blues

Sorry everyone, our Internet has been on the fritz for the last week! I'm at the library now trying to give you a little something to read!! We are still waiting on a LID. My social worker said today that she would check on it. My friends and I have noticed that surprisingly things seem to be going faster than they used to with the LOA's and traveling dates!! This is good news for us, as we now are only waiting for China to give us the go-ahead!! Of course in the same breath (or typing cramp) my stomach starts to flip over every time I think of it! The flying, the new child, the whole language thing, my boys, the bathrooms in China!! Bathrooms are important to me and I'm in big trouble once we leave our hotel in China!! The good bathrooms in China are like a urinal, but set in the floor! They are called the "squatty potty." The average ones are just like going out in the woods here in the US- in an alley or empty spot behind a building somewhere. This is bad for me!! I can't even go in a porta-potty!! Oh well, Ellie better appreciate my sacrifices!

Sick boy has birthday party!

Today was Rorey's 5th birthday party! Unfortunately he started in yesterday with a fever and complaining of a stomach ache. After sleeping all night, this morning he had a 102.7 degree fever, was crying and saying his stomach hurt again! I had to go to church because I was singing on the praise team for two services so Daddy stayed home with Rorey. I loaded him up with Tylenol and took off! Amazingly he was doing fairly well when I got home, so I loaded him up with Advil and we went on with the party!! Poor little thing had fun opening presents, but didn't eat much cake and ice cream because of his stomach problem. He is such a trooper! What do you want to bet he picked up this little germ at Chuck E. Cheese on Thursday?

DTC Finally!

It's official, we are DTC as of Friday May 9th!! For thoses of you who don't know the lingo that means we sent our "documents to China." We should have an LID soon. (log in date) Of course the earthquake in China may slow us up, but right now we aren't sure what will happen.

Happy Mothers Day!

Welcome to our Mother's Day "free show." There was dancing, singing, laughing, you name it the boys did it! They looked pretty cute all dressed up in their play clothes, especially Rorey in the sombrero! Riley loves to wear the derby hat that belonged to my Uncle Bob before he passed away. I keep thinking next Mother's Day there will be three little cast members performing in our family room! Can't wait!

Brothers to Be

Well we decided to add a little human interest to our boring blog with some pictures of our big brothers to be! Both of these pictures were sent to Ellie in her little photo album of our house, family, dog, etc. Hopefully they are preparing her for the transition by showing her these photos everyday and explaining who we are!! She may need some extra explaining when it comes to Rorey! This picture shows his true personality! Riley of course is Mr. cool as usual, posing like he is in GQ magazine! All four of us are getting really excited and

a little nervous as this process seems to finally be coming to fruition! The realization that we are adding a new child to our family, and a four year old one at that has caused a little anxiousness but mostly happiness with our boys. We can't wait (well at least I can't) to get some girl stuff in this place!

Ni Hao! (hello)

Tonight Rick, Riley and I started Chinese leasons!! Of course all we learned tonight is how much we don't know! In addition to speaking, James is also going to teach us Chinese cooking once a month. He said Riley "has good tone." In Chinese there are four "tones" and if you say a word in the wrong tone it means something different! Hopefully by the time we go to China we will at least be able to ask for the bathroom! HAHA! We hope to keep Ellie speaking in Chinese, Riley learning and maybe even Rorey (once we get him to speak English correctly!)
It was exciting to start this new "family project", and I feel like a one hundred pound weight has been lifted off of my chest since our paperwork is out of here!

Paperwork off to St. Loius!

Well on May 20th it will be one year since we started this journey and finally, all of our paperwork is done and sent to our adoption agency! I'm so glad that it is out of my hands, and on it's way! It could possibly go out to China tomorrow if they don't need to make any changes and I haven't forgotten anything! What in the world! I'm not sure I would have done this if I would have known the problems we were going to come up against! Of course when we get that little girl in our arms it will all be worth it! One whole year of anxiousness, turmoil, frustration, nervous stomach,tearful days, and sleepless nights. Will I ever be the same again?
Now we start a new period of waiting! Waiting for China to give us our "official referral" and also our "travel approval." As everyone already knows, the Olympic games are being held in China in August. Obviously we DO NOT want to be there right before that! Realistically we are expecting to travel in late September or early October. I'm not sure what I will have to post about while we endure the two to three month wait for word from China! Maybe regular life stuff like Riley's baseball games, or Rorey's allergic reaction to Sulfa drugs!! Let me tell you, even without all of this adoption craziness, there is never a boring day at this house!

If you could see me now!

We have been gutting out all three of our upstairs bedrooms closets for the last week. I spent about 6 hours yesterday ripping, tearing, and shreading the wallpaper off of our walkin closets walls. Today I have been mudding and sanding in all three closets, and painting in the boys. I am filthy and my hair is covered in dry wall dust!! I will never understand why any one would wallpaper a closet, even though it is a walkin and doesn't really have a door. I took a picture of the horrible, ugly, mauve and federal blue flowered wallpaper with my cell phone, I'll see if I'm techy enough to get it to this blog! This will all be worth it when our closets are soooo collected and organized!! Oh yes and another surprise, we found the nastiest old carpet under a built in closet shelf. I have never seen carpet that ugly!! It is yellowy-orange kitchen type carpet with brown pea sized blobs all over it! At first I thought it was some kind of molded old padding or wood-that is how ugly it is!!! Well having an OLD house is never boring!