February, 2009

And as a result the children have been watching way more TV then I normally allow. How do I know? Witness this exchange:
Miriam: (runs in to room all excited) "Momma, Momma, Mr Rogers is on!!"
Momma: "That's nice, sweetie"
Miriam: "I'm SOO happy, I'm going to go hug the TV!!"

We have our CA (consulate appointment) March 25th! This means we are ON for travel March 11th. WOOOHOOO, baby girl, Momma is coming!! Now to buy those plane tickets!!

We got TA (travel approval) today!!! WooHoo!! Our agency is requesting our CA (consulate appointment) and assuming they get the one they are asking for we will definitely be traveling on March 11th.

What nice news to receive on the day Katie turns 15 months!! We will Have her in our arms in a little over three weeks! Double woohoo!! 

Our agency called today to make sure we have everything in order and to see if we have any travel questions. They told us they expect TA (travel approval) this Friday or Monday. They told us that they will had to divide our group of families, because there are so many. This is sad because the families have started bonding and some of my online friends are in a different group from our family. We are in the second group to go. And, if nothing changes, we will be leaving March 11th! Yay! We will have Katie in our arms before she turns 16 months old. While I would love to have Katie a week earlier and travel with my friends, the really good thing about later travel is that we will get to see our friends N & P who live in China! They plan to met us in Beijing and if we were traveling the 4th, they wouldn't be able to.

Now I really need to get busy!!

Praise God we received an update on our little Katie today! I'm so happy. We learned she is 28 inches tall which is 10th percentile on the US (!) charts. She is reported to weigh in at 23 pounds, but I wonder if they are weighing her with all her clothes on. If not, that puts her at 60th percentile on the US charts! Big girl, especially for being a cleft affected kid in an orphanage. Many other little ones have not fared nearly as well!

But the best part of all is that a recent traveler was able to get pictures. And the very best part?? She is SMILING!! Such a sweet little smile it is too!

Yay! Just got the email that our travel visas are on their way back to us! Now if we could just get that pesky Travel Approval....

Not much going on here... just waiting. Waiting on visa's which should arrive midweek next week. Waiting on travel approval... hopefully that will be here by next Friday. I'm finding to hard to get motivated to do the stuff I need to do as a result. I need to clean my house well and put up 2 months of frozen meals, but no motivation here. :)

I'll leave you with a few Miriam-isms.
Heard a lot lately. "Oh no, what are we gon'ah do now?"
Heard when she wants to cuddle with me. "I want to be hers with you."  Apparently when we are apart we are not "hers".

Oh, there is one piece of posible good news. Hopefully by Tuesday we will have a new picture of our baby girl. Another family is traveling to pick up their son at her SWI and will ask to see her and get pictures. *fingers crossed*

Well, since poor Evan never got a proper nursery due to his sudden arrival and since the girls' room was already decorated for Miriam, I decided to give Evan his big boy room instead of doing a nursery for Katie.  So after almost 2 years, Evan finally has a room just for Evan (it was also a guestroom in its previous life).

The theme is "Transportation" and the breakdown goes like this:

• Primary-color Furniture (bed frame/headboard, desk & chair, and shelf) - $50, used from friend
• Fabric to re-cover chair & make two curtains - $7
• Dresser - free from neighbor
• Hardware to make dresser gender neutral - $17
• Paint to cover gold on dresser - free, re-appropriated from other project
• Multi-color ceiling fan - free, already in room
• Mattress - new, $100
• Box-spring for bed - free, was mine growing up
• Canvas to cover torn bottom of box-spring - free, re-appropriated from other project
• Bed skirt to cover rest of old box-spring - $12
• "Transportation" theme sheets - new off ebay, $17
• Train blanket - gift from Mimmi
• Bed-rail - free, off freecycle
• "Transportation" rug - free, off freecycle
• Pattern for wall murals - free, created myself off of online pictures
• Paint/brushes for wall murals -  free, re-appropriated from other project

I think I did pretty good if I do say so myself! :)  Have a look see.

I've written before about Amanda who runs the Starfish Foster Home for orphan children in China. Well, Amanda needs our help. She has been ask to take in a group of cleft affected babies who have no where to go as the orphanage is overflowing. Amanda had hoped to start a Cleft House for such babies some time in the future when she had the funds, but now there is the need so she is stepping out in faith that the funds will come. She had taken in 9 beautiful little ones. You can see their pictures here, here, and here on her blog. Amanda needs 80 people to commit to donate $25 a month for a year to care for these 9 precious little ones. If more money comes in she will take more children. You can read all about it here.

As most of you know from reading this blog, our Katie is cleft affected. Children born with cleft lip and palate often struggle to suck and are very difficult to feed. In orphanages, there are often not enough caregivers to take the time that is needed to feed these children as much food as they need. To make things worse, the special bottles that help make feeding cleft affected infants easier are not available in China! I have read that something like 90% of cleft affected children in China do not survive infancy, primarily for lack of the time and special tools to feed them properly. How awful!  Please, consider supporting Starfish as they make a difference for one more little cleft affected baby!

Today is a sad day at Westhaven. We said good-bye to Grandpa George this morning. He is on his way to Atlanta today to spend a little time with his son and then he will be flying out of the country Monday the 9th. It may be as long as 2 years before we see him again... or at least before the kids see him again.  The kids love him so much. Even though we have have tried to prepare them, I know that it's going to be rough tomorrow morning when I have to tell them that Grandpa isn't downstairs in his room anymore.

God speed Grandpa George! We love you and miss you already! Remember there will always be a room here at Westhaven for you... your coat's in the closet and your work shoes are in the mudroom... and they will be there whenever you come back our way again!

The question burning on everyone's mind.... "When will you travel?" Well, we still don't really know. We are still waiting on TA (travel approval) and the earliest I expect that is the week of Feb 16th. Once we have TA, the window of travel will narrow but still can not be confirmed..... we need CA (consulate appointment) for that! CA will tell us when we can come to the US Consulate in China to get Katie's visa to travel here... everything has to be planned around that appointment. So we wait.

In other travel news, we learned last week that Aunt Kristin who was to travel with me will not be able to. While we wish she could, the very good news is that we re-thought Brian's traveling! Now Brian will be traveling for the first part of the trip and will be there when Katie joins our family! There are a number of positives in this not the least of which is that this will make Katie a US citizen when her little feet touch US soil. Believe me, the less you have to deal with the US Office of Immigration, the better for you!  Of course, I have to admit that I am also excited about the prospect of 3 days with Brian without a kid in tow for the first time in over 3 years!

In other adoption news, we are moving right along with packing and planning and getting ready. I need to go over the paperwork again, but now that Brian is traveling there is nothing really to do that I haven't done. My various "To Do" lists are down to only 2 lists and one has only 2-3 things left on it. My packing list is revised and complete (Brian's traveling makes packing A LOT easier!) I have already started packing... Katie's stuff is 95% packed or at least stacked together by the suitcase. Really, packing is one of those things I am very good at if I do say so myself! :)

We had a "Travel Conference Call" with our agency on Tuesday. Not really anything new, but there were 21 families on this call!! We learned that our agency is considering splitting up the group of us who will be going to Henan. I really hope not, but whatever happens, happens!