My first baby shower!

Well this weekend I had a small baby shower with 6 friends that I have met since moving here. It was so nice of them to do that for me and it was so much fun. We had a great time at a very nice Chinese restaurant. I kept waiting for us to be thrown out due to all the noise we made! I want to thank Amy, Melissa, Kearston, Amy's mom Sandy, Jen, and Tracy. All the gifts were great, from the bath stuff, toys, baby care items, wonderful homemade purse and mouse, and the stuff for me for the plane ride! But I have to say that the gift that brought me to tears and I think everyone else at the table was the special bracelet from Amy, Melissa, Sandy and Kearston. I am sorry to everyone else but there is no topping those bracelets. They have all seen Jaden's room and know that the kid lacks for nothing!(Hey, I had to have something to do for three years!) When Melissa brought her wonderful daughter Lily home from China they started a tradition of buying a charm for a bracelet on the anniversary of Lily's family day. Well these wonderful people got together and started a bracelet for not only me but for Jaden too! My bracelet already has a fortune cookie, yin/yang sign, heart, ladybug, baby carriage, airplane, jade, and the cutest baby shoe with ladybugs on it. I have been wearing it all day! Jaden's little bracelet has a star, sun and heart which is what her name means. So now every year on Jaden's family day we will get a charm for my bracelet and her's together.(I have to admit that I have already spent time on the internet today picking out which one I will get on our referral day, ya'll may have created a monster) I have to admit that it really hit me when I put my bracelet and Jaden's next to each other to take the picture. Wow, in a few months my daughter is going to be wearing that bracelet! Thank ya'll so much, that will be something that we will both cherish forever!

A Big Thank You!

I just had to send a big thank you out to the people who signed the petition for the I600A issue that I sent out! Thank you Mom, Dad, Lisa and Brannon. It means a lot to me that you took time to do that, and I am sure it will mean alot to the babies that get to come home. There are now over 12,000 signatures!

Referrals up to 2/15/2006!

So referrals came out this week and CCAA matched those that were LID up to 2/15/2006! For those that are counting that leaves 27 days before us. We are really getting close to the matching room!!!
I love seeing all the pictures of the babies that are referred each month. This month there were a few boys! Now I know most people think you cant get boys from China but you can. We said we wanted an infant girl but you never know with CCAA. They told us we would wait 6 months and here we are 30 months later. I have had people ask me what we would do if we were referred a boy? Well after we picked ourselves up off the floor we would jump for joy over a boy! Then I would sell alot of baby girl clothes on EBay! Then I would be so happy that I decided to paint one of our extra bedrooms blue! I have really been surprised by what I have read. Some people would decline a boy referral. That, I don't understand. If we were to have a bio baby we could not decide what we were having, and if it turned out the wrong sex I don't think that we could return it. If that were true I am sure my mom would have returned my brother! :-) Boys are just as much fun as girls. Why, I remember about 11 years ago when I dressed my nephew in a dress and put dolls all around him for pictures! Love ya Jodus! And you made a very pretty girl! But a much more handsome boy. So if we got a boy we would bring him home where he belongs and be happy. OK I will get off my soapbox!
Until next month! Hopefully I will have a bigger batch to report!
p.s. I gotta send a shout out to the ladies at Fox Everett where my mom works. I know ya'll are counting the days down with us! And no the countdown calendar on mom's wall was not made by Jodus! I did it!
p.s.s. Another shout out to my brother Tookie, sister in law Melissa and of course Jodus, Good luck on the move to Arizona! You are finally getting outta Mississippi! (just joking mom) Love you guys!

February 9th is the cutoff!

Well CCAA sent out referrals in a record 22 days since the last batch and they covered up to February 9th! Whoo hoo 9 days!!! And lets not forget that they had the olympics during this time and they were not all working. Good job CCAA. So I am no longer thinking negative and only thinking positive. I know some people in adoption land may read this and think that I have totally lost my mind but anything can happen. Who of us would have thought we would still be waiting almost 30 months later when we were told 6 months? So what if they decided to do what they said and start sending out 15 days of LIDs at a time? What? Yep that is what got me stressed out yesterday! What if? Well I will tell you what if,after jumping for joy , I will be beyond stressed because there is so much left for us to do and buy before Jaden comes home! I dont know what we will do! The kid has clothes,blankets a place to sleep and toys but that is it! We also have to do our homestudy update since we moved, its paid for but we have to schedule a time for them to come. Our fingerprints expire in November!(yhea that is right for all you non adopters your fingerprints expire every 15 months, who knew!) We gotta find a house sitter for 2 + weeks. Thank god for my parents who will keep our three heathens while we are gone, they will get to take a little doggie vacation! And a shout out to my parents for helping me get the things we cant seem to find for our trip up here. They are trying to keep me from being so stressed!
Now I know chances are it could still take them awhile to get through the 34 days of LIDs we have left for our referral but I have a feeling or maybe just a hope that it will be sooner then I think. I have always said I will have her picture for Christmas, of course I thought it would be Christmas 2006 not 2008!
So for this month I am thinking positive and stressing myself out. Who knows what next month will bring!

Goodbye January Hello February

Yep that is right. January is finally history! CCAA has sent out referrals to 1/31/2006! So we are now onto February! I was worried that CCAA would not send out any referrals this month due to the Olympics but I was wrong. I know we still have a while to go but I am looking on the bright side. February is a small month, only 28 days and then we are 3/15/2006 so if you count that up it is only 43 days of LID left for us. WOW! That feels good to say.
I have talked to my agency and they feel like we will not have to renew our I171H that expires 4/4/09, they say we should be home by then. Yhea! I feel very good about that.
We finally have that spark back in this adoption. Once again we are nervous about all that needs to get done before we go to China. I mean come on we have had 3 years to prepare for this but we are still not ready. There is so much left to do. So much shopping to do for us and of course for Jaden.