Kole's 8th Birthday

We had Kole's 8th birthday party a couple of weeks ago in Feb. Anyone who knows us knows that we have SOOOO many birthday parties - it seems like one every weekend. Also anyone who knows me also knows that I am very picky about wrapping gifts - I love wrapping, I always put real ribbon, I like to have matching cards etc... Well Kole had picked an Army theme for his birthday party this year and I couldn't find camouflage paper anywhere or an "army" themed card. So as usual I made the card and then Mike and I decided to wrap his gift in craft paper and decorate it ourselves.

I think it turned out sooo cute so I had to post it. We tried to make it look somewhat like a top secret parcel - addressed to him of course. So FUN!!!

Living Room Re-Do!!

We have been wanting to re-do the living room for so long now and this weekend we finally started - it is going to be a work in progress for a while - we have it painted now but there is a lot to do. We want to put up the crown molding this week, rip up the carpet, lay the new floor, have shutters installed and then the hardest part - find some furniture!! We have also decided to re-paint the hallway - it is currently red and I love it and it looks great with the new colour also but I just feel like it we are going to re-do it then why not do it all!! Stay tuned for pictures - I need to find some of before and then I will post both!

A whole new look!!!

Well after 5 LONG years or 1,207 days - I am changing our blog!!

When we first started this adoption I hadn't even really heard too much about blogs but everyone in the adoption world seemed to have one. I LOVED reading, looking, basically stalking everyones blogs for any bit of China adoption info and decided I too needed to somehow create a blog of my own. We wanted to document our journey and have a central place for our friends and family to follow us on this roller coaster ride to Mhyia.

I went to blogger and after many hours figured it out - it was and is pretty much the bare bones blog. I like the colours but it is LONG overdue for an update. I have friends who have paid to have their blogs updated and they look great but I just didn't want to spend the money, I figured one day I would take the time to figure it out.

Well after about an hour or more I figured out my signature..LOL so i figure why not - how hard can it be?? So hopefully with a little luck and some help from a great friend (thanks Kim) my next post will be in a new and improved blog - something cute and updated (fingers crossed). Oh how I hope I don't somehow loose my whole blog.

Below are just a couple of shots of it currently so I can look back at my very first blog.

54 months!

Well I am posting this today which is technically one day early - but tomorrow would technically be one day late, LOL. Our lid is Aug 29th and since there is no Feb 29th I will count it today.

We have officially been waiting 54 months - I am really really really hoping by this time next year we will either be home with Mhyia or at least in receipt of her referral. I can't believe I say a "year" like it's nothing. I remember coming home from one of our adoption classes in 2006 and we had just been told that the wait could possibly go to 18 months and I cried all the way home - I didn't know how I would be able to wait that long LOL.

It is NOT funny really, I hate it, I hate every second of this wait, I hate that I/we are almost 5 years older than when we started, I hate that we won't be able to go back to China for a sibling for Mhyia, I hate that every time I try to get excited something happens to take that away - I hate it all but there is nothing I can do about it - so I just keep going and hope for the best.

New Referrals!!

Well I looked at Rumor Queen Thursday morning and to my surprise the CCAA sent out another batch of referrals. I couldn't believe it - there were no rumors about it or anything and then all of a sudden there were reports of phone calls in Europe!! I was thinking it wouldn't be until the first or second week of March so it was a very nice surprise!! It had only been 22 days since the last batch the sent out - although they skipped Jan so I kind of consider the first batch to be a Jan batch and then this one a Feb batch. They only did up to and including June 9th which again is a little disappointing but that is offset by the fact that they sent them out so quickly..lol!

The next couple of months is going to be a good indicator of what the CCAA is planning to do for the year. Because the attrition rate is sooo large for the months of June, July and August there are not a lot of people still logged in. The CCAA should easily be able to cover a week or two or even more at times in one month (even doing a reduced amount of babies) but there have been reports that the CCAA doesn't want to give the appearance of a speed up (believe me I think we all know it would not be a speed up). So for know we continue on the roller coaster ride and wait, wait, wait and wait some more for the day we get Mhyia's referral.

I almost think we have been let down so many times over the last 5 years that I might be caught off guard when the referral does come - I am in denial that it could possibly be within a year.

Each month RQ puts out a "projections" post - as with all of us she is kind of guessing at what the CCAA will do over the next couple of months so she is constantly having to play with the numbers and this month even had to add a new Winter 2011 column (since the last couple of months have fallen below her projections). Also she is currently working with numbers from a July 2010 poll so the new poll results should be up in the next couple of days and I can't wait to see the new numbers. These will be much more relevant to us since we are Aug lid.

As always only time will tell - only 81 lid's left until US!! This is me marking the days off my calendar at work!!

This week and "NO comments"

So I didn't do good this week on catching up on those old posts - I will make up for it this week!!

On another note - since I updated with all of these posts I have had approx 75 people come to the blog and yet no comments!!! I LOVE comments - I love to see who is stopping by and following along with us on this crazy journey! So I will ask - PLEASE leave a comment - even if it is just "hi". Oh, and if you are family - you better leave a comment LOL! One day we will print this blog and put it into a book and I want Mhyia to see that people were following along!

Thanks everyone! and I will keep up my end of this and finish updating some of my "look back" posts this week for sure!!

Valentines Day!

Today was a great day - other than the fact it was a Monday..lol

Mike has school tonight so we had a nice Thai dinner last night and watched the Grammy's. Tonight I came home from work and Mike greeted me at the door with flowers and my card. I came in and he had made dinner - it was sooo nice!

I bought him a bottle of wine and made him a card - note the "knot" theme..lol. I ended the evening with Mike heading out to school, I got in my comfy clothes and watched The Bachelor ...ahhh...perfect!!

Snow Day with the family!!

New Signature!

Okay so I have wanted to have a signature fo sooo long and never took the time to figure it out - well today was the day!!! I have NO idea what the heck I am doing when it comes to codes etc... but the internet makes it pretty easy.

My next project will be to change the design of this blog - it is soooo old and boring.

Well I think I am up to date now!!

Well I just posted about 20 posts that I have to go back and update with pics and info bu I think this is the my new solution for keeping up to date with my blog. I find I don't always have the time to do it everyday and I don't upload the pics often enough etc.. but this way I can at least put the title and this way keep in order and go back and update when I can!!

Yaaaa!! I feel so much more organized!! Here's hoping I can keep this up...lol!!

Superbowl 2011 - Feb 6th, 2011

Feb 6th, 2011 was Superbowl...Greenbay vs the Steelers!

We were going to Darlene and Franks for a Superbowl party along with about 30 other people. It was bound to be a good game - Franks team is the Steelers and Isaiah's team is Greenbay...it was hilarious to watch!

I personally only really watched the halftime show which was okay - I've seen better and worse. It was just fun to be together with everyone. Greenbay ended up winning - I should have know they would when I made cupcakes earlier and when I was putting them in the container I noticed I somehow ended up with 3 extra Greenbay ones...it was a SIGN!!

Baby items - Research Day!!

We have not really looked to closely at anything baby related because it has always been so far away but this year while looking at our budget for the year we thought maybe we should start to plan for some possible baby items (maybe by the end of the year, fingers crossed). I/we just wanted to get a sense of what is out there and what kind of price range we would be looking at for the items we want.

So mid January we headed out a local store that carries all kinds of baby items and they are extremely knowledgeable in the areas of strollers and carseats, which would be two of our bigger purchases. This store has been around for 50+ years and they not only sell strollers but also do all the servicing on them so I know they know what they are talking about!

Even though the news at the time was not promising as far a referrals go we still thought, Why not, it will be fun to act like we actually have a child on the way LOL!!

The first thing we saw that we fell in love with was this humidifier - okay not something we needed to be looking at right now but I couldn't help myself - I LOVE pigs!! It is so cute and we actually wanted to get a humidifier regardless, to help with some of the dryness during the winter so yes I bought it!! LOL I couldn't resist!

Next we looked at highchairs, I really love the highchair and plan on using it for quite a while, I know some friends have the chairs that go onto an actual kitchen chair - I am not a fan - I like the convenience of a highchair, I like that I can wheel it around, easily clean it etc... I want a good highchair that will last, one that I can easily clean and one that I can store away in the main floor laundry room if I want it out of the way, also one that i can raise or lower to allow her to sit at the table as well. This is the one I have decided on, I LOVE it, it is the Peg Perego, leather seat, removable trays etc... it has everything I want - now lets hope they don't discontinue it before I need it!

Our next item was a stroller, there was one I was interested in and I am so glad that I spoke with them about it, he doesn't even stock it in their store because apparently it is a beast - heavy and really big (even folded). We looked at a whole bunch and again there were things that I wanted; the handle to be able to raise, a cup holder, big basket, full recline, easy steering, possibly be able to do some light jogging with it, light and compact. I think we found one that has all of these and I like the look of - it is the Valco - Tri mode ex - we both really liked this one!

I can't decide between black and Red - I like the red but if it had more black on it I would like it more - I think we are leaning towards the black!



The last thing was carseats - we really like the Britax carseats but I have also looked at the new Radion, this one is so thin and allows more room for other passengers but I don't love the look of it, it doesn't look as comfortable as the Britax. I don't know which one we will go with, I guess we will decide when the time comes!

All in all it was a great day - so much fun to think...One day we will actually be able to make these purchases!

If anyone has any other suggestions or comments on our choices we would love to hear them!!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!! Feb 3rd, 2011

Well it is Year of the Rabbit this year - I/we were really thinking this year would be the year we get our referral but I am starting to think they may be slowing down even more :(

I came home Feb 3rd and Mike was downstairs watching TV - as I rounded the corner into the kitchen I noticed a couple of things sitting on the counter with hearts on them. I first thought to myself..."oh great Mike has bought something for Valentines Day and forgot to hide it" I turned on the light and noticed that Mike had made me a card (at work) and bought a couple of little things. As I started to read them I noticed that he had bought us both a gift "rabbit" related as if they were from Mhyia. When I started to read the card and it said "Dear Mommy" I instantly started to cry...it is THE absolute sweetest thing Mike has ever done for me. I/we don't talk about China much, although I think about it everyday - it has just been sooo long that I think we try to put it to the back of our minds but when I read that and just the fact that he had put the effort into making it I just couldn't hold back the tears. As I said we were really hoping for this year but I have a feeling that won't be happening.



We wanted to celebrate this year and at least acknowledge it. We went to The Mandarin for dinner with my parents, Mike's parents, Shayla, Emma, Amy, Chris, Meghan, and Kerith and Ronin. We had a great meal and Mike and I really appreciated that people wanted to celebrate it with us!!

My parents bought us this really cute Silver bunny which I LOVE!!! Mike and I bought this cute onesie for Mhyia with the bunny wearing a crown, of course! Amy, Chris and Meghan bought Mhyia these cute piggy jammies (I love pigs) - when Meghan came to our house she wanted to give us the gift and she kept saying it was for mimi Mhyia - too cute. Later at night she wanted to go upstairs to see mimi Mhyia - she thought she was upstairs sleeping..."I wish". We told her that Mhyia was in China with Kylan (the cartoon character) she accepted that answer for now...LOL

CCAA Feb referrals

Well this month the CCAA only did upto and including June 2nd, 2006. Good news - they are finally into June!! Bad news - they completely skipped sending referrals for January and then they only did a pitiful 4 days. I would have thought that by Feb they would have been to approx June 10th.

I am really hoping that this isn't their new way of slowing things down yet again - more days in between referrals :( I guess we will see what happens next month and keep our fingers crossed AGAIN.

The chart below is from our agency - I can remember when we started I would look at this chart all the time and think how far off our group 272 was - at that time they were on a completely different page - but at that time things were moving very quickly so it was excitng to look at it each month. Well I certainly don't look at it too often anymore and we are still quite a ways away but technically there are only 6 groups ahead of ours which is very exciting and we are now only 88 days away from our LID - it's under 90!! I have to celebrate the small things or I will completely loose my mind!

Look back - Jan 29th - 53 months!

Well we just hit 53 months since out LID - again...no words :(

Also it looks like the CCAA has decided to skip sending referrals this month completely - seriously I am not sure how much more of this I can take, just when I allow myself to get a tiny bit excited the CCAA puts a screeching hault to that.

Look back - Jan 2011 - Emma's 11th Birthday!

Look back - Jan 2011 - First Day at New Job!!

Well this year is starting off GREAT!!! I am back working at the company that I have always wanted to be at!! I did a mat leave coverage here a couple of years ago while I was out of work and LOVED it and always wanted to get back here. I had been working part-time for them over the past year on top of my full time job with the hopes that one day I would get back there and thankfully at the end of last year they offered me a permanent full time position!! I am so happy to be working somewhere I love and somewhere that treats there employees so well etc...

The first day or two I just spent getting caught up and decorating my office space etc.. Here is a picture, well half picture of my new home Mon - Fri!! At this point I had only been there two days so it was still a work in progress!!

Look back - New Years Eve 2010

Look back - Christmas 2010

Look back - Dec 18th 2010 - Work Christmas Party!