56 months - WOW

Well as with many other months I really don't have too much to say - I guess the only good thing is that we are another month closer!! I do really feel (hope) as long as things stay approx. the same that we should get a referral by this time next year!! I REALLY hope so - I think I have waited long enough. I didn't mind a couple of extra months but 48 and counting is just getting a little ridiculous!!

Also I/we have been thinking a lot lately that most likely somewhere in China someone has either given birth to our daughter or someone is pregnant with her - it is so unbelievable to think about it but SOOOOO exciting!! I just so badly want her here with us - we are so excited about her and about finally becoming a family of 3!! She will suffer loss prior to joining our family and we will never forget the sacrifice her birth mom made for her but we will be eternally grateful and can't wait for her to be here with us - her forever family.

Another exciting thing about today is the Royal Wedding - yahoo!!

Royal Wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton - tomorrow!!!

I am so excited to see the Royal Wedding tomorrow - I have to work but I am setting my alarm for 5:00am and I plan on watching it - in fact I think I have set the PVR for approx 10 hours of wedding overage!! The actual ceremony will begin at 6:00am (our time) and there is constant coverage leading up to it. I have not been able to stop thinking about ti today - I just can't imagine how she is feeling - I mean every bride is excited on their wedding day but OMG she is marrying a Prince!! There is so much hype around what her dress will be like and her hair etc... As I am sitting here typing (11:12pm) all I can think is she must be up now and getting ready, probably having her hair and make-up done - AHHHH she must be freaking out...soooo exciting!!!

I can remember watching Prince Charles and Princess Diana get married Feb 24th, 1981. I was only 8 years old but I was so excited to watch that wedding - I was just so excited to see her arrive in the carriage and see her dress and the gorgeous ceremony. I think it was borderline obsessed with the fact that she was a real princess - it was a fairytale wedding!! My mom and I watched it together and I will never forget it!!

Easter 2011

For Easter this year we had my side of the family over for dinner on Good Friday - I made a carrot cake and had little easter baskets (take out box's) for everyone. I made tags for the boxs and had a matching placecard for their place at the table. I really liked the way the table turned out this year. The two cream bunnies on the table with the raffia bows were gifts - one for my parents and one for my brother & Tiffany. We had ham and scalloped potatoes (from Dennigers, mmmm). My mom and Dad made me/us up a little plate of treats, rice krispie eggs, some hard boiled decorated eggs and a chocolate pig (i love pigs) - it was so cute and a really cute ceramic plate to keep. It was a great Easter - I love getting together with everyone, it was especially nice to see my brother and Tiffany since we don't get to see them as often!






On the Sunday Mikes Mom and Dad had us all over - it was somewhat nice out so we hung out in the back yard for a bit and the kids ran around and played with some of their easter goodies! Not everyone could stay for dinner but it was great to see everyone. The kids are all getting so big.

I made some carrot cupcakes the night before and had some leftover batter so I made a little cake for Shayla since we never had cake for her birthday this year!

Random Act of Kindness Day

Miss Megs and her "connection" to baby Mhyia

Our niece Meghan is 2 1/2 and starting around the beginning of this year we started telling her about baby Mhyia and how she lives in China. I think the first time I heard her talk about her was at our CNY dinner this year when she brought her a little present. She was going to head upstairs and when we asked her where she was going she said "upstairs to see baby Mhyia" we explained that she lives in China and won't be here for a little while.

Whenever we ask her who lives in China she will quickly tell us "baby Mhyia" and "Kylan" lol

Amy (her mom) has told her that when baby Mhyia comes home they will come to the airport and maybe they can bring balloons - well believe me she has not forgotten that - she has mentioned to me on several occasions about bringing balloons to baby Mhyia and that they yellow one is for Meghan!!

About a month ago Amy told me that Meghan had woken up in the middle of the night (very unlike her) and when they went in to see what was wrong she started telling them that Oakin (her nickname for Mike) and Aunty Tammy were going to China to get Mhyia!! Apparently they had quite the conversation about it in those wee hours of the night.

On April 16th Meghan was over, she had spent the night and we had put her down for her afternoon nap. When I peeked in on her about 2.5hrs later she was laying there awake and when she saw me she quickly sat up in bed and said "Aunty Tammy I am awake"!! Our conversation went something like this...

Me: "Oh good - did you have a good nap?"
Megs: "Yaaa"
Me: "Oh thats good"
Megs: "It is baby Mhyia's birthday today"
Me: " What?"
Megs: "It's baby Mhyias birthday today"
Me: "Really?"
Megs: "Yaa, we should have a party for her today!"
Me: "Well it might be her birthday today we will have to wait and see"

Too be honest I was so taken back by her random comment that I didn't really know what to say - but I did document it just in case!! We will have to wait and see! It is amazing how her little mind works!!

YES - I am reading a book!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not much of a book reader AT ALL. I will read articles on things I am interested in or even portions of a book I am interested in but I am not one to just pick up a novel and read for enjoyment.

I was at work one day in March and came across an article in the Toronto Star about Xue Xinran a woman from China who has written a couple of books and in particular they were talking about her latest book to be released called " Message from an unknown Chinese Mother"

"Xinran has gained entrance to the most pained, secret chambers in the hearts of Chinese mothers—students, successful businesswomen, midwives, peasants—who have given up their daughters. Whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions, or hideous economic necessity, these women had to give up their daughters for adoption; others even had to watch as their baby daughters were taken away at birth and drowned. Her searing stories of mothers who have been driven to abandon their daughters or give them up for adoption is a masterful and significant work of literary reportage and oral history".

I was instantly intrigued by her article and decided that this was definitely a book I was going to read. I have since purchased the book and at first couldn't put it down but she tells some very sad stories and to be honest I have not read a lot of it lately. I am most definitely going to finish this book but it may take me a little longer than I originally thought. I think it is an important book for me to read and possibly one day for Mhyia to read as well but that will be a LONG time from now - I am not sure if I would ever want her to read it??

Has anyone out there read it? What are your thoughts - is this something you would want your daughters to read??

April 1st referrals

Well the CCAA now called the CCCWA sent out referrals on April 1st for people logged in up to and including June 15th, 2006. It could have been better but I was actually very happy with this batch, I was kind of thinking it might have been June 13th or 14th so the 15th was great!!

I got to mark 6 more days of my calendar and that felt great! That means we have 75 more lid's until ours and at an average of 6 days per month we would be looking at 12 more months (next April). I am REALLY hoping that as we get in to July and Aug they do more than 6 days because there is so few people logged in - only time will tell!!

The one thing I was not so happy about was that they totally skipped the month of March. The skipped January and then sent two in February so I was okay with that but then the skipped March and sent this batch out on the first day of April. I would love to see more the end of April but that is not likely.

Publish Post

March 29th - marks 55 months

Well this month I actually totally forgot about the 29th - honestly there really isn't anything to say except we are one month closer LOL

I am hoping that we are in the home stretch but only time will tell - hopefully not too much more time.

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!!