A Very Special Play Date and Catching Up

It has been awhile-- sorry, but I warned everyone I would be busy over the next few months and busy we have been!

All of our immigration paperwork for Clara Rose was submitted the week before last along with our Visa applications. Wim and I have decided that we will both travel to China and bring Josie with us-- what a trip this will be!!

Josie is currently napping on a very rainy Sunday. She had a very special play date today. This play date was even more special because Josie's friend Angeline came over WITHOUT her mommy and daddy. They both have colds and I offered to bring Angeline over so they could rest and Angeline could still play with Josie.

Before I left to get Angeline I explained to Josie that Angeline would be coming here without her Mommy or Daddy and that Josie would need to share with her even more than her toys-- she would need to share her Mommy and Daddy with Angeline. Josie said, "I share Mommy Daddy Angeline."

I was very proud of Josie! She did really well with Angeline-- she shared her toys and she shared me, Daddy, Jie Jie and Guh Guh with her friend. She even told Angeline that she loved her while they were eating lunch. It was a really wonderful time and I am so happy with how well Josie handled sharing!

Joise's friend Grace and her Mommy also came over to play. The girls enjoyed playing and eating some tasty doughnuts! What a great way to spend a rainy Sunday Morning!

Early in the week Josie had fun making some chocolate cookies with Gabrielle. Actually, Gabrielle did more actual cookie-making and Josie did more eating of the cookie dough!

Last weekend we went to the Autumn Moon Festival hosted by our local FCC. Josie had a lot of fun making a lantern and then running around on the beach at night-- floating her lantern in the ocean.

I am just about done with Josie's adoption story book. Actually, it is done-- I just a to put the last few pages in the binding. I am pretty happy with this progress.

I have also made great progress on Josie's quilt-- 80 squares are done. I plan to finish the top this month and then complete the batting and back the first two to three weeks of November. Josie's birthday is coming up, so I have to count for that as well.

Other big news for Josie--she is making tremendous progress with potty training and will be moving into the Preschool room at her day care shortly after her birthday in the next few weeks.

YEAH!!!!

Testing Email

Hi Folks,   Rumors have it that accessing our blog in China has become more difficult. I am trying out the email setting to see how emailing to our blog works with posts.   Picture of Clara Rose.   I will also be looking into providing a link on our blog to our shutterfly account. More updates on that when I figure it out.

REFERRAL!!!!

It was with great pleasure and quite a bit of shock that Wim and I are announcing our official referral for Clara Rose!

We are quite surprised with this news! Our paperwork was processed pretty quickly! We knew that eight other families with our adoption agency received their referral news yesterday. We were not really expecting to hear anything this round and since we didn't get a call we figured not this time, maybe next.

One of our agency reps just called me and started talking about travel plans and timeline. It was a very confusing phone call. She apologized that the office was a bit disorganized because the other lady who helps with the China adoptions is on vacation this week and they received several referrals from China yesterday.

She asked me to hold on for a mintute and put me on hold.  She got back on the phone, apologized again and then told me, "Your Referral did Arrive yesterday."

She mentioned that our paperwork was processed rather quickly etc., that we may not be able to travel in early December because China's big Autumn Moon Festival is now and everything is shut down through next week. Coupled with new laws in the US for international adoption that takes a little long yadda yadda.

But, early January is OK too!!!! It is looking like being with Clara Rose on her 2nd birthday, Janaury 17th if not having her home is a real possibility!

We should receive the paperwork from our agency Saturday or Monday.