Matching Has Begun

Hi Everyone,

I hope that time doesn't feel, for you, like it is at a deathly standstill, like it does for us. We know that we will be in the next batch of referrals and this month is going oh sooooo slow!

We got a bit of a lift late yesterday. Our adoption agency emailed us that their contact person in China notified them that matching has begun. This is the part of the process where adoption personnel in China match babies who legally available for adoption with the parents. It is so surreal to imagine that somewhere, on the other side of this world, someone is matching us with our baby!

Referrals are *usually* mailed about a week after the matching process begins, but Chinese New Year (CNY) begins on February 7th. Everyone in China takes off the week of CNY and in year's past, referrals were mailed the day before CNY-- so we may be waiting a little longer. I really hope not!!

I've been trying to keep busy to pass the time, but it is really hard. I went consignment shopping with a friend last week (one of my favorite hobbies!) and I found this adorable little gal:

I'm not the only one who thinks she's cute. Phoebe went absolutely bananas over the new little pet I brought home. Here are some picts of her trying to make friends with her new roommate and pal . . .

At First she wasn't sure about the caterpillar and approached with caution, but wanted it to play with her. In frustration with the caterpillar's lack of play, Phoebe does what she does to us when we don't want to play with her-- she barked at it.

Next, Phoebe tried giving the caterpillar a few doggie kisses to let it know that she likes it and wants to be friends. After the kisses, Phoebe pranced half of her toys over the caterpillar to show her how to play with them-- see them all? Phoebe's baby doggie-doll is in the front, her Patriots foot ball is in the middle, she is taunting the caterpillar with her ever favorite chewing stick, and her green Christmas reindeer is in the back. I am sorry to report, with regard to the reindeer that its head has been severed since this photo shoot. Not by the caterpillar, but by Phoebe. May it rest in peace.

Xavier participated in a soapbox car race in his scouting club, which I was very sorry to have missed. He whittled his very own car-- pretty much all by himself-- he wouldn't let Wim do a whole lot to help him nor was he receptive to Wim's ideas. Xavier even made his own design for the car instead of using one of the pre-made designs that was offered to all the kids. It all paid off for him-- he came in 3rd place in the pine wood car derby.

We ALL know that this means that Xavier's car actually beat several adults-- as we are sure that the first and 2nd place winners (as well as a number of other entries) were really made by the dads-- and not the boys as it is suppose to be. We are all very proud of Xavier. I wish we had pictures to share-- but Wim, being the typical man, forgot to take the camera with him to the event.

Everyone else has been taking it easy this month. The kids have each had some winter colds and such the last few weeks as well as some some snow days. Everyone seems to be taking it easy . . .

Except for me-- I feel like I am on pins and needles! Hopefully, it won't be too much longer!

One More Month of Waiting

Hi Everyone,

As you may have already figured out since I did not post in early January-- we just missed the cutoff for a referral. The cutoff for January was December 19, 2005. AHHH! By a single day. As frustrating as this is, we now know that we are NEXT!

WOO-HOO!

We should have our referral sometime between the end of this month and the beginning of February. If anyone has ideas on how to make January go by more quickly, please let me know. So far, this month is going by super slow.

On the regular family front we have finished out the Holiday Season and all had a great time at Martin and Ciel's New Year Day party. The kids had fun playing with their little cousins and even had a tea party.

Of course the dessert table got the most attention from the younger crowd. I'm not sure if Abbie is thinking about joining in with Blake or pushing his head into the pie. You can never be sure with these little munchkins!

Mostly it was a nice day for everyone to enjoy each other's company and catch up on what each other has been doing since the summer.

Gabrielle had nice chat with Great Grandma, telling her about Middle School and all that she has been up to. When she was done filling-in G. Grandma about all her new happenings, she moved on to Grandma and they enjoyed some quality chatting together.

Of course the "boys" made time for some good old fashioned guy-talk. That is Xavier in the background working on a transformer he received for a present.

By the end of the day most of us were quite full from snacking on all the tasty treats. But, Wim still had plenty of room for more. He simply could not get enough! Look at him go!

The only big exciting news we have since the holidays is that Gabrielle got braces this week. She seemed very excited to be getting them, but now that reality has set in, she isn't too happy to be wearing them. Even so, she is still all smiles.

We hope that everyone is well, and we are looking forward to providing you with very exciting news in our next post.

Christmas Fun

Hi Folks,

We don't have any real updates on the adoption just yet. There are a few weakly rated rumors floating around. One says that December 20th is in the next batch and two other rumors say that December 19th is the cutoff. Our LID is the 20th and I won't be a bit surprised if the 19th is in fact the cutoff. It would be consistent with this entire process.

Beginning about 12 months ago we started thinking that we were about 6 months away from our referral. This continued for several months: each month we were still 6-months away. Then about 5 months ago we thought we were only 3-months aways from our referral. This continued for several months:each month we were *only* 3-months away.

It only stands to reason that we need to feel that we are only 1-month away from our referral for at least two months. So, we wait. Hopefully, we will hear something more substantial next week-- but I think we will be waiting until February-- probably the 2nd week, until we get our referral.

On one hand, this will suck, on the other hand, we will likely be in China for the Spring instead of Winter-- nicer weather and I will have maternity leave for part of the Summer which will work better for the Christening and the timing of the family party we plan to have for Josie-- more to come on that in the coming months.

In the meantime we have been pretty busy with the Christmas Season; Phoebe's first snow not to mention opening presents and enjoying the company of family and friends.

We had a big snow storm about two weeks before Christmas. It was a mess out here. The highway and all the main streets were packed with traffic. It took me over an hour to drive 5.5 miles from my office home and Wim about 3 hours to drive home-- a typical 20 minute commute.

The only good part was the beautiful snow. This was Phoebe's first introduction to snow. Unfortunately for her, the day after the big storm she went in to be spayed. She had to wear a cone on her head for few days afterward and ended up looking like a snowcone when she came in from the yard!

Christmas Day was a great day! Gabrielle and Xavier were very happy that it had finally come and they could open presents. It was definitely a whirlwind! Luckily for Wim and I they are now old enough to not be sooooo excited the night before that they cannot sleep and wake-up super early. We were actually up before them!

Here are some shots of them coming down Christmas morning and diving into their loot.-- and there sure was a lot of it!!

Wim was very happy to get another pair of Keene hybrid shoes. For those not in the know-- he got a pair this past Fall to take on a canoeing trip in Ontario-- where he lost them. Well, he didn't exactly lose them-- he forgot them at a campsite.

He was very bummed out about losing them and on Christmas day he was all smiles to see this new pair! Phoebe was very excited about all the early morning activity. All the paper tearing, presents, and wantnot. She was even more excited when she got to join in on the fun. At first she was confused and thought that the wrapping paper was the toy and she kept trying to eat it. Gabrielle was very brave and went deep to retrieve the paper from the far reaches of Phoebe's jowels. With steady positive encouragement from Gabrielle, Phoebe finally figured it out and was very happy with the rope reindeer chew toy Santa Pup brought for her.

Even Need-a-Kitty scored a little catnip filled chew toy shaped like a dog. She chewed on for a while, but she doesn't really look to happy. I guess one dog in the house is enough for her.

Once all the presents were unwrapped it was time to try out some of the new stuff! Gabrielle was eager to try on some of her new duds. Since it was still morning she started with her new PJs.Xavier was quick to grab his new Hydrogen Rocket and him and Wim worked on putting it together getting it ready for blast-off. It was like being in the heart central of NASA!

Meanwhile Gabrielle had moved on to some of the sweets in her stocking. I think she was starting to feel a bit of the sugar rush!

Wim and Xavier moved thier rocket ship outside-- it started beeping and counting down and all kinds of crazy warnings. Unfortunately, they did not get it outside quick enough and the appropriate launch conditions had passed.

It was time to get ready for the kids to go to thier mom's house and us to go Portsmouth so we had to postpone the launch for another day. Like I said, just like being front and central at NASA!

After dropping the kids off to celebrate Christmas with their mom we were off to Ava and Al's (Bob's parents) to celbrate Christmas with Wim's family.

Let me start by saying how wonderful it is to not only have wonderful in-laws like I have, but that they also have such wonderful in-laws. Ava and Al are such wonderful people! It is always a joy to be in their company and we have so much fun with them. Word cannot express how happy I am that everyone really enjoys each others company. I feel that we are all truly one big happy family.

Of course the holiday circles around all the kiddie-pops-- and right now, there are certainly plenty to go around (I can't wait until we add Joise to the mix!). I am always so happy when the gifts we choose are a big hit with the nieces and nephews. Here are some pictures of Abbie with the Unicorn and part of the outfit we gave her. Take a good look because she sure is growing into a pretty little girl. Before we know it, she will be a lovely little lady and not a little girl.

Emily is too little to open her own presents, but Becky was more than happy to fill in for her. You can see Bob in the background soothing the little darling while Momma opens the gifts for her.

Although she may be too little to open her own presents, she was still in good spirits. I think it may have been because she was sporting her hot new panties with her monogram on them. If this isn't blackmail material-- I don't know what is. Then there is her first baby doll. I think this was a present from Judy. My only question is . . . can you tell which one is the doll and which one is Emily?

Although Emily is too little to really understand what Leapster is all about, her big cousin, Abbie, can demonstrate all of the functionings for her.

Nate was more than happy with his gifts-- once we got him to change his focus. He is one determined little boy. He really zooms in on things and already knows how to focus with intent thought. But, with much coaxing-- and a little luck we finally got him to switch gears and check out the new musical school bus we got for him. He seemed to really enjoy it.

The dads were kept very busy by the kiddie-pops throughout the day. Bob enjoyed catering to his the whims of his little princess while Steve commented on the excitement that Abbie felt after opening hers.

We hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas that was as Merriest as ours!

Love,

Reena and Wim

Holiday Greetings

We appear to be getting close to our referral. I say appear, because until we actually get it, you can never truly be sure. China sent out referrals for families with an application log-in-date December 9-14, 2005. Wim and I are very hopeful that we will get our referral in early January. Time will tell.

After waiting nearly two years—two years by the time we will get our referral, it is hard to believe it is actually going to happen! I feel like I am in a zombie-dreamlike state. I can hardly wait to see her picture, see how old she is, how big she is, etc.

I am glad that this is the “holiday” part of the year because preparing for the holidays helps the time go by much more quickly—of course, not quickly enough!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. Wim’s mom and his sister and her family came to our home. We had a nice visit with everyone and all the food turned out really yummy! I can say this because Wim’s family contributed quite a bit of grub to the big feast and everything was simply scrumptious.

It was the first time Gabrielle and Xavier met their new cousin Emily. Gabrielle took right to holding her new little cousin.

We got to try Phoebe’s newly learned doggy-manners out on my nieces and nephews. This all went well.

Phoebe really is turning out to be more of Wim's dog than anyone else's-- much to his dismay. She loves him with all her little doggie-heart and is ALWAYS wanting him to pet her-- when he leaves, she cries and cries. It is pretty funny considering he isn't really a dog-person.

Shortly after Thanksgiving we finished packing-up Judy’s house (Wim’s mom) and now have her moved-in to her new pad. It is a super cute cottage that is absolutely perfect for her. We are all happy that she is getting settled into her new home.

We are now in the Christmas Holiday mode. Gabrielle, Xavier, Phoebe and I had a great time decorating the tree. We're not sure what Wim was doing. But you can see that whatever he was doing, Phoebe is right there helping him. Yup, she loves him. She is always right under his feet.

Phoebe doesn't know what to make of all this fuss-- much less having a tree inside the house (I'm sooo glad we got a female dog). Everybody sure was in good spirits after we finished decorating the tree. All it needs now are some presents!

I did buy Josie her first Christmas ornament. I saw it and just had to get it. I hope that next year she will be able to hang it on the tree herself-- with a little help from her mommy of course.

Merry Christmas!