Our new Dog, Smokey

Lots of new stuff

My sister-in-law, Sara, bought these cute PJ's for Chloe.

I found this Asian baby doll at Big Lots of all places. I bought all the ones they had in stock (only 3). I figured I could give one to my Secret Buddy, and to the person who has us, when we find out who she is. I hope they aren't reading this LOL.

My sister, Lindsay, bought this for Chloe when she was in Washington DC last month.

Blaine begged me to buy these toys for his baby sister. Little did I know that was just the excuse he gave because he wanted them for himself.

Blaine also asked me to buy this for his sister. He wanted to know if he could open it and play with it until she came home. I asked him if he would like it if someone played with all of his toys before he got them. Guess what he said? Yes. Anyway, I didn't let him open it, but it does look like fun.

Allie, Audrey and Katie Beth

Some of our nieces came to visit this weekend. We have a total of 10 nieces and nephews plus numerous Godchildren between Joe and I, and we love to have them come and visit us. All of them live out of state, so we don't get to see them very often, but when we do, it is a lot of fun.

Allie (age 4, just 10 days younger than Blaine), Audrey (age 6) and Blaine (age 4)

A big hug goodbye! Blaine loves his cousins!

Katie Beth (7 months) is the happiest baby on the planet. I didn't hear her cry the entire weekend. All she ever did was smile.

Wainscoting, Fans and New Shutters, FINALLY

My brothers-in-law came this weekend, and helped Joe get a lot done around the house. They installed wainscoting in Chloe's nursery, installed fans under the carport, and made custom shutters for my windows for hurricane season. We survived hurricanes Katrina and Rita without them, but it wasn't fun. The new shutters will give me a bit of stress relief when Joe is in Iraq this hurricane season. Just one less thing for me to worry about.

I still have to paint, but it still looks nice.

These new fans will provide much needed heat relief this summer.

Finally, working storm shutters for my house! They still need to be painted, along with the front door, but you get the idea. Oh, we pulled out three huge bushes in front of the bench on the front porch as well, and we will need to plant something else there. I will post more pictures when everything is complete.

Thank You Secret Buddy

Last week we received our March secret buddy gift. Look at all the stuff we got. Thank you secret buddy.

4 months down, 20 more to go?

Today marks our 4 month LID anniversary! It has actually gone by pretty quick. I am guessing we have something like 20 or so more months to go before we get a referral. If it comes before that, great, but I am preparing for the long haul just in case. There is still so much to do before we get a referral, sometimes I wonder if we will ever finish, even with the extended wait times.

We should be OK

I finally talked to our agency about Joe's deployment, and I feel a lot better now. I was worried about our documents expiring before we got a referral. Once our Dossier was Logged in at the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) our documents stopped "aging" We will need to fill out a I-600A and re-take our fingerprints for the US consulate when we get close to referral, and not before. It is OK if those documents expire, as long as we have new ones when we travel to China to pick up Chloe.
With the arrival of referrals today, it looks like we won't get Chloe until sometime in 2009, and Joe will be home by then, so we are good to go.

Referrals are in!

Today our agency received referrals for families who's Dossiers were LID before and including October 24, 2005. Congratulations to these families. Every batch of referrals puts us one step closer to Chloe Paige.