New Blog

Please visit our new Blog at www.blaineandchloe.blogspot.com. This is where I will be posting from now on. Hope to see you there!

More Secret Buddy Gifts

August "Play and Learn"

September "Safety First"

October "Feed Me"
Two days ago I recieved a huge box in the mail and it was full of gifts for Chloe. My not so secret buddy, Michelle http://www.scrappermg.blogspot.com/ sent gifts for the August, September, and October exchanges.

Michelle also sent these great items for Blaine.
Thanks Michelle, your the best not so secret buddy ever!

One Year

I just looked at the calender and realized that it has been a year since we sent our completed Dossier to GWCA, and Oct 13th will be our One Year DTC Anniversary as well as our 11 month since we were LID.

Explination for those who have no idea what I just wrote:
Dossier= adoption documents including notarized homestudy, medicals, police checks, FBI checks, passports, marriage liscense, birthcertificates, etc. It's been so long I forgot what all was in it. I do know that it took over 7 months to compile thanks to the super quick trun around at the New Orleans CIS (this is called sarcasm)
GWCA= our adoption agency, Great Wall China Adoptions (cheesy name, I really thought it was a joke at first)
Oct 13, 2006= was actually FRIDAY October the 13th (I should have known)
DTC= Date to China=the date our dossier was sent to China
LID= Log in Date=the date the CCAA logged our dossier into their system with the other 30,000 dossiers they had on hand.

Joe leaves for Kuwait today

Today Joe leaves WI for Kuwait. Bye honey. We love you and we miss you. Stay safe.
(Joe is the one with the coffee cup)

September Cyber Shower Thank You

We would like tho thank the Clutter family in WI for the beautiful gifts they sent to Chloe Paige. I have been wanting this CD for the longest time, so thank you so much. I love the soft blanket and cute PJ's, and I can't wait to hold my little girl all wrapped up in them both. Thank You!

Blaine's school made Joe a Thank You/Welcome Home/Good Luck/We are praying for you card.

Daddy's Home

Blaine and Chloe's Daddy

My husband will get to come home for a few days at the end of this week before he heads off to Iraq later this month. He has been in trainig in WI since June, and Blaine and I are looking forward to getting to see him one last time. Here are some pictures of Blaine and Chloe's daddy, preparing to leave for WI in June, and pictures of his BN training.

I can't believe it has been 10 months since we were logged in at the CCAA, and we still are no closer to referral than were were when we started this journey. One of the reasons we decided on China was that the wait times (at the time) were less than a year. Here we are two months from being logged in for an entire year and we are still about two years away from seing our baby girl's face. The worst part is that I don't think people actually believe we are adopting from China and that we just made it up. No one askes us about our adoption anymore and when they do we get this look of pity. I don't even mention to anyone when I purchase things for our little girl anymore because I just get that same look. We will have a daughter one day people, and I am going to continue to be happy about it and prepare for it because eventually it will happen!
It is beginning to sound like I am losing it a little bit doesn't it? So what if I am?!? (haha, joke, your supposed to laugh)

Just 4 months!

I was just reading the Rumor Queen site to see if referrals were on their way, and her latest post just made me very sad. The CCAA has only referred 4 months worth of LID's within the past year. As of Sept. 1st, 2006, the CCAA had referred through July 22nd 2005, and as of Sept. 1st, 2007, the CCAA had referred through Nov. 21st, 2005. That is only 4 months. At this rate, we will be waiting another 3 years for Chloe, on top of the time we have already waited for her (see bottom of page for total wait time). If Joe were not going to Iraq at the end of this month we would be redoing all of our paperwork right now and just adopt domestically again, or just switch countries. Something, anything, I can't just sit around waiting for things to happen anymore. Why is it so hard for us to expand our family? I am a damn good mom, Joe is a damn good dad, and all we want is to have more children. Why is that so damn difficult? We have been trying to add a child to our family since Blaine was 6 months old. 4.5 years we have been waiting for a second child. It isn't supposed to be this hard. I guess I should just be happy to have been blessed with Blaine. I have no idea how those first time waiting parents do it. I would never consider waiting around on China if I were waiting for my first child. I had been so positive my daughter was in China. I felt so drawn to China, and was positive that our next child was waiting for us there. Oh, I'm not complaining about not being able to have biological children. Biology means nothing to me. I could care less that I need medical intervention to conceive. I love Blaine more than anything, and I couldn't love him more if he came from me. I just want another child. We have room in our hearts and in our lives for another child, and we have so much to offer another child. Poor Blaine is so smothered by my love and attention, he could use a sibling to offset all of those kisses and love and attention that he gets.
OK, I am done with my rant and I feel better now. There is nothing I can do until Joe gets home, so I will just wait and see how things go between now and July 2008. If there is not a speed up in the process by then, we are jumping ship (oh, by the way, Joe and I have already discussed it, and he is totally on board, he wants another child as much as I do).

9 months!

Oh look, we passed the nine month mark and I didn't even notice. We were supposed to have our baby girl by now, but it looks like two more years, at least, before we get our referral.

I won't be posting a lot here (because there isn't much to report on the adoption front) until we get closer to referral, or until we have some BIG news. I will be posting mainly on our son's blog for now.

www.blainreed.blogspot.com

I will post here just as soon as I have anything adoption related to share.

Oh, we would like to thank our Secret Buddy for the wonderful July gifts, and I will post those, and other pictures soon, on this blog.

Taggie Blanket

OK, I have now completed my first sewing project. Thanks to all of my fellow adoptive moms and moms to be for the great selection of ribbon. I made it a little larger than the instructions and I added some extra ribbons, but I think it came out OK.

- Get Your Own

Happy Birthday to my Baby!

Then

Now

Today is Blaine's 5th birthday. It seems like just yesterday that we got the phone call that his birthmom had gone into labor. The hospital was only three hours away but it seemed like 30. I thought we would never get there. We finally arrived at around 11pm and Blaine had already been born. We walked into the hospital room and his birthmom handed him to me and said "Here is your baby" That moment is still the happiest moment of my life. Happy Birthday Peanut! I love you! www.blainereed.blogspot.com

July Hair Bows

Thank You Gail Clutter for the beautiful panda bows and the red, white and blue headband bow. We love them!

10 Wonderful Years!

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary!
Thank You sweetheart for the flowers and the ring! I love you and I miss you terribly.

New Pet

This is our son Blaine's new pet. It's an Ostrich! He has two. One boy and one girl, which my father named George and Laura. Shown here with Blaine is baby George. These are actually Blaine's grandfather's new pets, but Blaine thinks everything is his, so there you go. Don't worry. They don't live at my house.

Thank You for the Hairbows

Thank you Marie VanPatten of our November Nightingales Yahoo Group for the cute hairbows. We love tham and can't wait to put them in Chloe's hair, one day, in the far, far off future.

Thank You SB and June Cybershower Pal

June Cybershower gift from the Moseman's "Fun in the Sun"

June SB gift "Natures Creations"

Today Chloe received two gifts in the mail. The first one was from our June Cybershower Pal. We are not supposed to open this one until June 30th with the rest of the group so I will write more about it later and post pics. The second gift was from our Secret Buddy. June's theme was "Nature's Blessings" and Chloe received a cute plush watering can filled with little stuffed "bugs" inside that each sing a little song when squeezed. I will have to post pics later, because I really don't feel like going to find my camera right now and taking pics. My husband leaves Sat. for training before his scheduled deployment to Iraq, and we are busy having family time. I just wanted to say Thanks to our SB and Cybershower Pal. More later.

Will Referrals Speed Up Soon?

Design Your Crystal Ball