The baby's room

Ok - so I'm having another sleepless night. It's
1:51 am and I can't sleep but 3 hours ago I was so tired. Anyways, I thought I'd write about Sonny's January and February project. I've finally decided what we are going to do in the babies room. I have decided that we aren't going to use a crib - we are going to start off with a toddler bed instead. And I'm going to have Sonny make it - but first he's doing 'the wall'. I saw some really cool toybox and cube things to 'make' a wall unit on the Pottery Barn website. But, they are really expensive, not the right color and don't fit exactly how I want them. So I've convinced Sonny to make the wall unit instead. Plus, he loves doing stuff like this - when he can find the time. So I 'drew' out the cubes in different sizes
with painters tape on the wall. The two large cubes - next to the window - on the floor will be open toy boxes and the rest will be open cubes of varying sizes. The row of cubes on the far left will only be 6 inches deep because of the closet door - but the other cubes will be 12 inches deep. And I think we decided on 20 inches deep for the toy boxes. The space under the windows will be left open -- we thought about a bench there but the window is too low - 14 inches off the floor and there is 66 inches between the windows which will fit a full size bed - some day. In the mean time I'm going to put a big soft rug there for the girls to play on. Plus, the sun is really, really bright in this window so it will be a perfect play area. And I ordered window guards for this window and all the windows upstairs. They are really neat and will also work great for the dogs too. (I don't open the windows in the summer since the dogs could push out the screens - so the air is always on). They are made by Guardian Angel - they have child safe spacing between the bars and an emergency release in case of a fire. They mount in the inside of the wood around the window. I can't wait to be able to open the windows this spring. So this project will be keeping Sonny busy for January and February and I will be painting and redoing the girls bathroom. It's still got just primer on the walls from when we had the house built 3 years ago. I will post more about that and pictures another day.

Until next time,
Sherry

Pictures of my 'babies'

Ok - I had requests for pictures of my babies. So here they are. Thunder is my red male - he just turned 5. His birthday was 12/10. He's my lazy couch potato. I literally had to drag him off the couch just now to take these pictures. Plus, bribe him with treats to wake him up. Like I said - my lovable couch potato. Well, it is 11pm - well past his bed time. And yes, this is their couch in our bedroom. Plus, if you look close you can also count four other dog beds in our bedroom. They are very spoiled. Then there is Tehya - my black female. She is a non-stop ball of energy - until you tell her it's 'nite-nite' time. Then she just quiets down and goes to bed. If we could only get half that lucky with a baby I'm be over the moon with happiness. Anyways, Tehya will be 4 on the 28th of this month. Oh, and her nick name is the lick-monster. Our babies will never have dirty faces. :)

So these aren't the best pictures of them - they both look really tired. I know they might be dogs but I know their looks. I'll get some better ones of them playing outside.

Happy 6 months & 1 year for us today!!!

Right now it's 2:20am on December 19th, 2006 - and I can't sleep. I've been playing solitaire for the past 30 minutes and finally decided to write this instead before heading back to bed.

We signed our contract and mailed it to Great Wall China Adoption on the morning of December 19, 2005. We left later that day for Sault Ste. Marie to see Sonny's dad and step-mom for Christmas. When we got home - I got busy with our paperwork for our dossier that China requires for the adoption. I actually got up early on December 26th - not to go shopping for all the after Christmas sales but to get everything ready to go to the post office and apply for my passport and renew Sonny's. Fast forward to the first week of June (Saturday June 3rd - to be exact) and we received the last piece of paperwork in the mail that we needed. I hurried and got it notarized, certified and authenticated and to our agency as fast as humanly possible. Our dossier got mailed to China on June 9th, 2006 and our official LID (log in date) is June 19th, 2006 - 6 months ago today. And 12 months ago today is when we signed and mailed our contract.

Not sure why I can't sleep, maybe it's the dinner from Applebee's that we had last night, or the nap I took after work, or maybe our baby girl was born tonight. I guess we'll know if the last reason is true in about 6 - 10 more months when we get out referral. Whatever the reason - it's really nice to be awake and reflect back on the past year and know - ok more like hope and pray - that our baby girl will be home for Christmas next year.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

And if my baby was born tonight or another night this year -- I pray she is safe, warm and has a full belly tonight and every night until her mommy and daddy can bring her home.

Good night baby girl.

December Funky sock exchange!

Ok - so I have way too much 'stuff' to do around the house and really nothing ever seems to get done. But I decided I needed more adoption stuff to keep me busy. So last month I was reading someone's adoption blog and they were doing a 'funky sock exchange' with their yahoo group and I just thought that was a great idea. So I got 18 people on our 'June Bug' group together and we decided that we are going to do a sock exchange for 6 months. December was our first month. It's been a lot of fun!!! Plus, some people are posting pictures on our June Bug group photos section and they are all so cute! Here's mine. Angie J. got my name and she also added in an adorable Ladybug 2007 planner/calendar. I just love it! Plus, the socks are great - so warm and so very soft - they are like velvet. It's so nice to get a little package in the mail - they always seem to come at the best times.

Thanks again Angie!!!

Suprise Christmas presents & wonderful friends!

Over the past few months during our wait for our referral (when we get a picture and medical info on OUR baby) I've been keeping myself busy with Secret Pals, Cyber Showers, hunting down sales and adoption wait time rumors. But, more importantly I've been making some WONDERFUL friends online - that are literally in the same slow boat to China as we are. One of them lives in Canada - Drea. She and her husband have two adorable little boys and are waiting on their baby daugther/sister. Drea, is just the sweetest person in all of Canada. And we have so much in common - like chocolate, food of any kind, and SHOPPING. But, maybe not in that order. All these things make us so happy. So of course she put her expert shopping skills to use and bought me something for Christmas. Oops, did I say for me - I meant for the baby. She sent US this adorable little dress - I just love the muted colors in it - and little cream colored jacket to go with it. Thanks again Drea for the wonderful gift and for thinking about us. I know my baby girl will just look simply adorable in it.

Now all I need is the baby to go with it.
Hint - Hint! CCAA are you listening?

But really Drea you are just the sweetest and I'm SO glad I have to laugh and cry with during the wait.

Sherry

Referral Updates

On November 30th the latest batch of referrals came out - going through September 8th, 2005. Making the current wait time about 15 months from LID to referral. Not so good. The CCAA is still only referring about 2 weeks worth of referrals a month. I looked back at referrals over the past year and this seems to be the trend. I now am starting to believe that this is the new norm. All this scientific data and thinking on my part and I'm now starting to think it really might go to 24 months for us. But, I'm not quite there yet. I was really holding strong that we'd be in China in July 2007 - but right now that doesn't seem possible. So I'm letting my expectations slip a tiny bit and I'm now hoping and praying to have my baby home for Christmas 2007. Which would mean we would need a referral around the beginning of October to be home for Christmas. That would mean 16 months of time between our LID and our referral. So with it being at 15 months right now this is still a pretty big dream. But, right now that's as far as I can left myself consider our life without our baby.

The next batch for referrals should be out between Christmas and New Year's. Maybe we'll all get a wonderful Holiday surprise before 2006 comes to a close. I can still dream big - can't I?