Homestudy In Transit

Our completed homestudy is now on it's way to our adoption agency in Washington state! We now have one big hurdle behind us. Now begins the wait for immigration clearance. Average wait time right now is 60 days, according to our agency. Hurry up and wait seems to be the theme right now.

We (Finally!) Have A Name!

After 2 months of agonizing over name choices for our beautiful girl, we have finally chosen a name. Drumroll, please.....................................
Our daughter's name will be ~*~Liya Faith~*~
Li Ya means beautiful and graceful in Chinese. We think that fits her to a T:)

Making Progress...And New Website...Oh, And New Pics!

We had our home visits this weekend. Our social worker, Hannah, was awesome:)
We now have that hurdle behind us...yay!
I have also started a website through Baby Jelly Beans. I am going to try to keep both this blog and the website going, but ultimately it will be this blog that I will be using during our stay in China. I have heard it is easier to use blogger in China than other websites. We shall see...
If you would like the password to our new website, please email me @ amynurse2000@yahoo.com
And, as promised...here are pics from the belated birthday cake/party for our girl:

Boring Post #1

Haven't posted in a week, but since nothing exciting is happening right now, I give you Boring Post #1!
Home visit *hopefully* will happen by the end of the month. Our hs agency doesn't do a lot of international studies, so they are contracting with a SW in St. Petersburg to do our home visits. Just wish she'd call so we can schedule them....ugh!
Roger is stressing that the house "isn't done" enough for the home visit. Meaning that 2 rooms still need to be textured and painted, and one room needs a few more sheets of drywall and then texture/painting. I told him that it won't be an issue, but his "Type A" personality is taking over, as usual!
We went to Sea World for a few hours yesterday. The boys had fun, we watched the Shamu show. Nathan was speechless...lol!
Hoping to get new pics of Jia Ming with her belated b-day cake....any.day.now.....

Busy Week Already!

What a busy week already!
Well, really our busy week started last Wednesday.
Roger went into the hospital with a partially collapsed lung on Wednesday night! Poor guy was in so much pain, he thought he was having a heart attack:(
We still don't know what caused it, but he's ok now. He was discharged on the 4th.
He went back to work tonight, and managed without problems. What a trooper!

Since I had to take off 3 days of work, I'm now working the next 8 days in a row. Which is ok, since work is my life..lol! Can you say "overtime pay"??

We still have not chosen a name for our sweet Jia Ming! Poor girl has just inherited two indecisive parents;)

I found out tonight that we are getting a copy of the newpaper page our daughter's finding ad was on. For those who don't know, a finding ad is an ad placed in Chinese newspapers by police, in an attempt to find an abandoned child's family. This will be the only early information we will have of our daughter's past...so it's kinda a big deal! We should get it in the mail by Monday:)

Last week we ordered a cake to be delivered to Jia Ming's orphanage, to celebrate her belated Second Birthday. We hope to get pictures of the festivities soon!

And here's where I gratuitously plug Lady Bugs and Love From Above www.ladybugsnlove.com
for their outstanding customer service and support! Angela Shen is their China contact, and she is awesome. I highly recommend them to anyone adopting from China:)

I am putting together a care package for Jia Ming. I have waaay too many clothes for her already, and she will outgrow them before we meet her. So I have enough for 2 packages already...lol! Here are pics of the clothes:






And for good measure.....one excited big brother:


Until next time.......................................