Approval, Approval, Approval.......Magical little word, isn't it??

So shocked, but excited, to say we got approval from the USCIS to adopt from Burkina Faso...today. We had submitted our paperwork a little over a month ago and were prepared for some hangups along the way. Usually it takes 90 days for approval...it took 33 days for ours. I am so excited that I fear this blog will turn into alot of incoherent blabbing.....perhaps it already has? Uggghhh....I don't even know what I am feeling right now. Ecstatic, yes that's the word! I had just resigned myself to receiving approval sometime in late April, with perhaps a referral in early May......now it seems we are only days away from our referral, and probably just months from travel.

Hooray, Hooray!! I'm gonna be a mommy again!

Happy Birthday Baby!!

Hard to fathom that 4 years ago today, somewhere in China, a beautiful little Empress was born. For some reason, unknown to us, her birth parents were unable to keep her. I know in my heart that they gazed upon her beautiful little face and in that moment had great hope of what her life could be. I have no doubt, at all, that giving her up was the most painful decision they will ever make. On that day, in Gaoyou, China, in the cold of February, our greatest gift was born.

Though today I wish I could find some magical elixir that will keep her little forever, I rejoice in her little life. She is so precious. So beautiful. Such a miracle. Happy Birthday Baby!!

Muzzy

As you know, my daughter is Chinese. Even before we traveled to China to bring her home we planned on incorporating the Chinese culture into our lives, for her sake, and ours as well. As a family we celebrate the Chinese New Year and the Moon Festival each year. The Empress knows dozens of things about her country of origin and continues to ask about it and be fascinated by it. We decided early on that we would give her every opportunity to learn Mandarin, if she was interested in doing so. For Christmas this year T gave her the Muzzy Chinese Language Program. It is put out by the BBC and recognized as the best language program for children.

She loves it. Really loves it. Each evening she watches at least three sections before bedtime. It is in cartoon format and thus attractive to children. That being said my first impression of the program was, this is weird. It is all in Chinese with English subtitles. I wondered how in the world does a child learn the language when she can't read the subtitles. But it works. It is meant to be repetitive. The Empress gets it. The other day when I was dropping her at daycare, she said something to me in Chinese. I asked her what it was she was saying and she said, "Good Morning." And...by God, it turns out that she was indeed saying good morning in Chinese. The really neat part of the whole process is that our magnificent daycare has also decided to teach Muzzy. The kids love it.

Muzzy might be a fuzzy green alien that likes to eat things like clocks, but he is one cool dude in my opinion.

Molly Ringwald....

Here I sit. Watching Pretty In Pink. So much for getting stuff done on a day off. So, I am wondering.....Molly Ringwald? Were the 80's so void of talent that we considered her our "it" girl? Not only is she mildly homely....but she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. Still, I love the movies she stared in. Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink....classics. Perhaps it was the fact that teens could identify with her. She wasn't the perfect blonde barbie type, yet she always got the hot popular guy. She made things seem possible.

When her awkward teen years were over she slipped into obscurity.....France I believe.

True Love

On this the holiest of holy days for love, for lovers, I must take this opportunity to pay homage to clearly the best of the best movies about true love.....The Princess Bride. I love this movie. So sweet. So funny. Wesley and Buttercup had true love. T and I have true love.

The true love theme is evident throughout the movie, but if that was the only feature of this masterpiece it would prove boring. Instead we have characters. Perhaps my favorite is Inigo Montoya....."My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." Poor Inigo has spent his whole life studying fencing for the sole purpose of killing the six fingered man who killed his father. Then there is the giant Fezzik (played superbly by Andre The Giant). The rhyming kills me and the famous line "Hello Lady" is unforgettable. And perhaps the very best scene in the whole film....Battle of Wits between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Vizzini. I love the dizzying exchange between the two of them. Ahhh, how enjoyable.

True love is the central theme and the precious reply by Wesley to his beloved Buttercup, "As you wish" makes my heart smile. It all reminds me of my love, and like Buttercup I am certain that "he will always come for me." I have always said that I was blessed by God in that my true love was so easy to find. To think that our love might ever fail.....Inconceivable!

Happy Valentines Day!!

Chaos x 9

Hooray....Hooray! It is over and we have survived it. There were moments in that monumental two hours that I thought we wouldn't live through it. Nine kids.....ages 1 through 5. Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell dress, hair, wings. Sparkles, balloons, stickers. Boys in pirate hats and eye patches. I even invented a new children's game....musical plates. In the end, they all wanted to do their own things. After about 20 minutes the Empress decided that she would rather sit quietly in her room alone and read a book. Of course we had a little discussion. She still refused to play with the troupe of "lost boys" in the play room. I finally hefted her over my shoulder and placed her unwilling little body in the midst of the chaos. The last 30 minutes were insanely long. The funny thing is that I had help. Two of the little girls refused to play any of the games and ran around my house like little banshees. They were noticeably mean to the other children. One little boy climbed on my furniture like a monkey. It was insane. I was so glad when the last mother closed the door behind her.

I am thinking that next year we will have a sweet little family get together with the three of us.

Scared Silly

So, I am having a little procedure done tomorrow. It is really no big deal but I am going to be put under....and that scares me a little....well maybe a lot. I am a worrier. A stresser. I make mountains out of mole hills. I am always thinking of what "might" or "could" happen. I don't take into account statistics as they mean very little to me. If there is even a 1% chance, then I will be that 1%. This is not a choice. It is my nature. Believe me, if I could turn this negativity off I would do it. T has the ability to diffuse my anxiety for me. He just exudes confidence, a feeling of everything is cool. I always know that it is going to be OK if he says it is.

So, T says tomorrow will be OK. Will it?? Probably. But, I have never even had a broken bone or a stitch in my body. This is monumental....surgery. Will I chill this evening? Boy, I would love to. But, I can tell you that I won't chill, nor will I sleep.

Will let you know how it goes.

We "Gotcha!"

Three years ago today in an unheated hallway in Nanjing, China, the Empress was placed in our arms.....and we will NEVER let go. She was wearing an orange and yellow snowsuit and red plaid shoes. It was the best day of our lives. She was so sweet...so somber...so confused. However, it was evident from the moment we saw her little face that we belonged together. She never cried, though I am sure she was scared. She ate, slept and played. We took her back to our hotel and placed her on the bed and just looked at her. It felt like the beginning of our lives. We loved her so very much that first day, though we had never seen her before. Though the process to bring her home was 15 months long, she was so unexpected. The love that we felt...was so unexpected. Today is a celebration. One we will continue to celebrate each and every year. Three years ago today we became a family. Family.....what a beautiful word!

To those 9 other families who shared our experience three years ago today, those fantastic people who became so important to us in such a short time.....Happy Gotcha Day!!

Supercalafragilisticexpealadocious

Thank goodness for freezing rain. Today the Empress' daycare called. Schools are closed all over the valley and there is emergency travel only permitted. So, I called in to the skeleton crew at work to let them know I wouldn't be in. Hooray.....it's gonna be a PJ day!

Is there anything better in the entire world than Mary Poppins?? Such a perfect movie to watch with an almost 4 year old on a freezing rain, stay at home in your PJs day. The Empress loves Mary Poppins. Who doesn't? I personally think that all children, no, all people, should HAVE to watch this movie. It is such a lesson on life and what is important. It makes me nostalgic for my childhood and Sunday evenings filled with movies like The Apple Dumplin Gang, That Darn Cat, The Shaggy DA, Benji, Herbie, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. What happened to Disney? How did they go from these esteemed classics to crap like Hanna Montana?

Spit-spot. Things to do...cookies to bake, lazing around to do. Enjoy the day.

My Sister....My Best Friend

Sisters are different flowers from the same garden. ~Author Unknown

I love my sister. She is my friend. She is beautiful, smart, outgoing and funny as hell. She is my hero. I think she is a hero of many people.

We are both adopted. I am older, perhaps wiser in many things, and settled in my life. I am shy, she is the opposite. Love is thicker than blood. She is my sister and my best friend. I can tell her anything. I love being with her. She is everyone's friend. People LOVE her. She is a daredevil and shows no fear while doing things like skydiving. She lives her life on the edge....I live my life in a comfortable cocoon.

So, the hero part. As I lamented previously, our mom suffered a series of debilitating strokes this past summer. Sis took leave from her job and camped out in a hotel across the street from the hospital for over a month. After mom's rehab, Sis quit her job (she is an Emergency Room RN) and moved home to Dillon to take care of mom.....and as it turns out, dad too. Alone this is huge. When you think about the life she put on hold to do this, it becomes enormous. Mom requires 24 hour care. Dillon is a speck in the eye of Montana. Nothing going on. No singles, no night life, no nothing....really. I know this has been tough for Sis, but she soldiers on.

So, she is my HERO. She will read this....I hope. Sis you are an amazing person. The most amazing person I know. You are an inspiration to so many.

On the adoption front....

Things are apparently moving along. Last week we got our notice from the USCIS stating that they had received our application and that we have been "logged in." Yesterday we got our fingerprint appointment letters. I am going to estimate, with fingers crossed, that we will receive our approval and referral around May 1.

This process has been a long one. After adopting the Empress in 2006 we decided we wanted to adopt again. A little over a year later we submitted our application to Great Wall, the agency we went through previously with the Empress. We were shocked and heartbroken to hear days later that China had denied our application. They cited T's previous cancer 18 years previously. Strangely, it had not affected our adoption of the Empress. We asked for a reconsideration and got letters from T's doctor and the agency and China gave us a 50% chance of a successful adoption. Basically they were saying we could proceed, pay all the money and wait for a referral that might not come. We couldn't take that chance.

I began researching other countries. Finally, we agreed on Ethiopia and sent in our application this past June. A day or two after sending in the application we received a call from our new agency. They had a new progam in a new country and we were the first people to fit the criteria. That country was Burkina Faso. After talking and praying, and doing as much research as we could on a country we had NEVER heard of, we decided to proceed. At first it was easy, things clicked and it appeared we would get through this pretty quickly, then things began to fray. Our homestudy agency, the agency we used for the Empress, the agency who knew us intimately, began months and months or mistakes, flubs, and mix-ups. As it stands today, we may still have a sticky problem. After trying for months to get a background check for T from Oklahoma, we gave up and sent our paperwork in without it. Fingers and toes crossed that we won't have to ultimately get one... So here we are....waiting. It should take 90 days.

Burkina Faso is a small west African country about the size of Colorado. Formerly known as Upper Volta. It is located at the bottom of the Sahara desert and is an extremely hot climate. The name Burkina Faso means "Upright People."

We are excited and nervous all at the same time. Please pray for our family.