Xie Xie!!

A great big Xie Xie to everyone for such a wonderful party! We played games and had a wonderful meal that included Chinese food of all types and flavors! A special thank you to my sister and the grand-mothers-to-be as they worked hard to plan and coordinate the whole thing. We are so happy that everyone is just as excited as we are! I’m sure there is going to be a surplus of love and attention for our little girl. We are very lucky to have such wonderful family and friends.

With all our hearts, XIE XIE!

We have our second care package all boxed up and ready to be shipped to China. We have clothes, shoes, blankets, and all sorts of other things in there for little Saiya. At the party, we also created a very cute card with a Chinese dragon made out of hand prints from each family member. We attached pictures for her to look at with a translated tag labeling each picture. I’m so excited about this care package and can’t wait to send it! I should have it in the mail sometime this week, most likely on Friday.

What’s in a Name?

So I think we have narrowed down the middle name choices. So far we have three in the running that we keep going back and forth on. We still have a few months before we have to fill out the rest of the paperwork, so it is still anyone’s guess which name we will ultimately end up picking.

If you are interested, the names we are currently contemplating are as follows:
Kiori
Naomi
Jane

Of course, her first name is still going to be Saiya. Go ahead and leave us a comment with your vote! At my work, the tally is:
0 Kiori
3 Naomi
1 Jane

We hope to hear from CAWLI about our Log-In-Date very soon! It doesn’t really mean much, other than our paperwork is now in the works in China, but at least its something. And it means we are moving forward in the process. The next step after the LID is the Letter of Acceptance which means that we have been approved by the Chinese government and are ready to apply for our Visa.

Until Later!

One week Post DTC....

I know its horrible of me to be counting already, but it has been one week since we DTC. If we are basing our schedule on the average time frame, then we have 7 more before we hear anything from the Chinese government on the LID and 2 months and 3 weeks on the LOA.

On Thursday, we had my sister’s children and that whole overnight stay was awesome! It gave us a little practice and a dose of what to expect when we have our own little girl. I made lunches for the kids to take to school and we dropped them off at school for the day, it was so sad to see them get out of the car and head to class. I can only imagine what its going to be like with little Saiya.

We went to a birthday party over the weekend. My sister was paintballing with her oldest, so we had her little girl for the day. OMG did we have a blast with her! We took her kayaking and she had so much fun! It is definitely going to be a long wait!

I’m ready for warmer weather and our trip to CHINA!

We are Officially DTC!!

Our dossier went to China yesterday! We now have up to 8 weeks before we get a log in date (LID) and up to 90 days before we get our Letter of Acceptance!

In the mean time, we are filling out paperwork needed for the US government after we receive our LOA and trying to come up with a middle name for our daughter.

At the same time, we are working on travel plans and I think we have narrowed it down to us traveling directly to Hong Kong and then to Ningxia to pick up our daughter and then after the American Consolate in Guangzhou, we travel by boat back to Hong Kong and leave from there. It makes things much easier for us and we cut out a plane trip entirely, which I'm very sure Chris is thrilled about!

YAY!!! We are so excited!!

USCIS Approval and a Party!

We received our USCIS approval in the mail on Thursday! I express mailed it to Meg to put with our dossier. She told me that she would send our dossier to China today!! The Chinese government can take up to 90 days to send us our letter of acceptance, so we have another LONG wait ahead of us.

In the mean time, my mother and sister and mother-in-law are planning an adoption party for Chris and I (and of course for Saiya). I made some suggestions and narrowed down the invitation list to about 25 people. My sister and I also zoomed around target making a gift registry so that people will have an easier time figuring out what we need. The party is scheduled for February 28 (which is Saiya’s birthday!).

We are still up in the air about a middle name for her. Chris is having a hard time pronouncing You Ai, so I think we are going to try to give her an American middle name. We are not even close to a decision. We keep throwing names at each other, but so far, we cannot agree on any one in particular. I still like Jojo! Oh well, at least we have some time.

Busy Day for all of Us!

Our finger printing appointment was yesterday in Orlando. The US government certainly has the process streamlined. We arrived at 2pm and were done with the whole fingerprinting process by 2:30pm. They have these new scanners that electronically capture your fingerprints. No more ink! It was very impressive.

After our appointment, I swung by the post office and mailed out our first care package! So, clothes, stuffed animals, sippy cups, pictures of us, and a variety of other items are on their way to China! The orphanage should receive them in about 10 days.

YAY! She finally gets to see pictures of her new family and her home in America. I hope she is just as excited as we are.

Our First Care Package!

We got the care package packet in the mail over the weekend! We have a box filled with blankets, clothes, hair bows, and other items for the orphanage as well as a stuffed elephant for our little girl and a photo book with pictures of us and our home. I tried to translate some of the text in the photo album to Chinese using a translation web site, but I think I might have gotten a few things mixed up. I hope they can get the overall meaning of what we are trying to say. Anyhow, there are some really good pictures of us, I hope they enjoy them!

The packet didn’t contain tags or clips for the items, so we improvised. I hope that is ok. The box is all wrapped up and ready to go to China. I will probably get to the post office on Wednesday afternoon after our fingerprinting appointment in Orlando. We will be sending another care package in a couple of weeks with more clothes and things for the orphanage and our daughter. She already has several cute dresses and outfits hanging up in the closet and in the dresser in her room. There are such CUTE little girl clothes out there! We are going to go broke! :)