Our Lovely Little Ladybug's 1st Halloween

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Blog Title

I was thinking that we will need to change the title of our blog but maybe not!  Here is another charming bit of information included in Macy's development report;

"Hair curves naturally."

Maybe "Boys and Curls" still works.

Now of course they are nothing compared to queen of curls wild mane but not poker straight either.  Hmmm will have to think about that.  What do you think, any ideas for a new blog title???

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Macy, Macy Smiley Facey

We received these photos taken just hours ago.  Isn't she a doll?! What spark in her eyes and what an adorable smile.  The update included Macy's lastest growth report so as of TODAY she is 36 inches tall and 31 pounds! The report also said "She can sing many songs well. She can recite poems. She can speak complete sentences with 7-8 words and express her meaning clearly."  Other highlights from the report were " She is active and loves to play with other children. Generally, she can talk with strangers. She is very lovely. She likes to wear beautiful clothes."  Hmmm I think we can provide this little pumpkin with plenty of beautiful clothes!

Of course there are always a few charming comments that are unique to Chinese adoption reports, like this one..."She doesn’t taste hot pepper food at home. But if other children eat hot pepper food, she would want to eat. Then she would sweat and drink water."

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Macy Lisabel Printy...soon to be forever ours

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Photos!

No not those photos.  The photos from Disney I've been meaning to post. 

Here we are the Queen Bea and her Bea Keeper parents. Wondering about the "steamy" picture... that's humidity after a mid afternoon Florida rain.

Yup that's my costume.  Right up there with the "this is my costume" t-shirt!

The Kaz Mama Crew on Main Street USA.

Nina and I have the same reaction to the Disney performers....

until the guys on stilts came near her and scared her.

I was so happy to meet three of my Kaz Mama team mates.  Susan, Kristan and Sandi  are gorgeous women inside and out. We will be meeting again in November, along with four other Kaz Mamas, to walk 60 miles in the Arizona 3 Day.

Nina's first trick or treat.  She was sooooo happy when she realized he put candy in her bag.

Bea costume with coordinating 3D glasses...cause it just needed that little extra something!

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Where do we go from here?

Since we are adopting from the Waiting Child Program the process is slightly different from the standard China program. Here are the next steps in our adoption process.

1. Submit Letter of Intent, wait for Pre-Approval.  PA usually takes 2-4 weeks. (this should happen in the next day or two.  We have completed all the paperwork we need to and it will be in Stephanie in box by the end of today.)
   
2. At PA, your dossier will be moved to the matching room to be paired with Liping.  Once the official signs off on the match, they will send us the Letter Seeking Confirmation (official referral).  From PA to LSC can take anywhere from 4-8 weeks. In order to avoid delays towards travel, you would need to have your immigration approval at this time.  Immigration is currently taking between 4-6 weeks to approve I-800A applications.INSERT PANIC HERE! WE DO NOT HAVE OUR IMMIGRATION APPROVAL AND CAN'T EVEN FILE OUR FORM UNTIL WE GET THE CHILD ABUSE CLEARINGS FROM RI AND OH!!!!
   
3. At LSC, you will file the I-800 with immigration (same as the I-600, but has to be approved before travel).  I-800 takes about 10 days to approve.  This approval is then send to the US consulate.
4. US consulate reviews I-800A and I-800 approvals and verifies the child’s information matches your approvals.  They issue an Article 5 to be delivered to the CCAA.  The consulate can take up to 6 weeks to issue the Article 5.
5. Upon receipt of the Article 5, the CCAA will begin to process your Travel Approval (coordinating with provincial officials).  TA will be issued approximately 2 weeks after Article 5 is received.
6. Departure is generally about 3 weeks from TA receipt.  

So it looks like we could travel in as soon as 4 months or as long as 6 months.  Stephanie at Great Wall tells us to realistically plan on 5 months which has been about the average time for other families.  That will bring us to about March/April 2010. Woohoo, Spring Break Beijing!

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It's A Girl!

It is hard to grasp all that has happened in the last 24 hours but after nearly 3 years of paper chasing and waiting, we have our referral for our daughter in China! Our surreal experience started last night at about 8pm when I got an email from another agency about a child in India. I had inquired about this baby and had been working with them for the past month to see if we could be matched with this child. The email came last night to let us know we could be matched. THEN at 10 pm I got a message on facebook from Stephanie from our China agency asking me to call her. I called right away and she told me she had a little girl for us. It was crazy; drought to deluge. Unbelievable! As you can imagine it was a late night and there wasn’t much sleep last night. All day today I thought and prayed about what to do. In the end, I realized that I had known all along…. my daughter was in China.

So around five this evening I pushed the send button on an email letting Stephanie know we would like to –LOVE TO-adopt this beautiful little girl. I was immediately overcome with emotion, the tears came from a place deep inside me and I knew we had made the right choice. Whatever reserve I had maintained to try to protect myself from dissappointment was gone. I knew we had found our perfect match, our long awaited China doll.

Our daughter to be is named Liping, she is 3 years old, born 7/25/2006 (yup that’s 5 months older than Nina Bea). She currently reside in Xingyi City, Guizhou China with her foster family. Liping was born with a cleft lip and cleft palette and was listed on the GW individual SN list, she has had the surgeries to repair and she is perfectly healthy! I have photos but they are not in a format I can use to post here but I promise I will put up a picture as soon as possible.

Liping’s description is a hoot she is said to be shy, courageous, likes to smile, likes bustling activity and (I love this) under favorite activity it says “shopping”! That's my girl!!!!

Dart and I are euphoric. It is a sweet combination of excitement, relief and pure joy. We think we should be traveling to meet our new daughter by March. Until then it's paperwork, USCIS approvals and generalized nesting.

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Bathing Beauties

I have so many pictures from vacation that I want to share I'm going to post them a few at a time.  Here are my favorite pictures from our first day at The Caribbean Resort at Disney.  We met up with three members of my Kaz Mama 3 Day Team; Kristan, Sandi and Susan. The weather was tropical and perfect for a day at the pool.  We had a great time chatting away and getting to know each other better (as much as is possible with four active kids).

I know you can't tell when it is dry but this is how long Nina's hair is when you pull it straight.

Kaz Mamas and Kaz Daughters; Me & Nina, Susan & Leeza, Kristan & Sadie, Sandi & Finley

Nina loved running around and chasing the birds.  I love how her feet are not even touching the ground!

You have no idea how hard it was to get this picture!

Leeza and Nina doing some  intense "sharing"????

Sadie and Nina the oldest of the girls played well together.

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Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

We decided to celebrate Nina's first Halloween in a special way so this Wednesday we are headed to Florida to do Halloween Disney style! We will be meeting three other Kaz Cuties; Finley, Leeza and Sadie on Thursday night for the fright night festivities.  Make sure you check back to see all the costumes.

Can you guess what Nina Bea is going to bee for Halloween???? Here's a picture of the shoes I made for her costume.  Did you guess yet??

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Be the Answer....I dare you.

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