I797C came today!!!!

Enjoying a bowl of ice cream

I am SO happy to announce that we received our I797C today. The last piece of paper needed to complete our dossier! I had a copy notarized and put it in the mail this afternoon for certification. We are getting closer, Lily!

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Chinese New Year! We hope to celebrate tonight with some Chinese food. Yesterday we made lantern cookies and chinese noodle cookies to send to school along with a CNY book and pages to color.

Long Weekend

warmed by the fire, watched the geese in the lake, made potato soup.....

stretched...

daydreamed,

and smelled the roses!

unwanted visitor

We had a very unwelcome visitor here yesterday-the dreaded stomach bug.. Olivia was sent home from school yesterday with a bad tummyache. She was sick several times until bedtime last night. This was the first time in her life that she threw up (so I guess she has been pretty fortunate in that respect). Still, it was hard to see her feel so bad. In between her episodes she would ask for a hamburger because she was so hungry. It was hard for her to understand only sips of sprite. I hope she is much better when she wakes up and pray that no one else gets it. It has been hard to keep Ave Kate away from her. She just doesn't know what to do with out Olivia around to boss her!

our sweet Lily

Isn't she a doll! We were so fortunate to receive some photos yesterday. Heather and Megan, 2 sweet moms who received their 2 beautiful boys from Luoyang, visited the SWI and took alot of pics for waiting families. It was such a blessing to wake up to Lily's face yesterday. I fall more in love with her everytime I see her. She is really getting big and they are finally letting her hair grown out.

There are alot more pictures that are on their blogs which are listed on my blog list at bottom of page. (Thompsons-(Donnie and Me..) and Lockwoods). Some of the pictures of the sick children will break your heart. They also said that it is extremely cold in the orphanage. It did seem that the children were well cared for by their nannies.

Happy New Year!

We wish everyone a happy, healthy and blessed new year!