Home Improvements or Nesting ???

I have to laugh because everytime we start a new adoption and finish up the paperwork or come close to it we also begin furiously updating our home. With Rachel we ended up putting down hard wood floors in our entire upstairs and making our loft into a 4th bedroom. With Lei we are now adding a floor to ceiling bookshelf in our formal living room, Adding crown molding to 2 upstairs bedrooms and our upstairs bathroom, then the biggie is we are remodeling our Kitchen. We are replacing the tile, updating the hardware on the cabinets, replacing the countertops and replacing the appliances with stainless. We are also adding ceiling fans and some new lighting as well as updating some trim work downstairs. Ok, I'm now dizzy just thinking about all of it lol. When it is all said and done, we will then immediately proceed to the poorhouse ;-) The book shelf is almost done so once it is finished I will post a pic. It is awesome and I'm so glad we had it built. I know it will be a nice selling point one day when we sell. I definitely think there is a connection between our preadoption home improvements and Nesting .....

USCIS Memphis and Lei

I fed-ex'd our homestudy a second time on December 6th and Confirmed it was received on the 7th. Memphis USCIS did say that they will honor the original receipt date of November 16th so we shall see. If they take the maximum time they say it may take we may not have the I-171H until January 16th which seems like forever to me. We have all of Lei's docs back from being authenticated by the Sec of State's offices except my birth cert. which goes to California which is scary in and of itself lol. California charges 20.00 to authenticate one document. Thank goodness we live in TN where it cost 2.00 per doc !!! :-) Gotta love the Southeast.

The closer we get to the end of the paperchase the more I feel like this was meant to be and that Lei really is our son. I think we have all completely bonded to the few pictures we have of him. Now we are just preparing ourselves for the upcoming travel and all the trials and tribulations that will most likely follow. I'm currently reading a very good book called "Our Own", parenting the older adopted child". So far it seems like a very good reference and gives many scenarios as to what to expect when adopting an older child. I know this will be a comfort to have once Lei is home too.

A Blue Christmas Without You

It's amazing how fast time flies when you are paperchasing and trying to keep up with a 2 and 4 year old ! That may be why I'm finally posting at almost 3am lol. I just wanted to catch up briefly and share the events of the past couple days. First of all, we are in the final stages of our paperchase now and it's getting hairy to say the least. Yesterday I was sitting in the County Clerks office in downtown Chattanooga waiting to have all our dossier docs certified and all of the sudden I hear the song "It'll be a Blue Christmas without You". Wow, I was like, hmmmmm, this song couldn't have come at a worse time ;-). I thought I was going to burst into tears right there ! Now that we are almost DTC, suddenly I have this overwhelming need to have our son home. It has been so very different having a little face in our minds to think about constantly. Up until the past week though, I personally have just tried not to think too much about him and hyperfocus on the paperchase. But now that we are almost done, all I can seem to think about is him and what it will be like when he is with us. Well, while I was thinking about Lei yesterday, I decided that since our homestudy had gone to USCIS on November 16th and our social worker had not put a cover letter on our homestudy stating that we were adopting a "Waiting Child", that I would just email them (Memphis USCIS) to make sure they knew that Lei was waiting on them so that he could come home. So I emailed Memphis yesterday morning and when I returned from getting our docs authenticated in Chattanooga, I come home to an email that says they can't find our homestudy !!!! I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Of course then I was just so thankful that I had emailed them only two weeks after they received it instead of waiting weeks only to find out they never had it. Long story short is that we are fed-exing another homestudy to them tomorrow and I am hoping that since they LOST our first one, that they will expedite the processing of our I-171H.

Ok, I must sleep now !!! There is so much more to post and catch up on which I promise to very soon.

Gotcha Day Rachel in China and Home

I recently remade Rachel's Gotcha Day video and added some pics since she's been home. Hope you enjoy.