Kolin's concert debut!!

Our nephew, Kolin, started playing the bells in the 6th grade band this year. Last night was their winter concert. Of course he did a fabulous job (I am a little biased) and it was one of the few times that we got to see him all dressed up. He cleans us pretty good, huh?
The only bad thing was that because he is in the percussion line when the band played together he was way in the back and we could not see him. The percussion line did come out front and play their own little song so we actually got to visualize him in action (for a whole 30 seconds).

Great job Kolin we are proud of you!!!!

Flashback....

2 years ago this month Paul and I gathered up all our hopes and dreams for a child, placed them in an envelope and then sent them to China via our agency in Austin. It was 4 months of filling out forms, being interviewed by the social worker, getting fingerprinted, having things notarized/certified/authenticated, and then packaging it all up nice and neat with the hopes that every "i" was dotted and every "t" was crossed. The photo to the left shows our complete dossier proudly spread out on the coffee table.

Fast forward 2 years and we don't even own that coffee table anymore!!! But we still have our hopes and dreams for our child, we are in the final weeks (hopefully)of waiting for our referral and still can't believe this could actually happen for us. Could our dreams of becoming parents really come to fruition?

I said it in '05, again in '06, and will say it again in '07 but I feel with a huge degree of certainty that this WILL be our last Christmas without Avery. So come on December hurry up and get the heck out of dodge so we can get to January and that stork flying straight to our house.



Here is our proud moment standing in the UPS store back in December '05 with our complete dossier ready to get this show on the road.

The box........

This box has been sitting on Avery's toy chest since last January. We have slowly been gathering things for our trip to China. Hopefully in the near future we can be putting some of this stuff to use. Is it too early to be working on our care package??

We're Ready!!!!

This is what is hanging on our refrigerator right now! I printed it off the internet and can only hope that I have the sense to actually use it when the call does come!! We are still hoping for a referral the first week of January so that means only 3 1/2 more weeks. Can you stand it????

It's gonna be a nail biter!!!!!

The CCAA updated their website last night and the cut off for referrals this month is Dec 14th. Remember our LID is Dec 20th!!!


THAT'S ONLY 6 DAYS, PEOPLE, 6 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

The CCAA referred 6 days this month, 8 days last month, and 5 days the month before. Now comes the million dollar question: will we slide into a January referral by the skin of our teeth, or will it be February before we see our baby's face? You know we could not have come this far without a little last minute drama.

I am personally thinking January, so come on calendar, get to movin'!!!