Crocs

Crocs

Monday, April 29, 2013

Notice

We received a very important Notice in the mail this week.





Our I-800A was approved!

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reviewed all of our documents, including our home study report, and has determined that we are suitable candidates for international adoption.






Specifically, we have been approved to adopt one child from the People's Republic of China.

One child.  Our daughter.

For some reason seeing those words and the name of her birth country in writing on a document with our names attached to it gives me goosebumps. 

What was a dream for years is suddenly becoming very real.

This was the last document we needed in order to start the final steps in preparing our dossier for China.  Now we can begin the notarization, certification and sealing process on all our documents and hopefully have everything on its way to China before the birth of our son this summer.

Baby boy has been making his presence more and more known as he gets bigger and stronger.  Mike watches my giant belly twitching and bulging and rolling and says it looks like there's an alien trying to get out of me through my stomach!  It totally freaks him out and I try to explain to him how it feels and how difficult it is for me to sleep at night since baby likes to sleep all day and party every night!  He seems to think my already squished bladder is a very fun trampoline from about midnight until 5 am.  Every.  Single.  Night. 

He's been getting hiccups a lot lately, sometimes several times a day.  My whole midsection shakes like I have a major muscle twitch.  It's very distracting, but reminds me to take a moment to give him a rub and tell him how much I love him.

Looking forward to another shower this weekend to celebrate this pregnancy and the anticipation of both new additions to our family!


Sunday, April 21, 2013

Baby Shower #1

Today was our first baby shower, for Mike's side of the family.  Most of the guests came from Pittsburgh and it meant a lot to us that they were willing to make the drive to celebrate with us. 

The theme for the shower was Disney/Mickey Mouse, which was perfect for us.  It's been our number one vacation destination since we were dating and I'm sure that trend will continue once the kids are old enough to enjoy the Disney experience.  There were so many cute and thoughtful touches in the decorating and the food that it was obvious how much work and planning went into each little detail.  We are blessed to have wonderful family members who are willing to do so much to support us in our journey to parenthood.

We were absolutely floored by the generosity of everyone who attended the shower.  And several people who couldn't attend sent gifts, too!  I think what really stood out to us was how many people bought things not only for the baby due in a couple of months, but also for our future daughter.  It meant a lot to us that everyone was as excited as we are about both babies.  They wanted to know all about the adoption process and how soon we might be able to get our little girl.  There were of course a lot of questions about how the pregnancy has been so far and when the bio baby is due, but most people are so familiar with building families the "normal" way that our adoption is more interesting to them.  We answered a lot of questions, which we were happy to do since we both love talking about our adoption.

Here are a few pictures of our wonderful afternoon:

Cupcakes by Beth with Mickey sprinkles


More yummy desserts


Baby Mickey crawling across the appetizer and drinks table


Mickey confetti on the tables


Pretty daffodils


Chocolate Mickey pop favors


Everyone enjoying lunch


Overflowing gift table


Mike's Mom and Wes


Carrie's Dad and Elisabeth


Opening gifts





Mike's side of the family


Many many thanks to Beth, Brad and Mike's mom for hosting such a fabulous event!
We love you guys!