The Cats

Our two cats are having to play second fiddle since we brought Meighan home. Sunshine wants NOTHING to do with Meighan and Misty tolerates her. If Misty forces her way onto my lap and Meighan sees that she's there, Meighan immediately comes over and tries (usually succeeds) to push her off my lap so she can sit there for a couple seconds before continuing on with her busy-ness. Here's a few pictures taken recently of our cats.

Misty will actually "guard" Meighan sometimes. This particular morning, Meighan had ended up in our bed after not sleeping through the night.

They both love the smell of ham when Tony is making his lunch. This was a cute picture.

This was another time that Meighan was on our bed for a nap and Misty laid down like a "wedge" at the foot of the bed. I like the look on her face.

I love this picture! Meighan put the leis on Misty and Misty is giving a look like "Look what I have to put up with!" and Meighan has a look of satisfaction on her face!

This is our Princess Sunshine. I caught her hiding at the corner of our bedspread before we went to church yesterday. She keeps her (very FAR) distance from Meighan and runs whenever she knows Meighan sees her and might actually come near her!

PIP Class, Day 2

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

Today was the second day of our PIP training. We all got to know each other better and we all have each other’s phones and email addresses so we can stay in touch. Tony told me later that it would be kind of neat if we got to travel with at least one of the other couples. We’re all going with the China Child of Promise option so we’ll see…

I thought it was good to take a “class” for this training because last time we did the training via DVD and online testing so we didn’t have other people’s input, but this time it was good to bounce things off other people.

We also found out that all Holt needs from us is our criminal checks (waiting for Nebraska State Patrol to send to Holt) and our medical forms and then they can start the Home Study. So…I’ll make appointments with our doctors.

PIP Class

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

Today was the first of two days of the required 10 hours of education that we need to do in order to adopt from a Hague country. Holt calls it “Parents in Process” (PIP). There are 7 couples! Wow! Large/full class! Two of us are “veteran adopters.” The other five couples all have at least one child but are adopting for the first time. Two of the couples are planning to adopt from Korea and the other five of us are going to China.

Milestone

As of today, we have had Meighan longer than she was in the orphanage. Tony sat down a while back and figured this out.

I often wonder what her life would be like if she had been raised by her birthparents.

Currently, she enjoys watching (parts) of Disney movies such as "The Little Mermaid," "Snow White," and "Finding Nemo." She also likes a video that was taped at Disney World with the characters and some kids doing various beach songs and dances. She doesn't quite get the non-instant gratification of rewinding the video tape, though! She has accepted it more lately but more often now she is requesting the DVD movies.

Last Monday, she and I went to our friends from church house to play with their 18-month-old daughter. Aubree usually tends to cry when someone other than her immediate family picks her up, but I caught her in a pretty good mood at one point. I picked up Meighan and said "take our picture!" Both girls (13 months apart in age) weigh the same right now -- 23 pounds EACH! I was holding 46 pounds! See the strain on my face?

Application Sent (Taken)!

(The following post was written in a notebook but not actually posted on the blog until we received our referral because we didn’t tell our family that we were in process. We waited until we had the referral for our son before we published on the blog because we wanted to do this “covertly” and have it be a surprise to as many people as possible.)

Misty Blue Eyes’ 6th Birthday! Can you believe we’ve had Misty for almost 6 years now? Wow!

Well…today we dropped off our application to Holt to start the process for a son/brother. We don’t have a name decided yet. It isn’t as clear as a girl’s name was for me. We’ve been throwing out name ideas to each other for a while now. When we heard or saw or thought of a name, we’d tell each other. We just don’t know yet, but we will probably keep it a secret until we return again. That’s something we CAN control in this crazy adoption process!

Happy 4th of July from the Smiths!

New Look for Blog

For quite some time I have been wanting a 3-column template for our blog. Finally, Google came up with a new template designer that allowed for 3 (or even 4) columns. I looked at the designs, colors, layouts and finally decided on this one with 3 columns. Our blog is now wider and I have also deleted most of our slide shows of our trip to bring Meighan home. I kept "Gotcha Day" and "Coming Home" 'cause I really like those! I also took a couple of the gadgets from the very bottom and put them on the left side. The archive is easier to get to at the top on the right side.

I hope these changes make it easier to see our blog. I hope to keep adding to it for quite some time!