HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter to everyone!  Hope you all are having fun celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord today! as well as finding lots of hidden eggs!

We have had a VERY busy weekend!  Meighan had 2 egg hunts (at preschool and daycare) on Friday.  Then yesterday we went to our church's Easter egg hunt and then to the Easter egg hunt at the Nebraska Children's Home!  She fell asleep on the way home, and after I brought her into the house, I also got a little nap!  All that between doing the laundry.  Last night I prepared the parts of breakfast and dinner that I could prepare ahead of time (shred cheese, chop onions, measure corn flake crumbs, etc.) and actually got to bed at a decent time!

This morning there was no Sunday School so Meighan came to church with us.  She does pretty well in church but, then again, she IS only 3!  Two very interesting things happened in church today (besides the fact that they had to use overflow seating in the Family Life Center -- nice problem to have!).  Meighan got a little Ty Beanie Lamb from the Easter bunny.  She took it to church and at AMAZINGLY appropriate times during songs -- like at the end of "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" -- she would raise the lamb FAR above her head and hold it up for the world to see.  I thought of it as raising Jesus up (since He is the Lamb of God).  And she did it several times!  I wondered if anyone behind us noticed that.  The other thing that she did today was, while we were saying the Lord's Prayer, Tony was holding her and had told her earlier that it was prayer time.  She closes her eyes and prays.  When it was time to say the Lord's Prayer, she was saying the last words of phrases (that's about all she does of songs, too).  I was watching her and her eyes were still closed and she was actually trying to say the Lord's Prayer along with all of us!  Made tears come to my eyes seeing that!  She's already learning to love the Lord!  AND...she says AMEN! with GUSTO!

Following are some pictures of our egg coloring session on Friday night, egg hunts on Saturday and her in her pretty Easter dress.  Enjoy!

PAINTING eggs is WAY better than dying them in a cup!

Between songs before the church Easter egg hunt.

Hide it under a bush, oh no...!

What a haul!

At the Nebraska Children's Home

Pretty girl!

Happy Gotcha Day, Meighan!

Two years ago today we met our beautiful, smart, loving, fun, energetic, outgoing, helpful, happy, healthy, bouncy little girl for the first time.  We knew our lives would never be the same, and we were right!  This has been the most positive experience we could have ever asked for.  We love you, Meighan!

Our Little Student of the Month!

We received a letter from the preschool yesterday that Meighan had been selected "Student of the Month" in her class for February!  Wow!  How proud did THAT make us?  Only a month and a half into any schooling and she is "Student of the Month"!

She received a certificate, a medal, a lapel pin, a pencil and 2 free meal certificates at a couple different restaurants!  One is Applebee's!!!!  So we'll have to go out and celebrate sometime soon!

Watch For Rate Increases!

(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.)

So…I received a reply from USCIS today about why our form was rejected. The fee had increased (of course!) on November 23, 2010, and we had not been informed of that probably because our home study was not complete yet and we hadn’t been put back on Holt’s email list to receive updates of that nature. So after our VERY FIRST PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES tonight, I had to take Tony to pick up a car and then came back to Bakers to get another money order to make up the difference. Funny thing was that after our Florida vacation I counted what cash I had left -- $62. I made plans for that money. Guess how much we needed? $60! Is that a God-Thing or what?

Delays, delays. All I can say about all these delays is that our son must not be ready for us yet. The time is not right for some reason.

We also have to come up with the dossier fee. However, even though they say it’s due “now,” I don’t think they need it until we send our dossier in. Our dossier isn’t ready yet. We have a few more papers to gather then everything has to get state certified, authenticated by the US Dept of State AND Authenticated by the Chinese Embassy! They don’t need it till they need it.

WHAT?

(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.)

We received our I-800A form, home study and money orders back with a “Rejection Notice.” It said “the check amount is incorrect.” I have a feeling they want 1, and only ONE, money order for the full amount. I emailed them and asked why was this not accepted? NOW, what do we do? I hope we can get the money back and take it to a place that CAN issue a money order for the full amount! GEEZ! Can this get drawn out anymore?

Nice To Be Where It's WARM!

This post is specifically for anyone in Nebraska or anywhere where it's cold/cool right now and is specifically meant to make you jealous.

We made it to Orlando yesterday with NO problems whatsoever!  It was probably the least stressful travel I've done in a long time considering we did not have to change planes!  Meighan did very well considering her age!  It's so nice and warm down here and SUNNY!  It's actually VERY BRIGHT.

Last night we were walking around the resort and found that the pool didn't close until midnight so we changed and went swimming for a while!  Meighan did fine.  She went under the water for a couple seconds and got scared so I inflated the floaty thing I had brought.  Her smile came back immediately and she loves being in it.  I'm more comfortable with her in it, too, since I don't swim.

I-800A Form Mailed

(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.)

Tony mailed our I-800A form certified mail and they expected it to get there Monday.