And the Countdown Begins ...

We leave four weeks from today!

We booked our flights last night!  Yippee!

We will be leaving on February 8 and returning on February 23!  We will FINALLY meet our son on February 13!

Our plan is to fly to Beijing, get through customs and immigration and then catch another flight to Xi'an.  That will be a LONG day!  We'll spend the night in Xi'an and then take a tour to see the Terra Cotta Warriors the next day.  We'll then spend another night in Xi'an and then take a flight to Zhengzhou in Henan Province on February 11.  We'll have the 12th free and probably take a tour that day.  We'll meet Le An on the 13th.  Then over the next few days we'll do adoption things and visit the orphanage.

On February 17 we'll flight to Guangzhou to finalize the adoption and all that entails.  We'll then probably take a train on February 22 to Hong Kong and stay the night.  Then we'll fly home on the 23rd!

We have a MILLION things to do between now and the 8th!  I can't believe we have finally made our flight reservations, though!

TA!

We'll have dates in a few days!

Cookie Decorating

Well, while we wait for our TA, I thought I'd post pictures of our Christmas Eve cookie decorating activity.  We cut out and baked the cookies earlier in the week.  Meighan chose which shapes to make and cut out ALL of them.  We had a very nice variety.

Then I made the icing and colored it on Christmas Eve and we started painting cookies!

Can't wait to eat some!

Even Daddy got into the act!

And was quite creative!

As time went on, we all got more creative!

Look out for the suger high!

!!!

The final product, Part 1

Part 2



Part 3

Part 4

These were bigger cookies so we did them last and kept them at home.

Our House, It Is A-Changin'

Tony took last week off and on Monday I found the style of headboard I wanted for Meighan's "new" big-girl bed.  It was a good price so we picked it up Monday evening.  We also found some sheets and comforter that she picked out.  On Tuesday, Tony put the headboard together and put the bed on it and made the bed.  She is now in a regular twin bed.

Mainly because... we needed the crib matress that she was using on the toddler bed for the CRIB that he also put up on Tuesday!

And then I draped a blanket and the afghan I made him on it.  He will be nice and warm!

Article 5 Has Been Completed

I received an email overnight that said our Article 5 has been completed and now our agency representative can deliver it to the CCCWA who will then issue our TA (Travel Approval) to come get our son!

Yippee!

Learning New Things

OK, so I'm learning new things about "graphic design."  I thought it was time to change our header but I didn't want a HUGE picture.  So over the course of a couple of days, I have kind of figured out how to work with layers in my paint program.  (Dee, I still don't like layers!)

The picture of Le An was taken on Dec. 7 by people from the Yahoo Group I belong to who were there to bring their daughter home and they visited the orphanage.  They got 5 pictures of Le An and this one had him smiling!  He's also standing up, so he's making progress!

We are still waiting for our Article 5 to be dropped off and then we will wait for TA.  Even if Article 5 happens by Christmas, we still won't travel until February because it is 3-5 weeks from TA to travel.

Here's all five pictures:

NVC Letter!

We received our NVC letter (stands for National Visa Center) yesterday.  I will scan it and email it to Holt tomorrow.  They will then send that and the scan of the PA to China.  Just one more step along the way to our son!

On a holiday note, we got Meighan's 4th birthday picture(s) taken today.  She is so photogenic that it is soooo hard to pick out just one shot -- so we got 5.  Everyone will get the one main shot but we have 4 others to hang/set at our house!

She will have a short rehearsal for the Children's Nativity Parade after church next Sunday and then the actual program is the 18th.  Her school Christmas program (they call it the "Winter Program") is this Friday morning.  And she wants to pick out a cake for her birthday at the grocery store, so she will get to do that this year.  We'll have cake and ice cream for those that come for that.

I've been a little lax on putting anything up for Favorite Photo Friday lately.  "Too busy" is a better way to describe it.  I had a Cookie Exchange and Ornament Exchange last night with co-workers.  It was a good time and nice to laugh a little (actually a LOT!).  I came home with a tub full of cookies and a nice ornament for the tree.

We had our first significant snow yesterday, too, so Tony plowed last night (and didn't get much sleep).

We'll eventually get the tree decorated!  We put a couple ornaments on each day.  Maybe by Christmas it will be all done!