Christmas is sneaking up fast! I still have a bunch of shopping to do. It’s frustrating because I hate giving a gift, just to give a gift but some people are really hard to buy for! We still have to buy something for my father-in-law so if anyone has some good ideas let me know.

We have been busy around the house, we finally got a tree. We went to a tree farm and they had horrible trees so we went to Lowes. I know not to festive but the tree is actually really nice. We bought lights for the front of the house, but they are still in the box. By the time we get home it’s dark so I’m afraid they will have to wait until the weekend.

We sent a request to get our fingerprints updated. They expire at the end of January. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do this but it’s better to be safe than sitting in Hanoi with expired fingerprints 

I put up our adoption timeline, I don’t know how we have made it this far, but I’m happy we are in the final stretch

Our Adoption Timeline

Our Adoption Timeline
Applied to agency	December 2002
Vietnam Closed	January 2003
Look at different programs, Taiwan, Kazakstan	--
Vietnam Reopens!	June 2005
Homestudy completed	October 2005
INS approval	November 2005
Agency received license!	January 2006
Dossier to Vietnam (DTV)	June 2006
Referral	November 2006
Refingerprinted	December 2006
Travel	April 2nd 2007
G&R	April 6th 2007
Estimated Return	April 20th 2007
It's been a long road, but we are thrilled to be where we are today and cannot wait to travel to meet our daughter.

Happy Birthday Baby!

Our baby girl is 4 months old today. I'll blow her a kiss but wish we where there to see her in person.

Some neat things babies do at 4 months are:

begins to Babble and make new sounds
plays with feet and toes
average 4 month old has doubled there birth weight
begins to laugh, giggle, and smile

poa

Today we got more paperwork to sign. The POA and referral acceptance each will go to the Justice Department in HCMC and DIA in Hanoi. I was all excited about this thinking it meant we where "closer" then I asked my agency what this meant. Basically nothing. She also told me we need to get refingerprinted because our prints expire on Jan 21st. URG, I guess that mean we aren't traveling before then and now another expense of getting refingerprinted. I don't mind getting refingerprinted if we need to but I keep holding onto the idea of traveling in January. I know this setting myself up for a huge disappointment but I cannot help it.

Wasn't I just saying not to but timelines on this stuff, what happen to that train of thought...

missing motivation

We didn't get a Christmas tree, or as much done as we hoped for. I think we are the only family on the block with no Christmas lights up, but we hope to have them up soon. The bathroom remodel has been sucking up most of our time and taking a lot longer than expected. The new tub is going in tonight, I cannot wait to get it in a working again.

I really don't understand why with one agency things move so quickly and people get G&R dates and other it moves so slowly. Now, we have only had our referral for a little over a month but our dossier was logged in and sent to the province that we are adopting for. So what the heck takes so long? :( I'm really hoping for January but maybe that's wishful thinking.

We got a Maclaren baby carrier on ebay, it's really nice I cannot wait to use it. I also have started to sort the baby clothes, I cannot believe how many oneies she has, yeks! One things I cannot figure out is how do you know if it's pj's or outfit? We have some carter suits with feet, are those pj's? How do I know? Omg, why is that so hard, it seems like a simple thing, but I look at the clothes and get confused. I know with older kids the pj's are pj's plain and simple but baby clothes it seems like many things could possibly be pj's. I don't know if I'm making sense. But if anyone has the decoder please send it over ;)

Welcome December!

During our adoption the end of each month was always a little depressing for me. Since this whole process is based upon dates, deadlines and time lines in the past a new month has meant a milestone not met.

I'm really going to try not to think our progress as far as dates. Will we get our travel approval in December, humm. That might be a set up for disappointment come Jan 1. Sooo, I'm going to think of things as far as in a few months or soon. Then I don't put to much pressure on dates that might or might not happen. After all if it's one thing I have learned during this process is we don't have control over 80% of what happens.

On a side note, we are going to get a tree this weekend. I LOVE Christmas! I got a new cookie press that I'm dying to try out. It seems a lot easier than hand rolling sugar cookies.