I'm back!

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog. I have been a little "down in the dumps" about the wait and the fact that there is not any sign of a speed-up. However, I try to keep my spirits high and know that one day, we will be matched with the perfect child for our family.

On a happier note, we had a very nice Christmas with our families. Emily even received a couple of gifts! Her Aunt Dee bought her 2 of the most adorable outfits, Grandma Marilyn bought a picture ornament with Emily's name on it and Katina bought her ladybug socks and a ladybug yo-yo.

I continue to be active in my Yahoo groups and have a Holiday Pal named Kristen. She sent us the most beautiful handpainted glass Chinese ornaments for our tree. I will post some photos in my next post once I get new batteries for the camera!

We hope that everyone had a joyous holiday season!

It's been a while!

I haven't posted in a while, so thought I'd give an update. As I've mentioned before, I belong to several Yahoo groups and am involved in several gift exchanges. I have 2 AWESOME Secret Pals. Sending and receiving gifts each month makes the time pass more quickly.Below are some of the gifts I received for the month of June.


I've also been buying clothes for Emily, although I have promised myself to stop for a while. I've found some really great buys, but my favorite is this ladybug bikini I found for $6!

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day and I feel so far away from being a mom! Lou was sweet and gave me a card and CD from the dogs. I can't wait to celebrate my first Mother's Day with Emily.
I also wanted to show everyone the adorable ladybug chair that I got! If you're interested, I got it from ABC Distributing and I love it!

Hope you had a great Mother's Day!

One Month Down!

It's hard to believe that a month has passed since we were LID. I hope all of the months feel this fast! In order to celebrate the occassion, we went to the Disney store at the mall. We bought Emily a Mulan doll, an outfit, a sippy cup, a blanket and a stuffed Eyeore!
We only have a couple of weeks left of work and then we are on vacation for 2 months...we can't wait. I plan to spend the time cleaning out the closet in the guest room (soon to be a nursery) so that I have a place to store Emily's things. Stay tuned for another update soon!

LID Network

Our agency provides a nice service for their adoptive parents. If you sign up for the LID Network, they will provide you with the name and e-mail addresses of other clients who have an LID during the same month. I've "met" 2 new friends...Kari and Anne. Our LIDs are within a day of each other, so there is a VERY good chance that we will be in the same travel group. It will be fun to get to "know" them during the long wait.

We have our LID!!!!!

We just received word that our dossier was logged in yesterday! Our official LID is 4/5/07. We are so excited! This date is very important because this is when we begin our countdown. We're hoping that the wait time to referral begins to go down, but it is currently at 16-18 months and could go as high as 3 years. I'm choosing to be an optimist and hold out hope that it will eventually get shorter. Either way, time will pass and the trick is to keep busy, which I certainly don't have a problem doing! I know that when we finally receive our referral, it will be for the child that is meant to become a part of our family. Stay tuned for more updates!

We're DTC!!!

We just received the e-mail that our dossier was sent to China yesterday. Our official DTC date is 3/20/07. Our last step is to wait for the CCAA to log-in our dossier. It can take up to 4 weeks. Once this happens, we will receive our LID. THEN...WE BEGIN THE OFFICIAL WAIT FOR EMILY!
It's hard to believe that we started this process in December and we will not be "in line" until April. Here's hoping for a speedy LID!