Hi ho, hi ho--it's off to fingerprinting (AGAIN) we go...

Well, we are off in the morning to drive the 3 hours to Charlotte and 3 hours back to get our fingerprints renewed so we will be good for another 15 mos! Hopefully nothing in our fingers has changed in the last 13 mos and it will be quick and painless. Before we leave in the morning we have the HVAC guy coming to take a look and give us another estimate to put in A/C downstairs and the roof guy to fix a leak in our slate roof before we close everything up in sheetrock (hopefully very soon). Busy times, as usual.

Glad to know there are still a few of you out there still checking in--thanks for the comments! The new word on travel (not much) is that they predict that our travel date could be sometime between Thanksgiving and the first weeks of Dec.-keeps pushing out a bit with every check in-Sounding an awful lot like we may be spending the holiday in VN--I have a feeling. As these things always seem to take longer than predicted in the first place, I'd say it's pretty likely. As long as we get to VN before Christmas, I can deal. We still have so much to do on the house and our "Christmas haul" from house to house (We have 4 sets of parents alone) can reach 5 stops in a day and is exhausting and we actually dread it every year as it draws closer, so it could be a good thing. But I sure would like to meet our girl sooner than that and I would rather spend it at home instead of a hotel--that is the down side. The last couple of days have had me extremely down in the dumps for some reason--ya know, the ole' adoption roller coaster with it's ups and downs! My college buddies and I are getting together for a baby shower for me on Sunday, so something to look forward to!

if eyes are the windows to the soul....

Our girl's got great big windows!!!

We got a few more pics of our little buttercup! She is really changing (and getting a little more hair!) and we finally got a picture of her looking right at the camera. It is so precious- She has the biggest, beautiful eyes and the cutest little mouth with the most perfect lips.

No more news yet on travel at all--word is that our agency will be trying to get our referral group all to travel by the end of the year (fingers crossed) so that would mean several travel groups in Nov/Dec. Since our fingerprints expire at the end of Dec, we are going to have to get them renewed---we sent in our renewal request and got our appt. letter pretty quickly and have our new appt. for this coming Thurs. We will again have to take a day off work and drive 3 hours each way to get our fingerprints redone. I think it is pretty ridiculous that our fingerprints "expire" in the first place, but we will do what we gotta do!

Happy Friday!!

A Shower of congrats for us

Wow, has it almost been a month?? Time really has flown in a way since that happy referral day--I realize this is mainly due to the fact that I am working a full 40 hour+ week at work in my usual 4 day work week, while desperately trying to get farther along on the house renov. on the weekends before the little buttercup comes home, and then all the preparations and lists to do for the new little one....(come on people, somethings gotta take a back seat!:) BUT, we have managed to slip in some fun celebration in the mix as well--We had our very first baby shower at my parents' lake house this past weekend--(You may remember it from this post from my stepsister's wedding). The patio by the lake continues to be the setting for more of our families happy occasions, and we hope to be able to spend more time there with buttercup in the very near future. All 4 sets of our parents were there to celebrate our little one's impending arrival as well as our good friends who love us enough to drive over an hour to attend. We love and thank you guys!!! I told my dad that it really wouldn't have mattered to us if all the beautiful bags and boxes were empty (yet filled with love and good wishes), the real gift was the fact that *WE* were having a shower because we are actually going to be parents and everyone wants to celebrate with us!! After all the sweet babies we have helped celebrate and love, we finally have our turn too. It really made us giddy! It was beautiful and we appreciate all my family's hard work to make it so nice. We got to debut our Vietnamese "mom" and "dad" shirts for the first time (even though some of our dear friends thought I was announcing the day was all about "ME"--they finally got a clue after a little explanation. :) And yes, that cake tasted as good as it looked!

No travel news yet, other than a "rough" estimate that it could be around the Thanksgiving holiday--the countdown is really on and we have lots of work to do yet. Bear with me and stay tuned....

Yes, it's what you think it means!!

I've kept you waiting long enough! The day finally came!!

Yes, I am happy to announce we have received and accepted the referral of our sweet little buttercup baby girl!!!!!! We are so happy! She is a little peanut-so tiny. She has a ring of little-old-man hair, really long fingers and the cutest little yawn you have ever seen. We think she is just precious! It is so surreal to have been waiting so long and then be so surprised when the call finally came. It was perfect.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through the hard wait! Hopefully we will have an idea of travel time soon. I think the wait to travel may be harder than I anticipated, but we have lots to do to prepare the house for our little peanut buttercup! :) Right now we cannot get enough of her cute little face!

the little butterfly has landed..... :)

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will allude you. but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder..... (Thoreau)



There is a now a little butterfly on my shoulder..... :) More soon.........