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.........

Wow, I got NUTHIN'!

I realize it has been a really long time, once again since my last post....and most of my posts start with an apology about that. Well, no more. When I have something to say, I will post it. Right now, I just don't' feel like talking about how long the wait is taking. Sure, I've got things going on here, but since this is not a work blog or necessarily a house renovation blog I just don't have a lot going on in the adoption world right now. Things are unfortunately quiet. Other than the fact that I don't think I have officially congratulated my friend Em yet on here about the referral of her beautiful Lulu recently. Yay, finally!! (Of course I have officially congratulated her in real life!!) She knows how thrilled I am for her! :)

Let's see, we moved our offices--so I guess I changed jobs, technically--even though I am still working with the same people doing the same thing (only it's just the 8 of us now)--just under our beloved company banner again. That is a good thing--no more cube world and much more conducive to bringing buttercup to the office if the need arises. I did actually talk them into converting the almost three weeks personal time I had built up for travel at the former company into a leave package so I wouldn't lose it--that is definitely good. I heart my little company. They are trying to do what they can to help and are truly interested in getting little buttercup home. Now I just have to see what I have to do about updating our home study for this little job change....

The house progress continues slowly.......I can't see the light at the end yet.......but hopefully we will turn the corner soon.

All the news I've got in the world of adoption is that we are hanging at #6 on the list at the moment with, as always, the promise of a group of impending referrals that may include buttercup. But I am trying to be guarded about that--even though my non-rational side is so excited at the thought!--I don't want to be disappointed. Things in IA do not seem to ever go as you think they will.

Well, I guess I did have a little to say :) Ta-ta for now!

The One Year Mark

Well, today we have been "officially" waiting for buttercup for one year. One year ago today, CIS received our I600A and our wait officially began. However, we were actually waiting to begin a long, long time before that, but that is when we could throw our hat into the ring and send in our first official paperwork. We hadn't even officially signed with an agency yet at that point. I had no idea at the time that we would still be waiting now. I feel like we are definitely closer.....but still have a ways to go. I have been having a wide range of emotions these past couple of weeks. One day I will feel so positive and that we are so close, and then I will come crashing down to reality that it is one year later and here we are still.....waiting. No referral. I know I am not alone in this wait, and actually it has allowed me to meet some really great friends that wait along with me. However, I do wish we all had our little ones and could be planning play dates already! (As you can see above, it is not keeping Bijou from resting comfortably. :) This cat knows how to relax. She knows not what's in store for her-she just likes to hang out in her room.)

To commemorate this momentous event, M & I went to an awesome Vietnamese restaurant for the first time last night. It's been open only about 9 months. I mean, OMG, it is my absolute fave restaurant now. It is a little pricey, but the kind of place where service is key and we are talking the fold-your-napkin-for-you-and-put-it-on-the-back-of-your-chair-while-you-are-in-the-ladies-room-and-pull-your-chair-out-and-hand-it-back-to-you-when-you-get-back kind of service. Nice. The food we had was so yummy and the presentation was lovely. I had the pho and it was the best I have ever had. Don't know if we will be able to go every week, but let me tell you the next few special occasions and we are there. Can you tell I liked it? It was a nice way to end the year of an ever growing wait. One year down........ let's hope we are on the homestretch and buttercup shows herself soon.