I'm in love!

Yesterday I received a surprise package from my agency. In the package was an updated child study on Baby Girl, new photos, and an eighteen minute video of my sweetie!!! (Just filmed on Monday!)

This is the first time we have seen her in action. It is also the first time I have seen her smile (all of her previous pictures were serious, sad, or with an irritated expression. A lot of them were also blurry, and now I know why.

She is amazing and beautiful, smart and active, funny and strong! I am just stunned that I get to be this adorable little girl's mommy! I think I'd better go re-childproof my house, though. She is going to keep us on our toes! She is standing on her own and can even play the tambourine and/or dance while standing unsupported. Her child-study says she can take about four steps unassisted, but the video didn't show that. What it did show was her scooting on her tush, crawling, standing, dancing, playing, looking at a book, laughing, smiling, responding, and so much more. The whole family is absolutely in love with her. The waiting hadn't gotten painful at all before yesterday. Well, suddenly it has. The three to four more months I will have to wait stretch out in front of me. I feel I could go crazy, but I won't...I'll enjoy my current kiddos, spend as much time with them as I can, and rethink the storage in the lower cabinets in my kitchen.

Since I can't post a picture of Baby Girl, I will post a picture of the other three taken just after The Philosopher got back from his first Boy Scout high adventure trip. He spent nearly a week canoeing the Minnesota Boundary Waters! We sure missed him, but he had an incredible time. Maybe someday I'll actually post about the fun stuff we did this summer, but right now my brain is all in the future, and it seems that future isn't coming fast enough.

Surprise phone call!

The phone rang at 7:30 this morning. I rolled over (I have fallen off the early-rising wagon this summer). The "you've got a message" tone beeped. I ignored it. A few minutes later the phone rang again. This time I got up, but still missed it.

Hmmm...it was not a number I recognized (I truly had expected it to be my dad asking the kids and I if we wanted to come over for breakfast).

I listened to the message. It was my wonderful worker at my adoption agency. She asked me to call her (she was calling from her cell which was why I didn't recognize the number). I seriously still didn't think too much of it because just yesterday I was scheduling something with her that wasn't directly related to my adoption and I thought maybe there was a scheduling conflict.

I called her, and she said the magic words: "You have matching approval!"

AMAZING!!! I screamed! Little Pud then told me that she had just prayed for MA. The fastest I have ever heard of anyone receiving MA recently was three and a half months. We broke the record with three months and ten days! Yippee!!! I was hopeful for mid-August and wasn't even thinking (much) about it yet. The wait hadn't even gotten difficult.

What does this mean? It means that I am officially matched to my sweet Baby Girl. It means that I am in another paperwork flurry. It means that I can send Baby Girl a photo album and a video so that she can be introduced to her family. It means that her child care home will start transitioning her to the name I have chosen for her. It means that Baby Girl will be home before Christmas...maybe even by Thanksgiving. Soon I will get Baby Girl's birth certificate and send off for the next step of immigration approval and then it will go to the court in her country. The long wait is over. Smooth sailing from here!

THANK YOU to all who have prayed and given. I have lots of wonderful things I would love to share, but as my recent posting history has shown, this summer has not been a good blog summer for me. However it has been a lovely real-life summer and with the coming of the school year will come more frequent posts (hopefully).

Working around it!

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions.  Ken I think you hit the nail on the head and that it has something to do with the new blogger interface (even though I have been using it for months).  I was able to (temporarily) switch to the old and it works.  And thank you Stori for suggesting Windows Live Writer.  That is what I am using right now.  This is a test post to see if it really works.  I think I should add a random picture or two to see what it does.

 

Okay, I found some pictures, but they are not random.  They are from a trip to the art museum this spring.  I am going to play around with this a bit, so sorry about the formatting (or lack of it.)

 

Super-T is enamored with Little Pud’s pink umbrella.  

We made “pots” out of Crayola Model Magic and then went for a walk in the gardens.  The kids of course wanted to play in the fountains and I wanted a family picture.  You judge who got their wish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh well, we had a good time and I did get a decent picture of Little Pud and I after she stopped making faces.

 

I also took some fun pictures of the tulips after the rain.

 

Well, so far, so good.  If this publishes I think I may be a LiveWriter convert.  Thanks, Stori! 

Now I just need to figure out how to do my signature again…

Technical difficulties

Hello there! I apologize for the delay, but I am having technical difficulties with blogger.

I cannot post or do any admin stuff from my computer. I have tried 3 different browsers and none of them work. The only thing that comes up is a blank page. Right now I am on Super-T's iPad (thanks Mission iPossible!) but I just don't have what it takes to write a real post from the iPad, not to mention all the pictures are on the computer and I don't know how to get them on the blog from here.

Please bear with me! Hopefully I'll get this figured out soon because I need to tell you about last weekend.

If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears!

Shuffling you off to humorland...

My promised post is not being written today or probably for the rest of this week.  I have cute pictures on my camera and fun thoughts in my brain, but not much time.  HOWEVER, so as not to leave you with nothing to read (as if you depend on this blog for reading material...ha! ha!...If you do, you are in sad shape), go over to rage against the minivan and read about kids drinking beer at Target.

   :)