Ice Cream Fun

Joy-Lynn and I enjoy hanging out in the evening, normally after her kiddles have been put to bed. Her hubby works evenings so normally our fun begins around 9. Recently she let the two oldest stay up until I arrived and it was extra exciting when I came bearing ice cream! Mmmmm! As you can see from this pic it didn't take long to polish off all the yummy goodness.


Joy-Lynn and I have gone to the same church for years but didn't really know one another well until she walked into Curves a couple of years ago at 6am and I was there working out too. A new friendship was born and it's wonderful!! (Yes you read that correctly. We met at Curves and now our time together has moved on to ice cream parties or scoops with cheese dip!)

I'm also thrilled that Joy-Lynn will be the one caring for Hannah when I go back to work. (Unless I'm retired by then! :o) Do you think I should be concerned? This was what happened last week when we went out to a movie and then grocery shopping together. Gotta love a friend who knows how to have a good time!!

Hey Joy-Lynn! Maybe next time we'll try for the racing car cart!!

Amazing Race Surprise

I've been an Amazing Race fan since the very first episode. It was exciting today to learn that the next season begins this Sunday!!

Who's going to be watching it with me?

Amazing Generosity Once Again!

Once again my friend Julie was amazingly generous in contributing to the growing collection of items awaiting Hannah! She and I shared a great lunch together enjoying one another's company as well as her daughter's fun chatter. I hadn't seen them in a little over a year and it's amazing what a difference a year can make. Her little one is adorable and it's such fun to hold conversations with a toddler!

It was a great time for Julie and I to catch up and she also had some wonderful items for Hannah. I have a crib for her that Carol and I picked up during a quick border shoppy trip in May of 2006. It makes me laugh (and almost cry) to see that in the post I mentioned waiting until February of 2007 to begin Hannah's nursery. Alas I won't even be starting her nursery in February of 2008! Possibly in the spring? Or, more likely summer/fall. Ok...enough of the wait, let's get to the wonderful gifts!

This will be Hannah's crib bedding. It's a one-of-a-kind set that was made by Sarah Richardson of HGTV. The really neat thing is that I'd never even heard of Sarah Richardson but the night before Julie and I got together for lunch I happened to see her show, 'Sarah's House.' Too cool! The colours are perfect too as Hannah's crib will initially be in my room which is also pink and green. I haven't quiet decided on the colours and theme of her 'big girl' room. I'm considering buying a single bed to put in there but am not sure. I have a few accessories for that room but that's about all so far.

Also included with the gift's was a 'Utah Bed' for Hannah! Others may call this a 'Pack 'n Play' but Rose and Marie know it as a 'Utah bed' and if that's the name for those sweeties then it works for us too! It was funny. When Julie pulled this out of her storage room my first thought was, 'Cool! Now Hannah has a Utah bed too!'

There were other assorted items that are much appreciated too. A video monitor which will be a wonderful luxury item. It will be so nice to be able to check on Hannah and watch her sleep without having to navigate all the many squeaks that my floors and stairs make. (If I ever purchase a new home again I'll be sure to screw down the floor before the carpeting goes down!!) There were also crib sheets; fuzzy, soft change table covers and a diaper bag too.

The final gifts are Hannah's first wooden puzzles! I really like doing puzzles and look forward to some fun playtime with her as we work on these together. If you look carefully you'll also see a little plastic linking toy. Julie's daughter took this out of her own toys and asked me to give it to Hannah! Isn't that sweet?

Thank you Julie!! Once again your generosity is humbling. I am so thankful for your friendship and also thankful for your giving spirit. GREATLY appreciated!

19 Months Closer to Hannah!!!

Another month closer and time to celebrate!! Wow...19 months!

I was sharing the provincial requirement changes with Norma last week and she put a really neat spin on it! For months and months now (19 months to be exact) I've been sitting idle (paperwork wise...not in body, that's for sure!) and with each passing referral batch the wait for Hannah has been getting longer rather than shorter. This opportunity (and I use that term lightly) to update my documents will allow me to actively do something again that will bring Hannah and I closer to one another. Yahoo!! Thanks Norma!

So, as I begin to prepare for paperchase #2, it's with a sense of excitement that once again I'm 'chasing' my dream for Hannah!

Mommy loves you baby girl! In God's perfect timing you and I will be together and begin our lives as a family..and I can't wait!!!

Let the paperchase beging again! Round 2 *ding!*

I've held off posting anything until I was sure of more details about rumour and to find out if it is actually true. (Hehe...sounds like the Rumor Queen!) Unfortunately it is.

I heard last night and confirmed today that those of us in Ontario who are completing International Adoptions will need to have their ministry approval done a 2nd time if the wait between ministry approval and referral is greater than 24 months. Their approvals always expired after 18 months but that was recently changed to 24 months. Mine would hit the 24 month in March of 2008 and you and I both know Hannah's referral will not be received by that time.

As I understand it, this new requirement will require:
- updated medical
- new local police check (guess that's just in case I decided to take up shoplifting as a hobby during the wait)
- SW will contact my references via phone/email and make a note that that was done. Do they still support my adoption plan?
- visit(s) with SW to determine if any major changes have taken place. Not really unless you take into account that I've aged by 2 years! A mini-updated homestudy will be written by the SW.

As much as I would love to not have to go through this, I accept it. I can't do anything about it so I accept it. It's frustrating at times that I need to prove over and over again that I'm able to raise a child but my fighting it won't get me anywhere but frustrated.

So....let the paperchase begin....AGAIN!!! $$$cha-ching!!$$$

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpelnig was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on!!

Congratulations!!!

Wahoo!! My cousin Bridget and her hubby Adam welcomed the newest addition to their family on Saturday, October 13th! Oh my, isn't he a cutie? Welcome Keigan!! Can't wait to meet you next month!
Bridget and I are the best of friends even though we've grown up living a distance from one another. I love her to bits and am so thankful to have her in my life! One of the many things that Bridget and I have in common is that out of the 12 cousins on our dads' side, she and I are the only 2 girls. Yes, 10 boys and 2 girls so you have to know that we stuck together like glue!
It looks like her little Molly is following in Mommy's footsteps. Here's a pic of Keigan's welcome home party surrounded by his brothers and sister! They're all great kids and I know that Keigan will be a wonderful addition to an amazing family!! Hey Molly, I'm working desperately at upping the 'girl' count at family functions! Maybe by Christmas next year???

Congratulations Bridge!! Love you lots!

PS: Bridge, You were so good at getting your blessing for Hannah made early. Guess we'll just slide in a pic of Keigan and it will be complete once again.

Now....if I can just talk her into #7 there might be a chance that we'll be on maternity leave together! LOL!!! (Heh....sorry Cuz....had to throw that one in! ;o) Love you LOTS and LOTS!! Hugs and kisses for all!

So Glad to Be Here with You!

Today I went to an Open House that is available to waiting families with my agency. This is the 3rd or 4th one of these I have gone to but today's was the first I'd gone to in over a year. It was a notably different situation for so many reasons.

In the past the wait was less than a year so people were up, excited and anticipating their referral. At today's event the differences were very apparent to me. In the past even though the agency only had 60-80 waiting families, there would easily be 50+ people at the open house. The feeling in the air was one of excitement and talk was a preparations for baby and travel. Travel groups got to meet one another and often set up additional times to get together.

Today, even though the agency currently has about 180 waiting families there were only about 20 people there and the discussions were more questions about the wait, the wait and ...the wait. People in attendance were either next on our agency's list (Jan '06 LID's) or 2007 LID's. I found it interesting that there were only 3 of us with 2006 LID's between March and December and all the rest of the people had LID's in 2007. I find, like a lot of us, that people are just trying to go on with their lives as much as possible until we get closer to our referrals.

As hard as the wait is, our agency director was a upbeat as she could be under the circumstances. On a good note it appears the citizenship laws may be changing for Canada. I knew something was in the works but she sounded like it was a done deal as of January 1, 2008. Is anyone else aware of this? Still waiting for details but it appears from what I heard today the Hannah may come home as a Canadian citizen. This wasn't the change I'd understood but would be a wonderful surprise if it was! Does anybody have details about this?

What am I thankful for today? I'm thankful to have found you! A wonderful, informative group of people online. It was sad to see people's faces fall as they heard of the wait being so much longer than they anticipated. The girl next to me had an October 2006 LID and had contacted the agency recently to see if she might be travelling next June? With a March 2006 LID, June would be a miracle for me! What made me sad was that with all the information available to us, many people who are trying to guess when they might travel, also choose (as they are free to) to not avail themselves to the information available online.

Today, once again, I am thankful for you. The blogging community who shares our hopes, dreams and realistic referral guesstimations based on the current CC@AA trends. The wait is long and rough but being here with you makes it SO MUCH BETTER! Thanks for hanging out here...I'm happy to be waiting alongside you.

Too funny!

Do you remember this post from a couple of weeks ago?

Guess what! My friend Carol was at a local market last week and would you believe that they had Rhodes Orange Rolls in their freezer?? I dragged those munchkins all the way from SLC and hoped that they wouldn't explode in my suitcase only to find out that they're available 15 minutes down the road!

Mmmm...that's a good thing....I think! Gonna have to ration how often I buy those! Thanks for the tip Carol. Now I'll be able to share these with friends when they come over. Yummy!

Thankful for Friends in this Wonderful World of IA!

Today I am thankful for the many, many people I have been priviledged to meet as I wait for my precious daughter.

The wait is so much longer than any of us anticipated but one of the many unexpected blessings during this wait is the many, many AMAZING people I have met who are also waiting for their child or, have recently become a family.

As I wandered through the memories of the past year, not only was I struck by the many new friends I've made across Canada and the US, but also, by how many of the babies we were waiting for when we were together are now home! Wahoo!!!! From the friends in the pics I counted 10 who have returned home with their sweet baby girls since we met, 1 has an adorable son from Vietnam in her arms, 1 has a referral picture and is waiting to travel and still 7 others brought their daughters home this year or so and what a treat it was to meet the babies and mommies together!!

GOD IS SO GOOD!!! His timing is perfect. I believe that. I trust Him and today I am thankful for the precious friends He has introduced me to as I await Miss Hannah's arrival!

At church tonight we were encouraged to share about difficult times we can be thankful for because God was with us during those times. Tonight I shared about all of you and what an awesome priviledge it is to wait alongside such wonderful ladies!

I want to share some verses that I found encouraging today and I hope that they can be an encouragement to you too:

'Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. ' Philippians 4: 6, 7 (The Message)

'I thank God through Jesus for every one of you.' Romans 1:8

'Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart.' Phil 1: 3, 4

Thank you friends! Each of you are a blessing for whom I am very, very thankful!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I have so much to be thankful for that I can't even begin to name everyone and everything. Today, as we were reminded in church, I am thankful for my faith.

I am thankful to God that He loved me (and you) enough to send His son Jesus to the earth, to live a perfect and sinless life yet still suffer death on a cross.

Thankful that He did not stay dead in the grave but arose 3 days later and is seated today at God's side!

Thankful that I have the opportunity to admit to my sins, ask God to forgive me of my sins, ask Him to be my Saviour and someday I will live with Him for eternity.

Thank you God for creating us and loving us at all times.

'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.' John 3:16

Happy Birthday Rose and Marie!!!

What an exciting day!! Rose (l) amd Marie (r) are TWO years old today!!! Happy, happy birthday girls!!

What fun it will be to see pics of your big day and until then, I've enjoyed salsa and chips in honour of your special day!

Why don't you hop on over and wish these 2 cuties a Happy Birthday?

A Woman of My Word...and Thank You i-Con

Yes, I did it and here's the evidence. This my friends was my 'referral batch coping mechanism' and it went down really well! All the ooey, gooey chocolate, ice cream and pecans were just what the doctor ordered to help deal with this month's teeny, tiny referral batch. Not only was this batch small in LID's, it appears it was also small in numbers although possibly included many expedited referrals. Not to sure about that but hopefully for those families included, this is correct. (Explanation: A family may be entitled to an expedited referral if one or both of the parents were born in China and they receive their referral ahead of those who share their LID. We have one family in our travel group that were expedited and travelled earlier this year to meet their daughter. What a sweetie and I'm so happy for them!)

Now, back to the DQ. It was wonderful, but, also may be partially responsible for my 2:30am waking and thus blogging. That and something that came up at work just before I left. Why is 2am a good time for me to start mulling work over in my head? Normally I leave the office at the office but some days it follows me home and pops up in the middle of the night. Oh well, no biggie and I'm sure the situation will be resolved tomorrow and I'll be able to check one more thing off the 'to do' list. (Clarification: it's not a 'people' problem. All's well in the coworker rhelm! When I first started this type of work I slept with a pen and paper beside my bed because I'd think of questions and scenarios in the middle of the night. It's better now but I sometimes get thinking too much at night which keeps me up. Guess it's good to think sometime. :o) Hmmm...since work woke me up at 2am do you think my boss will mind me taking a nap at my desk at 2pm tomorrow? I'm not thinking that will go over too well!

Back to the ice cream, again. It was deelish and would you believe it? As I was leaving the house I remembered a coupon that I'd clipped last week. 'Buy one, Get one free.' Not wanting to waist waste the coupon I took it to DQ with me and now have a treat in the freezer to enjoy sometime this weekend. Most 2 for 1 coupons go straight into the garbage in my home but not this one. Ahhh...ice cream!

When I arrived home with my sticky treats I stopped to pick up the mail. What fun to find this delightful pink duckie in the mailbox with a reminder that October is Breast Cancer awareness month. Thanks for the great reminder i-Con! So far have avoided da big squishing machine but I'm sure my time will come sooner than later. Not looking forward to it but I'm sure it will be fine when it happens. The cute little duckie is already in with Rebecca's bath toys and I'm sure she'll notice it first off next time she visits! Thanks friend!

Since it's almost 3am I'm going to try and get some shut-eye before my alarm wakes me up in a few hours. Yeah, only 1 more day until the long weekend! We Canadians are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend and this year one thing I'm thankful for is this amazing weather. Would you believe we're still averaging 25o (high 70's) each day? Yeah! No complaints here!

Sweet ice-cream dreams and Quack, quack!

Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out!!!

Can I tell you how happy I am to see the end of November 2005 referrals? I know many of you are in the same boat and oh baby, I'm looking forward to the day when referrals begin for the months after November 2005!

I'll admit that I had fully convinced myself that this batch would take us 4 or 5 days into December but once again I blew it! Every poll we had access to showed very small numbers of LID's for the end of November so I was fully prepared to celebrate seeing December '05 referrals. I'm still excited to celebrate with Kathy and Matt who received 'the call' about their precious baby girl yesterday but oh how I wish we were celebrating with others like Abby's Mom too! Hopefully next month!

For those of my friends who read this from outside the adoption world, it has taken 6 v-e-r-y l-o-n-g months for CC+AA to match babies with families whose files were logged with them in November 2005. November 1st LID's received their referrals on May 1st and just yesterday, referrals began to arrive for families logged in November 26th - 30th. Sadly I believe this is a new record and hopefully one that will never be broken!!

What does this mean to those of us waiting? Once again our anticipated referral months are delayed and the waiting game continues.

Still waiting...still praying...still trusting God for His perfect timing. Oh does it hurt though! Anybody have a spare tissue I can use?

I've decided that tonight I'll drown my disappointment in a DQ Pecan Mud Slide! Who's with me? Ice cream and chocolate for everyone and we'll post pics of ourselves with our referral coping food of choice. C'mon...it'll be fun! :o) Yup...feeling better already!

GREAT Family Movie!!

If you want a wonderful evening out with the family or a friend, then I'd highly recommend Disney's latest movie, 'The Game Plan'. It's a great, clean movie that I'd recommend for your entire family.

I saw it on Friday night with my friend Deb and then enjoyed it so much that Joy and I went to see it tonight! (Yeah for 1/2 price coupons!)

If you want to leave a movie with a smile on your face then this is the one to go see!