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"I writing you a note, Mama!" I love her "notes" she writes some letters, and some things that look like letters. She usually throws in a drawing of a person for good measure.
Yesterday in the car after school she was trying to tell me something that had happened with her friend. I told her I didn't understand what she was telling me. She told me seriously, "Mama, wait 'til we get home, I tew (tell) you the whole story." I tried hard not to laugh out loud.
Where did my baby go?
Great news to share today!! Our dossier is on it's way to China and should be arriving there shortly with the director of the China Waiting Child program of our agency!! She will *hand deliver* it to the CCAA Monday. That's right, special delivery! It just so happens that everything was ready to go and the director was on her way to meet with the CCAA. So, voila! We are thrilled.
So what does this mean time-wise?? Well, because US immigration (USCIS) was able to expedite our paperwork it only took 3 weeks instead of the original 3+ months . See why we are thrilled?!?! We contacted Congresswoman Betty McCollum's office locally and they helped us to get it through quickly. I'm guessing that without their "inquiry" it would have taken much longer.
So what else does this mean?? We should be traveling by JUNE!! June, people!! June to meet our sweet boy. My birthday is in June! We met Emily in June! June!! It will be lovely.
All of these pictures are of Nanning, where we will meet our boy!
We had a lovely little family celebration to welcome the year of the rat. We went to a new(er) Chinese restaurant, recommended by Andrew Zimm*ern of Fo0d Netw*rk fame, who lives here in town. The place is called "Little Sze*chuan" (minus the star, I obviously don't want people looking for the restaurant to find us!) and we highly recommend it to those in the area.
Afterwards we went to a great CNY show presented by all of the local Chinese schools and dance troupes. Em watched the show for almost the entire hour and a half until
intermission, even though we left after that to get home to bed! I found one dance group that is really close to our house and I'm interested in having Em take classes there this summer. She was begging to go on stage too, but we kept telling her she could next year. 
The preschool group from her daycare performed and she was excited to see them. She will get to do a performance with them next year, but she loves to dance so much that I think the extra class would be perfect. Something special just for her when life is being turned upside-down by this little brother we keep talking about!
Here's her picture in the last Qipao that fits her from China! Oh my she's grown up so much. We will certainly look for more silks for her when we are there this summer.
Em truly does not like posing for pictures. She alternates from goofing around, to being serious and working hard not to smile, trying to avoid the camera. 
We're cold here in MN! It's only February 11th and I'm getting spring fever. I want to sit in the back yard, reading a good book while Em plays around in the sand and on the swings. Luckily we had one warm day about 2 weeks ago and we went out to play for a long while. We made a sweet little snowman. He has since toppled and the squirrels ran off with the carrot, but Em enjoyed making him with me.
If all goes well this week we should have some big news about baby #2, but I don't want to jinx it by writing about it too soon! I promise I'll post more later in the week.
I just have to do this...This is my shameless plug for Barack Obama. Ever since I read his book in April of last year, I knew that this was a man that I could support and respect. I am so hopeful that others in my state and across the country have also taken the opportunity to learn about Senator Obama and his viewpoints. I drove over to see him here locally, but since I left late (Tom had class) I decided when I saw the crowds that I'd never get a seat and sadly turned around to go home. The lines wrapped around the building, 5-7 people wide, and filled four skyways that I drove under. Crossing two city blocks. Amazing. 20,000 people were there to see him. I did watch the video of him addressing the Target Center crowd, for FIFTY minutes, check it out here and tell me you aren't inspired for change: http://wcco.com/election/barack.obama.minneapolis.2.644359.html
You can check out Senator Obama's website here, if you haven't yet. (http://www.barackobama.com) Check it out, dig around, read up on everything he stands for.
This is the direction I would love to see our country take, this is the excitement that has been sorely missing from politics in our country for years. Excitement and passion that I've seen in several other countries, but never here.
Here's a quick run-down of my favorite topics that Obama is talking about and also several reasons why I like him:
1) He's proposing a tax credit for college students ($4,000/year) that will be repaid through community service, through AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or volunteering in the community. I believe it would work much like the Adoption Tax credit, which we know personally was a huge help for our family.
2) In his speech, Barack said, "We don't torture. We don't torture!" Enough said.
3) He would work towards restoring American Diplomacy. I feel that Senator Obama is the best candidate for this. So many great things are discussed on his website. Go check!
4) I love the fact that never before has anyone had broader support for a campaign. Senator Obama has not accepted any money from Washington lobbyists, nor political action committees, but hundreds of thousands of citizens across the country. Most of his contributions are in $5 to $25 pledges.
5) He talks about working to fix our broken immigration system, while still respecting immigrant families and working to keep them together. I like all of his points on immigration, actually, again check them out on his site.
6) Senator Obama is a peace-monger, a "Hope-monger". From day one he has been against the war in Iraq, made speeches and recommendations that we not go to war and now, too many years later, has a plan for how to get us out of there, while still keeping the region moving in the right direction.
7) He is a leader that we would be proud to call our president. A well-spoken, highly intelligent, humorous and down-to-earth man. Someone that could make us say, "Hey! I WANT to vote for this guy, there's actually someone on the ballot that I'm excited about!" and also, "Yes, I'm from the USA, our president is an awesome man. We're proud of the direction he is taking us in." Hmmm...I could never say these things while visiting other countries in the past 7 years.
8) Oh and...universal health care, not a mandate, like Hillary is proposing, but a universal health care option. Quality, affordable, portable coverage for all. Our family doesn't need health care, but through this plan our premiums would go down and I would know that the hundreds of kids I work with in my city schools would be covered and cared for because, they are all OUR children!
I could go on and on, but I won't. But please, inform yourself if you haven't already. Consider your options and by all means get out to vote on Super Tuesday!!
*hopping off my soap box now*
wait...PS If you've received that ridiculous e-mail about Obama not saying the pledge and how he's some fanatic Muslim militant, get real. And if you believed for a minute what any of it said, shame on you for being a stooge.
Three weeks without stable internet. I nearly went crazy!! I could catch our neighbor's if I was standing in one corner of the dining room, but only every so often. Still, you could find me in that corner quite often those three weeks. (My husband would agree with your assessment that I'm addicted!) Luckily our issues are resolved and we're officially back to cable. Yippee.
So, where are we at with the boy???
We got an UPDATE!!! Picture and everything, but it is not a picture that I can post on the blog. If you'd like to see it, send me an e-mail, I'll share it freely, it's just that our agency asked that we not post it on a public blog. With that tiny, but ADORABLE picture ,we got this little paragraph about him: "This little boy is described as very smart and learns quickly. He loves to play with the neighbor children and likes to share his candy and cookies with the other kids. He is very active and mischievous." So it's official, we're in for it with this one! We keep laughing at how much our lives are going to change in the next year.
At the end of the paragraph was this statement: "He had an operation on December 17, 2007 to repair his club feet. After 3 weeks of casting he will wear a corrective brace on his feet." After reading this my stomach flip-flopped. We had no idea that they were planning to do any surgery and our club foot doctor told us, "Whatever you do, be sure that he doesn't have surgery in China." But, well, it's done. We don't know exactly what state his feet will be in once we meet him, nor do we know exactly what they did in that surgery. Both Tom and I felt so bummed when we read that, with hopes that his feet will still react well to treatments here, but also because we were sad that he had surgery and we couldn't be there with him. After we heard that we just wanted to hold him and be there for him when he came out of surgery. Funny, because he still doesn't even have a clue that we exist or that we will change his whole life in a matter of months. The good news is that I'm sure his foster family was there for him and we just hope that they are loving him up good! Oh how we long to hug and smooch our boy.
