Halloween

Here is our little Indian maiden, Carlee says she's Pocahontas and I tell her she's Sacajawea either way, she took 1st in the town's Halloween parade for the prettiest.

Bee Sting the next Day

Here is how Carlee woke up this morning with alot of swelling around her eye
Here is a photo of her eye right after church around lunch

Here it is just before bed. She says it doesn't hurt that it just itches. We gave her some Benydril and put warm compresses on it so hopefully tomorrow the swelling will go down some. Poor Kid

Books Books Bookcase

During the school sale last month I pointed out a bookcase that was being sold and told DH J that Carlee could sure use a bigger one. He told me he would build one for her nicer than the one at the auction. So today he comes home with this nicely handcrafted bookcase. I really think it's super. As you can see Carlee has quite the library. I'm tickled that her books fit on the case with room to spare...

What a Day!

What a day, first around 1 pm we went down to the Fallfest at a local church. When we got there Carlee met up with her best friend J. I asked J's mom to watch the girls while they stood in line for the moon bounce while I signed Carlee in for the prize drawings. No sooner did I get in the prize drawing line then this awful scream and bawling came from the moon bounce line. I looked over and sure enough there was Carlee just crying her little eyes out. J's mom was trying to see what happened, I raced over and asked Carlee what was wrong and she said her eye hurt. Once I finally got her to let me look at it I discovered the poor kid got stung by a bee just under her right eye. Poor kid this was her first bee sting and what a place to have it. Needless to say we got some ice for her eye and went home. Once home we out cream on it and give her some Advil. The crying went on until about 2. Around 3 the eye was fine with minimal swelling.

We were planning to be in the town's Halloween parade today so around 3 I asked her if she wanted to be in the parade starting around 4. No she said I just want to watch. So I called J's mom to see were they would be standing so we could stand with them This was about 3:40pm turns out that J decided to walk in the parade, well that is all it took Carlee wanted to be in the parade too.

Mad dash getting her outfit on. Thank goodness we had everything laid out and her hair braided before we left for Fallfest. We made it to register at 3:55. She here she is walking in the parade. We decided to go with the Indian Maiden this year. She says she's Pocahontas...I say she's Sacajawea.

After the parade the kids play in the park and roast hot dogs until they announce the winners of the parade. Well guess who won 1st place for the prettiest individual. That's right the Indian Maiden. Here she is with her trophy. The day turned out pretty good after all!

Kindergarten Picture

This is our kids Kindergarten photo...Ain't she cute! I can't believe how quickly she grew up.

2 more weeks til TSO

Less that 2 weeks and my Best Friend Forever (BFF) Kate and I will be going to see the Tran Siberian Orchestra (TSO) Christmas concert. I can't wait. Jeff and I went for the past 2 years and I have enjoyed both performances. The songs are, dare I say, ROCKIN' and the light show is to die for. I have all their CDs and I must admit they are the first Christmas CDs I get out sometimes before Thanksgiving.

If you can't place the group TSO here is their website. http://www.trans-siberian.com/intro.html If they ever get near your hometown I would highly recommend going. What a great way to bring in the holiday season.

Halloween Pumpkin

Gramma Ritzman and Carlee carved this pumpkin during Gramma stay. Carlee drew the face and helped gut the pumpkin and Gramma did the carving. Not too bad.

Here are some of Carlee's "scary" Halloween faces...They look a little devilish to me.

Our Girl is Reading!!

Carlee read her first book to me last night it was "Jack and Jill and Big Dog Bill" I'm so proud! She is not even 5 yet. She didn't know only 2 words in the whole book.

She had been reading Go Dog Go and some of Dick and Jane but never completed the whole book.

I can't believe how much a little kid can learn at such a young age.

China Adoption ...The Process

Step #1...Complete many forms, get a homestudy, find your birth cert., marriage license and many more documents. Get everything notarized at the Dept of State. Get fingerprinted for Homeland Security. Get phyical, Gather past 2 yrs worth of taxes, Send all of these documents and forms (about 24 pieces of paper in all) now called a dossier to the Center for Chinese Adoption Affairs (CCAA) in Bejiing China.

Step #2...Once the CCAA recieves your dossier they log you in their books as to the date they recieved your paperwork. Call Log In Date or LID ours was Dec 7, 2005

Step #3...Wait

Step #4...1 year has passed since you did your homestudy and fingerprints. Send in more money to get everything renewed

Step #5...Wait

Step #6.. Dossier goes to the CCAA Review Room Our dossier (paperwork) checked and double checked to make sure everything is filled out the way they want it and that all of our paperwork is in order. Once the dossier is completely reviewed then it is sent to the matching room.

Step #7...Wait

Step #8...Nearly 2 years has passed since home study. You must renew the homestudy again as in PA you can't travel unless you have a current home study.

Step #9...Matching Room...In the matching room they review this months available baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. Parent dossiers are reviewed months before, baby dossiers are reviewed when they arrive and then immediately matched. So now they have a stack of baby dossiers. They look to see how far this stack will go in the month without sending out a partial day and they pull all of those files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they don't get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther. Next they match orphanages up with agencies. This orphanage has six babies, this agency has six families. These two orphanages are in the same province and have a total of 12 babies, this agency has 12 families. When they are through with this is when (I believe) some agencies start to get information about the cut-off date. And then they start matching individual babies to individual families. The CCAA has matched up to Nov 30th 2005 as of the beginning of Oct 07

Step #10 ...We hear from our agency that we have been matched and are given the details of our daughter. Hopefully this will happen the last week of Oct or the first week of Nov.

I'll let you know about what happens next .... More coming soon (I hope)

Getting Ready

I am praying that we get matched with our daughter and get Cadee's picture and info the beginning of Nov. (I'll explain how the Chinese adoption process works later) I know I'll be really anxious and nervous the last week of Oct and the first week of Nov.

I'm really starting to buy things for Cadee now and I thought it would be nice to have Carlee and Cadee some matching outfits. I really makes it difficult because most of my purchases come from yard sales or second hand stores. Sometimes I do splurge though

Here are some of my purchases so far.

I thought I would have Carlee wear her Jie-Jie Sweatshirt to Kindergarten on the day after we get Cadee's picture. I wasn't sure if we would get our match in the summer or winter so I had to buy for both seasons of course. Won't the girls look too cute wearing these once Cadee comes home.

Here are dresses I found ON SALE at the Gymboree outlets

And how could I pass up this outfit for Cadee I found at a yard sale with the tags on...

Gramma Do

My mom is home from MT for 10 days and Carlee was up visiting her the other day and told her "I think I'll call you Gramma Do from now on." Mom replied "why is that Carlee?" To which Carlee answered "Because you always say do this, do that"

We really got a kick out of that...

New Christmas Ornaments

As many of you know I love to get Hallmark ornaments every year. I think I would have enough ornaments to cover 2-3 Christmas trees. This year is no different...here are this years purchases.

I heard about this new Hallmark ornament on the Adopt Parent China chat room so of course I had to get one for each of the girls ...The little fortune says "We belong together" I thought that was very fitting.

I also found these for Carlee, she loves the princesses

And of course I couldn't forget Baby Cadee...Here is hers

Hiccup Remedy

Here is a trick that worked the other day on Carlee's hiccups. I stood behind her and had her drink a full cup of water (you could use juice or milk) while I pressed firmly with each index finger on the sides of her face right next to her ears. You should be able to fell them swallowing under your fingers.

I don't know how it worked but it did. Give it a try next time

Soccer Fall 2007

Here is Carlee's soccer photo from this season. She has decided that she didn't particularly care for this sport. She did pretty good for her first time playing. Her U1 team was co ed and had 13 kids on the team. She got to play every game, even being the goalie a couple of times.

Next project...Piano Lessons starting Dec or January

October Referrals! It's Official

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before November 30, 2005

Only 7 more LID days to go!!! Maybe next month

$100 Pillow

Here is a close up of Carlee's kindergarten craft that we bought at the school sale

School Sale

Here is Carlee with her pillow that she made to be auctioned off at the school sale. We thought we had it all worked out to only spend $30 for it, however someone ran it up to $100 for us. That was our initiation into the first school sale. We got off easy some parents paid over $200 for theirs.

Over all we had a good weekend, Jeff and I worked our 8 hours of labor on Friday, I worked in the plant stand selling mums and Jeff manned the coffee area. Then we went back over Sat for the auctioning off of the kindergarten crafts.

First Post!

We are currently waiting to see our Cadee Anne's face. Our Log in Date at China is Dec 7 2005 as of the end of September 2007 the China Center for Adoption Affairs only matched somewhere between Nov 30 and Dec 2 of 2005.



I think we will be next to be matched that means we may see Cadee's face in the beginning of Nov.