Time to catch up

I really do have lots to share. But before I do, I want thank all of you who have left comments over these last few weeks. They have been so encouraging, you can hardly know. Thanks so much! Okay, here it goes...

We really enjoy baseball as a family. Caleb is really fascinated with the pitcher and catcher, especially in the bullpens. It's really cute. He likes to try to wind up and pitch like the pitchers do, too. Just precious. So two weekends ago, Patrick, Caleb and I headed out to Kissimmee (FL) to watch the Yankees take on the Astros. The weather was perfect, upper 70s and sunny. The Yankees ended up losing 8-6, but I got a few great shots of the Yankees with my zoom lens. So as soon as I can find the time, I will upload them (notice the ongoing uploading problem I have? LOL)

Anyway, this past weekend, my sister, Andy and Leah all came so that Deb could help me paint Madeline's room. As we were painting, I kept remarking that it was just "so different" as we covered over a beautiful, deep red in the guestroom to make it Madeline's lime/neon green girlie room. I am so thankful it only took one coat of tinted primer and one coat of paint to cover the red. I will upload some photos of the room transformation a little later. While Deb and I painted, Caleb and Leah just played together the whole time. It was so precious. They really played well together with very little "interruptions."

Our SW came today so that we could update our home study. It was a pretty funny visit because she was just here 2 months ago. She was like, "Has anything really changed in the last two months?" Ummmm....no. It was great to see her, but c'mon. Having to do this update seems a bit ridiculous. Anyway, our immigration approval and fingerprints expire at the end of April. So this visit really was necessary in order to update our immigration approval. Our fingerprints will need to be valid when we are in China finalzing our application for Madeline's immigration visa. So we will have just enough time to get this approved and done before we travel this summer. (By the way, I love the sound of that- travel in summer!)

I still have lots of painting left to do in Madeline's room- the closet doors and all the trim. I can't wait to be done with it because then I can get back to sewing! Yahoooo. When Leah was here this weekend, I had her try on (for the hundredth time) the first outfit I ever made Madeline almost 4.5 years ago. It's an adorable little red romper with itty bitty cream stars. It's sized 18-24months, and still fits Leah at 30months, 33.5inches and 30lbs! So I am thrilled that Madeline will likely get the chance to wear this.

Now that I have a bit more time to catch my thoughts, I thought I would share with you exactly how we found out about our LOA. It was pretty funny how the events unfolded. I missed our agency's call on my cell phone and was listening to the message....all the while thinking, "They're probably calling because our immigration approval expires at the end of April and want to make sure we're taking care of getting it updated. They wouldn't be calling to tell us we have our LOA because that would be way too soon and nearly impossible." As I was listening to my message, I noticed the time- it was 3:26pm....this happens to be our original LID date...March 26th. I thought, "Well, wouldn't it be totally awesome if in fact they're calling to tell us they have our LOA." But I didn't want to get my hopes. My message said they would be calling Patrick at work. So I wanted to talk to him as quickly as I could. No sooner did I finish listening to my message, I had Patrick calling me. He asked me if I had spoken to our Ch*ina coordinator yet. I told him "No." He said, "Don't bother. I already have. We got our LOA!" My reponse, (thankfully I was sitting) was "No we didn't!" He had to convince me we did. I was stunned and started to cry. Caleb at first didn't know what to think of the situation. But I reassured him I was crying happy tears. He was cool with that and excited to learn we would be going to Ch*ina soon to bring his sister home.

Well, I told Patrick that I would have to call our agency because I had a lot of questions for them that he had no idea what they were. LOL. Then he told me, "Well, she told me we had our LOA. And I knew it was important. But I was like, "What's the date on that?" Oh my goodness, I was laughing so hard. He said he knew it was important when she told him we would get TA in about 10 weeks. But he really had no idea what he was so thankful for....though he knew I would be extremely happy. Ya gotta love it. "Just please sign here, honey....thanks." LOL.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more that I'm missing. But I didn't want to get any more behind in my blogging than I already was. LOL I'll add photos soon....promise!