Happy Chinese New Year....okay, just a little early!

We got together Sunday with our good friends the Hisle's to have an early Chinese New Year celebration and so the guys could watch the Super Bowl. Sophie always has her house decorated so lovely for the holidays! My girls love to play with Z. J. We started off the evening making dumplings! Now that the girls realize what goes into making dumplings I think they like them even more!

RaeAnne even cooked up a big batch of food!

Then we ate and ate and ate some more.

Then time to work off all that food. While the guys were watching the Super Bowl, the girls made big messes....I mean crafts! Then the real fun began. The girls popped bubble wrap to make the sound of firecrackers going off for New Years!






The girls were having such a great time jumping up and down and making the bubbles snap while their Dad's were downstairs yelling, "Hey, will you be quiet up there!" We always have a fantastic time when we go to our friend's house. Good friends like the Hisle's are hard to find!!

Still working on our dossier.....

I have been neglecting our blog for some time now. I have started a Journey to Me site for Tessa like I did for Kendalan and Jordis Li. When I was in China getting Jordis blogspot was blocked. I really liked using the JTM site and once our adoption was complete, they had a service where we could get a hard back book of our site. Jordis has loved her book!

Anywho, our application was received at the Homeland Security Office on January 27th. We are still waiting for our fingerprint appointment. I have read about many families making an appointment at their local USCIS office and showing up to have fingerprints taken without an official letter. We may just try this! My work schedule and the girls school schedules severely limit us to just be able to drop everything and run when they want us to. And we would like to have them done sooner, rather than later!

I have received almost everything back from the Chinese Consulate that will compile our dossier. I forgot to send in one document, so it is on it's way now. Then we will wait for that all important notice from our Immigration & Naturalization Services.

We are sending Tessa Ji Xing a Chinese New Year cake through Adele Hall. The package will include a translated note for Tessa and her foster family wishing them a "Happy New Year" and a single use camera with the instructions to please take many photos of Tessa, her friends and foster family. We also sent a small backpack through the mail with a Hello Kitty shirt, stuff toy, Sonya Lee doll and a small flip photo album of us. Now we hope that she will get everything we have sent.

Isn't it beautiful???

I am so excited tonight to use our new, remodeled blog! Alexis has been working hard on our blog and it has paid off. Isn't it pretty?!! Alexis is great! She was open to changing things until I thought they looked "right"!

Big news at our house....most of our dossier returned from the Chicago Chinese Consulate today. Each paper that comes back with the notary and authentications that it needs to get to China is another step closer to our girl! Wish we had those pesky fingerprint appointments in hand!!

Stay tuned.......

We are having a blogover completed! Please stay tuned for the new version!!

Merry~Happy~Ho! Ho! Ho!~All the way!!!

And that about sums it up! Right after Thanksgiving Daddy decided to see what having H1N1 was all about. Boy did he get his fill of it right quick! However, it lingered on for at least 10 days and actually he is still coughing occasionally! If that wasn't enough, he was so kind as to share with Mom...who took it lying down...thank you very much! She was desperately seeking the number of the truck that ran over her for well over a week which took us right up to Christmas time. How the girls have managed to miss out on the sickness is for Him to know and I hope they don't get it! As hard as it was on me, I can only imagine the little darlings being sick.



So being in bed with the swine flu put a damper on our final Christmas shopping. Of course, the blizzard that blew in the day before Christmas eve day didn't help matters much. Then the silly old storm decided to hang around for almost 72 hours....blowing, snowing, freezing rain, lovely frigid weather and over 10 inches of snow! What could anyone else want for Christmas?! I really didn't think that I asked for it, but Montezuma's revenge is what I received Christmas Day afternoon. I was doubled over in pain for two days with Daddy standing over me saying "Do you think you want to go to the hospital?" What? In this beautiful weather, never mind that they are telling people to not go out and drive in this weather!! So I stayed an additional couple of days in bed with my misery.



The girls made out like gang busters for Christmas. Fa La La La La and Deck the Halls with Nintendo DS for all! And visions of a new sister dancing in their heads! Or maybe that was they were dancing after being told that we are adding to our family and they are all going to go to China with us?!! Yes! That's it, that is when the dancing began! Does anyone know the "Hoedown?" Better betcha that we are learning it here in Kansas! The girls are practicing for their dance recital which will be in May 2010. I think even the cats and dog will know the Hoedown by then!



So that pretty much sums up our December. Paperchasing, shopping, wrapping, singing, dancing, sleeping, and now we are ready to say goodbye to 2009 and welcome to 2010!

Just checking to see......

If anyone reads this blog anymore???? If you are interested in some exciting news, please leave a comment. It will be worth your time!!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Santa had visitors tonight. His sleigh will have to make more room for all the things my girls told him they want!!