Details

I guess in all my excitement i forgot to post the details. oops.
Here are some of the things that were in her medical report

~Her Chinese name is Ruyi.
~We have decided to name her Maizie Ruyi. Everyone asks us how we came up with Maizie. It was the first name that we both really liked right away.
~She is about 14 months old.
~At 9 months she was 13 lbs.
~she can crawl but not sure if she can walk yet.
~her medical report says she sleeps for more then 10 hours! Lets hope that's true.
~she is fond of listening to music, playing and reading books.
~she has a quiet personality.
~she already has 12 teeth!

I feel like i have missed so much of her life already. Since our dossier isn't logged in China yet we are looking at 4-5 months until we travel. I am hoping to have her before my 31st birthday (April 24th). It will be close. I dont know how i am going to wait that long. Lets hope it goes by fast. We did just get our updated I-600a processed and it only took less then 2 weeks! Way to go USCIS!! Now that that is out of the way we have to have our social worker write up an addendum of our home study and we still have to get a few more documents together. Then have them signed, notarized, state certified and then off to the consulate for approval. Ok that seems like a lot to do but it really wont take that long...hopefully. I am hoping to have our dossier off to China by the end of January. Once our dossier is logged the long wait for our travel approval can begin.

As you can imagine T and I are SO SO SO excited. Maizie got her first Christmas presents this year. My mom and dad got her a little pink suitcase on rollers for when she visits them and some books. She already has a closet full of clothes. It is a little out of control but at least she will be the best dressed little girl!

BIG NEWS!!!!!

We have been waiting to share our news until after Christmas. We wanted to make sure our families knew before we announced it here. So.......WE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS!!!!! We have officially accepted a referral of a beautiful little girl from China. We first saw her little face on December 8th. She was on our agencies Waiting Child list. We immediately fell in love with her but wanted a Doctor to look over her medical report. After we talked to a doctor that specializes in international adoption we knew she was going to be ours. And i may be a little bias but she is the cutest little girl we have ever seen. I know you probably want to see pictures so......introducing Maizie Ruyi.

Holidays

My favorite time of year is from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I love everything about it. I love going to 2 different tree lots just to find the perfect Christmas tree (Tracy might not love that as much as I do but he always likes the end result). I love digging out the lights for the tree and all the ornaments. I love putting up the lights on the outside of our house. I love baking cookies, and more cookies and then even more cookies. I don't mind the overcrowded malls and trying to find the perfect gift for everyone. It makes me happy to buy gifts for family and friends. I don't mind driving around the parking lot trying to find the perfect space (ok well maybe i mind that a little). Everything seems to magical this time of year. And to make it even more magical we are going to have a white Christmas!! Over the weekend we got a ton of snow. Friday we got about 14 inches, Saturday another 2-3 and then Sunday about 8-10 inches more. It really didn't stop snowing for 3 days. It was nice to have a reason to stay in and watch TV and make cookies. I feel bad for everyone who still doesn't have power after the ice storm. A little north of us got hit really bad and there are still some people with out power. Could you imagine being without power for 12 days in the freezing cold!

Anyway we are at my parents house in NY for Christmas eve (we always have the traditional 7 fish dinner and then my parents have some friends over for dessert) and then tomorrow we open gifts here then we travel to my Aunts (mom's side) house in Pleasant valley and then down to Long Island to my Aunts (dad's side) for a BIG Italian dinner. I look forward to Christmas dinner all year. Its so nice to be with family. We all sit at the same table (there are 28-30 of us) and in between courses we sing Christmas carols. Then the day after Christmas we are going to Tracy's moms house to have Christmas with his family. Lots of traveling but its worth it. Here are some pictures i took with my new camera!!

Our tree! I should have taken those box's out of the way.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!!

Mother Nature

Thursday night was a long night for us. I went to walk Kodi around 11, it was raining and starting to ice up. There were a few branches that were in the road but nothing too bad. All night long we heard little pops followed by a big bang. Trees were falling all around us. Neither T or I could sleep and Kodi was going crazy. He was so scared and wouldn't go to sleep. I was finally getting to sleep at 8am when there was a particularly loud bang. This is what was in the yard.

Thankfully we had power. Just about every school around us was closed. We knew it was going to be a slow day and we needed to check on some of our bank owned properties we have listed so out we went. This is just a little of what we found.

These pictures don't even do it justice. There were SO many tree branches down. Some roads weren't even passable. There were power lines down everywhere. Most of our town didn't have power. One of our neighbors had a tree fall on his truck and totaled it and another neighbor's shed was destroyed. But with all the fallen tree limbs it didn't look like many houses had damage. There were some cars that were hit but not too many. None of the houses we have listed had any damage. Our power did go out for about 2 1/2 hours on Friday. My parents still don't have power and they might not until at least Tuesday. I talked to them today. They didn't have any pipes burst and are now staying with friends. Luckily tomorrow it is going to be in the 50's.

You can really see all the ice on the trees in this picture. It was really pretty.