Holy cow Batwoman, my hands are shaking so much that I am having a hard time typing this. Just as we were about to head out of the door on an overnight trip WACAP called to say they have recieved our LOA. That is fast. Really fast, even they cannot believe how fast. Now we are just waiting for our TA and we are gone baby, gone. WOOHOO. Holy cow can you say excited. I feel sick....my usual reaction to great news.
We were told to expect travel in early March but I am thinking the last week of February. I don't know why but that is in my head for travel.
We're going to China.....WOO, freakin' HOO
Happy New Year......oh yes I think so.
31 Dec 2007
Out With The Old
This year has flown by. I think that we spend so much time waiting for the next batch of referrals that we end up speeding through the days. We don't like what we hear so we count down the days to the next month just hoping it will get better and before you know we have counted through 12 months....yet again.
This year has been wondeful even though it didn't start out on a bright note with a massive health scare in the family but what started as the lowest point of my life was soon overshadowed with the news that everything was fine. We spent a wonderful summer in England with my family and managed quite a few other trips here and there throughout the year that were just as memorable. Jacob and I celebrated 20 years of marriage, Lily celebrated turning 5 and headed into kindergarten. She has learnt to read and just moves forward to every new challenge in her life with such exuberance that we could all learn from her.
Suddenly it was Halloween and the holiday countdown was on. Lily is old enough now to understand all of the holidays and jumps into each and every one of them with her happy go lucky atitude. Every time somebody tells me that Lily is always smiling my heart swells alittle bit because she wasn't so smiley for those first few days and I remember having conversations in my head where I would beg and plead for a smile from her. All my begging worked cos we now have the happiest little Schnoog in the world.
The start of the holidays bought us the best news we could ever hope for, we were matched with Rosie. As we enter a new year my wish for all of you is: that your dreams come true and your heart overflows with happiness. I wish this for my family too and in addition I also wish for a speedy travel approval.
Happy 2008 to one and all.
29 Dec 2007
Nice Night For A Parade
When I first moved to this country this was a line used by a coffee company to advertise coffee. I can't remember what the coffee was but Jacob and I are always saying, in a terrible impersonation of a southern accent, "Nice day for a parade". Tonight was a perfect night for a parade and so we went to the Jr. Orange Bowl Parade. We used to have a truly fabulous parade here on New Year's Eve but they stopped it recently, and I have no idea why as it rivaled all the really big ones that you see on the telly. The one this evening was very small but still tonnes of fun. I wasn't sure if we would make it or not as Lily still isn't quite right. She doesn't seem to have any thing wrong anymore but she just isn't herself......she actually fell asleep in the car on the way home.......unheard of.
A small glimpse at our fun.
Waiting for the first float.
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
This One Was great. Ii was from The Dalmatian Rescue and in addition to the float they had people walking ahead of them and each person had a dog there must have been close to 101 Dalmatians. Lily loved it.
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This Grinch fella is downright scary.
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Lily, Mesmerised and our friend Richard who appears to be describing the one that got away.
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A small glimpse at our fun.
Waiting for the first float.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
This One Was great. Ii was from The Dalmatian Rescue and in addition to the float they had people walking ahead of them and each person had a dog there must have been close to 101 Dalmatians. Lily loved it.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
This Grinch fella is downright scary.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Lily, Mesmerised and our friend Richard who appears to be describing the one that got away.
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27 Dec 2007
22 months.
Our dossier has been registered with the CCAA for 22 months today. We want our Rosie home with us where she belongs. We have been waiting for one month since we were matched with her and it has been a very long month.
Talking of Rosie: allow your eyes to wander to the right of this post........Yes, that is our little peanut, cute isn't she?
26 Dec 2007
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Christmas is so much more fun now than it has ever been. To be perfectly honest I don't know who was more excited on Christmas Eve, Jacob and I or Lily. We went to visit with some friends and then we came home and got ready for church. The church that Jacob attended growing up is really beautiful and on Christmas Eve the children of the parish put on a play so we wanted Lily to see it. She was not impressed......typical! I was, I love singing carols but since I cannot carry a tune in a bucket I have to sing very softly.
Once we got home Lily made herself a little check list of everything she had to do before going to bed and carried her list around with her until everything was checked off.
This video is quite long but you can really see her excitement and just how thorough she was.
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Once we were sure that she was asleep we started to bring down the presents.
What the tree looked like when Lily went to bed.
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And what it looked like a couple of hours later.
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One of my favourite things to do it stuff the stockings. I love it. We always put her stocking up in her bedroom so that she sees it first thing in the morning. The shrieks of delight give us warning that she is up and that we need to grab the video and head for the stairs.
Her face as she saw the presents was priceless. Before she made a dash for them she needed to be sure that Santa had found his cookies and that the Reindeer had eaten their carrots. In the kitchen next to the cookie plate was a letter to her from Santa, (way to go Daddy). The last line of it said, when I was in China I gave Rosie a kiss from you. Lily's face lit up and she said, "how does he know that she is my sister? Mommy you said Rosie wouldn't get any presents this year but she got a kiss from me and love is better than presents ." She is so kind and sweet is it any wonder that I love this kid to bits.
Then it was off to the tree and the fun really began. I was so wrapped up in her that I didn't even notice the box that Jacob placed next to me. I finally opened it and was thrilled to find a Wii game. We have had so much fun with it. Lily is getting quite good too.
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Bunny's Stocking
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
All in all we had a beautiful Christmas. This is our last holiday as a family of 3 and in many ways that made it even more special. I don't know what I did to get this life but I must have been very, very good because I am so happy I could scream from the rooftops.
However all good things must come to an end and this morning a certain little girl woke up with a temperature, a headache, a tummy ache and a sore throat. Lily has a very high pain threshold so I know she must really feel awful cos she has said something about it. So we are off to see our wonderful pediatrician in a couple of hours and until then we are hunkering down on the couch together because she is quite clingy and as much as I am sorry she feels rotten I love the clingy part.
Once we got home Lily made herself a little check list of everything she had to do before going to bed and carried her list around with her until everything was checked off.
This video is quite long but you can really see her excitement and just how thorough she was.
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Once we were sure that she was asleep we started to bring down the presents.
What the tree looked like when Lily went to bed.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
And what it looked like a couple of hours later.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
One of my favourite things to do it stuff the stockings. I love it. We always put her stocking up in her bedroom so that she sees it first thing in the morning. The shrieks of delight give us warning that she is up and that we need to grab the video and head for the stairs.
Her face as she saw the presents was priceless. Before she made a dash for them she needed to be sure that Santa had found his cookies and that the Reindeer had eaten their carrots. In the kitchen next to the cookie plate was a letter to her from Santa, (way to go Daddy). The last line of it said, when I was in China I gave Rosie a kiss from you. Lily's face lit up and she said, "how does he know that she is my sister? Mommy you said Rosie wouldn't get any presents this year but she got a kiss from me and love is better than presents ." She is so kind and sweet is it any wonder that I love this kid to bits.
Then it was off to the tree and the fun really began. I was so wrapped up in her that I didn't even notice the box that Jacob placed next to me. I finally opened it and was thrilled to find a Wii game. We have had so much fun with it. Lily is getting quite good too.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Bunny's Stocking
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
All in all we had a beautiful Christmas. This is our last holiday as a family of 3 and in many ways that made it even more special. I don't know what I did to get this life but I must have been very, very good because I am so happy I could scream from the rooftops.
However all good things must come to an end and this morning a certain little girl woke up with a temperature, a headache, a tummy ache and a sore throat. Lily has a very high pain threshold so I know she must really feel awful cos she has said something about it. So we are off to see our wonderful pediatrician in a couple of hours and until then we are hunkering down on the couch together because she is quite clingy and as much as I am sorry she feels rotten I love the clingy part.
24 Dec 2007
Ho Ho Ho
From our home to yours we wish you a wonderful Christmas filled with love, laughter, health and happiness.
With Love,
Jacob, Dawn and Lily.
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
These are not the photos we wanted to share because we have the worlds most beautiful photo of Lily with Santa however being so computer savvy we cannot figure out how to blog them. OY VEY!
With Love,
Jacob, Dawn and Lily.
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
These are not the photos we wanted to share because we have the worlds most beautiful photo of Lily with Santa however being so computer savvy we cannot figure out how to blog them. OY VEY!
23 Dec 2007
Friends, Fun, Food and Festivities
Last night we met up with our friends, Ed, Jenny and Ebby and we took the kiddos out for hamburgers and then off to see the Christmas lights. We met up at their house, since it was on the way, and the kiddies exchanged Christmas gifts. As Ebby opened up his gift my heart sank because I had absent mindedly picked up the wrong gift for him and this toy was completely inappropriate for a 3 yr old. Jenny realised something was wrong by the look of pure horror on my face and handled it in a way that impressed the heck out of me and little Ebby handed over the gift. Jenny is one of the most amazing parents that I know. This morning bright and early we righted the wrong and the little guy got his gift and thankfully he loved it. Man that was a true blonde moment. (note to self: read the tag you MORON.)
Back to last night. We stopped for dinner and the kids had fun. No, don't let this photo fool you they really did have a great time together.
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Then it was off to see the same house that we go to each year. These people do a truly incredible job decorating their home and thousands of people visit each year. Sadly the man who lived here died a couple of months ago but his son wants to continue the tradition. They have collection boxes scattered around and they raise money for one of our local cancer hospitals. I hope that everyone donates because so much time and effort is involved in the display and it is such a worthy cause. When you put money in a box they hand you a candy cane. Do you have any idea how many candy canes we had to buy for the kids last night. LOL. I love a good cause.
One small part of it but it has penguins and it seems that many people love pengy's.
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Midget Sucking A Candy Cane
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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
And last but not least I found out just how hard taking photos is going to be from here on out. I hear so many of you saying how hard it is to get 2 kids to look at the camera at the same time and last night I got to experience your pain.
Take 1
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Take 2
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Take 3
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Take 4.......thankfully just as I was about to try again Jenny yelled, I got it! She managed to get both kids to look at her and smile. I told you she was good.
The excitement level has risen another 1,000,000,000 points again today. I can't wait until Christmas. I actually think Jacob and I are even worse than Lily.
Back to last night. We stopped for dinner and the kids had fun. No, don't let this photo fool you they really did have a great time together.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Then it was off to see the same house that we go to each year. These people do a truly incredible job decorating their home and thousands of people visit each year. Sadly the man who lived here died a couple of months ago but his son wants to continue the tradition. They have collection boxes scattered around and they raise money for one of our local cancer hospitals. I hope that everyone donates because so much time and effort is involved in the display and it is such a worthy cause. When you put money in a box they hand you a candy cane. Do you have any idea how many candy canes we had to buy for the kids last night. LOL. I love a good cause.
One small part of it but it has penguins and it seems that many people love pengy's.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Midget Sucking A Candy Cane
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
And last but not least I found out just how hard taking photos is going to be from here on out. I hear so many of you saying how hard it is to get 2 kids to look at the camera at the same time and last night I got to experience your pain.
Take 1
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Take 2
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Take 3
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Take 4.......thankfully just as I was about to try again Jenny yelled, I got it! She managed to get both kids to look at her and smile. I told you she was good.
The excitement level has risen another 1,000,000,000 points again today. I can't wait until Christmas. I actually think Jacob and I are even worse than Lily.
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