Catching Up

It's been awhile since I posted. Things here are so busy right now. I am trying to get through the rest of this semester with a little bit of sanity left. I only have a few more weeks of classes left, but with finals coming up, I am stressing just a bit. The good thing is that once this semester is over, I will be done with math! I am math illiterate unless it has to do with figuring out the percentage off a sale item. That I can do without any trouble. Go figure.

While studying for finals I am also trying to get all the paperwork together and organized for our home study and dossier. Our home study is done, they are just waiting on our clearances from when we lived in Virginia. Hopefully that will show us soon so our paperwork can be sent to USCIS for review and so we can get fingerprinted.

Saturday Matt and I attended our required second time around adoption class. This is something new that the new Hague treaty requires. I have to admit, it wasn't too painful. In fact, there were alot of interesting couples in our class.
Gabe and Emma went to the lake with G'ma and G'pa and Blake stayed home with Mylee while we were gone. Saturday was a beautiful day so we were pretty happy that we were done with the class by noon.
On the way home Matt started talking about the fact that once we get Drew home we will have pretty much outgrown our mini van. We currently have a Chrysler Town and Country, and although I love it, we are already outgrowing it. Being that Blake is so tall (he is 12 and is 5'7), there is very little leg room for him. So, when we got home we picked up Blake and Mylee and went to some car dealers to see what our options were. We looked at some bigger SUV's as well as full size vans. As much as I hate to admit it, the full size van would probably be the logical choice for our family. With 5 kids, 3 that are already very tall for their ages, there just was not much leg room in the SUV's. So, I am not sure what we are going to do. We were just looking on Saturday and may look again this weekend. We are in no hurry (yet), and I refuse to have our payments go up. If it means we are packed in our current can like a can of sardines for awhile, then all I have to say is I hope everyone is showered and wearing deoderant.

Sunday was a yucky day weather wise. It was cold and raining. I headed off to Indianapolis with Gabe and Mylee for Mylee's cast change on Monday. We spent the night at my sister's Sunday night and the kids really enjoyed playing together. It was so hard for Gabe and Mylee to get to sleep, so 6:00 a.m. came pretty early for all of us. We had to be at the hospital at 7:30 a.m. and Mylee was taken back around 9.
I opted NOT to give her the Versed this time. If you remember from previous posts, Versed is a drug they gave her to relax her so she wouldn't be scared. She has been there enough times that she is pretty comfortable with everyone and the nurses are wonderful. I am so glad I did not give it to her this time. By the time we went back to the recovery room she was already eating and drinking. By not having the Versed, she was able to come out of the anesthesia faster and easier.
All in all, things went well and we were on our way home by noon. She is now sporting a super fun pink cast and we go back in a couple of weeks for x-rays. If the x-rays look good, then the cast will come off and hopefully she will not need anymore. Dr. Loder did say that it is okay for her to walk on it and that he wants her to continue therapy so we don't fall behind.



Just before they took her back





In the recovery room



DREW NEWS

Since getting PA and being able to share our amazing news with everyone, I have also been able to form some friendships with other parents adopting from New Day. There are some pretty amazing kids getting some pretty amazing parents soon. I also received a couple of e-mails from complete strangers regarding Drew. The first was one from a lady who had spent last summer in China on a Mission trip. She spent some time at an orphanage in Inner Mongolia (this is where Drew was before he was moved to New Day). She also new of some people who spent time at New Day and who had tons of pictures to share with me of Drew and some of the other kids at New Day who are getting families soon. I haven't posted the pictures yet, but you can count on seeing them soon.

The other lady who contacted me by leaving a comment on one of my blog posts. She said that she was trying to get in touch with me because she and her family were Drew's sponsors. I e-mailed New Day right away and let them know so they could put us in contact with one another. Angie and her family have been sponsoring Drew since last November and receive monthly updates along with pictures. She has sent him three care packages (Christmas, Birthday, and Easter), and has tons of pictures from them. She graciously shared the pictures and updates with me. Below are a few of the pictures she sent.

Opening Birthday gifts from Angie and family.




Opening Easter gifts from Angie and family



I finally got around to sending a care package to Drew from us. As you can see from the picture, I sent quite a bit of stuff. I have been able to find out that he LOVES cars, books, candy, and phones. So, that is what we sent along with a couple of short outfits, photo album with pictures of our family, house, and his room, sunglasses, puzzle, and a CD player I found on sale at T*arget for super cheap. I did not want to leave the other kids at New Day out so Emma and I stopped at the Dollar Tr*e one night after her dance class and picked out several items for the other kids. We sent water balloons, water guns, jump ropes, and some fun hats and sunglasses. I mailed everything last night (all 16 lbs of it) and was a bit shocked when I heard how much it was going to cost to ship to China. It's quite possible that the shipping was more than the contents of the box. But, the pictures of him opening it will be priceless.



Oh, and by the way, if you look at the top right hand corner you will see a new button. Amy and her family are trying to raise money to bring their adorable son Sammy home. Amy is giving away some beautiful Vera Bradley bags and purses. So, if you get a chance and have a few bucks to spare, I know they would appreciate any and all the help they can get. Sammy is also from Nanjing (like Mylee) and Amy is one of the mom's who attends out mom's night once a month. I can't wait for Sammy to get home so he can start coming to the play groups.