Rebecca's Giveaway

Rebecca, the wonderful woman who designed my beautiful blog is having a giveaway with some AWESOME prizes!! She and I have become "online friends" as we both wait for LOA to bring home two very special boys. With travel to China right around the corner she is hoping to raise some money to help cover the rest of her adoption expenses. She has had some VERY nice, and very valuable prizes donated by some generous people. Click on the link on the side "To China for Owen" to read all about Owen and help bring this special little boy home or go to her site at www.tochinaforowen.blogspot.com .

Update!!!!!!

Over the weekend we got a long awaited update on Wen! Oh how I wish I was able to post his picture so I could share his beautiful smile with everyone! In his original referral pictures he looked so grumpy. It was wonderful to see him smiling! According to the information I received our little guy is extroverted, lovely, smart, and loving. He is a quick learner. They call him "Xiao Shuai". Xiao means little, and Shuai means handsome. He's potty trained and tells his nanny when he needs to use the bathroom. He drinks from a cup. They reported that he talks and says MaMa. I don't know who he'd be calling MaMa, and maybe they're just saying this because they think that's what I'd like to hear. But, if he truely is talking he must have some hearing. I guess we'll have to wait and see! I can't wait to be able to post his picture. Hopefully just a few more weeks!

Pumpkin Picking

We spent most of the long weekend working on Ella's new room. As excited as she was about her new room, she still was asking all day, everyday "when are we going pumpkin pickng?" So on Monday we made some time to finally take her. She was sooooooo excited! Now she keeps asking, everyday, all day, "when are we going to carve the pumpkins?" Hopefully we'll get to that this weekend!

Ella was just a little happy to be at the farm!
J carries a heavy one
El tries to carry a heavy one too!
Brianna....with us......and smiling, strikes a pose!

Handsome x2
This is Ella's "I'm so excited I can't keep my tongue in my mouth" face!
Now for the best part...the roasted corn!
Ella LOVES corn!

Happy Birthday Brianna!!!!!

Happy Birthday Brianna!!! WOW! That's about all I can think, WOW, 15 years old!! When you and Jason were little people would often come up to us and say "they are so cute, enjoy them now, they grow up so fast". Of course I smiled and thought "I know, I know, I've heard that a hundred times". Now, 15 years later, all I can say is "WOW, 15 years old"!!!! How all of those people were right. Were has the time gone? How is it that 15 years can pass so quickly. Wasn't it only yesterday you were playing Barbies while watching the Power Puff girls????? Look at you now. We are so proud of the beautiful young lady you've become. Happy Birthday!!

Our beautiful 15 year old!
Big sister, little sister

Ella was so excited about getting everything ready for Brianna's birthday!
Brianna seemed very pleased with her tickets to see "Legally Blonde" on Broadway
A bunch of friends who came over to celebrate.......12 fifteen year old girls.....very loud!! It sure sounded like they had a great time!
Brian worked sooooo hard to get the fire going in the fireplace......as soon as it was going strong......they all got out of the pool!!!! Of course they did!! Well, it looked really pretty from the house anyway!

In Love.....with my new laundry room!!!!!

I am very well aware of just how ridiculous I sound, but I can't help it. I LOVE my new laundry room!!!!!!! And I am so pleased with my beautiful Wild Cherry Red washer and dryer!! They are fabulous and so much fun, and oh...did I mention beautiful????? I am quite sure that the novelty will wear off eventually, but for now I'm going to enjoy it. Laundry is so much more fun, and the best part is the way the washer and dryer "sing" to you when the cycle is finished!! My poor friends who have just happened to be on the phone with me when the washer or dryer were done!! Most importantly, I have not been left with a single mud stain on any of Jason's disgustingly dirty football cloths. The room is so pretty with all the red accessories. I had so much fun decorating. Considering the rest of my house is, well, very neutral, this little pop of color was refreshing (no comments from you Dana!!!).

In addition to the new laundry room, moving the washer and dryer allowed us to now take the space where they formerly lived and convert it to pantry space. What a pleasure!!! No more food shoved onto and falling off of the shelves! So first the pantry................................

These are the shelves that had already been in the room on the wall opposite the washer and dryer. This was were the food used to be stored. And now.....
LOTS of room for food!! That's the space the washer and dryer used to be in.

And now for the laundry room.............

Before.........

.........And After
I just LOVE those red beauties!!!!!!

On the bottom--double doors-coat closet, single door-utility closet.

Above the closets more storage!
I just love all the accessories I found to decorate the room, especially the little stool where the kids can sit and take off the muddy cleats!

LID!!!!!!!!

We got the news today that we have an LID of 9/3/08!!!!! This was especially exciting news on this given day because it's Brian's birthday!!! So, when we first noticed "Wen's" picture on the waiting child list we were surprised to see that he and Jason shared a birthday. We then applied for his file and and several days later were offered his file for review on Ella's birthday! Now we got the email notifying us of our LID on Brian's birthday (our LID, by the way, is the day in between my Mom's birthday on 9/2 and my step dad's birthday on 9/4!!!). So if this pattern keeps up, we should expect LOA on 11/6---which is my birthday!!!! Wouldn't that be nice!! And a little weird!!!



Now for those of you not familiar with these terms LID stands for "log in date", which is the day our dossier is "logged in" with the China Center of Adoption Affairs. LOA stands for "letter of acceptance", which is the official approval from China. Once we receive LOA we will travel within four to eight weeks after that. We're gettin there!!

Happy Birthday Brian!!!

Very special Happy Birthday wishes to my husband today!!! I'm sorry the weather didn't cooperate with yours plans today, but we hope you had a wonderful birthday anyway! For those of you who don't know how Brian likes to spend his birthday it's by sitting in the hot tub, drinking a beer!! Unfortunately, it rained! Oh well! Since he did take the day off of work, we took the opportunity to go have breakfast together this morning while Ella was at school (today was also Ella's first day alone at school--she did great--I was merely OK!!). Then tonight we went out for what was to be a quick dinner, but turned into a loooong dinner, and ended up being a free dinner as an apology from the restaurant manager for a stressful dinner!!! But it all worked out in the end. We then went home for some birthday cake which was made by Brianna and Ella and turned out delicious! Great job B!

Ella helps bring in Daddy's presents
Ella INSISTED on wrapping her gift to her Dad in princess wrapping paper and a pink bow!! She said "he will love it!"
Daddy and the girls (J's on the other couch half dead from football tryouts!)
Brianna and Ella's beautiful cake(don't know why the picture got rotated and don't know how to fix it without deleting the pictures and starting again--so turn your head sideways and it'll look just fine!
Ella thought the best part of making the cake was licking the spatula when she was all done frosting it!
Our good friend and neighbor Stacy always delivers a special birthday tart. Yummy!! Thank you Stacy. Yep this one got rotated too! The tart's round though, so no head tilting necessary!!

Ella helps blow out the candles on the cake. J kindly requests a piece Ella hasn't "spit" on!
Happy Birthday Daddy. We Love You!!!!!!