Hello, February!

Joseph enjoying another day of homeschooling

Fun with beans and rice

Already February! Three years ago on Groundhog Day we were on an airplane bound for China. Later this week we will celebrate our Gotcha Day for little Maimie Beth GuoZhen. February 10 marks 30 years since I began my walk with the Lord. On February 14 we'll enjoy the dual celebration of Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year (year of the Tiger).

All dressed up and ready to go

On the adoption front, our homestudy is completed and being reviewed by our placing agency Great Wall China Adoption. We hope to hear something this week so that we can send it with our I-800A application (the final step). Hopefully all of the other dossier documents have been certified and authenticated in Chicago and will be returned this week. Last week Steve's Ohio birth certificate was sent to the Chinese Consulate in New York for authentication. We are getting so close! I'm estimating that our dossier will be completed and ready to send to China by the end of March or early in April. Our agency has told us that we could get a referral anytime even if we don't have a logged in date in China for our paperwork.
While we waited for Maimie, we asked friends and family to send us squares of fabric for a quilt and wishes/prayers for her. I had every good intention of having it completed long before now....but alas, I'm lame about things like that. Also I have no skills in this area and made it harder by chosing to highlight each square with sashing. I did manage to locate someone to help make the quilt, though. I'll be meeting with Barb this week to see how things are looking so far. It will be so exciting to give this quilt to Maimie along with a book of the wishes so that she can see how much everyone cared for her and loved her before she even came into our family.

Maimie's new "do"

It is my hope that after Maimie's quilt is finished, we can ask everyone to start sending us squares and wishes for our new little one. Perhaps I can have the second quilt completed in a more timely manner!