pretty in red

Look at that hair! And those cute little teeth - they angle just the same way as Dawson's. And those eyes - aren't they the most amazing eyes? - click on the close-up and you'll see what I mean. They are just like Macy's, with the extra dark ring around the center of warmer brown. She looks so much like our other kids, it's strange! :)

I can't wait to hold her - but not sure how in the world I'm going to give her back twice a day. Can't I just sleep in a chair by her crib? ^_^

little princess

We got updated measurements on Em today - oh my she is a peanut! Only 16 lbs and about 28" long. I overestimated her growth these last few months and I think we'll need to buy some more 9-12 month size clothes. Hopefully we get her filled into the bigger clothes soon. :)

We get to see this beautiful face 2 weeks from today! ^_^

2 weeks to go!

Yesterday marked 11 months since we committed to our sweet Emerson... and today marks just 2 weeks until we leave to meet her at last! ^_^

I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I wanted to this weekend (but with 4 little ones, that's to be expected!) and of course I am procrastinating now. All of my insane notes and meal plans and grocery lists are done, though. We all know how much I love paperwork. Cleaning and other mindless activities always fall to the bottom of my list LOL, especially when it's nearly 90 degrees all weekend (ugh!! Just a week ago we were having snow flurries!)

This week will be very busy. We're going to the Magic Paintbrush tonight, we have 3 doctor appointments between Wednesday and Friday, the boys start t-ball on Thursday and I have a parent-teacher conference Friday morning for Cade.

Oh and Matt and his dad got out of their playset-building project - they are hiring someone to come build it the weekend before we go! He still has to take down the old one but geesh - can I hire someone to come and scrub the kitchen cupboards for me? :)

adventures in preparations

I finally started tackling the suitcases again last night - I had to check some of the gifts we're bringing for the people involved in the adoption because some stuff is silver and I worried it might be starting to tarnish after sitting in a suitcase for 9 months LOL ^_^ Everything looked fine though, so I got 2 of our 4 suitcases to be checked finished and weighed - one came in at 47.8 lbs so fingers crossed our scale matches up with the scale at the airport!

In my packing I was forced to admit there is no way for me to fit the adorable squeeky shoes that were donated to us for the other children, so we will have to pack them up and ship those out when we get back. Too many gifts, too many donations heh - I can't complain. :)

I plan to finish up the packing this weekend as well as all of my obsessive note-writing for Grandma and Grandpa (including weekly meal plans and corresponding grocery lists ... er, did I mention that I'm a little obsessive about planning?) and get started on cleaning. Ugh, my favorite!

We also have a new thing to add to our To-Do list before we leave (which may or may not be insane), a very generous gift to the kids from Grandpa ^_^



!!! We have a playset now but it only has one swing and well, our kids live for swinging. :) Yeah, Matt thinks they can put it together the weekend before we go. Hmm...

Suddenly MY list doesn't look so daunting. ^_~

proof positive

Today we got Emerson's plane ticket in the mail (well, the ticket has her birth name - Andjela - on it, and our last name, as her first name will not be changed until we complete the readoption process here in New York) - it felt like I was tearing open the I-171H again LOL, I was that happy to see it! ^_^ It feels like the first real proof that we are going to Serbia soon, and we won't be coming back alone!

We wired our deposit for our apartment today, too, one more thing to mark off my list. We're going to be very close to the orphanage, about 1 mile, a couple blocks south of St. Sava's Temple, one of the things I can't wait to see.

I have such a long list of places we must visit that I'm wondering if we'll actually have enough time to do it all! :) I'd really love to take a little trip out to a few places like Vinča, Mt. Avala and the Golubac Fortress, but it all depends on when we complete the adoption and are able to spring Em from the orphanage, how quickly we can get the Embassy stuff done and of course how Em is transitioning with us. At least there is plenty to keep us busy in the city itself! :)

I feel like I still have so much planning to do. I did finally create a second duplicate blog since we are at our max 100 readers - it's weird having two blogs exactly the same LOL. So welcome to our 30 and counting new readers! :)

As of tomorrow, only 19 more days to go until we leave!!

so excited!

We just called and made our payment for our airline tickets - and surprise, the agent managed to find us a deal with one slight change on the return flight that saved us over $100!!

I am blown away by all of the amazing comments, emails and general support we've received - just over one night we received around half of what we were short! I really can't thank you all enough for sticking with us so long - I think the dreamlike state I've been in is starting to wear off and it's finally starting to seem REAL. ^_^

making plans

One of my favorite things to do! :)

We have all of our reservations made - the good news is that Golden Rule got us a better deal than those "cheap" travel sites! Bad news is it is still a bit more than we hoped AND we found out the apartment we've been planning on using (which happens to be both the cheapest and the closest to the orphanage) isn't available for a few nights that we're there. So instead of changing apartments three times, we went with a different one - we talked the owner down a few Euros so it's not too much more than the other one, and it's only 3 streets further north. It's very modern looking with lots of red and white - I feel like calling it the "Love Shack" or something LOL ^_^

So we are about $350 short of our budget needs, which seems much less daunting than $500! :) A few people have asked and we would be grateful for any donations now - either through our Reece's Rainbow fund, which will be tax-deductible, or if you prefer you can donate funds directly to us through PayPal, I've added a link at the bottom of this post. :)

Our flight leaves Binghamton around 2 in the afternoon on that Monday 5/11 and we'll arrive in Belgrade about 2 in the afternoon the next day - yikes! We booked to come home on Saturday 5/30 and we will be hoping and praying that is enough time to complete everything, though the great thing about Golden Rule is we can easily change our tickets if needed.

My agenda for today is just to get Em's cardiology appointment set up for the first week we're back and to let our family know. Matt's parents will be staying with the kids while we are gone.

Then next week will be packing, the week after that will be cooking and freezing some meals to make life easier for Grandma and Grandpa, and the week after that will be cleaning like crazy. I'm getting so excited! :)

the one you've been waiting for

How long I've dreamt of writing this post... how many times I planned out what I would say, the size of the font, the title. And how many times in the last few months I prepared myself for another post, a sadder post.

Are you ready?

We
have
a
date!

We will leave Binghamton on May 11 and meet with the officials - and then our angel - on May 13.

I don't have too many words right now as I think I'm still in shock LOL, and my mind has turned to worries after seeing the airfare this morning...I am waiting to hear back from Golden Rule before I really panic, but based on the cheap websites we're at least $500 short of what we need, as we feared we would be. I'm sure it will work out.

I wasn't sure how I would react to that email...I confess I have become so discouraged about this adoption, I was beginning to think I didn't care about her anymore. I just started crying though. ^_^

May

We heard from our facilitator today. April is certainly out as one of the officials will be out of the office from now until May 4. There was a time when that sort of information would have me near hysterics (tears or laughter, take your pick) and wanting to scream, WHAT ELSE?

I'm past that though.

So, some dates are being tossed around. We really prefer to meet on a Wednesday to save on airfare, so May 6 is a possibility, or the next week, May 13. Of course, this all assumes they'll even give us a travel date right now with the one official gone. Otherwise we would be looking at the end of May.

As always, we'll see. Are you ready to jump ship yet? LOL

no news

I'd be lying if I said I expected otherwise; ah, the old pessimist has returned. ^_^

I have no expectation for an April travel date. But really, once you've already been waiting 9 months since submitting a dossier, what's another few weeks?

Maybe next week we'll get a date... maybe not.