Must See TV

Yay! One of our favorite TV show's won an Emmy! If you haven't watched M0dern Family, you really must. I think it's hilarious. Maybe it's just my freakish sense of humor but I really laugh out loud with almost every episode.
My mouth is curling at the corners just thinking that the new season will start soon. :)

Peek at Lily's Room - In Progress

I came home last Saturday after work (I work every 3rd Saturday - GREAT schedule for a nurse) and Jeff had moved the old bed out of Lily's Room and put together the crib. I was so surprised and immediately moved to put together some of the other furniture and arrange the room. So every day since, we have done a little more to prepare Lily's room. I took this picture in the middle of last week and have since hung some things on the walls, scooted things around and bought a couple more small things. I am really loving it so far and I know that it will be such a great place for our little girl to rest her head.

Of course when it comes closer to time to bring her home, we will wash and iron everything and get it looking perfect. For now, we are in the midst of another Lily project - updating our home study and paperwork for the 4th time. Our immigration approval expires Jan. 8th and we have to receive our referral, travel and be home before it expires. Not gonna happen so we are pulling everything together now so that we can make sure it is in the office where it needs to be 90 days before our expiration (the max time it is supposed to take for renewal). I don't want there to be anything at all that might delay us from holding Lily in our arms once we see her sweet face and if our paperwork is not current, there will be no travel for Jeff and Nicole. Not gonna let that happen. One good thing about all this paperwork stuff is that we get to meet with our social worker again and Jeff and I get to show her Lily's nursery :). Last time she visited us, it was a bland extra bedroom/storage room. Now it's a baby girl haven. Love it.

Treinta

Referrals are out for this month!! They covered 5 days of LIDs which gives us 30 left before they reach our magical date - June 14, 2006. Right now they have referred through May 15, 2006 and are averaging about 3-8 days of LIDs per referral month. I THINK we are in line for a referral in January but what I'm telling people is "any time between December and March for referral and between February and April for travel to China". Hopefully that will cover all bases but, if we have learned anything over the past several years in this process, it is that NOTHING is predictable.

I am excited about 5 days being referred this month but in September we are only expecting 2 days to be covered. I am saying this to remind myself not to be disappointed when it happens and just as fare warning that there won't be much progress until maybe October.

For now, we will celebrate these 5 days gone forever. Lots of people are crying tears of joy as they see their baby's faces for the first time. And I can't help but to continue my daydreaming of the day that it will be Jeff and I sharing tears over our little one. It will be soon. She is waiting. We are ready.

House in Chaos

We have really been organizationally challenged over these past few weeks. We had carpet installed the first week of August and it has left us with stuff EVERYWHERE. I am definitely not the most organized person in the world but this is crazy. I think the problem is that we are trying not to bring anything back in to the house which we don't need. So this has made for about 3 visits by the big truck that picks up donations around here...and we still have enough crap for at least one or two more visits.

From 2010-08-08 carpet

The good news in this is that Lily's room is coming together a little bit. The rocking chair was delivered and I am ready to put some more furniture together just as soon as Jeff takes apart the bed that is plop in the middle of the floor in there. I told some friends that I was working on the nursery and one asked me how long we had left. I said about 6 months-ish and they made a comment about how I am preparing the nursery so early. Let me just say that after 5 years of waiting, preparing 6 months ahead is like trying to do all the work for a new baby in the last trimester. Not to mention that I want it to be PERFECT.

From 2010-08-08 carpet

And there is still a long way to go before we can claim perfection. Jeff had to cut the bottoms off all the doors last week since this carpet is about 1/2 inch taller than the previous threadbare stuff.

From 2010-08-08 carpet

Even the guest bedroom is in chaos. I guess we better clear it out before anyone comes to visit.

At least we now have a good foundation. $6000 worth of carpet. It feels squishy under my feet. Let the clean sweep begin.

Weekend Trip to Nashville

A couple weekends ago, Jeff and I got in our happy little Honda and flew the coop for Nashville. We are actually only about 3 hours from there so it made for a good little overnighter. Our reason for going was to see my FAVE band, the Indigo Girls, who were playing at the botanical gardens there. Jeff isn't a huge fan but it sucked it up just to humor me. It turned out to be a great trip.


We got to the park about 2 1/2 hrs before the show to guarantee ourselves a good seat on the lawn. We spread out our trusty blankie, got out the sandwiches we had picked up and made ourselves a picnic. It was hotter than crap but it was so pretty that we didn't let that ruin our time.





I thought for a minute that Jeff might actually close his eyes and take a nap while we waited.


He was a super sport, even when he made jokes about the people's dance moves. Of course we daydreamed about being able to take Lily to the park for times like this and we are just sure that she would have loved it too as there were lots of kids running around in the grass. Soon...

You can see we had a great view of the crooners... If you click on the picture below, it will take you to a little video of their most popular song (and Jeff's favorite), Galileo. Try not to dance out of your seat. :)