HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN!

Megan celebrated her 11th birthday bowling with her girl friends! The cake was an ice cream cake, yummy! Meg received lots of nice presents from her friends! It was a fun day!

December 14th 1995

11 years ago today I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, we named her Megan Julianne.

HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY MEGAN!

I can't believe you are 11 today! You will be a great big sister!

Love, Mommy

PATIENCE

This means patience in Chinese, something I am needing a lot of these days!

Even though it is December and there are so many things to get done, the days seem to crawl by. It seems like it will be forever before we get our referral. PATIENCE! Can you see me chanting "patience, patience, patience"?!?!?

Christmas Cookies

Happy Holidays from Tulsa!

Megan and her friend (Natalie) made sugar Christmas cookies tonight. Fun was had by all.

Colette

100 Wishes Quilt

It's done! YEA! After collecting all 100 squares & cutting them, I turned my squares over to my friends (Debbie & Olivia). The two of them put in many, many hours sewing all of the squares together and then sewing the back fabric to the squares.

THANK YOU DEBBIE & OLIVIA (pictured above). Without you two this could have never been done.

Also, I want to thank all of you who sent a square. Our child will have this quilt to remind her how much she was loved even before she was brought to America!

Colette

Kansas City!

This was taken while I was in K.C. with my college friends. Tom, Mark, Rose, Vonnes, and me.
We call the 2 Susan's by their last names. This pic was taken in an Irish Pub down in the plaza.

We had a wonderful time catching up with one another. Tom is the only one of us that still lives in Nebraska. Mark lives in Chicago, Vonnes lives in Phoenix and our host lives in K.C. The last time we were together was in Phoenix 4 years ago. We try to get together every few years, but it had been 7 years since all 5 of us were together. We hope to all get together in 2008!

Colette

Megan riding a horse!

Wanted to post a picture of Megan. She is 10 and will be 11 next week.

This picture was taken in October on our Girl Scout camping trip. I even rode a horse!

Referrals.... we didn't make it.

"The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were LID through September 8, 2005."

Well, I am bummed that we didn't make it, but not surpised. Our LID is September 13th so we will be in the next batch for sure. The referrals should come the first week in January. Then we will travel to China 2 months latter. So, we should be in China the first of March.

Colette

This is a picture of my mom and sisters (Julie & Ann).

Childhood Home

This is a picture of the house I grew up in. My Mom moved last spring to a smaller ranch style house. This week she closed on the sale of my childhood home. I have such fond memories growing up in this home. I was 6 years old when we moved to this home. My sister (Ann) and I thought we had moved to a mansion. It wasn't a mansion, but compared to our small home that we had moved from, we were "moving on up".

The home was filled with lots of family and friends. My dad had the office of his company in the house, so there were always employees and customers coming in and out.

The home had a laundry shoot and 2 stairways going up to the second floor... this gave us many hours of play. I'm sure my dear friend (Susan) remembers this!?!

I am so glad that Megan will have these memories. Yet, I'm sad for our baby girl in China that she will never know the home her mommy grew up in.

What comes to my mind most when I think of this house, the place I called home.... is LOVE.

Colette

Homestudy Update.... Finally

We started all of the paperwork for a homestudy update back in August. Then Terri the social worker came out to the house October 11th. And, finally I got the homestudy update in my hand November 8th. Everything takes so long in the adoption world. UGH!

Yesterday I mailed off the 1-600A to get re-fingerprinted and a new I-171 (I coudn't do this till I had the homestudy update) . I wrote a letter in there explaining the rush (our old one expires in December) and there is a possibility of us traveling the end of January. Hopefully they will let us get finger-printed soon. We have to drive all the way to OK City (2 hours away plus toll-roads) to get fingerprinted.

I haven't been sleeping well. Now that this is done maybe I'll be able to. Probably not, I have a feeling this might be the norm till I get the referral.

Colette

Saturday

I'm going to try and post my feelings on a daily bases. So, be prepared to be bored. HAHA

I am starting to get excited for our baby. I CAN'T WAIT!!!! I want my referral. Hopefully in a month. But, we are riding the fence on this one. We might miss the cut off and not get a referral for 2 months. But as my good friend (Susan) said... at least you will get it in 2 months. And, she is right, we are getting close. I can see the end of the rainbow.

Today is a Saturday and we have been watching the Huskers play football. YEA , they won! We are off to get a bite to eat then home to watch the Sooners play. GO SOONERS!

Colette

Nephew's Wedding

We were back in Nebraska for Mike & Erica's wedding. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Referrals

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered between August 10 and August 25, 2005.

Ours were registered September 13, 2005. Hopefully we will get our referral in a month. If not the next month. We're getting closer

Colette

NEBRASKA

Colette & Megan watched Colette's nephew, Kyle play football while back in Nebraska.

Process of getting a baby ready for matching

When a child is abandoned they must be taken to the police station.

1) The police report must be written up
2) The abandonment documentation must be prepared
3) For three months they try to find the birth family through finding ads
4) A birth certificate must be drawn up
5) A medical report must be completed
6) The orphanage must also prepare the daily schedule and developmental report for each child

All of this must take place before the baby is "paper ready" for adoption. Then they are matched with adopting parents. This is why the babies are 8 months and older before they are matched.

My wish for our baby.

I wish you always:
Happiness to fill your heart,
Wisdom to fill your mind,
And confidence in faith to fill your spirit.
May you live your life being your true, authentic self.

author unknown

(I found this quote and loved it)
Colette

My thoughts.....

I'm starting to get excited about the adoption! It has been over a year since our paperwork got logged in. I never would have thought we would still be waiting a year latter to get our referral. Anyway, things are getting closer. There are only 5 weeks aheadof us.

I actually bought a couple of out-fits. I didn't know what size to buy, I think I bought 18 months. I began to work on the baby's room. The room is Megan's old room. The walls are yellow and there are pictures in blue frames on the walls. My friend, Kelli gave me "Hey, Diddle Diddle" bedding for the crib.

Last Saturday my friends, Debbie & Olivia came over and sewed the 100 quilt squares together. "Thank you ladies, I appreciate all your hard work. " I have been putting all of the Warm Wishes everyone sent me in a scrapbook. This baby is so lucky to have all of you in her life. She is already so blessed and doesn't even know it.

The way things have gone lately with referrals, I'm hoping we will get our referral the end of November and travel the end of January. YEA, it is getting closer

Colette

Referrals

This was posted on the CCAA web-site:

"The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were logged in with our office before August 9, 2005."

This means the CCAA has mailed out referrals for the July 23, 2005 through August 9, 2005 log in dates.

Our LID is 9/13/05. So, there are 35 days until our LID. We're getting closer!

Fishing in Nebraska!

Megan and Daddy after a successful day of fishing! Uncle Steve had something to do with this too!!