Spa day!

We celebrated Stacey's birthday with a girls day at the spa today! We had lunch at Moe's Grill and then headed to the spa for facials, pedicures and/or manicures all afternoon. After the spa, we hung out at Stacey's house and ate more food! It was a good day!!!! :)

2nd Annual picnic and more Johnny pictures!

We had rainy weather Saturday morning, so we cancelled the picnic at State Farm Park and had the picnic at home instead. It stopped raining so after lunch, we went to the park to swim until it started raining again at 4! The kids had a great time all day.

Three of Jeff's brothers and their families were here as well as Jeff's mom. Amy and Brian were able to come with Maisy and Trixie and Stacey was able to bring two of her kids- Eden and Beckett. It was great to have everyone together! :)

Then on Sunday, we went to my mom's house for the "Johnny Open House." All of our aunts and cousins came over to meet Johnny. Grayson also helped entertain Johnny and feed him too!

Did I mention that my Mom broke her foot on Friday?!? Surgery on Friday and no getting up for 6 weeks!!!

Another adoption update...

China is now through Log In Dates of 1/26/06.. so that means China has less than 4 weeks to get through before our LID of 2/20/06. They have not picked up the pace at all though. Now the Olympics will be there next month so I doubt that we'll see in increase in activity with referrals.

My fingerprint sworn statement went ok - I guess. I just have to wait for a few weeks before I receive a letter saying that I'm not a felon. :) Babysitting Johnny went very well. He slept quite a bit and was a very good baby.

We've been very busy at our house painting rooms, hanging pictures, cleaning etc. for the past week or two. We're hosting our 2nd Annual State Farm Park family/friends picnic and then Open House at our place after that on Saturday.

Grayson is still continuing swimming lessons and is doing very well. He has improved so much since he started. He did the backstroke all by himself for the length of the pool last night! I was so proud. :)

Fingerprint update

I have to appear in the Immigration Office in downtown Chicago on Monday morning because my fingerprints were rejected this time. I have to sign a sworned statement about my background check before they will update our I-600 form that is required for our adoption. I always have problems with taking fingerprints... something about my fingertips being too smooth so they can't read the lines on them. ???

The only good news about this trip is that I get to babysit Johnny on Sunday night while mommy and daddy go out with some friends. :-) More pictures to follow after my babysitting gig on Sunday.....

busy weekend!

I had Thursday and Friday off last week. I was able to visit Shana and Paul and Johnny! Shana and I took Johnny to Picture People for his 1st photo shoot! They turned out great. He was 12 days old on Thursday when we took him.

I was also able to babysit Johnny all by myself while Paul and Shana went to dinner for the 1st time since Johnny was born! I took this picture of us.

This picture shows how tiny he is! I think this is his favorite position to sleep...

This is Johnny on his Mommy's tummy... he's sooooo cute!

Then on Friday, I was able to see Grayson and his two cousins, Calvin and Caitlin, in their Vacation Bible School program.

On Saturday, Grayson and I visited Gma and Gpa Schofield. Elizebeth and Nate were there too. They all had a great time swimming.

After visiting the Great Grandma's in the nursing home, we went to Trixie's 4th birthday party. The kids had a great time!






On the adoption front, referrals have been received for LID's (log in dates) up to 1/20/06. Our LID date is 2/20/06. If we were to guess at this point, we may have a referral in Oct or Nov this year. This is a complete GUESS though. :-)

Memorial Day Weekend

We stayed home over Memorial Day Weekend but wanted to add pics of Grayson and Chewy.

I took Chewy to the Vet on Saturday and he's gained 2 lbs. He's a whopping 5 lbs now! Jeff and I worked on the deck this weekend. We added rocks around the perimeter and lattice below so our animals can't get under the deck. :)

I'm adding a video below of Grayson talking about Star Wars. He's obsessed and tells stories about the movies all day... (If you are looking at this at State Farm, you probably can't see the video - but you can see it on your home computer.)

adoption update....

The travel group in front of us received their referrals. Now we are the NEXT group to be matched up with babies. That "sounds" good BUT it could still take us into 2009 at the rate China is sending referrals. They completed 3 days of LIDs last month. They are now on 1/12/06 LID. Our LID is 2/20/06. If China keeps up with the 3-5 days a month, we could be potentially be waiting a LONG time..... :-(

I doubt we'll have many more updates for at least a month now.

OH.. Now we have to complete our Local Police Clearances for the 3rd time. This means we have to get our finger prints taken at the local police station and get a letter from them stating that we are good citizens (basically). They probably know our name now since we've gone more than any other "Normal" resident for the same letter!