YUM!

Oh ice cream. How we love you.

But we don’t just love any ‘ole ice cream.

This ice cream is THE BEST ice cream anywhere.

Maybe it’s the farm land and rolling New England hills that makes our taste buds so happy.

Or the stinky sweet smell of the dairy cows that makes the ice cream taste that much sweeter and creamier.

(BTW: this is K and D mooing at the cows)

Or the beautiful flowers for our eyes to gaze at and scratchy hay barrels to sit on.

OR... MAYBE, just maybe... it’s the messy smiley faces and sticky hands that makes us love it SO very much.

Oh summer…Oh ice cream. How we love you.

Please

I follow this blog - Ni Hao Y'all - pretty much religiously. It's gotten to the point that I check it more than once a day JUST IN CASE she posts twice. Stefanie is really quite remarkable so her latest shouldn't have surprised me... and the number of comments that she already has received shouldn't either.

PLEASE everyone go to her blog and post a comment on this post!! For every comment she receives she is donating a dollar to An Orphan's Wish.

It's that easy. Post a comment and a dollar goes to help orphans with special needs in China. But, it gets better. She now has people matching so your one comment may grow to MANY dollars!

Come on it's easy. Click here and post a comment. That's it.

In honor of Stefanie - Thanks Y'all!

SO grateful to Hip Mom!

We learned yesterday that we were selected by Hip Mom to participate in her adoption fundraiser. Hip Mom has a heart for orphans and has lovingly decided to help families like ours bring our children home. She will feature us and a few selected pieces of (now being designed) jewelry on her website and blog - Hip Mom Jewelry. We will receive all the profits from the sales!

Isn't she so SWEET!

Her creations are just beautiful. There isn't a Mom out there that wouldn't want one of her pieces.

More info coming soon... but be ready in August to purchase some BEAUTIFUL jewelry AND help bring our Grace home at the same time! I'll be looking to all my friends and family to help us market by posting, Facebooking, emailing, etc. about this exciting opportunity! Our opportunity will only last a month, and then some other lucky family will have a turn, so when it's time we must be ready.

Thank you HIP MOM!!! This is so very kind and generous of you.

Happy Father's Day!

Our family is so blessed to have this wonderful man in our lives. He is EVERYTHING anyone could ever want in a husband, son, brother, uncle and FATHER.

Thank you for all you do for us each and every day. And thank you for the absolute joy and love you bring to our lives.

We LOVE you!

Finally!

Arriving in our mailbox today...

A manila envelope with 4 notarized copies of our home study - complete with fingerprint results! YAY!

Tomorrow, we'll fed-ex our I-800A to the USCIS.

And wait.

Guess what we will be waiting for... an appointment to get FBI fingerprints done. :)

3 months

We are STILL waiting for our fingerprints. It's been 3 months.

Our home study is complete and approved and we are just waiting to insert the darn fingerprint results into the document.

I'm glad the sun was shining today and my kids had plans for me (which included taking them to the park and the pool) or else I might have headed to our state police fingerprint headquarters (wherever that is) and shook someone silly until they turned them over.

Countdown

This is NOT an exact science... there are many factors that go into when we will be matched. But, as an attempt to track where we on the list of waiting families. I will start posting monthly CCAI match statistics.

We submitted our medical conditions checklist with our CCAI application at the beginning of March, 2010. However, for whatever reason, it wasn't logged-in at CCAI until March 25th. At that time we were told there were approximately 250 families waiting ahead of us.

Since then, CCAI announced that they now has access to the shared list, as well as their designated agency list of children, so we are hopeful that with access to two lists perhaps things will move a little more quickly then they have in a last year or so. However, CCAI says it is really to early to predict.

Anyway, on with the countdown....

In April, CCAI matched 52 (!) families. In May, another 30! Again, not exact, but that means there are now approximately 168 families ahead of us.

Evening at the Beach

Living just 45 minutes from the shore is a beautiful thing... one that shouldn't be taken for granted. This evening we had a LOVELY impromptu stroll on the beach. WOW. It just couldn't have been more beautiful.

Sun-setting, warm, quiet (until our arrival that is).

Just perfect.

And it sure did make everyone HAPPY. Just look at these smiling faces...

It's these family moments that I never want to forget.