The basement

Well, here's an update on how the house is coming. We are finishing the basement to make room for Tootsie. The office will move downstairs and that will become her bedroom. She will be right next door to Colin and across from us. All the walls downstairs are painted and the electrician just finished. We are waiting for the carpet installers to come a week from tomorrow. We're very excited! After the carpets are down, we can move the furniture from upstairs and start painting Tatum's room. We haven't decided if it will be pink or green. The pattern of the quilt is ladybugs and has both colors in it. I'll post pictures when we get it done.

A Little 'FUN'draising!

With the cost of the orphanage donation going up and the rising cost of travel around the Olympics, Dennis and I have decided to do a fundraiser. We are going to raffle off an Ipod Touch worth $400.00! With a donation of $5.00, you get one chance in the raffle. With a donation of $20.00, you get five chances! We will hold the drawing on June ist and post the winner on our blog! Colin is looking forward to pulling out the winning ticket! We appreciate your help.

Yay! It's finally here!

On Thursday, January 31st, our final piece of paperwork arrived in the mail. Everyday, I would go to the mailbox looking for the 'brown envelope' that everyone talks about. This day was no different. Again, no brown envelope, but there was a small white envelope from the Department of Homeland Security. My heart started racing because I knew that this couldn't be right. Something must be wrong! I figured that our fingerprints didn't go through. Well, I open the letter and inside is an I 797-C. So now, I'm even more confused because I've never heard of that. I called Dennis to look on the USCIS website and he couldn't find that form. So, I emailed ASIA with the question and I noticed that the form did say the words APPROVED! Unfortunately because of the time difference, ASIA wouldn't open for another 2 hours.
Well, they got back to me saying that Massachusetts calls the form by a different name, but it is definately our approval! I scrambled around and drove the form to Den's office. We drove over to where the notary and got that done. Then I rushed home and over to the Post Office. All in one day!
ASIA now has everything for the dossier and is getting the necessary authentication done. We should be DTC (Dossier to China) by the end of February! With any luck, we can travel in June!

Today, I was able to send Tootsie her first care package. It has some blankets, clothes and dolls for her. We also included a photo album of us so that she can get used to our faces before we get to China. There's even one of the dog! Hopefully she'll get it around the same time that we are DTC!

Trekking into Boston

Yesterday, we travelled into Boston for our fingerprint appointment. The traffic was awful and Colin hates to stop! BUT, we knew that we were going for a very good reason. Colin was very good under the circumstances. It's hard for him to wait quietly! The hardest part was when they were fingerprinting me. Poor Dennis was doing everything he could to keep Colin from grabbing me! It was too funny.

It seems as though both Dennis and I were a bit tricky to fingerprint as they kept doing the same finger over and over. It was pretty cool, though. I had assumed that we would have the old ink on the finger stuff. Instead, they sprayed our hands with something and then placed them on the machine. They were able to see the print as it came out and either accept it or try again. In the end, we had three people check thm to make sure they would all be accepted. They were very nice and Dennis explained how we are adopting Tootsie and showed them her picture.

Hopefully, we will receive our 171-H soon and we will then be DTC!

Christmas Time

The holiday was wonderful! On December 22, we went over to Claudia's for our annual Christmas Eve get together and tacky yankee swap. We got this remote control gorilla that Colin thinks is a hoot! He spent half the night running away from Kate and then turning around to have her tickle him. I was laughing so hard, there were tears.

On Christmas Eve, we had our annual luminaries. The guys put all the bags out throughout the neighborhood and lit them as the sun was going down. Then, the kids went sledding on Julie and Josh's front yard. After we were frozen, we went inside for some Chinese food. The kids watched Frosty and Colin fell asleep on my lap at 8:00! Now that never happens.

On Christmas, Bob, Moira and my mother came to our house. It was quiet and relaxed. At one point, Colin attacked Daddy and they ran around the house with Colin on Daddy's back! I got some great photos.

Colin was not at all interested in opening gifts! He would point to the package, but ran away when we tried to get him to help open it. So Momma and Daddy had to open his gifts. Oh well, maybe next year he'll rip them open with Tootsie! Once he saw what was inside though, he was a bit more into it. His favorite toy was the alphabet town that Ms. Bette-Ann gave him.

We have our appointment for our fingerprints on Wednesday. Hopefully, they will be processed quickly so we can officially be DTC! We have lots of things to send to Tootsie and can't wait to send them. Her birthday is quickly approaching. We're sorry that her first birthday will be celebrated without us, but we know that next year, we will all be together.

That's all for now. Happy New Year!