One More Thing!

I forgot to post pictures of one of my FAVORITE christmas gifts! While at a very special friend's christmas party, I was presented with this diaper bag!

Her daughter is a representative for this very cool company called Anna William. They have many different handbags, totes and household accessories that you design yourself, they make, and ship directly to you. Last year and the year before I had an ever so slight addiction to the handbags. This gift meant a lot to me for several different reasons. First, I love that she cared enough about me to design this bag specifically for me. (Anyone who knows me well, knows that I adore polka dots!) Secondly, it provided reassurance that yes, someday soon, I will be needing one of these bags that only mothers get to carry around!

Check out the inside of the bag!

It's so pretty, and has all kinds of pockets for all things baby. The cool brown pocket is for my cell phone! If you absolutely need one of these (or any of their amazing products), you can order directly from the website, or I can give you the woman's info to order from her!

There 's Always Next Year...

Although I've been in the bah-humbug spirit lately, we had a very nice Christmas. We had Mom & Dad L, Sara and Robby (this is not a typo, he really spells it like this!) over in the morning. Dan made us his wonderful pancakes, as well as eggs, toast, oj, and Ethiopian coffee! We opened gifts, hung out, and had a great start to the day!




As you can see, Sara is growing bigger and bigger...we found out last week that they're having a girl!

Sara's Belly

We finally (and miraculously) found a boy's name that we agree on! We plan to name our child Bennett if a we receive a boy referral, and as I think I mentioned in a previous post, Marin will be our girl's name. To assign an identity to our future child, Mom E. began calling the baby Marin Bennett, and it's kind of caught on throughout several close family members... Mom & Dad L. gave us this beautiful print to hang in Marin Bennett's room. I began to tear up as soon as I unwrapped it, but was able to recover quickly!



The picture didn't come out too great, but the writing says: 'There's nowhere on earth I wouldn't go to bring you home to me.'

I'm sure most parents and prospective parents feel the same way, but the feeling that we'd go anywhere to bring our child home has become stronger as time has passed.

After everyone left, we cleaned up, played with Maggie, then went to Dan's parents' house. Melissa, Gavin, Avery, Lisa, Felipe and Sofia all came over shortly after we arrived. We always have such an awesome time hanging out with our family, and it's certainly never a dull moment as you will be able to tell in some of the following pictures.

Marin Bennett's new shirt from Nana and Papa

Nana and Avery

After dinner and gift opening, the place quickly turned into a dance party!

Lisa and Ella dancing

Auntie Tiffy and Baylee not dancing

Here's Avery, looking very cute and probably watching her Mom open one of her 50 or so gifts!

It was a great Christmas overall. We had good times with family and friends, ate some great meals, and gave and received some nice gifts. Most of all, this Christmas served as a major milestone for us. This was very likely the last Christmas we'll have to spend without Marin Bennett (I hope we're able to shorten that name soon!) at home with us. We've been together for 10 years and have had 10 great Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters, Independence days, etc. together. We're very excited to begin creating new memories with our new son or daughter, and have already started talking about how our holidays will be different next year when he/she is here.

Getting Ready...

After a couple of weeks of feeling like we're in a lull in terms of preparing for our baby, the time has come for the foreign travel shots! We need quite a few of them, and some of them come in a series that will need to be started 6 months prior to travel. We are assuming that we won't travel for at least 9 months since travel typically takes place within 12 weeks of the referral, but we wanted to be prepared. We also found out that these vaccinations (and the anti-malarial medications) are covered by our insurance, which is a HUGE surprise, and will save us a ton of money!

My mother will be buying the baby's crib, and has told us that it is also time to get on the ball, and pick one out. We'll get on that as soon as the holidays are over. I think I've been putting it off because Dan and I have very different ideas about how we want the nursery to be decorated. He likes very gender neutral designs, and I'd love to wait until we get the referral and decorate specific to the gender of our child. I'm thinking that his idea is the most practical, and that the last thing we'll need to worry about when we get the referral is designing a nursery. He may win this match, but I haven't decided yet!

HOORAY FOR THE BREEDLOVE FAMILY!

Go check out the Breedloves' blog. They got a referral for a BEAUTIFUL baby boy today! We're keeping them in our thoughts for a quick travel date!

Paper Pregnant!

We received the news yesterday that we are officially on the wait list for a baby 0-24 months. Our agency's estimated wait time is 1-6 months, but I'm thinking that it's closer to the 6-7 month time frame based on our weekly updates. We are so excited! I'm equating Thursday's mail to my at home pregnancy test, and yesterday's e-mail to the official doctor's visit. Cheesy, I know, but adoption has so many milestones that are a lot different than that of a pregnancy, and these two milestones in particular are actually pretty close! I'm glad that it's time to stop freaking out about a gazillion pieces of paper that are not in my control, and finding a notary who's commission does not expire soon. Not to worry though...as soon as the novelty of being 'paper pregnant' wears off, I'll start obsessing about wait times, preparing our house, travel plans, etc.!