Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Things my mother said

My mother told me that the first word I ever uttered was the "s" word. She claims that my sister taught me how to say the word and how to appropriately use it in a sentence. My first sentence being "S***! I cracka toe-a!"

My mother used to like to tell me about how when they were trying to potty train me, they let me watch my sister and brother use the potty, and that I insisted that I wanted to pee like my brother "Standing up!"

When my brother and I were teenagers and went to the humane society and picked up a lab-mix puppy, I called my mom at work and told her "We have a visitor, and he's going to stay." Her first words were, "If you brought a puppy home, you had better bring it back to wherever you got it, because you cannot keep it!" How did she know that we had gone and picked up a puppy behind her back?

When I asked my mom if we could just bring him by her work so that she could see him before she made up her mind, she said "Ok." I knew we had her :). She ended up loving that dog - she even let him sleep in the bed with her when she watched him for 5 weeks while I was in Europe years later.

One time, when I was being a terrible teen, my mom asked me "Do you tell your friends how rotten I am?" I told her, "No, but I can start!" My friends actually loved my mom - they always told me how lucky I was to have such a cool mom. I couldn't let her know that at the time, though!

When I was living two hours away from my mom, going to college, my phone broke. When she tried calling, all she got was a busy signal. Concerned, she hopped in her car and drove to my place to make sure I was ok. She knocked, I answered, she said "Thank goodness you are ok! Do you know your phone is broken?" Then she hopped in her car and went home.

My mom said "I love you" to me a LOT. I think that is probably one of the most important things she said.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Books, Books, Books

It seems that whenever we go anywhere, we find new books to buy for our daughter. Jason came home last night with a bag of books that he bought at a hospital book sale:

"Goodnight Moon"
"Where the Wild Things Are"
and a Dr. Seuss reader.

So, if you are keeping count, so far we have two Ugly Dolls, four paintings for her bedroom, and ten books. All while we say to ourselves "It is too soon to really start buying anything."

Hmmm...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

A list

We received a list of things that we will have to get together for our second dossier with instructions not to begin working on any of it yet. Our agency told us that we should hold off on collecting any of the items until January-ish. The list isn't very long and it doesn't look like it will be too difficult to get what we need - aside from something that we will need to get from our mortgage holder - they have been extraordinarily unhelpful when we have needed anything from them thus far. There is also a County Property Document that we will need to have filled out by our county tax assessor - I'm not sure how difficult that will be...

It is nice to at least have some idea of what we are going to need down the road a bit. We can start finding out exactly whom we need to bug to get these things done.

Aside from that, we are still waiting for our I171h - our finger prints were taken on August 24! Come on, Dallas! How slow can you go???

Oh, and will someone please stop me from constantly checking out Janie and Jack? My fingers are itching to do some serious clothes shopping!!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Nothing new here

We don't have any new news to share, but I have been having such a great time reading about other families who are in Russia for their court dates this week and other families who have received referrals within the past few days!

It makes me so happy for the families who have been waiting for things to move, and for their new family members. I hope that things continue to move along for everyone - including us :)

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Ugly Dolls

Last month, Jason and I spent a week with my sister and her family in CA. While we were there, we went into a cute little store in Mountain View and had our first encounter with Ugly Dolls. They had a pink OX doll:
Jason and I immediately fell in love. I grabbed OX, intent on making him our daughter's first stuffed toy. Although I am not usually one to fold to peer pressure, my sister's declarations about how terrible and ugly the doll was made me leave the pink OX behind.

But I could not stop thinking about the Ugly Doll, and how much I wanted to by an OX for our daughter. Finally, I went online and picked up not one, but two ugly dolls! I bought a pink Peaco and a special edition berry OX.
I know that they are not traditional, cute dolls, but I just can't get enough of them! There is also an Ugly Dog... I think I'm going to have to get one of those, too.
Are we the only ones who think that these are "so ugly, they are cute?" If so, perhaps I should remind you to look at the side bar and look at Conrad. We think he's handsome... 'nuff said :)

Friday, September 11, 2009

"Be Prepared to Receive Something Special"

Jason and I went out for sushi tonight - pretty typical for us on a Friday evening. We went to one of our usual restaurants and found that they have just begun using a brand new menu. Along with the new menu, they have started giving fortune cookies along with the check.

Jason and I each grabbed a cookie and opened them up to read our fortunes. What did mine read?

"Be prepared to receive something special."

A referral would be pretty special! I'm prepared!!

We thought that was a pretty neat fortune to receive today :)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

We Are Officially Waiting!

We had our weekly call with our agency today, and our coordinator had great news: We are officially a "waiting family!"

What does that mean? Well... It means that our paperwork is on its way to Russia. All of the t's have been crossed and i's have been dotted, everything has been sealed and stamped, our paperwork has been wrapped up and shipped off to Russia!

Our agency estimates that families will receive referrals between one and ten months from this point.

Jason and I went out for dinner and a drink to celebrate. Wheeee! We are a "waiting family!!"

Now, to really buckle down and learn some Russian!