Ella's first hurricane.

We are all sitting here waiting the arrival of hurricane Isaac. I am so glad that I am not in China right now. That would have been a mess. G cannot leave town nor can he stay home. My poor friend would have been stuck with the boys for the duration (thanks Tricia :-) ) Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We have several pine trees on our lot and hope none fall on the house. They have all survived katrina, so hopefully they are good.
 Ella is doing good. She has been with me since July 23. I am starting to notice more and more behaviors common to institutionalized children. Nothing serious or alarming, just things that I did not really pick up on in China. maybe because we were so busy and tired. Thinking I might talk to our social worker to see which of any of these thing I should try to stop. For some it is clearly not appropriate, but others are not harmful to her, but just not really normal. Hope that makes sense.
 Anyway, on to watch the weather and I will post when the storm has passed. Take care everyone!!

We are home!!

We finally made it home late Thursday night. The flight was very turbulent but Ella did a great job. She did not whine or complain a bit. She sat just fine or slept. She would wake up just a little and whine, but I think it was because she was sleeping in an uncomfortable position. When we finally made it home, G and the boys were at the airport waiting, of course. What a beautiful sight to see. I missed them sooooo much.
 Ella is doing better at home than I thought she would. She seems to do the right thing more often than not. We still have a lot of sass and attitude to deal with, but she will learn. Fast. I'll see to it :-) She might have been the big cheese where she came from, but not here. It seems like she was probably one of the more dominant kids in her orphanage.  All of the kids will be treated the same. Again, she will learn. Once she gets some English, I suspect things will get better much faster. Here are a few pics from the airport.

Hmmm, I don't know why Jordan isn't in any of these pictures. He was there, I promise.
 Haha, btw, can you tell Evan's daddy dresssed him??? Look at those shoes with shorts!!!

We are still here. Leaving to head home tomorrow. We have had a nice time in Guangzhou. Soooo much better than being in province. The hotel is great. Anyone trying to decide between the few hotels we can choose from here, you will not be disappointed if you chose the Garden. Lots of good places to eat and it is safe to get out and walk around. If I were here again, this is where I would stay. No doubt about it. We had our CA yesterday. We were there for a while, but once they got started the process went pretty fast and smooth. After that we took a quick trip to the island, It is really nice and beautiful. Picked up a few things but wish I would have spent more time there. Oh well. Ella is doing good. She has had a couple of really sad moments. She cries and says the same thing over and over. I don't know what it is but I am sure it is something like she wants to go home. Not our home. It's sad to see but it's good for her to get it out. I would be more concerned if she didn't do this. This little girl is a handful. She has a lot of behaviors that really threw me at first but the more I think about the things that I read it starts to make sense. She is really big about trying to turn on the smiles and charm when she is around other people. More specific, Chinese women. While it drives me crazy because it is sooo fake and rehearsed, I understand that this is how she probably coped in the orphanage. I really can't wait to get home and start getting into a routine. I will post more about some of these behaviors if anyone is interested later, after we get home. It is exhausting to think about. I will post some pics of the past several days, They are probably at the top, I don;t understand why, Sorry.

Hefei Aquarium

Today was a free day. A nice family that I met here asked me if we wanted to come along for the day. So glad we did. We went to the aquarium, it was fun, but hot. After that we went out to lunch at a local restaurant. Not sure they see too many non asian people. We got lots of stares on our way out. While we were eating we were in a small room, just our table, and some good ir condition. The food was great as was the company. After that we dropped the husband and their little boy back to the hotel and headed our to Walmart. That was interesting. I am so exhausted I can't even stay awake to type anymore. I will add a few pictures from the day. BTW, the pic of the frogs is from Walmart....the food section, not the pet department.

It's official!

It's official, she is ours. Today we did the adoption. We had another great day. I was up at 4 (not so great) and she got up about 6. hmmm, gonna have to work on that. We got up and had breakfast at the buffet here in the hotel. Glad some other Hefei mama's encouraged me to try it. Sooooo good. After that we met our guide in the lobby for 9 and headed to the civil affairs office to do more paperwork. Quick and painless, but HOT!!!!!! We were back at out hotel by about 10:30. We stayed around here again. It is so hot.We might go sight seeing with another family that we met here at the hotel. Not sure though. Did I mention it is hot? Add to that the way they drive around here and the ever present smell of gasoline in these vans. All of that is a migraine waiting to happen. I have been able to hold them off so far by taking my medicine as soon as i think one might be coming. If not a migraine, then car sickness for sure. The driving here is so crazy and all of the horn honking. I will not forget this. Even though we aren't getting out much, I am enjoying the visit. I'm really tired but here are a few pics from today. Not sure where these pics will show up. Top or bottom? I don't seem to have any control :-)

Today was unbelieveable. This girl is amazing. She walked in and they pointed me out to her. SHe came and gave me a hug and sat on my lap. She is so beautiful. She is also funny and very busy, Always doing something, The orphanage sent her with a back pack full of snacks and juice. Everytime I gave her something to see it had to go in the backpack. Clothes, bows, underwear, I could not have packed that much stuff into the little bag.She also has to have the bag with her all the time. Poor little thing, we went out for a walk and she had her bag on. When we got back to the room, her little back was sweating. Her shirt was all wet. I'm sure this is a security issue, so I will just go with it. If she gets too hot, she will take it off. She reminds me of Dora the Explorer with the backpack. I wanted to take a picture of all the stuff they had in there, but I didn't dare take it away from her. Now that she is sleeping, I am afraid if I unpack it that I will never get all of that stuff back in there. She loves her hairbows (yippee) She had to have 2 in her hair to go to bed. She also had to wear her new necklace to bed (thank you Jenn, she loves it). She is so precious. She loved her bath. She giggled the whole time and loved playing in the water. She is perfect in every way.

gotcha!!!

First full day

Well, it is 5 a.m. Sunday morning, I am up. I will try to stay awake the rest of the day and try to get myself on a schedule. Going to force myself out of this room. Yesterday I just felt terrible. Emotional and exhausted. I tried to go downstairs to get something to eat but the restaurant appeared to be a sit down only. I had more take out on my mind. Finally at about 8 last night I ordered room service. SOme kind of spicy noodles. I was looking forward to it. Looked great when it came. I was thinking maybe udon noodles or something. Nope, came all the way to Chin@ and had good ole spaghetti in my soup. It was good anyway, Everyone working at the hotel seems really friendly. I am a little confused on the whole tipping thing here. I heard that you don't tip here, but it doesn't feel right. What have you done here? How about at the breakfast bufffet? Going to email a few of you in a minute and ask before I head down. Anyway, I am about 29 hours from meeting our girl!! Wow. So many emotions. Every time I open my eyes I wonder how it is going to go. How sad will she be? I can only wait and find out. Will post more later if I get out. Will try to get some pictures. Here is my fancy spicy spaghetti :-)

 My fancy spicy spaghetti

 Leaving Shanghai

 from what seemed like the basement of the airport. A smell I will never forget

Leaving my love at the airport

I'm here!

I'm here. I got in at about 11 last night. Arriving at night left me pretty scared to get out on my own. Maybe if I would have arrived during the day I could have checked out the area driving in. Right now it is 6:30 in the evening and I haven't left the room yet. Wondering what in the world I was thinking making this trip alone. Hopefully I will get out tomorrow. I think for today my big outing will be to go downstairs and get some food. So far I have had a granola bar and some m&m's. G bought me a laptop for the trip so I could Skype with him and the kids. PRICELESS! The benefit of this has outweighed the price of the computer a hundred times over. I also added $10.00 to the skype account so that I can make phone calls. It is about 5 cents to connect and 2.3 cents a minute. Great deal. Way better than 1.99 a minute with the at&t international plan. The driving and the horn honking is insane. As i sit here, 19 floors up, all I hear is horns honking on the street. It's interesting to look out and watch the traffic. It's incredible that there isn't crashes all over. Guess i'll go find something to eat. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about tomorrow, I meet my guide downstairs at 9 on Monday and should meet Ella Kate by about 9:30. I wonder if they tell her about what is going on. I sure hope they are preparing her in some way.

Heading out!

I leave very early tomorrow morning to start my trip to Chin@. I can't believe the time is finally here. I am excited to get this going and get home. I am incredibly sad to leave my husband and kids. I will miss them so much. Hopefully skype will work and I can see them every day. A huge mix of emotions this past week.

Jordan is 14!!!

Yep, Jordan turned 14 today. Where has the time gone. It seems like just yesterday that we stepped off the elevator at the hospital to go deliver Jordan. Was that really 14 years ago? Jordan has grown into such a kind, polite and funny boy. I love him more than he will ever know. I can't wait to see what life has in store for him. The sky is the limit.

CA!!

So, we got TA on Monday and got the call yesterday that we have CA on July 31! YAY! This is fantastic news. I leave next week, a week from today, bright and early, ugh well, still dark and early to head to Chin@. I am beyond happy but trying to book these flights is kicking my ass. The stress is unreal. The prices are ridiculous. If I were traveling in a few weeks it would be less than half of what we are paying now. Would I wait 3 or 4 weeks to get Ella? We would save ALOT of money. NO WAY!! I'm going to get our girl!!! She will go to bed 10 more nights without the love of a family., without a mommy to tuck her in at night. I will not let her wait one single day longer. She has a mommy, daddy and 3 big brothers that can't wait to have her home. Mommy is coming baby girl!

TA!!!!!!!!

ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!!!!!!!!! Woooohooooo!! That's how I feel today. We got word of or TA today. So excited. I can't believe that I will have our sweet Ella Kate before the month is over. It was nice because the hubby was home for the call. Unfortunately he hurt his back today so he came home early, but the up side is that he was here for the call. He got a little more emotional about the call than I did. Very sweet. The agency is requesting our CA for 7/31, 8/1 or 8/2. If we get any of these dates I will leave next Friday!!! What?!?!? Yep, less than 2 weeks from now. If we end up with one of the other 2 dates, then I won't leave until about 7/27. If that's the case, then I will meet Ella on my dad's b-day. I would love to go sooner because that gives me more time before the boys start school. The first one starts 8/10.
 Excited, scared and nervous. Those have been the emotions of the day. Can't believe that I am traveling to Chin@, alone, to meet the daughter that I have waited a lifetime for.

Baby girl has a room!

We are now waiting for our TA. I can't believe we have finally made it to this point. Our Art. 5 was picked up 6/28, Chin@ time (that's what the email said, I'll take it).  I would love to leave 7/20 but it will probably be 7/27. Works good for me either way. Of course I would love to get her a week early, but the later date puts her gotcha day on 7/30, my dads birthday.
 We finally have Ella's furniture in and I purchased her bedding and a few decorations for her room. Now all we need is our precious daughter. Come on TA. we are ready!!!! Here are a few pictures of her room.

It won't be long now!!!

Looks good!

Looks good and we will see you next year!!!! Those words are music to this mamas ears. This is what the Cardilogist had to say at Brandon's check up today. WoooHoooo! What a relief. The anxiety leading up to these appointments literally takes me out. When I am super stressed I get real sleepy. I napped often yesterday. Normal stress if fine, but this kind of stress just does me in. I felt like a different person walking out of the hospital. So glad my boy is doing good.  Here he is having a snack at the hospital after our appointment. We were there for 2 hours, he was a little hungry. I love this little guy like crazy.

Brandon is 10!

Today is Brandon's birthday. 10 years old today! Can't believe he is in the double digits. Happy Birthday my sweet boy. I love you more than you will ever know.
 Branodn's birthday is always a very emotional day for me. He put the "heart" in the name of this blog. 10 years ago today, almost to the exact hour, I delivered my second son. What a day. I was so excitied to go to the hospital. I was induced so we knew he would be here that day.  After about 10 hours of labor, he was finally here. He was such a cute baby. A head full of dark hair, and just as beautiful as could be. They let us hold him for a while. We had friends and family there, so everyone got to see him for a few minutes. After a while the nurses wanted to take him to the nursery to clean him up and weigh him and all that good stuff. G went back with the nurse. A little while later G came back to the room and said that Brandon was turning blue and they kicked him out. WHAT?!?!? I remember the feeling like it was yesterday. Life as I knew it ended that very moment. I have not been the same person since. Soon after that doctors started coming in. Several of them. I don't remeber what they all did, but they kept talking about his heart. They were drawing me pictures of a regular heart and pictures of his heart. I thought my baby was going to die. Ugh, what emotions that brings back. We found out that Brandon had Transposition of the Great Arteries. Huh? What is that? Certainly they had to have me confused with someone else. This was not happening. But it was. By the time I saw him agian, my poor baby was already intubated. At just a couple of hours old. Later that day they transported him to Children's Hospital in New Orleans. My husband followed them over there until they got him settled. That was Brandon's home for the next 2 months. At just a couple of days old he had a procedure to keep the blood flowing. On July 17, one day after Jordan's birthday, Brandon had the Arterial Switch procedure. His Aorta and Pulmoary arteries were put back in the right places. This was about a 7 hour surgery. His surgeons were amazing. The nurses that took care of him were even more amazing. His recovery was tough. We did not get out of the hospital until August 29th. He has been pretty good since. He does have an irregular heart rate, and it is a little slow, but nothing that requires intervention at this point. Tomorrow we go for his annual check up with his cardiologist. While the visits have been good, it is very stressful for me. He seems to handle it all okay, but I know the older he gets the more it will affect him. Please say a prayer that all is still good. This boy fought so hard in the beginning. He is so special. He loves life and loves to laugh and have a good time. He doesn't take things too serious and just wants to have fun and enjoy his life. I love you Brandon! You make me so proud!

my sweet boy

Waiting again!

Now we are waiting for our Art. 5 to get picked up. This wait is very different because we know the wait time for this. 2 weeks. How nice to have a set time. Come on June 28th. That is our pick up day and it is my sweet little Evan's 5th b-day! My baby will be 5. I can't believe it. Where has the time gone? I guess I will probably spend 6/28 celebrating our pick up and his birthday at Chuck E Cheese. This is his request, and how do I say no to this sweet little face.

My sweet boy!



We received our LOA on May 14, YAY!.Receipt date at U$CIS was 5/16. I feel that we had a horrible officer over there. We did not receive approval until 6/5. It doesn't seem like that long of a wait, but again, I know others were getting theirs closer to the 2 week mark. She was just unpleasant to deal with and refused to send me an email when we were approved. Her response was that we would get the approval in the mail. At my wits end because she wasn't there, I left a message for a supervisor, who never called me back by the way, and oddly enough I had our approval AND an email notification by 6:30 the next morning. Along with the email notice of approval was a lame reason why it took so long. Booooo to that officer. Luckily, we are done with that. So now we are onto waiting to hear about the next step. Our paperwork was dropped off to the U.$. Consulate in Chin@ on 6/14 and our Art. 5 will be picked up 6/28!!!!!!! Holy Cow!!!!!! Then we will begin the wait for TA!! Just want to come in average here too. Too, haha, like I have had an average wait yet.  I am hoping that I can travel by the end of the month. If I leave the last week of July, that would put me picking up Ella Kate on July 30, my dad's b-day. How special would that be? My sweet daddy didn't have the chance to meet Evan. My dad beat me to the hospital to have my other boys. He was so excited that he was really at the hospital before me. To pick her up on his birthday would be truly special.
 We went last night to pick out Ella's bedroom set. There really isn't a lot to choose from, but I like what we found. They store is waiting for the bed to come in. They say any day. Hmmmmm, we will see. I will remain optimistic.
 On a sad note, my sweet oldest brother passed away last week on June 6. My birthday. Frankie made 57 in May. I will miss him dearly, along with the rest of my family, that all, unfortuately, were taken from me and this world way too soon. My mom, dad and 2 brothers are all together again. I miss each one of them everyday.

We have LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!! After 88 very long days we received the email today that our agency has our LOA.  I was home today until 3:50. Checking emails all day, jumping when the phone would ring. Wouldn't you know, I left at about 3:50 to go get J from school. I was sitting outside waiting for him and heard the email notification on my phone. By this point in the day I had given up on it coming today. I just figured they would arrive to the agency early. Not so. Sure enough it was a scanned copy of our LOA. I cannot believe that it is finally here. The agency is sending it fedex priority so it will be here by 10:30 tomorrow morning. Hubby has a meeting from 9:30 til about 11:30 so I will drive across the lake to meet him when he is heading to his office. We will officially accept our referral of L* Xin Cai!!!!!!!! I am so excited I can barely stand it. I feel like I can finally exhale.Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...

Day 85

Today is day 85 and we still do not have our LOA. This whole process is kicking my butt. I am moody and crabby alot, well, alot more than usual. We might have some kind of, sorta good news. Still not sure how to take it. We received an email from the agency yesterday saying that our cordinator had been checking and that our LOA "should" be issued this week and that the agency "should" have it next week. Kind of sounds like good news right? To me, not so much. You see, we "should" have been able to have our HS done in 6 months. Things took longer. Our dossier "should" have been logged in in January, after all we were DTC Jan. 18. The courier "should" have delivered our dossier before CNY. See where I am going with this? So I don't know how solid the info from the agency is. Were they told this or are they guessing? So I asked and got some response that didn't really sway me either way. The shoulds are making me uncomfortable. Please let us get our LOA next week. I really can't take this wait too much longer. Even more importantly, there is a child spending another night in an orphanage, all the while there is a family that would get on a plane today to bring her home. Very sad.
 On a happier note, an incredibly sweet lady is in Chin@ this week picking up her daughter who was in the same orphanage as Ella. We are so grateful to her for taking time to find our girl and get us some pics and video. That was huge for us. We have not had an updated picture on her since December. Thank you soooo much Amanda! That was priceless. I will ask her if I can share the video on our blog.
 Well, hopefully the weekend will go by fast. I will be busy shopping and having a BBQ for Mother's Day, so hopefully next week will be here quick and will come with some great news. hopefully.