Luci Loves Cake!

Which works our well for the Newton household.  And so cute - they are praying before they eat it - so precious!

OK - so she is precious and way more disciplined that anyone in our house.  There isn't a whole lot of praying "before cake" that I can remember... more like "Thank You God!" during and after the cake. 

And lets talk about this rocking sense of fashion this one has!  I have been picking up a few outfits here and there for her but I haven't stocked her wardrobe with things quite as wild as the fuschia pink fur sleeveless sweater. 

Now I am reconsidering the little "decorate your own shoes" kit I got her...just for fun.  It has a pair of little silver heels and it comes with all these jewels and glitter and feathers and stuff to decorate them with.  I am guessing that this child will want to wear them everywhere - what was I thinking!  I can see it now - our first big blow-out..."Cry all ya want Luci - ya still can't wear hooker shoes to church!

I love this last picture - apparently it is tradition over there to put icing all over the kids faces when they get a cake...hmm, Mac isn't Chinese and he does this every time he eats any food - no assistance needed.  And check out the little boy's hair cuts!  Think Mac would go for one of those?  Since his natural hair situation currently looks like he is wearing a toupe, it would probably be a big improvement.

So I hear there may be a few additional picures coming my way and some up dates from the orphanage so I am waiting - but not patiently.

We also sent her a little photo album with famly pics and a letter telling her what we have been up to. 

We are eagerly waiting our I800a approval so we are playing the mailbox game...after that comes then a week or so later we get the real letter we are waiting on I797C..or something like that.  Basically once we have that then everything can go over to China and start getting processed.  According to my calculations it still looks like it will be August when we go get our Luci and not July like we were hoping.

And lastly - Congrats to the Straight family (see their blog that I follow "Straight Talk"") because they are getting on a plane at midnight and heading to China to get their sweet Elise.  I can't wait to follow every step of their journey.  Donna and her family live here in Atlanta and have 2 handsome sons and 2 beautiful little girls from China.  She is a working mom like me - literally just like me, both of us are accountants- and she has been so helpful showing me the ropes of this adoption process.

Isn't she the most precious cupcake in the world!

And the paperchase continues...

So to give you a quick and dirty synopsis of this paperchase process...we gather a butt load of paperwork from various government and law enforcement agencies, employers, doctors and social workers...and they all have to be notarized.  Then we send that stack of blood sweat and tears (and several checks) to our agency and they turn around and sort them our based on what county they were notarized in and send them to the courthouse of said county - they check out the notary and give it the thumbs up that teh document is properly notarized.  Which means basically they send them right back to a place 10 miles up the road from where I am sitting.  The courthouse turns around and sends them to the Secretary f state and they check out the docs and give their final thumbs up - called Authentication...after that the docs are sent to the Chinese Consulate so they can Authenticate everything...yes - everyone is double checking everyone elses work over and over and over...

Now those that are more advanced than myself and usually have been down this road before...they do this authentication process themselves...but I suck and my agency rocks so they are doing it for us.  I have realized that we could have probably sped up the process and saved a little $$ by doing it ourselves but I only realized that about half way through the process...I told you - I kind of suck at this.

So...we get a call last week that there was a problem with 5 of our docs that were notarized in Cobb county...wonderful!  Get this...the notary stamp said her commission expired on 12/20/2012...their records said that her commission expired on 12/28/2012....yep - her stamp was made incorrectly...I don't thing the Chinese people would like us very much...we are unlucky!

So 4 of the docs were easy - just print out again, sign and have notarized again.  However...#4 was a biggie...it was Brian's employment letter...this was not easy to obtain and since his last day with VWR will be 3/15...it is not obtainable again!

However...God does the darndest little things and only later do we realize how important they are...and thank God I remembered!  The second time we requested Brian's corporate HR office to send us an employment letter on company letter head with an original signature for some reason - she sent 2!  We didn't ask for two - we didn't need two.....but someone up above knew we would be needing that second letter!

So...disaster averted...all 5 docs are back in the hands of my agency ready to be sent right back here to Georgia for Authentication....I know...it is just how it is done! 


On a good note - Brian and I recently received a letter from Homeland Security - Immigration saying that our appoint,emnt for biometric fingerprinting was on 3/14...being the crazy renegades that we are - we went in today - a week ahead of time...SUCCESS!

No questions, no problems, it took us less than 30 minutes and the people that worked there were so nice and upbeat and helpful...shocking - I know!

So...now we wait for the biggie...our I797C...that is the last piece of documentation that needs to go in our dossier so the whole thing can be translated and sent to Chine...God that will be a great day!

I am guessing that will happen around mid April...but sooner wouldn't bother me at all!

Look who made the AJC.com!

So, we were at the All4Kids consignment sale in Woodstock this Sat and I was looking through little girl clothes to get a few basics for Luci while Brian played with Mac in the toy area.  When we were leaving Brian said some dude took pics of Mac and he might even be in the AJC.  Some dude took pictures of Mac huh - sounds totally normal and safe to me, a grown man hanging out on a Sat taking pics of random little boys ???!!!

Brian: Yeah - he was nice, we talked about kids - he said he cound tell that Mac was my first kid...(newsflash... I don't think he was giving you a compliment but at least he found you two entertaining.)

I kind of forgot the whole thing - and sincerely hoping that the  guy really did work for the AJC...consignment sales make for really hard hitting stories.

Well Saturday night Brian went down the street to meet a buddy and listen to some music and I got sucked into watching Alien...I forgot what a great movie that is - and it is exempt from my "No Alien" rule because it is a classic!

Well right after they found little Newt all dirty and traumatized that her parents had been snatched by the Aliens  - probably should have considered that danger when you decided to go live in a stupid space settlement  - my phone rang and my friend Jamie informed me that MAC was on AJC.com...sporting his very fashionable hairline...not sure what is up with that but let's hope that it gets better over time!

Great Friday - want to feel good - keep reading...

Sweet little Lexie...the little burn survivor that I have posted about for the last few days...SHE HAS A FAMILY!!!! An Agency called Lifeline had her listed on their website and I believe one of their families found her and like the rest of us...it was their daughter.  I don't have any details on the family - if I find out that they have a blog to chronicle their journey I will post it fou you.

What a wonderful Friday!!!