So close!!!! Article 5 Picked up yesterday!

So, the countdown is officially on!  Our Article 5 was picked up from the US consulate in Ch!na yesterday and overnighted to their childrens welfare office.  That means any time after today we can receive travel approval.  Which is basically an official invitation from Ch!na to come on over adn pick up our daughter!

SO now I really have to get my "stuff" in gear an get ready to jump as soon as that TA arrives.  I have explained in earlier posts - the Ch!na calendar for September and Oct is just nuts - filled with holiday after holday and then 3 weeks of trade shows...it is insane.  We have to get on a plane about 9/14-15 or we get stuck waiting to get on a plane about 10/6-7..or later - who knows!

However - we are going to just believe that the travel approval will come in the next 2 weeks and we will make it to Ch!na before Luci turns 4 and be home before Mac's 2nd birthday on 10/12.

So - what has been going on during the wait...uhhh...I turned 40...ughhhh!  It was a pretty nice birthday week though.  I was treated to lunch with a couple of friends at work, fun girltalk! My best friend Kristi babysat Mac that evening for us so we could go out to dinner at JCT Kitchen and enjoy a quiet peaceful meal - so nice!

Then I got some much needed therapy later in the week when my two girlfriends took me out to dinner and we got to catch up with each others lives over a pitcher of Sangria and lots of fun food.  That was a great time - just what I needed!

My mom is in town for a conference so Monday night I pichked her up and let her surprise Mac at school - he was pretty happy about his GiGi coming to rescue him!  We called in a pick-up order of Sushi and let Mac eat ice cream while we waited for it to be fixed.  Of course he had to dump my glass of diet coke as we were trying to wrangle him up to leave.

Went home, Brian arrived and we enjoyed our dinner while Mac proceeded to do what boys do...climb over and on top of every piece of furniture in the house and his favorite jumping on the bed and swinging off the bed post.  He is what we like to call a very ambitious and active child.  (Haaa...and his parents are old and tired)...that's it...he is AMBITIOUS  and DRIVEN and VERY MOTIVATED.....hey...those are very valuable qualities!  I should add that he is very artistic too...you should see his artwork all over the doors and walls.  I even bought him an easel this weekend that he immediately decorated....not really into the whole "paper " thing too boring,  his preferred medium is sheetrock and wooden doors, andhis arms and legs...You can't stifle a budding artist!

Apparently my mother called my father to inform him that Mac was just a wild man- all over the place...she just couldn't believe it!..Really LEE?  Uhmmm..I think Mac came by this honestly!  As he was hanging off the bedpost last night and she was telling him , "no, no, no, now we don't do that"....I looked at her and said...uhhh we did. 

I think she has somehow erased from her memory all the years of me and my 2 little brothers...I am sure all 3 of us would have been diagnsed with ADHD, ADD and any other acrynyms you could have found.  We were "adventurous children"!

I mean look at this little angel!

He would never be destructive..just not in his nature:

(maybe we need to reconsider the nightly baseball games in the den)

Oh Luci - this is going to be interesting!

Oh yeah - many of you know that we decided to name our little one Lucia (Luci for short) from the character in the Max Lucado book "You Are Special".  Well I was able to find that book printed in Ch!nese!  I received it last week and mailed it to Ann in Ch!na. 

She is going to translate the letter I wrote to Luci and then add some lollipops to share with her classmates and another pair of pink Crocs (Hello Kitty!) and send them to Luci.  I hope that her foster mom will read her the book before we get there to pick her up.  And if we are lucky maybe we will get a few more pics of Luci before we travel.

We are almost there!!!!