Referral Update

My agency just informed me that cut-off date for this batch was the 20th. It was an 8 day batch!!! I'll take that! If it had made it to the 22nd it would have been the first double digit (10 day) batch since March of 2006. How crazy is that?!


There are now 49 days left to match to get to us. We are included in day 49.

Now for some number crunching....

Here's the number of days each batch covered for the last six months:

June 2008 = 8
May 2008 = 3
April 2008 = 5
Mar 2008 = 8
Feb 2008 = 8
Jan 2008 = 5

Total = 37

Average days covered in each batch for the last six months = 6.1

Here's the number of days each batch covered six months prior to that:

Dec 2007 = 6
Nov 2007 = 8
Oct 2007 = 5
Sept 2007 = 4
Aug 2007 = 7
July 2007 = 7

Total for the last 12 months = 74 days

Average days covered in each batch for the last 12 months = 6.1 days

If that average holds we could expect a referral in.......8 months!!!! That would be the February 2009 batch! Just one month shy of our 3 year LID anniversary!

Of course....we'll just have to WAIT and see!

June Referrals Are In!

June referrals have arrived in the U.S. Below is the announcement from our agency. The only problem with this announcement is that it doesn't state the official cut-off date for this batch. Our agency had families logged in on the 13th and the 16th, and then not again until 2/9. The rumors boards are saying that the cut-off could be the 22nd. Here's hoping! I'll post the official cut-off date when I get a confirmation from our agency. Until then I will enjoy reading the referral announcements and checking out the cute pictures from the 15 families who received "the call" today! Congratulations to all of them!

Today has been a wonderful day. We received 15 referrals!! 10 werefor LID's 1/13/06 and 1/16/06 and 5 Chinese expedited with LID's of11/06. There were 2 boys and 13 girls. The ages ranged from 8 monthsto 22 months all within what the families were requesting. Our nextlog in date is 2/9/06. We also received 3 seeking confirmationletters for waiting children families.

Snakes, snails and puppy dog tails!

I swear I have got to get a camera. My camera is "missing"! Jacob took it in the backyard a few weeks ago to make videos of himself and his friends jumping on the trampoline and wouldn't you know it....it's now gone. So, I have no pictures of my own to post, but if I did, today would have been a true Kodak day!

It's my cleaning day....I took me double the time it normally takes me because the boys are home and I was cleaning and talking on the phone most of the day (I LOVED talking to you today, Stephanie....sooooo excited). Anyway, here's how the day went.....

I kicked the boys out of the living room so I could mop the floors. I went down to my room for what felt like 30 seconds and when I came back down the hallway they had these two giant cardboard boxes from the garage sitting on their area rug (which I had just vacuumed) and they where making "secret hideouts" out of them. No big deal, except they didn't bother to knock all the leaves and junk off the bottom of them before they put them on the rug, so needless to say I had to bust the vacuum out again (this time they did the vacuuming). But, you should have seen how funny they looked sitting in their "hideouts" playing their Game cube. After a while I sent them outside to play.

The next thing I know I look out the front window and what do I see??? The boys had this broken scooter thing (it runs on batteries, has a seat and looks like a Lark) that my Dad brought over yesterday bunji corded to a bike. Jacob was peddling the bike and pulling Benji down the street on the scooter. It looked like something strait out of Napoleon Dynamite. I was dying laughing. It looked a little dangerous, but they were having fun. Fast forward two minutes....in comes Jacob carrying Benji with scraped up knees. He had apparently hit the brakes on the bike and the scooter went crashing into it.....bit shocker there!

After I nursed Benji's knees back to "working order" (he acted like he couldn't even hop let alone walk) I went back to my cleaning. I walked into the boys room to put away some folded laundry and feel something squish between my toes. I froze...said a quick prayer..and looked down to see what in the world I could have just stepped on. It was one of the many, many, many caterpillars Jacob had collected a few days ago. He had them in this bug collector thing that was supposed to be in the backyard. Apparently since it "got windy the other night" and he was afraid something would happen to them he moved them inside. Yeah something happened.....THEY GOT OUT!!!

Then I went to fridge to get myself something to drink (just water, in case you're wondering). I opened the freezer to get out some ice and found not one but two exploded cans of Coke inside. "Jacob" I yelled at the top of my lungs. He comes barreling out of his room where both him and Benjamin where frantically "cleaning up" the caterpillars. I held open the freezer door and just pointed at the mess. "Oh yeah...I put those in there last night so Benji and I could make slushies".

Seriously, I think this going to be a long summer. Doug came home a few minutes later and got them out of my hair. They went to the store to get a new battery for the scooter thing....more injuries to come I'm sure! Give me strength!

What will this summer bring?

I haven't been much for blogging lately, so I thought I should post a small update on our life. To be honest, not a lot has changed with us. The boys just got out of school for the summer and they couldn't be happier about it. They both did great this year...A's and B's on everything!

The weather here in Phoenix has actually been really nice. We've had a few hot days, but the evenings are still cool. We've been eating dinner out on the patio as often as we can.....soon it will be indoor dining only!! Jacob is outside right now with my Dad flying a kite (that's like heaven to him) and Benjamin is chasing them up and down the street on his new bike. So, needless to say their summer is off to a pretty good start. We are hoping to make it over to San Diego in July, but other than that we have no major plans! We'll just have to wait and see!

It's been a bit of an emotional week for me. At first I thought it was just PMS. Then last night Benjamin said something that pushed me right over the edge. I should have seen it coming, but....

It started with us selling my Expedition (you know you're getting close to loosing it when you want to cry over a car). The thing is, I've been picturing her, in her cute little car seat, in that car for two years. I know it sounds crazy, but that's the car I owned when we started the adoption and I just assumed it would be the one I would be driving when she came home. It's not, and that's OK, but something about the fact that she never even drove in it with us makes me so sad.

Then the last day of school came and I realized that we are facing yet another summer without our sugarplum. The worst of it is, I'm not convinced that it's going to be our last summer without her....next summer could very well be more of the same.

Then last night, Doug and I were enjoying some relaxing (and slightly romantic) time in the jacuzzi together when Jacob and Benjamin decided to hop on in and join us. So, there the four of us were..talking and laughing and hanging out when Benjamin looks over at me and says, "Mom I can totally picture you holding our baby sister right now." I instantly felt a pain in my heart and asked him, "Really...what does she look like?" He said, "She's cute and she's just a little bit bigger than Vienna." Then he laughed and reached for Jacob and the two of them started wrestling around in the water. I, on the other hand, did anything but laugh. In fact, I had to get out as quickly as possible so the boys wouldn't see me crying. It's like he read my mind. I picture her with us all time, but to hear him say it just broke my heart. It was "the straw that broke the camels back". I've been two blinks away from tears since then. Maybe it is just PMS...let's hope so.

I posted a picture of my niece, Vienna, because if that doesn't put a smile on your face I don't know what will!!

Referrals should be arriving any day now. I'll post the news as soon as I hear.