LOA Baby! One step closer to Florie!

40 DAYS into the wait.....we received our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China.  This basically means that YES, we are going to be her parents!  This is a big step in the process, and we were so excited to hear the news.  The Fed Ex man must have seen that it was from our adoption agency because he RAN back to his truck...missing the photo op.  But, I did catch this handsome dude who was home sick from school.

We have now sent our I800 application in..basically there are about 4 "steps" left, and each of them take 2-3 weeks to complete on average (average being the key word).  At the end of those 4 steps, we will receive TA (Travel Approval) from China, and will go BRING FLORIE HOME!

We had a peaceful Christmas....a few cases of strep throat and one stomach bug, but it was a really great holiday.  Christmas Day the kids even made it till 7 am while William and I were up at 5 am waiting on them!  I have lots of pictures, but since my boys tend not to wear shirts to sleep in (they have the warm body gene that I did NOT get!), they do not want their pics on here!  We stayed in our pjs the whole day, and ended up curled up on the sofa watching a movie that night.  My Mom aka Sugar was here to share in all the fun too!  We were happy to have her.

William has started his new job, and is able to tackle several of the projects he wants to get done.  The first is our DIY remodeling of the boys' room.  They share one room by choice, and we are ripping out the carpet, painting, changing the closet, getting rid of the train track that goes around the top of the room, and putting bunk beds made by William in!  After that, it will be time to decorate Florie's room!!

DESTRUCTION!

The old train track and its horrible dust GONE!

The boys temporary sleeping quarters

Jack likes to pile everything

Stuff to sort in Florie's future room

Florie's "things" to start!

New Year's Resolutions?  

1) Remain Calm :)

2) read the Bible in its entirety (not cover to cover but following a plan)

3) 1/2 marathon in March (last one for awhile)

plus the usual eat healthier, be more organized, you know :)  

I am so excited at how things are progressing with our adoption...Travel is not for certain until we receive that TA...we can guess pretty close now, but it hopefully will be mid spring!

I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday, and best wishes for a great 2011!!