It's beginning to look a lot like.....CHRISTMAS!

OK, so I haven't been bit by the scrooge bug yet so I have been busy decorating for the holidays. It will be so much more fun next year when there are 2 little ones running around. I thought I would post some pictures of the house all decorated! I have spent the past 3 days doing this. Steve stepped in today and hung the icicle lights on the top part of the roof. We weren't going to and then the next door neighbor said we could use his ladder. Needless to say, I was off to Costco to buy more lights. I was a woman on a mission! Here are some pictures of the house. We couldn't have timed it better for Buddy to look right at the camera. I think he was wondering what the beeping noise was from the self timer. Too funny! Well, the pizza is just about here. Another gourmet dinner by Teresa.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I spent it with Steve at the fire station with the other families. Of course we ate plenty and I left with a very full belly.

No new news. Got an email from the director stating that there was no update. It was nice to be kept in the loop. Still hoping that all of the paperwork will be signed by the end of this month. Things are going to start slowing down with the holidays coming.

Hope everyone is well!

Back to #3!

Well, I just got confirmation the other day via email that we are now back at #3. This is good news. Nothing new on the reaccreditation signing though. Still hoping that it will get signed by the end of this month. I was worried that Russia would shut down for the month of December. I thought I had read that somewhere. I was wrong. They basically shut down for the first 2 weeks of January. I just really don't see how we could be traveling by the end of January like the director told us could happen but I won't entirely rule it out. So, still playing the waiting game. However, the days seem to just be flying by. I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week. Yikes. That's good and bad news. It means the kids will be here before you know it. Bad news is, I have to start Christmas shopping . Oh how I dislike the holiday hussle and bussle. Just call me scrooge. That's it for now.

Girl's Room Pictures

OK, so both of these rooms are still a work in progress. I just wanted everyone to see how they are starting to look. I mentioned before I believe that we are going to have a mural painter come in and paint both of the rooms. I am also adding a picture of the signs I made with their names for their doors. Thanks to Steve, both of the rooms got finished on this lovely 3 day weekend. It was actually nice to stay home and get some of this done instead of running around in the motorhome. Also, thanks to my VP @ work who lent me all of his power tools! I could NOT have imagined hammering in all of those nails one by one! Plus, that nail gun is now my new favorite power tool. I could have put 3 million of those nails in the wall! Just call me tool belt diva! That's it for now.

Pictures of our boy's room!

OK, I mentioned that I would post some pictures of the rooms as we progressed. Well, here is the boy's room. We are pretty much done in there. We are going to have a mural painter come in and paint some cute stuff on the walls. Not too much though, I dont' want it to over power the room plus I still have to have room on the wall for some cute trinkets.

That's pretty much it. I don't have any updates. We're still #4 on the list and waiting. I'm still hoping that we're home with the kids before summer. Actually now I hope it's sooner seeing as we signed up for a motorhome rally in South Carolina in May. It would be a lot of fun to take them to Mrytle Beach. I just love that place! I don't know how much I'm going to love being in the motorhome with TWO kids who are bored to death!

Hope everyone is doing good. Enjoy the weekend!

And the Delays continue...

OK, so I just received an email today with an update to the reaccreditation. Here it is...
"Dear Families:
The re-accreditation is still pending. Unfortunately we feel that we have been misled about dates for signing so we are still waiting. I asked for a best guess and the latest is they believe it will be towards the end of November considering some new procedures for signing off on the accreditation. I apologize for the difficulty this creates for all of you. We sincerely wish that we could resolve this immediately. As you know we are still sending families for adoption through the independent process but this has caused most of the trips to be blind or partially blind. This past week I have received referrals from Tver & Novgorod plus our families that have accepted Ykaterinburg are traveling for their referrals."

So there it is in a nutshell! If this continues, I just might go stir crazy. This is so hard not knowing. When you're pregnant, at least you know when the baby is coming. I just have to guess and wait. This waiting thing is really becoming more and more difficult.

Well for now, we'll continue to wait. Hope everyone had a spooky Halloween!

We've Been Bumped! We're #4 now!

Well, after all of this referral stuff going on with the agency, I thought for sure we had moved up in line. Not so! We've actually been bumped back to #4. I knew this was a possibility. They were unsure whether another couple was going to get their paperwork in and go with an additional region which was Russia. Well, they did and that's what bumped us back. No worries. As I said in my earlier post, we are probably going to be traveling after the new year some time. Guess we'll be getting on the internet and purchasing some SERIOUSLY warm jackets. How do you say, BUUURRRRRR!! Pretty much, I would walk through 3 snowstorms to get to our children.

The rooms are coming together. My body hasn't seen this much manual labor in YEARS! The boy's room is painted red and blue with a fireman theme and the little girls room is painted pink and lavender. The lavender is beadboard/wainscoting. I think it is going to be super cute. I also contacted a mural painter today who is going to come out to the house and possibly paint both of the rooms. Too exciting. I'll just be glad when the rooms are done so then we can slow down a bit before the kids get here. I just might be able to get my books read before they actually get here!

Hope all is well with everyone who is reading. I will post pixs of the rooms in progress so you can see our hard work in progress! I am too happy with myself for using a miter saw, a nail gun, an air compressor and ripping out baseboard and installing new stuff! I'm not going to quit my day job that's for sure. When would I have time to post here? (he he he)