Screw ups!

FYI- Please inform your HS agency to always use birth to whatever age in their recommendation for you. Our homestudy approved us for 6-36 months & because Emily was less than 6 months at time of referral, we have had to submit an addendum to USC!S with the supplement Three form & it cost $340! This could delay our travel if it doesn't get processed quickly. I found out about this last Tues at 3pm, my HS & adoption agency was notified within 10 minutes. By 1pm the next day I was on my way to the HS agency to get the addendum & it was overnighted to the stupid lockbox that day. So it arrived in the lockbox Thursday morning. Now, if they can get it out of the lockbox & on somebody's desk by tomorrow I will be so happy. I have cried my eyes out about this but there is nothing I can do now. It is all a domino effect, nothing else can process til I get my !-800 approval!
It really irks me too that in parts of my HS, it talks about us being recommended for a child 0-36 months but in the actually recommendation part it says 6-36 months. The agency said it was a typo! A FREAKING TYPO! AHHHHHH!

Refingerprinting in the morning!

Care Package

We sent a care package using Ann at Red Thread. We picked the pajama package & she emailed us the pictures of items she picked out for us.

I love the little dolly that she picked out for her. We ordered the package from Ann on the 19th, on the 22nd we had pics of the care package & by the 24th we had updated pictures!
Introducing Emily Kate XiaoNing


I love her beautiful eyes & full lips! She is so beautiful! She turned 6 months old on the 22nd.
Her updated measurements:
height :65cm
weight :7kg
head ::42cm
feet :8.5cm
chest :42cm

It's been a crazy week

Information & pictures about our baby girl came at a crazy week for us. My MIL was in the hospital, it was my son's birthday, my husband was MIA at work for 50+ hours, I was working extra & the list goes on & on, but it didn't matter. Nothing could stop either of us from staring at her picture & thinking about her. After 4+ years of talking, planning & dreaming about our daughter, here she was. The love is so instantaneous, it amazes me. I felt that overwhelming love for my son also when we got his pictures from Vietnam. I have been plotting the days away on the calender trying to figure out when we can travel & I am assuming it will be after May 5th b/c of the trade fair.


I am working on a letter to send with her care package, so if anyone has suggestions for questions to ask - please let me know. I have found out some good information about her orphanage, SWI in Daoxian, Hunan province, just by reading other people's blogs. Our daughter's current home is highlighted in yellow on the map. From what I have read, Daoxian is a smaller & new orphanage. Typically, in orphangages babies live in 1 big room but at Daoxian the babies sleep in smaller rooms with 4 babies & their nanny. I cannot wait to send off her care package. We are using Ann at Red Thread for her care package, we should get updated pictures & information sometime after her care package is delivered.

We sent our LOA (letter of acceptance) back to the agency last Friday & it is being sent to China on Friday so hopefully the ball will start rolling. Our I-800 arrived at USCIS on Tues. morning, so I hope we get approval notice soon. We are going to have to get refingerprinted & have an appt at the end of March. Hopefully, it will get moved up, this is the only thing that could cause us problems. So I am calling our USC!S officer this week to be on the look out for our I-800 & get our fingerprints scheduled before the end of the month. I have already talked to him once a week for the past 2 weeks, he has been very helpful so I am hopeful for NO screwups! PLEASE!

Anyone who is reading, I would love to have hear more stories about Daoxian SWI or see pictures. We are close to finalizing a name, so I will be sharing that news soon.

It's a Girl!

We are so happy!
Her name is
Yong Xiao Ning
She is from Hunan Province
She weighs 11 lbs
Born September 22, 2009