No more Sanford and Son!!!

Yesterday, Larry and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary; which we hope is the last one as a family of two. And I can honestly say that it was one of the best days I have had in a long time. What exciting event helped to ring in this milestone? Yard Work. Yes, you read that right...yard work. Grass was mowed, flower beds were weeded and the raised bed for our vegetable garden was extended. Once the raised bed was complete, I got to plant some veggies. Four types of peppers, five types of tomatoes, sweet peas and strawberries. I can't wait until summer.

But even more exciting than the yard work was cleaning off our back porch. No longer does it resemble the set of "Sanford and Son." Rather, it's clean and livable and organized. I would show pictures, but i am too embarrassed of how it looked before.

We ended the evening with steaks on the grill and a replica of our wedding cake. Yummy!

We hope to have some progress on the adoption front in coming days or weeks. I've been thinking quite a bit over the weekend about the current status of adoptions in Vietnam. It appears that after September 1, 2008, adoptions between Vietnam and America will shut down, unless you have already received a referral. While we decided to pursue a domestic adoption right now, Larry and I both feel strongly that there is a child meant to be in our family in Vietnam. My thoughts are with those families currently waiting for their children to come home and to the children in Vietnam in need of families.

Happy Anniversary!

Whirlwind wedding weekend

This weekend was a blur for us! My cousin Mandy married the greatest guy in the world --next to Larry that is-- and the wedding weekend was quite the whirlwind. The bride was beautiful, the rain held off until after the ceremony, the quality family time was top notch and the groom performed an incredible dance solo to "Baby Got Back."

Today, we wrapped up the weekend in my hometown by having breakfast with my sister, her husband and my favorite 13 week old! Here we are sharing some love! You can't really tell from the photo, but we are actually cheek to cheek!

Giving Auntie M some love!

The bib says it all! I so love this kid!

Happy Birthday Todd!

Tomorrow is my big brother Todd's birthday! Happy Birthday Man! At least I didn't post the chicken picture!

Something to be proud of?

Last year, my alma mater, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, made headlines for abandoning single-sex education and going coed. Today it's making headlines for a filed trip to a Nevada brothel. Read all about it here.

Weekend Wrap-up

This weekend, I went back to Richmond for some downtime with my BFF, her husband and the funniest one year old. Leanne and I spent the morning registering at Babies R Us, which was fun, but did invoke a small anxiety attack on my part. On Saturday afternoon, we went to the matinée showing of RENT, which was great. I'm a huge RENT-head and hope to get to see it on Broadway before is closes in the fall. Don't worry Leanne...I won't make you go with me! And I owe you big time for going to see it. Maybe we can hit up that NKOTB reunion tour this summer!

I spent a lot of time taking pictures of Thorn...he is tons of fun!

Celebrating Birthdays

This weekend, Larry and I traveled to Richmond to help our friends Leanne and Ingram celebrate their baby boy's first birthday! We had a great time celebrating with Thorn. The party theme was "should have been a St. Patrick's Day party," and included shamrocks, lots of green, Irish Soda Bread and Shepard's Pie. Sadly, there was no green beer, but then again it was a children's party.

Thorn has changed so much in a year. He and I had a great time playing with his new drum and other musical instruments. I'm sure his mother with repay me for the loud gift.


On the way home today, Larry and I stopped by Babies R Us to get some ideas about what we should register for. What did we learn from that? That Larry and I can't agree on anything we want for our child. But we did compromise...Larry picked out the stroller, and I get to pick everything else...seems pretty fair.

Nothing else to report for now...but soon maybe.

Thorn at one day old.

Thorn at one year and two days old.

Two leprechauns having a blast!

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a happy Easter. I spent the weekend at my dad's house, spending some quality time with family. I was sad however, when I realized the Easter Bunny did not realize I was staying somewhere other than my home and failed to leave my basket. Oh, how I wanted some Easter chocolate, particularly those tiny eggs with the sugar coating shell!! Yummy!

Spending time with family also means new pictures of the newest niece. Annie is adorable and growing so fast.

Nothing new to report on the adoption front, however we are hopeful!

I love those bright eyes!

Obligatory sibling photo, this time with the newest family member

Just waiting for the Easter Bunny

Memories

Twenty-two years ago this week, my mother passed away very unexpectedly. I'm taking it much harder this year than in years past, but I think that's because of the situation we're in right now. So close to parenthood, yet still not quite in our grasp. I just wanted to post a few pictures of the two of us together, in memory of her.

I would guess that this was Christmas 1978

Hope my dad doesn't mind having this on the Internet!

Thanks for indulging me in this post. I will hopefully have some adoption news sooner rather than later.

Latest Purchase

As I was casually strolling through the baby section of Target this weekend, these little guys called out to me from their plastic bubble of a container. I'm trying to cut back on the things I buy for the baby, however I couldn't resist these. Particularly since the baby will have an uncle who's a firefighter and a dad who's a nurse and EMT. Too perfect and Too Cute.

You mean I forgot to blog again!!!!!!!!!!

Yet once again I have let other things in my life come before this blog, thus irritating a few people who harass me that I have not contributed anything to the blogworld in a while.

There is only one excuse for this...we've been busy with life. Larry has been working extra and working late. I've recently started a class to work on my counseling license and had a recent death in the family. Our life has been hectic, but we are hanging in there.

We passed a major milestone about a week ago that I wanted to comment on... it's been a year since we submitted our application to adopt. Sometimes it feels like it has been many years and other times it seems like only yesterday. So what does 525,600 minutes --yes, I love RENT almost as much as Harry Potter--in the land of adoption look like? Here's what ours looked like:

• One application
• Two different agencies. One for our homestudy and one for placement
• One incredible social worker
• Five home visits for our homestudy
• One trip to Fairfax for fingerprints
• Seven separate fingerprinting incidents; five of which were Larry's
• Several trips to Vietnamese restaurants to sample the cuisine (I LOVE PHO)
• One failed attempt to make Vietnamese cuisine
• Being notified by USCIS about a daughter I never knew exisited
• One very patient program coordinator
• At least a hundred meltdowns on my part
• Five handpainted jungle animals on the nursery walls
  
• Countless outfits for a little boy
  
• Reading countless blog entires of others in similar situations
• Connecting with incredible people through said blogs
• Watching the landscape of Vietnam adoption change rather quickly
• One warning from the Department of State concerning VN adoption
• Realizing that we weren't going to have our dossier in by our agency's cutoff date
• Countless sleepless nights
• One program change (From VN to Domestic Adoption)
  
• At least 10 drafts of a birthmother letter
• One picture portfolio that highlights our lives

I could probably go on and on with that list, but I won't bore you. This past year has been a journey like no other. When we initially began the process, we thought we would be home with our child by now. To be exact, we thought that we would be home with our 8 to 12 month old son. Instead, we've just embarked on another journey all together, which will most likely result with us bringing home our newborn son or daughter. I'm amazed at the difference one year has made in this journey, but I wouldn't trade this journey for anything.