Showered!

A couple of girls from church (Kristi & Heather) gave me a shower this weekend; luau style!

They put our brains to work when we had to guess the gestation of different animals; I failed the test :(

Things got a little crazy after the guests left!


I love it when I get to wear a flower in my hair :)

I got a lot of great gifts! Everyone included a book as part of their gift (because the shower was held at the library community room) which I just loved; Caysen will have so many bedtime stories to choose from!!!

2 3/4 Tissue Boxes

I got a message a few days ago from Cheryl, another one of the wonderful ladies who helps out at His Hands. Among other things, she wanted to let me know that Caysen is 2 and 3/4 tissue boxes long!
She was at the House of Hope, but she didn't have a ruler or tape measure, so she used a tissue box to figure out his length. In case you're wondering, 2 and 3/4 tissue boxes is equal to about 60 cm or 23 1/2 inches :)

And yes, I loved getting this news! It doesn't really matter what the updates say, anything new about our little guy brightens my day!!!

Snuggles & Smiles & Perfect Little Feet!

Ni Hao

As we get closer to our trip to go get Caysen, I've begun to research some of the basics of Taiwan such as weather, culture, tourism, cuisine, and language.

I have no intentions of learning mandarin, but I figure I should at least memorize a few key phrases; so here is a little lesson:

Wo chi su-pronounced: wo chur su-means I'm vegetarian (I'm not actually a vegetarian, just very very particular about eating meat at restaurants so I will stick to non-meat dishes if possible).

Wo bu chi yu means I don't eat fish (This might be the most important one of all for me, I absolutely do NOT eat seafood of any kind...ever).

Wo milule means I'm lost (Hopefully we don't need this one).

Jiuming a! means Help! (Again, hopefully we don't have to say this).

Ni hao-pronounced Nee How- or Nin hau means Hello.

Quing-pronounced ching- means Please.

Xiexie-prounounced shayshay-means Thank You.

Bukeqi-pronounced boo keh chee?- means You're Welcome.

Qu-pronounced choo?- means Yes.

Bu qu-pronounced boo choo?- means No.

Ni hui jiang yingwen ma? means Do you speak English?

And here's a new picture we received this morning in our weekly update! He's practicing for when he watches football with uncle John :)

Wo ai ni (I love you)!!!

Think About It...

For any expecting mamas out there or moms with babies in diapers, check out this blogger's post about cloth diapering. As I've previously mentioned, I plan on cloth diapering and this blogger is the one who convinced me that it is the way to go.

Cloth diapering really isn't what it used to be; just something to think about ;)

We Are Good Enough!!

Yesterday we received our I-171H in the mail stating that we are approved to adopt! We went through a lot of questioning, testing, training, and more; but it will all be worth it when we see Caysen for the first time! Not too much longer :) :) :)

9

Happy 9 months sweet boy! Not much longer until we're holding you :)

Update!

It's update time again :)



We found out today that our fingerprints have been processed and we should receive our I-171H in the next few days! We just went to get our fingerprints done on May 4th and the approval process can take months so we are thrilled that our case was processed in less than a month!!!



Now we just need to have our court date in Taiwan (I've heard rumors that it is some time between now and June 9th, but don't know an exact date and time). After our court date the judge will issue a final decree and we can prepare to travel!

**We received an e-mail from his hands confirming that our court date is on June 9th at 2:30 pm (Taiwan Time).

Look at Him Go!

Our good friends are in Taiwan right now getting their baby girl, Leia :) This morning, she posted this wonderful video for Lance and I and it means the world to us! I don't think this was the first time Caysen has rolled over, but I know this is a recently learned skill and it's amazing to be able to see it! Thank you again Kalina!!! I really am so blessed to have a friend like you :)

Go, Go, Go!

We have been so busy lately with family in town, birthdays, father-in-law having surgery (at this very moment) and decorating the nursery! Here are a few pictures of what we've all been up to:

Here we are at my father-in-law's birthday dinner. We did NOT mean to match, but we definitely got a lot of comments ;)

We got several pictures on Mother's day! I like this one of Caysen taking a bath :)

When Lance saw this picture, he said it looks like Caysen is praying. We think maybe he's praying that he gets to come home soon :)

And here is a sneak preview of the nursery! Remember Caysen's nickname ;)

Happy Mother's Day......Love Caysen

My Heart Overflows

I've never experienced Mother's Day as a mother before so I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't really think it would feel that different from any other day, but it was much more emotional than I could have imagined.

I checked my blog this morning and read this blogger's post about Mother's Day and had to fight the tears back. Then I checked my facebook and had many sweet messages, but one in particular that brought tears to my eyes that I couldn't contain. Lance bought me a sweet card, I was given a Mother's Day boutonniere at church, and my brother-in-law made a great meal for the whole family giving us ladies a break :) Even my adorable nephew (he's 3) called to wish me a Happy Mother's Day!

All of these gestures were so sweet and made my day special, but the full feeling in my heart is the best gift of all. I just think about being Caysen's mother and my heart feels like it could burst. The love I feel for our sweet boy is far beyond anything I could have ever imagined!

We haven't even met Caysen yet, but I already understand what women are talking about when they say they fall even more in love with their husbands watching them be a "daddy". The things that Lance does and says make me look at him in a whole different light and he seems even more amazing than I had realized before.

I also thought a lot about Caysen's birth mother today and wondered if she thinks about him often, or if it just hurts too much. I can't imagine being in her position and I just pray for peace for her in the decision she made. It could not have been easy to make that decision, but I know it took a lot of strength, courage and selfless love to do it. I feel like our lives are forever intertwined and even though I've never met her, I care deeply for her and I hope that she can find peace in knowing that Caysen is and always will be loved more than words can express.

Something else that crossed my mind more than once are those women who want so badly to be a mother, but can't. I know first hand that it REALLY hurts and this day comes with mixed emotions for those who long for a child. I do know that God has a beautiful plan, and though it takes lots and lots of patience and it doesn't seem fair at times, it will all be worth it when you see his plan unfold.

My heart feels so incredibly full and this has been a wonderful day. And if all of this wasn't enough, we came home tonight to several new pictures and even a couple of videos. It's pretty late and I need to get to bed, but I'll be posting new pics. and our first videos soon :)

I hope everyone else had a beautiful day!!!

For Sale

We're having an adoption fundraiser yard sale tomorrow. Wish us luck!

New Treasures :)

We got an update and a few new pictures in our inbox this morning! Caysen is up to about 12.4 lbs. and he's still doing great!! I've noticed in the last few updates that his hair is really thickening up too, so cute :)

We've run into one little snag, but we're hoping it ends up getting resolved quickly. The court requested a TECO authenticated copy of our marriage certificate, but we already sent it to them in April. Hopefully they just didn't realize it was included with all of the other docs that were submitted. If they lost it, we'll have to get our last copy of our marriage licence certified by TECO and mailed to Taiwan as quickly as possible to avoid any delays. We should hear something in the next day or two as far as whether it was lost, or just overlooked.

Things are still going smoothly overall, and we hope to be holding sweet Caysen soon :)

UPDATE: The court did have our marriage cert afterall, so we don't need to worry about sending them another copy.

We're Done!

The last thing on our list of things to accomplish for the adoption was to be fingerprinted for the Department of Homeland Security and as of today, we can mark it complete!

We drove to Albuquerque (about 3 1/2 hours away) last night and stayed in a hotel so we would be able to make our 8:00 appointment this morning.

We hopped online and got directions to the office and headed out with plenty of time to make it by 8:00. As we were driving, we felt like we were getting farther and farther out of town, but the directions were very straightforward so we just kept going. Pretty soon, we were driving through farm country and suddenly found ourselves driving around some old Indian ruins in the middle of nowhere!

You can't just call the office, they absolutely will not give you a phone number (not even sure if they have a phone there), so we just had to take a guess and start driving in a different direction. We ended up finding the office at about 8:15. Turns out, it was actually pretty close to our hotel, but we drove about 20 miles out of the way!! Of course I was worried that they wouldn't let us in, but when we told them the online directions led us astray, they just laughed and told us the online directions are wrong and it happens to people all the time.

The fingerprinting process was pretty simple and it was over in no time!

Now, we are finished with everything we need to do for the adoption. In Taiwan, we still need to have our court date, and a final decree from the judge, and then we can go get our boy!!!

Scrappin'

This year for my birthday, Lance got me Adobe Photo Elements for digital scrapbooking. My birthday was back in February and I have experimented with the program a little bit over the past few months. These are some of the more recent pages I made; I'm starting to get it figured out!!