Happy Birthday Little One...

Well, today was Little Brother's birthday. We are so sad that we can't be there with him today. Big Brother and Biggest Sister both remembered that today was his birthday and said a special prayer for him. I let them know we will celebrate when he comes home.

We are hoping that there will be a package on Monday or Tuesday at our agency with our Travel Notice inside... Lots of buzz about this on the internet. We really hope to travel before Thanksgiving!

We are grateful that the kids' Grandma and Grandpa W will be staying with them here. They have been awesome just waiting on deck for us to hear about our travel dates. So patient and flexible, it has just been a relief to us!

Hopefully some good news soon!

Surprise update from China and a local one too...

Surprise! Today in our e-mail was a fantastic update on Little Brother complete with this picture!

Here is what the update says:

10/17/2006 Update

Medical/Development:
He is being potty trained.
His current health is good.
But he likes to suck his fingers and when sucking the fingers, he will slobber.
He has a bath very day and is training to brush his teeth.
He can say baba, mama.
He sleeps well, but sometimes when sleeping, he will cry. It seems that he is dreaming.

Personality:
He is closest to his "grandmother" Zhou Xiao Rong.
His favorite toys are toy cars and some small toys.
He likes to go outside.
Playing outside will make him happy.
When he can not get the food, he will upset.
He is affectionate.
When he is fussy, they will hold up him, give him some foods or play with him.

General:
The orphanage said that his daily schedule was also the same with that was mentioned in his development report and had no change.
He eats soft rice and mashed meat or noodle and mashed meat, drinks formula mixed with rice cereal, juice and boiled water and his favorites are candy, biscuits, apple and some snack.
He has been around rabbit, cat and chicken.

So, wow was that cool or what? It sure was a nice little spirit lifter for DAY 99 of our wait!!!!

They also said he weighs 22 lbs which will work for our size 18 month clothes perfectly. Dad thinks it is funny that they said he likes candy - seems he will fit right in! We are also curious if we will have a second finger sucker - same fingers maybe? Well, this just made our day. Even the older siblings enjoyed getting a peek at him.

So originally, I was going to post some recent pictures tonight. Here they are taking a back seat to the exciting update...

Big Brother's birthday at the Giants game (Barry Bonds up at bat) and a little ice cream cake...

A little mischief with Big Sister...

Who knew fish could use a ladder? We went to the salmon festival down by the river and saw the salmon jumping up the ladder to spawn. Pretty cool!

Good news, bad news...

The good news... We received an EXCITING e-mail today! Our agency sent us a note today to let us know that our dossier has moved to the "Match Room!" This is exciting news, because it means that our dossier has been reviewed and the next step is for our travel notice to be sent. Usually this will arrive at our agency in a few weeks! Once it arrives, our agency will request a consulate appointment for us in Guangzhou. This consulate appointment is the last thing we must do before we can leave China with Little Brother.

According to my estimations, we should be departing sometime between Nov 6th and Nov 20th. Hopefully on the sooner end of things so that perhaps we can be back for Thanksgiving!

So, here is the bad news... Little Brother will be having a birthday on October 26th in China without us (sigh).

In the meantime, we have our next batch of paperwork. Nothing compared to the first batch, but we are on to applying for our Visa's and other miscellaneous travel documents.

Now we need to get serious about packing too! More soon!