It was a "Rosie Day"!

Today was a baby shower for Rosie that was given by my dear friend Nita and a lot of the "China Moms" and a few other special friends. It was absolutely the sweetest shower. The theme was just darling and was all throughout the house, and even outside, too! I cried the minute they opened the door to let us in. There was so much love and time and energy that went into this day. I can hardly express my gratitude for everything. There were homemade pink butter mints in the shapes of baby bottles, booties and hearts. There were "pacifiers" that were made out of Lifesavers and a pink jelly bean. There was the cutest, most delicious cake to welcome sweet Rosie. There were balloons and flowers and teddy bears. And our own personalized bottled water!

There was a yummy lunch of sandwiches, fruit and veggies..........I could go on and on. It was just so much fun. I let Tia stay home from school to go with me and she really enjoyed it, too. She had one other friend there, so they had a good time playing and also helping with the gifts and games. We played the "guess the poo" in the diaper (which was actually melted candy bars) and that created a lot of laughs! We played a couple other fun games, too. Everyone was so generous with the nicest gifts. I am just so touched. In April it was exactly 6 years since we started paperwork for this sweet girl, so it's still pretty surreal that all of this is even happening. It's been a real rollercoaster, but we are getting closer to getting her home and finally being a family of 4. We are still waiting for travel dates, but are hoping to maybe have them this week. That will be a fun post! :-))
So, to all of you there today...................thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so grateful for all of the friendships and love that was shared. I am one blessed and grateful girl! Enjoy the pics!

Celebrations

Last Friday night, a small group of us celebrated Rosie with a delicious dinner at the Granary. They surprised us with where we would be and who all would be there. There were 9 of us and it was such a special night. We had wonderful (and funny!) conversation, a delicious meal and the most heartfelt gifts. We were so touched by the whole night. We feel so blessed by these friendships and so grateful for the love, support and absolute joy that they all share with us for Rosie. All of you, you know who you are, and again, we thank you so much for all of the excitement that you have shown us throughout this journey. She is going to love all of you, just like we do. We are blessed!!

We have TA!!!

Wahoo!! We have our Travel Approval, which means one step closer to our girl. We are super excited! Of course, I cried when our agency called and shared the news. We are now waiting on one more thing (of course!) but when that comes through, we will be able to get some travel dates. She said today that we could still be looking at travel in very early May. I think it will be next week before we know more, but I will post as soon as we get more details.
Please continue to pray for our sweet Rosie, who waits for us in China, even though she doesn't even know we are coming. We pray for her health and her sweet spirit. We pray for a smooth transition for her when we finally hold her in our arms, and for all to go really well. She will be overwhelmed for sure, but we hope it's in a good way for her. Mike keeps saying he can't wait to scoop her up and just check her out all over. We can't even imagine finally actually having her....................after 5 and a half years!! God is so good. Thank you all for sharing in this journey, and for keeping all of us in your prayers. We appreciate it so very much.

Still Waiting..........

We are still waiting for our TA or Travel Approval. We are really hoping for this week, but who knows........................
We did get our Chinese Visas though, so that was a big relief! And our addendum has been sent to the Consulate in China, so that was good news, too. We are very anxious to receive our TA and begin working on actual travel dates. At this point, we are thinking we will go in mid-May. In the meantime, we are getting a few things here and there for our sweet Rosie, and for the trip. We were at Kohl's the other day and Tia found little jammies that actually match a nighty that she already has, so she was SO excited. Plus, we found a darling red, white and blue shorts and top for bringing her home. And for the 4th of July, of course. :-))  The Easter bunny brought Tia her very own camera for the trip, so she is super tickled about that!  And he even hid a few eggs outside for her to find. Everything is good,  we just continue to wait on any news we can possibly get on our girl. Our agency has requested an update on her, so we are hoping we will get something more soon, but it's not a guarantee. We watch her video every morning and every night and Mama sneaks a peek at it during the day a few times, too. Just can't get enough of her sweet face. Cannot wait to kiss her all over and love her up real good. Hopefully my next post will be about our TA. Thanks for hanging in there with us! I will attach a few Easter pics. Oh, and here's a note from Tia:
The suspense is maddening! I can't wait for my little sister Rosie!! Love, Tia

Ooops!

I just realized that when I wrote the first post about Rosie, I completely forgot to mention her Chinese name and the province that she is in. Ooops! Her Chinese name is: Zhao Xiang Han and she is in the Henan province. Henan is more north, so we will fly into Bejing and be able to spend a day at the Great Wall, which will be amazing. I think in the blur of all the happiness, I saw that her name means "blossom", but I can't confirm that. I will let you know when I find out for sure. We continue to wait for our TA, or Travel Approval, but are hopeful it could arrive by the end of this week or early next week. Once we receive that, they will begin booking our trip and then we will finally have dates! We are still hoping for early May. The sooner the better!!
We are so excited and just can't wait to get her into our arms. We look at her every day and fall more in love each time we see her sweet face. God is so good!!