Happy St. Patrick's Day from Larry

We've been so careful not to mislead the child. But today, what I thought would be a cute instantly-understood-joke totally convinced Faith that leprechauns do exist. And this serves as evidence for fairies as well because, as I learned this morning, "leprechauns make fairies' shoes."

Oh, well.

Her Lucky Day. . .and other pictures

Look what Faith found after, I'd say, two minutes of looking around in our weedy backyard's one tiny clover patch. She was hunting for bait for her leprechaun trap.



Davis wanted his picture made with a "find" as well, so he showed me this.



The Cherry Blossom trees are growing in the GIRLS' room:

Stage One


Stage Two


And Pearl's getting quite the shoe collection.

Let the Countdown Begin

We have a plan. And a schedule. And tickets. And some sweet baby girl clothes in three different sizes.

And two excited kids this side of the ocean: a sweet big-sister-again Faith who is super-psyched about everything, and a big-brother Davis who has started identifying every map he sees as "China!" and every Asian baby as "Purrrl."

And we have some friends who are going already!

Ha.

While looking at an illustration that showed Mickey Mouse with two younger mice, Faith said, "I didn't know Mickey Mouse had kids! I thought Mickey Mouse WAS a kid!"

Accelerando

We have a TA! That is a Travel Approval for China. We were given an estimated wait of 2 - 4 weeks on this, and we waited only 1. That is kind of a trend this time around. We've also been given tentative travel dates that are coming up SOON, and in order to keep them we flew (in our car) to the ATL (can't resist that) yesterday to get fingerprinted.

Our fingerprints jetted on into the system and will hopefully get to China soon so that we can make a necessary appointment there and be able to go get our Pearl.

It is starting to seem a little real.

Good Day, Sunshine

Today was beautiful. Not only was a hint of spring in the breeze and in the buds on our tulip tree - today my little boy said one of his longest not-just-mimicking- someone-else sentences to date.

I was carrying him through the house, and he threw his little arms around my neck, patted my back, and said,

"I love you, Mommy."

I know how forgettable these unforgettable moments can be.

So, this one, I'll save. And share.

Hey, Remember this. . .

Remember how when we were sending things in to confirm Davis' adoption we had time to take pictures!! Wow - this time around things are WAY different. The FedEx truck pulled up today with Pearl's referral acceptance letter and as soon as that delivery hit our dining room table we were frantically pulling things together to be signed and shipped out in time to make it to our agency by noon Friday.

Whew. . .the only photos we got today were taken at the drug store for the purpose of getting travel visas. Poor Davis did not want to get his mugshot done in the 2 minutes we had alloted for this portion of the mad-dash-to-the-post-office. We ended up promising him all manner of goodies. I'm a little afraid of the precedent set by this blatant bribery, but what can we say. It worked - just enough - and the poor girl at the counter was finally able to center his head correctly in the frame. In his very first visa photo - taken when he was just a few months old - he is wearing an expression of delight. I'm afraid his expression in this one is one of delirium.

It is awesome NOT to have time to stop and pose because things are moving so quickly! We really are ready to go get our girl.