Smurfy's Blog

Sunday is usally my rest day after cleaning the house the day before.  I normally don’t like to go out on a Sunday.  I prefer to just chill at home and be a couch potato or bake cupcakes in my kitchen.  But today was a busy day.  My husband and I went to Home Depot to buy window coverings for our son’s bedroom.  Since the baby room does not have standard size windows, we had to get the window coverings cut based on the measurements my husband took.  

After Home Depot, we added the second coat of paint in our son’s bedroom.  His bedroom has 3 small windows and 1 big window.  Even though we had all windows open, not much fresh air breezed in because there wasn’t any wind at all.  Since the smell of paint was getting to me, I turned the ceiling fan on but couldn’t turn it on too high because the cheap plastic we used to cover the carpet kept moving around!  

Also, we did something special today.  China is one day ahead from USA.  The date in China today is October 11.  October 11 is our son’s birthday.  So my husband and I bought our favorite cake from Raleys.  The cake said ‘Happy Birthday Nathan’!  It’s a chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling and white light-n-fluffy icing.  So so good!  It’s sad he wasn’t physically with us.  But he is always in our hearts and thoughts.  Happy 1st Birthday son!

On a typical Saturday, I watch TV, clean the house then watch TV again. But my Saturday today was different. This morning, I got my very first seasonal flu shot which includes the H1N1 vaccine. I usually don’t get one. But since we’ll be traveling to China, it was best to get it. Also after coming back from China in 2005, I caught a fever. So I definitely don’t want that to happen again.

Afterwards, my husband and I continued painting the baby room. At first we painted the bottom half of the wall blue and paint the top green. But I changed my mind. So we repainted the bottom to green and top blue. To me, the green is like grass and top blue represents the sky.

Then we drove to BabiesRUs to take a look at car seats. It felt weird shopping for baby stuff but it was exciting. We decided not to buy the car seat we wanted at the store since the price for the same item is lower at www.amazon.com. We did buy a few things that we may need to bring to China and used my 20% off coupon. I just love coupons.

We needed to get our fingerprints done for the Dept. of Justice. So today we went to the Napa County Sheriff’s Dept. to get them processed. Last time we did a live scan was three years ago.

Whenever I get my fingerprints done either at the CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Service) or for live scan, there’s always some difficulty getting my fingerprints done. First my right thumb was scanned and the monitor screen displayed PASS. Second my right index finger was scanned then the screen said PASS. When the next few fingers were processed the display screen showed REJECT! What!? REJECT? So I asked the person why are my fingerprints getting rejected? The person said ‘nothing to worry about… your fingerprints are still acceptable.’

My husband and I told his parents that we’re finally going to China. I had my husband print out pictures of our son so his family can see how he looks like. Since my in-laws babysit my cute niece during the week, they bought these Press ‘N Pull Plug Protectors. My father-in-law told me that we’ll definitely need them now since we’ll have a baby in our home. He gave us several of the plug protectors. Plus he gave me a 15% coupon from Diapers.com.

Since we need to bring a baby formula with us to China as well as baby food, I asked which brand I can buy for my son. My niece isn’t a picky eater. She’ll eat grapes, bananas and apples other than Gerber food. Currently she is bottle fed with a soy-based (with Iron) formula. I heard that some babies may be allergic to certain formulas. But we don’t have the luxury of knowing which formula will be good for our son prior going to China. I guess we’ll eventually know when we get to China.

My niece and my son are not far apart in age. My son is just a month older from my niece. While driving back home, my husband asked me whether our son and my niece will get along. I told him that I am sure they will.

We talked to our social worker this evening to get an update on our home study. She asked us a little bit about the baby we are adopting such as whether the infant is male or female, health of baby, age, etc. After we’re back from China, she will pay us a visit and meet our baby boy.

My husband and I had dinner with my family to announce that we will finally be parents to a baby boy.  Finally, I got to tell my family.  It was harding keeping this to ourselves.  We waited to tell my family until we received our LOA (letter of approval).  We will announce this great news to my husband’s family this week.

Today, my husband told me that we have to re-do a live scan fingerprint.  Last time we did a live scan fingerprint was three years ago.  Since we re-did our fingerprint (FBI clearance)  for our I600 early this year at the CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services), not sure why we have to do a separate live scan fingerprint for Dept of Justice.  It would be nice if they share the same system.

After work, I had my first Cake Decorating class at Michaels.  It’s a 4 week course.  It was interesting.  The class was cheap like $27 but the materials are expensive.  In my first session, we learned how to use the icing bag.  I didn’t realized there were three types of icing bags.  Parchment icing bag is like paper and you shape it into a cone.  Plastic icing bags are disposable.  Featherweight are re-usable but you just have to wash them.  We also learned how to color our white icing.  I chose blue color for my baby boy.  Then we practiced making star shape decoration onto our cookies using our icing bag with a metal decorating tip.

I am not a great baker and pastry chef.  But I enjoy baking.  Lately, I have been baking cupcakes especially after I bought my Kitchenaid mixer.  I lack in the decorating department so which is why I am taking a basic decorating class.

Today we visited our China Coordinator.  We gave her the original documents we received yesterday via Fedex.  She will mail the signed Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter back to China.  In about two weeks, we should be expecting our TA (travel approval) to go to China.  Our coordinator estimates that we will be in China sometime in early November.  She said our first stop will be in Wuhan in Hubei Province to finally meet our son!  Then go to Guangzhou.  Because of the Asia games in Guangzhou sometime in mid-November, we decided to go to Guangzhou after the Asia games.  Our coordinator told us that the hotels would be expensive during this event.  So we may be going to China on November 21 and be back home with our son on December 03.  We will get to spend Thanksgiving in China and Christmas back home in USA with our baby!  Our coordinator told us that we have to get our homestudy updated since we switched from NSN to SN.  We need a new I171-H for SN child.  Also, we need to get our China Visa.

Also today, we went back to Home Depot to get paint samples for the upper half of our baby’s bedroom wall.

Our envelope came today and it contained two documents: Letter of Seeking Confirmation and Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter.  We also received copies of both documents.  We only needed to sign the Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter.  Today we also started to prepare our son’s bedroom.  We cleared out all of my junk and started painting the bottom half of the wall to a Disney color blue or also called Bibbidi Bobbidi Blue  🙂  As for upper half of the wall, we are still deciding as to what paint color will complement the Bibbidi Bobbidi Blue.

I can’t believe it!  I received an email from our China Coordinator saying that our Letter of Approval arrived at our adoption agency BAAS!  I didn’t expect to get good news today!  I thought that the LOA will arrive in two months from the day we received our pre-adopt approval.  Our agency will mail us our LOA via Fedex… Can’t wait to receive it!