TA DAHHHHH!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the J&K room (drum roll please):






The blank space above the headboards is for their names, we just have run out of poop now and we need to go to bed.

WE ARE LEAVING IN 3 DAYS! OMG!

P.S. Compression bags rock!

The room is painted, dots and all!

Thank you to my lovely husband who put in 6 back breaking nights of painting (I helped for two nights). There is candy floss pink, hot pink, dark blue and my personal favorite, purple dots of various sizes all around the room! Now we are exhausted and we have to get some sleep tonight(we have had maybe 3-5 hours of sleep in the past couple of nights), cause tomorrow is IKEA day! More pics of the J&K room on Sunday, after the IKEA building party - everyone welcome and BYOAK (bring your own allen key, silly)!

By the way, the lovely green border is just masking tape holding the plastic down and protecting the borders.

Don't forget to check the travel itinerary, that we got today on your right hand side!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH part deux

All righty folks, this is part deux of our crazy life since we got TA;
1. Airplane tickets booked: check
2. Tonnes of money spent on medication: check
3. Tonnes of money spent on money: (not that much actually with the exchange) check
4. Tonnes of money spent on stuff we need (backpack, money belt, food, etc): check
5. Second car returned to dealer (we are officially a 1 car family!): check
6. Tonnes of phone calls made (Visa, M/C, Bank, Peds, Children's, etc): check
7. Paperwork for work signed off (I am officially off from Oct 31 till Sept 8!): check
8. Christmas presents bought (I am not going into Walmart with Kaitlynn!): check
9. Room painted, and painted, and painted... and painted (but not done... how do you feel about doing Polka Dots Mom?): check

What's left to do:
1. Immigration Quebec (for some reason that is the one thing that stresses me the most!)
2. Photocopy everything in double and quadruple... and kill a few trees at the same time
3. Get Travel Health Insurance for Kaitlynn
4. Get only car to the dealer for a tune up, so my Mom can drive without fear... well at least that the car won't break down on her... I can't be held responsible for Mtrl drivers, now can I?
5. Travel Meeting
6. IKEA!
7. IKEA Building party!
8. Order Panda Phone
9. Unpack and repack... and unpack and repack.... yes, I have too much stuff in my suitcase all ready... and my stuff isn't in there yet!
10. Hug my boys every chance I get, before I go - I am going to miss them horribly.

Been a crazy week

Emotions all over the place, up and down, and up and down this week.

First off, DH has had a terrible time trying to argue his case for leaving for 7 days to go to China with me. Finally, this morning his bosses agreed to let him go in a three week window for 7 days. If we don't get TA by Oct 26 or Nov 2, DH can't go. If we get TA by Oct 19th, DH won't be able to go either as we would probably have to leave by Nov 2 and the other family that is adopting from the same orphanage would probably want to leave Nov 2 (and who wouldn't?). What is making things so very difficult for me is if I were to go into labour on Dec 8, there is no way DH would have been told "No, you can't leave. We need you operationally.", he would have been told "GO!". There is this general lack of understanding about adoption that really hurts me - this is our child and we have to do what we have to do for her benefit and for the families benefit, regardless of how she comes into our lives.

Second, finances are horrible. If we had been travelling in December we could have afforded it. As it stands, it looks like using points to fly over is way too complicated and not feasible. We have a ball park idea now of how much things may cost, which is really nice to know (thanks Leanne!) but scary at the same time. So we have been spending every night trying to figure out how to pay for all this and we are left with going into our RRSP's. It sucks, but I think in the end we want our daughter and it doesn't matter the cost. I should point out that we have a certain amount of debt too and we are going to pay that off as well, so that we can support our family by my being off till next September (yes, that's right, I would be off 11 months with my kids! they can come straight home after school, come home for lunch and no more weeks upon weeks of summer camp!) and then maybe, just maybe, only work part time when I get back!

Third, Jacob had a really weird allergic reaction to something. We don't know what it was that caused it, but he broke out in hives all over his body. Within 15 minutes of having benadryl, the hives were gone and he felt better... but what a scary thing to see, and poor Jacob got horribly scared too. Now, we are asking the daycare to document everything he is eating so that we can try and track what has happened in case he reacts again.

Fourth, Tristan is having a very hard time at school. His ezcema is getting better now, and we are trying to allievate his stress at home as much as we can but you can tell that he is wiped out.

Fifth, Zach on the other hand is doing just peachy at school. Green lights all the way! And he got his certificate for tying his shoes all by himself!


Like I said, emotions all over the place this week, from happy to sad to frustrated to "what the?" back to happy. Tell me when the station comes up, I want to get off this rollercoaster for a bit!

Miracle #2 and Giving Thanks

Miracle #1 a, b, c, and d are the Boys and Kaitlynn.




Miracle #2 is my Mom. Guess who has just offered to put herself up for sacrifice to the Triple Boy Threat while we, (yes, I said WE) travel to China to get Kaitlynn? Daddy will be there for Gotcha thanks to my Mom! I am literally speechless... we got our miracle!

Greg and I are celebrating 4 years together by going back to the Chinese restaurant, in China town, where our magical journey together began. We are then going to see the Lanterns at the Botanical gardens.

We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend.

And its off....

Crazy, crazy past couple of days. First off, I am sick as a dog so I am in a haze and I figure I am making mistakes that are costing me some effort and some time. For instance, had to run to FUF and took the wrong bridge! I was just blindly driving into downtown not realizing that I had just taken the longest possible way to get there. So by the time I get to the office, I am in a pissy mood so I just walk in, sit down at the large table, and then this lovely lady comes out of nowhere and looks at me like I am a crazy person... "do I know you? what are you doing here?"... oh... sorry, I'm Stefanie... oh, HI, its nice to finally see you... ummm, you are? Pauline! Oh my... did I feel like an idiot for a few seconds.

So, the notary has been visited and our paperwork is signed and delivered to us in quadruplet. This has been given to FUF so it goes to the embassy and to be translated. Visa pictures taken, visa application form filled out, LOA signed, travel spec'ed out and investigation into whether I can use my points is ongoing, travel docs filled out, passports located, care package put together and everything has been delivered to FUF this afternoon. Oh, and did I mention that the big T is sick too, so he has been a trooper this afternoon while we drove from Marieville all the way back to Montreal and then home.

The end result of all this, is everything that needs to be done for now, and the LOA will be sent off tomorrow which is when we officially start counting down for the TA to arrive. Also, its official DH is not going to China with me - no money, can't leave the kids alone for 2 weeks, damn satellite launch pre-launch exercises are in our window for travel. He's starting to accept it slowly and so am I, but its still disappointing.