Things I do Not Want to Forget

-How you run around with your stool so you can turn lights on and off.

-How you say ":Hi Mommy" when you want to charm something out of me.

-How you say open and close when you want to lay on my arm and have me cuddle you.

-How you say scoop instead of scoot.

-How you play your guitar with your knuckles.

-How you like to act out parts of books.

-That you learned how to use the word actually.

-How you love the part of books when someone is sad.

Bo Update

We sent Bo care package sometime in the summer and we received a couple of photos in return with the items from our care package. We went ahead and sent a second one since we felt confident that he would receive it and we wanted more photos. This is one of our most recent photos. He looks incredibly happy and healthy. We also have numerous photos of Bo with his foster family which we will not post since we do not have their permission to splash their photos over the internet. In the photos, they look like a very happy family. Our thoughts are with them with the big changes that are about to take place for Bo and his foster family.

We have tentative travel dates for January 3-16th. We are hoping that our travel approval gets here quickly and they can move the dates up a little bit, but it is not looking like that is likely.

We did also decide on a name for Bo, but we really just prefer you call him Bo, however he is going to be Camden Jeffery Bo (insert last name). We really like the name, although I do wonder a bit what our New Jersey relatives will think of it. It is an old Scottish name meaning winding valley. Maizie is old Scottish nickname for Margaret so I guess that is our theme, though we tried to avoid that. Naming is a tricky subject. As parents, we really want to name our children, except in our case our children come with history and names. After discussing all the pros and cons of changing Bo's name, we decided to name him the same way we named Maizie. New first name then a family name, then part of their Chinese name and then our last name. This is the name we have chosen but it is not a name that our children may ultimately decide represents them best, and we will applaud their feelings on that matter. One of my wishes in life is that as my children grow, they will feel comfortable discussing their thoughts on their adoption with us.

While in China, we hope to visit Maizie's orphanage. We are working very hard to get the approval. A few months after returning home with Maizie, her orphanage started letting visitors in to see the place. We are hoping that we can visit for ourselves, so we can tell Maizie what her first home was like.

We will keep you posted as we know more.

Maizie's Idea of Looking Good

Maizie loves to walk around with a qtip out of each ear and she always requests I take a picture of it and then she laughs and laughs over it. Our Maizie is very funny.

LOA

We received our LOA today! This means we have been approved and matched with our son by the Chinese government. Our agency has given us tentative travel dates for the first week of January. Bo will be 18 months we meet him.

Happy Halloween

Jump Those Tears Away

Maizie and I have been talking about her life story and Bo's story. I have been explaining to her that Bo may cry when he meets us because we are new to him. Maizie is very interested in tears so I think she kind of likes the part of the story in which there may be crying. She never just says that she is crying, she always says "Maizie cry tears". I asked Maizie what we should do if Bo cried and Maizie said we should jump. So there is our plan. Bo cries, we will jump. I hope it works.

We did get some additional updated photos of Bo. We sent him a care package and we received photos of him with his care package items. He looks very healthy and happy. I think we are going to be jumping a lot.

Hold You

One of my favorite things that Maizie says is "Hold you". She doesn't quite have the use of "me" down. So when she wants a cuddle, I hear"Hold you mama". It is really the best thing ever.