Nesting

So this weekend I pretty much stayed home. Saturday I did get up and go to workout and ran a couple of errands then out to lunch but then I have been home the rest of the weekend. I think I am nesting. Now that the nursery is almost ready, I am just settling in to the house. I did a lot of cooking/baking this weekend. I want to get into a habit of cooking on the weekends so that I have lunches and dinners for the rest of the week. I think this will help especially after Evvy comes home.

So yesterday I made one of my comfort food skillet casseroles. It is really simple: ground beef, cream of chicken soup, brown sugar, soy sauce and rice. It is really yummy. Then I made some banana bread for my new neighbors. They were really appreciative. They are still unpacking boxes after two weeks. He is diabetic and he came over this morning and told me that his sugars were down to 50 last night and he ate 3 pieces of the bread to bring it back up.

Today, I made a breakfast pizza which will provide breakfast this next week. I also made two batches of cookies (my other neighbor, Leila, loaned me a couple of cookbooks and I tried a couple). I gave a plateful to Chris & Leila who were in a car accident last week and are still hobbling around. He will be in a cast for at least 7 more weeks.

Then I made some chili for dinners this wek also.

In 27 more days I will be in Guatemala with best friend Peggy snuggling with baby Evvy. It still doesn't seem real that I am going to be a mom. If I really think about it, I get a little overwhelmed. My mom reassures me that I will be a good mom.

I finished reading the book "I Rigoberto Menchu" this week. It is the story of an Indian woman in Guatemala. She was born in 1959 and was a big participant in helping to bring the issues of the Guatemalan indians to the attention of the world to help them get better civil rights. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991? It was a very hard book to read. The events in the book took place less than 8 years before I went to Guatemala as a missionary. It was a very sad book. How someone could endure so much and still maintain sanity is beyond my comprehension.

I am now reading a book about a Peace Corp worker in Guatemala and the experiences that she had. I am just starting it but I am enjoying it so far. I have made a list of a lot of children's/youth books about Guatemala that I will read with Evvy when she is older. I also checked out some Spanish children's music tapes so I can learn some simple Spanish songs (twinkle twinkle little star, heads shoulder knees & toes, etc). My cats think I am crazy singing in bed at night. I also checked out some Spanish language CDs so that I can get used to hearing Spanish again. Even though we will only be in Guatemala a few days, I still want to be able to communicate and understand.

Hopefully I will have new pictures and an update on Evvy this week. The director flew down today and I'm not sure when she is meeting with the foster families & children.

I will post again when I get new pictures.

Susan

Nursery

Argh. Technology. I just had a very long post typed up and was adding the pictures when my computer burped and I lost the whole thing. So here goes again. Here are the pictures. I will repost the weeks events tomorrow when my brain is functioning again.

OK. Here goes again trying to recreate what I typed last night.
This week was a really good week.

Monday my lawyer picked up our pre-approval from the Embassy.

Tuesday I received a DVD of the agency director's August visit to Guatemala. I have about 5-7 minutes of video of Evvy sleeping like a little angel. All of the foster mothers bring the children to the hotel where the director is staying so it is utter chaos in the room with lots of baby's and kids. Then they put the children on a chair to video tape them and take pictures of them to send to us waiting parents. It was really noisy and I can't believe that Evvy slept right through it all. She did half open her eyes a little bit. It was really sweet watching her sleep and having baby dreams. She gave a couple of really big smiles. One of my favorite parts is when she tried to open her eyes but instead she just rolled them so all I saw was the white's. Two months old and already rolling her eyes at her mother. Hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Wednesday I went to Peggy's for dinner and was given a great surprise. Miss Erica has graduated to a big girl bed and gave her crib to baby Evvy. I brought it home in the car and put all the pieces in the nursery to wait to be setup.

Thursday I scurried around trying to get a care package put together for Evvy. The director of the agency is going back down to Guatemala Sept 24 so I should get new pictures soon and hopefully a new DVD also. I wanted to send a little photo album of our family and friends so that the Foster Mom (Julietta) can talk to her about her family. I sent that as well as a photo album for Julietta with all of the pictures I have of Evvy so that she can have an album also. I also sent Evvy her first baby doll. It is really soft and has a rattle inside it. Then I sent a few little outfits also.

Friday I dropped the package off at the agency and talked to my social worker for a while. She is a really nice, down to earth girl. I like her upbeat realistic honest attitude. Friday night I was went to a "twins garage sale." A coworker has twins and his wife is a member of the club and got me an "advance" invitation to the sale for the club members before it opened up to the public on Saturday. I was very lucky to find the stroller that I had previously chosen at Babys R Us. It is in pristine condition and was 1/2 the price of the new one. I also found a crib mattress for $5. It was a little thicker than the one that came with Erica's crib and I thought it would be more comfortable. Also found a pretty pink winter coat since we are being optimistic that Miss Evvy will be home for her first Misouri winter this year. Then I found a couple of cute outfits.

Saturday morning I went to Joanne's Fabric to buy the fabric for the curtains in the nursery. I hadn't found any premade curtains that I just loved. Plus the ones I did like were really expensive. So I found some pretty lavendar fabric that was perfect. However, when I went to get it today, they didn't have enough so they had to order some for me. Hopefully will have it in a couple of weeks. This saved me from having to sew them this weekend :) Then it was off to Target to look at a rug that I found last week. While I was there Peggy called on the cell phone to say she was pulling into the parking lot to go to the shoe store in the same shopping center. She came into Target and said that the rug was perfect. So I bought it. Then we went and got Miss Erica a new pair of shoes.

We then all came to my house to put the crib together. It was a little stressful but with the help of Peggy's two boys and Peggy and myself, we did manage to get it put together. We then put the crib comforter that I bought from Ebay and the quilt that my mom made in the crib. It is absolutely beautiful to have the crib up. The room now feels like a nursery and not just a storage room of baby stuff. We spent some time moving things around and pulling the dresser out of the closet and putting the clothes bins in the closet and sprinkling a little bit of Guatemala around the room. Then we put the rug down. I LOVE THIS ROOM. I just need my precious baby girl in it now and it will be perfect.

As you can see from the last picture, Bella has checked it all out. Not sure if she approves or not. Hopefully that will be the first and last time she will be in the crib. The door to the room will have to remain shut when I am not here. I hope I don't have to get a tent to put over the crib to keep her out when Evvy comes home.

Getting the nursery put together and buying a stroller makes me feel so ready to have Evvy home. I somehow feel more prepared having the crib and stroller.

I can't wait to get new pictures. It sure helps time pass more quickly. In 32 more days Peggy & I will be landing in Guatemala. In 33 or 34 more days I will hold Evvy in my arms for the first time. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

Hopefully I will have more updates soon.
Susan






Hopefully, this will be the only time Bella is in the crib. I hope I don't have to get one of those crib covers to keep the animals out. She was just exploring all the new stuff in the room.

Another Step Forward

Last Wednesday night I got a little impatient with the US Embassy as I still had not received pre-approval of my case through the Embassy. This is supposed to take place within 30 days of the DNA results being submitted. Through reading on the Adoption.com Guatemalan Family Forum, I knew that if you hadn't received your pre-approval after 30 days that you could email the Embassy for a status on your case. So Wednesday night I sent an email to the Embassy requesting status on my case. On Thursday morning I received an auto-generated message stating that they would try to respond as soon as they could. I checked my email several times during the day and still received nothing. When I got home I checked again and received a second auto-generated messages (same as the first one). Well, I figured it was now after hours so I wouldn't receive anything until Friday. I had Peggy & Erica over for quilt night and we quilted until about 9:30. Before I went to bed I decided to hit the send/receive button on my email one last time and to my amazement I had received an actual email response from the Embassy. It was sent at 6:39 pm so I guess they were putting in a little overtime.

The email said that the pre-approval notice had been issued on August 25 (2 weeks previous) and that the paperwork was just waiting for my attorney to pick it up. I forwarded the email to my social worker at the agency who then forwarded it to the director of the agency. The director then sent a rather candid email to the Embassy stating that "my client received this email from your office. She stated that the attorney, nor the agency and obviously not the family had received this notification previously. In addition, the attorney was at the Embassy three days prior and had asked specifically about this case and was told that the paperwork was not ready for pickup." She requested an immediate response back with the official notice to pickup the paperwork so that the attorney could go pickup the paperwork on Monday. I received an email from my social worker on Saturday stating that the Embassy had responded late on Friday with the official notice and that the paperwork would be picked up on Monday.

This is great news since this pre-approval is required in order to enter PGN (the final court). We are still waiting to exit the Family court but as soon as we exit Family Court we are ready to go into PGN. Oh yeah, I forgot.... The Power of Attorney that I redid a couple of weeks ago (to have the accent marks added) was received back from the Guatemalan Consulate and forwarded to the agency director so it should be in Guatemala on Monday or Tuesday also. This is also important to have before we go into PGN because if the old Power of Attorney was submitted we had a high likelihood of being kicked out to have it corrected.

We are still at the mercy of the courts in Guatemala but if things keep moving along and there are no errors in any of the paperwork, things should be completed by the end of the year. My biggest fear right now is that it move too fast and that I don't get to visit before we get out of PGN. That is highly unlikely but who knows. It is so hard to predict how things will move.

I am learning to keep the step by step perspective. I just have a checklist and each time something gets completed, I check it off. So now I can checkoff pre-approval by the US Embassy.

This weekend I went shopping for rocking chairs. I am looking for a rocker/recliner to put in the living room. I want something comfortable to cuddle with my little one. I have fond memories of being rocked by my mom when I was little. I especially remember being sicked and cuddling in the rocker with mom and her humming a lullaby to me. I don't know how comfortable that old wood rocker was but I think I am spoiled and want something a little softer. I think I found one that I like. It is a leather recliner/glider rocker with a swivel base. It is the best price I have found for a leather. I want the leather because of the durability and it will hopefully resist the cat hair. I fight to keep the couches free of cat hair.

There just seems to be so much that I still need to get done but I am sure it will all come togehter.

I also received notice from my agency on Friday that the DVDs that the director took on her last trip would be available to pickup on Tuesday. I am excited to see a moving picture of little Evvy. Hopefully they got her to wake up :) I don't even care if she is crying, I just want to see her moving around with her eyes open.

I will write again after I get more news or view the DVD.

Susan

Planning a visit

I am so excited. My friend Peggy got her passport a couple of weeks ago so we can now go visit little Evvy. She and her husband sat down and went over their family calendar to figure out when a good time would be for us to go to Guatemala. Peggy's husband works as a nursing supervisor on an overnight shift several nights a week so we have to really look at his schedule so that he can be on a day schedule to stay home with their 3 children. So we found a long weekend in October that will work.

We are tentatively planning to leave on October 19 (Thursday) and return on October 24 (Tuesday). We just looked at the flights that are available and we can leave at 4pm (to allow Tom time to sleep before the kids come home from school) and get to Guate at 9pm. We then would take Friday to sightsee. Then either Friday evening or Saturday morning we would have Evvy brought to the hotel where we would keep her until Monday afternoon/evening. We would then leave on Tuesday 12:30 which would allow a little time to shop some more if we needed to and then be home that night by 8pm.

I think the times are going to work out really well as I will only have to take 1/2 day off work on Thursday and then take Friday, Monday and Tuesday off. With any luck they will only charge me 3 days comp/vacation time at work. I have almost earned 2 comp days so I would only have to use 1 vacation day.

I am really excited. Of course the pessimistic side of my brain says, "with your luck your case will really move fast and she will be out of PGN before you travel." If this were to happen, we would lose the benefit of getting the IR-3 visa which saves readoption and additional paperwork when she comes home. If she comes home on an IR3 she is an automatic citizen instead of a "permanent resident."

Anyway, I will keep the blog updaed as we get our travel plans solidified.

SO EXCITED!
Susan