Happy 1st Birthday Mia!

We are so sad that we did not get to spend her 1st birthday with her, but we are looking forward to a lifetime of celebration!

Care package #2 is on its way to her right now. We have tentative travel dates, November 5-19th. Things are starting to get very exciting around here!

Today we had cake with family to celebrate Mia's 1st birthday in her honor. She got lots of presents and it was all adorable clothes! Pictures will follow soon.

I can't wait to see her in these darling outfits.

Thank you all for your love and support.

What happens next?

Many people have been asking what happens next and when do you go get Mia? I thought I'd post it here to help shed some light on this process.

The first thing that has to happen is that China will send us Travel Approval (TA). This means we are cleared to make a Consulate appointment in China. We also have to apply for a Visa to go to China so we start this process as soon as we receive our TA.

Our agency makes a Consulate appointment for us and then we book our travel to go over based on that date. It looks like it will be in November.

While all this is going on, we still have to get our final approval from the US government to bring a child into the country. This is why we needed to finish our home study and get all our documents over to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Once we have all three of these steps completed, we buy our plane tickets and prepare for the happiest day of our lives.

More shopping fun!!

Daddy's Shopping Day!

We bought the letters for her room.

He bought lots and lots of adorable girly outfits. Good job Daddy!

Birthday Care Package

Cute clothes and more decor for her room. We also finalized her personal birthday care package that we'll be sending through Ann @ Red Thread again. I'm hoping to send her a birthday cake through Ann too. Mia will be 1 on September 27th.

Mia's Care Package

I received an email from Ann@ Red Thread this morning with a picture of all the items she is sending to Mia.

It just made my day! I wish I could jump in the box.

Where is Mia?

So Mia is in Jiangxi Province in Riujin. I marked the spot on the map as best I could. We will probably travel from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco, San Francisco to Beijing and Beijing to Guangzhou and then to Nanchang where we will meet Mia. From what I've read about the trip the orphanage director will bring the babies to us in Nanchang so we will not see the city or orphanage where she is. We expect to be in China for two weeks.

Mia's Room

Yesterday

Today

We decided we would put the crib together when we finally had our referral. My Mom & Dad gave us the crib last year when it was on sale and we've kept it in a box all this time. The crib is up now. This is a huge milestone in our journey and I'm so excited to see it. Well the Daddy-to-be sprung into action today and built Mia's crib. I will post more pictures when I get a little decorating done. Yay!!! I get to go shopping.

Now more about Mia!!!

Mia is 11 months old today 8/27/10! What a precious gift that I received these photos on her 11 months birthday!

Thank you to the Angels that made this possible.

So this is what we've learned about our daughter in the last few hours. She was born and found on the same day 9/27/2009. From the records, she weighed 8.5lbs at birth and measured 19.2 inches long. She is a quiet baby, likes to listen to music and likes her toys. She is a moderate sleeper. From her update we find out that she is 28" tall and weighing 22 lbs and she has 8 teeth. She likes to eat and is not a picky eater. Some of her favorite foods are rice, steamed eggs, vegetable broth on her rice, cookies and fruit.

We are so in love with her already! We're coming soon baby hang on!

Finally Fedex Delivers!

Here are the girls waiting desperately for Fedex to arrive. How do they know that I'm waiting for someone.

I just think that's so funny! .

The moment we've all been waiting for...

The moment was not as exciting as expected since I had her picture and updated pictures in my hand, but after all the Fedex guy did deliver the package today with all her medical information translated, copies of her records when she was admitted to the hospital when she was found and copies of her check up at 8 mos. I'll post more about that later. This post is just about FRANKIE the Fedex guy. Now some of you may wonder why that name is a big deal to me. Well that's our Godson's name and Mia's future protector. It was yet another amazing sign from above that she is meant to be ours. I thought it was interesting too how a grown man says his name is FRANKIE, not Frank.

We received the greatest gift!!!

I sent a care package to Mia through Ann of Red Thread. I want to send a more personal one too but I wanted to get one there as fast as possible. I open up my email and this is what I find today...

Pictures taken yesterday of my baby!!! Oh my goodness!!!

She's a big girl!!!!

Here she is with her Nanny. I love the spikey hair and those cheeks.

We are so in love!!!

We have a DAUGHTER!!!!!!!

Not of my flesh, nor of my bone

but I am so happy to call you my own.

Please Welcome....

Jin You Na

Soon to be

MIA LEILA YOUNA MUNOZ

Born 09/27/09 - 11 months almost

Rui Jin SWI, Jiangxi Province

We are over the moon with excitement!

Fortune Cookies

We had Pei Wei this week and these were our fortunes.

Chris' fortune was the 1st one and mine was the 2nd. How cool is that?

The little box...

Has changed!!! AHHHH!!!

Finally this little marker of our happiness has met our hopes and dreams! China made it to the 15th so IT'S OFFICIAL! Now where is that referral???

Zero chopsticks!!!!

I'm overwhelmed with emotion as I write this. Our agency still has to call us with the details of our referral but we are just days away from knowing who our daughter is. Just a little more time! Pray for us!

Need I say more...

The stork is flying to the US with referrals. Rumor has it we are in this batch!!!! We are overwhelmed with joy as we wait to hear the news we've been waiting for.

Weekend Getaway!

In preparation for an exciting week, we hope, we decided to have a little getaway at the beach to release some tension and relax. This place was so cute and the beach was great. We stayed in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea at a tiny hotel right on the beach. It was a great, much needed, treat! Now let's bring on the referrals!!!

Pray we get to May 15th this month!

It's August 1st!!!

It's August 1st and "She" is all I can think of- I hope we get to see her soon. I pray every night that she is warm and her tummy is full and that she can feel our love embracing her from here. In hopes of receiving our referral this month, I pray that she is very young so that she hasn't felt the absence of our love for too long. I pray she has lots of hair and that she has a button nose. I pray that she has 10 little fingers and 10 chubby toes. I hope she has long eyelashes and pink rosy lips. I pray she will be ours soon.
She is so loved already, even before we meet, not just by us, but by so many.

I spoke with my agency director this week and I almost fainted. I was so nervous I didn't realize he was just returning a call from earlier this month. I freaked out and couldn't even talk. False alarm! I have Chris on pins and needles as I remind him that this is very much like being close to a pregnancy due date. My water can break at any minute. Everyone at his job is on high alert. I've asked him to have his cell phone with him at all times. He even found a sign on another blog asking the Fedex guy to ring the doorbell when he delivers our referral package because he's delivering our baby. It's pretty funny!

So are we prepared? NOT!!! We have the essentials, lot of love and are ready to bring home a baby. That's all that matters. Everything else will come with practice.

This box means so much to us right now. Everyone pray that the bottom date changes to May 15, 2006 in August. May 15th, May 15th, May 15th!!!

How Matching Works

Look at the stacks of family files waiting to be matched with their babies. Somewhere in this room our file will find it's way to our baby. The employees in the matching room will review our file and look at the babies that are available for adoption and try to find some similarity between the two and that's how the magic happens. Our file could be on someone's desk right now waiting to find the perfect baby for us. It's going to be a hard couple of months. First the wait to see her face will seem endless and then the wait to go get her will be even more difficult.

Imagine knowing your child is half a world away and you can't run over there the next day to get her, hold her, squeeze her and tell her everything is going to be ok every night as you tuck her in to bed. Uggghhhh! Patience is not my best quality. This is the true test. Patience!!!

5 Chopsticks Left!!!!

So it looks like China referred through May 10th, 2006. If China refers 5 more days next month, we are in. I am beside myself right now with excitement! It is a very good possibility that we could see our daughter's face next month. I am close to tears thinking that our dream is so close to coming true. I want to run outside and scream to everyone that passes by that I will soon be a mom. Chris is so excited too. To be honest, I think it was more like shock when I told him the news this morning. It's almost here, it's almost time!

The tough part will be getting through one more month not knowing anything about our daughter. It's been 4 years and 2 months of waiting but it feels like these last 2 months will be the hardest.

We're almost there baby girl. I promise I'll be there as soon as I can.

The count down...

We needed a visual so Chris and I got creative and decided that we were going to use chopsticks to count down to our "due" date. Every month when a batch of referrals is published we will remove the number of days referred in the same amount of chopsticks from this vase. It will be our turn when the vase has 0 chopsticks left. So lets pray for 9 days of referrals in July so we can send 9 chopsticks packing!!!

We'll keep you posted.

Susie