Terra's Quilt

Well, here it is, my first ever quilt! It definitely looks like a beginner's quilt, but you have to add points for all of the love that was poured into it - through my hard work and everyone's fabric contribution! For the most part, I enjoyed putting the quilt together. I loved cutting the fabric, arranging the squares and sewing them together - it was kind of like putting together pieces of a puzzle. The only part that I thoroughly disliked was sewing the entire thing together - front, back and batting. It was not fun. If any of you quilters out there have suggestions to make that process easier, I'd love to hear them. Perhaps I should have taken some sort of class before diving in, I'm not really sure why I thought quilting was a teach yourself sort of activity! :) Anyway, thank you to everyone who sent us fabric, we're looking forward to bringing the quilt to China and wrapping Terra up in love!

Travel Dates!

Our travel dates were confirmed today!! We weren't able to get an appointment at the US Consulate until July 16th. So, we'll be leaving the US on Friday, July 4th and returning on Saturday, July 19th. We're a little disappointed that we're leaving a week later than we hoped, but we're so excited that we'll have Terra in our arms in less than a month! We're scheduled to pick up Terra on Monday, July 7th, with the adoption becoming final on Tuesday, July 8th.
We'll continue to keep you posted...

Travel Approval

Today we received our travel approval from China, which is basically an invitation from the Chinese government to fly to China and adopt a child. Our agency is working hard to schedule our appointments at the American Consulate. If all goes according to plan, we'll be leaving the US on June 27th. We'll be in China for two weeks and then returning to the states on July 12th as a family of four!! We've got a stack of things in our bedroom ready to be packed and we're wondering just exactly what the agency means when they say "pack light". How does one "pack light" when traveling with a 3 1/2-year-old and a 16-month-old in a foreign country? I'll do my best! I had fun shopping for clothes for the girls. I bought matching dresses for them to wear on the day that the adoption is finalized and a couple of outfits that are the same outfits, but different colors - what fun to have two little girls!! Boy, are they going to hate me!! :)