It's been a busy weekend. We were determined to get Aryn's photo album ready to send to China so we had to do several things to get it ready. Yesterday we bought her doll, put her name up on the wall, took pictures, and had the pictures printed at Walgreens so that we could get everything ready to send.
Daddy helps keep Isaac occupied while Mama searches for the perfect doll at Toys-R-Us. 
Once home I arrange the quilt and put the pillow shams on the pillows that my grandma made for me on Aryn's bed. Isaac and I painted the letters to her name a few weeks ago. My mom purchased the doll in the orange shirt while we were waiting to adopt Isaac. The pink bunny was given to me by my best friend Wendy when we were waiting to adopt the first time around. Bunny is excited that finally a little girl is moving in to love and hug her.
After church I used Google translator to translate words to go in Aryn's photo album. While Isaac and Craig napped I cut the labels and glued them onto the pages. After everyone had had a nice nap (me included) I went to buy some little hair bows to include with the album. Our agency was pretty specific about the things we can include so it was hard to find something little enough that an 18-month old would like, that would also fit in the album. I hope she likes the little bows. I think her hair should be long enough to wear little bows now.
Time is an interesting commodity. At times it flies. At times it stills. And sometimes in some areas in our life it is able to fly, yet feel as if no time is passing at all. I don't understand it. We have successfully completed the first month of school. Isaac is doing well and earning stars for being a good boy every day. Craig and I are now signed up to take a class called "It Takes Two to Talk" which is supposed to help give us strategies used by speech and language pathologists to help Isaac continue to develop his speech. It was funny because when we were asked to evaluate what he did at our orientation I thought, "He still isn't doing that much talking." But this morning as I tried to sleep in (after he woke me up at 2:45 for company and milk) I realized that he is a chatterbox of the first order, we just don't understand most of what he is saying. It must be even more frustrating that we realize for him because he is trying and trying to communicate, and in his mind doing a lot of it, but we aren't getting it. I hope that this class helps the three of us help each other in this journey of communication. 
We are still awaiting word of our LOA (Letter of Acceptance). We sent our LOI (Letter of Intent to Adopt) to our agency on August 18th. Our agency successfully uploaded our LOI to China's system on August 19th. When we adopted Isaac it took one month to receive LOA and we hope that we receive our LOA this week. According to Craig's fortune cookie (he got take out after our orientation class on Wednesday) we are going to receive good news in the mail. Well I know the fortune cookie isn't a fortune teller, but we are expecting good news in the mail and we hope it is soon!! Once we receive our LOA we have to send it back to China and send a copy on to US immigration where we will recieve another paper to send to China that makes Aryn an immediate relative or something like that. Once that paper comes and we send it to China we can begin looking for our travel approval (TA) which is what we need before we can begin the most wonderful task which is preparing to travel to meet our little girl!!! We appreciate your prayers because we are hopeful that we can travel to meet her this year and would love to travel near Thanksgiving, but of course God's timing is better than mine and I am learning to be patient.
The doll is a You and Me doll and I was so happy to find an Asian baby doll because earlier this week I had made a trip to Toys-R-Us in hopes of getting a doll only to find that their inventory said that they did have one, but we couldn't find it anywhere. Today we went to a different Toys-R-Us and found one! I was so happy because I want to take a picture of her baby on Aryn's new bed. I've tried and tried to find a quilt for her bed, but I can't find one that I like so I am going to use the quilt my grandmother made for me when I was in high school. I love this quilt, but it's starting to fray since I've been loving it for over 20 years, but it has so much love wrapped up into it. It's no Bai Jia Bei (100 Wishes Quilt) but it is still filled with love. My grandma and great-grandmother both sewed on it for me and now my daughter will sleep on it.
So What is a Bai Jia Bei? The Bai Jia Bei is a 100 Wishes Quilt that families in Northern China made for their babies. Family and friends would contribute a piece of cloth to help the family make a quilt for their new child. When we first started the adoption process in 2006 we began collecting squares to make a bai jia bei for our babies. I have squares from where I have traded with other families in the adoption community and many friends made squares for Isaac at his baby shower. I still have not reached 100 for him and am still collecting squares for my little guy. All along we knew that we would be blessed with at least two children from China and all along I have been collecting squares for my sweet baby who I now know is Aryn Rachel. I am now anxious to start working on collecting enough squares to make quilts for both of my children. If you would like to contribute squares for my little miracle babies I would love to include them in our quilt and if you are making a quilt we would love to contribute to your efforts as well. Even if you have not adopted a child and have no ties to China I still think the Bai Jia Bei is a wonderful way to let our children know that they are loved by so many. As the African proverb goes, "It takes a village to raise a child." In that way they are wrapped in love by the village of people who surround them in some way. I'll post some of the quilt pieces we have so that you can read the blessings and see the beautiful squares that we have collected. I am trying to keep all material to 100% cotton so that it sews together nicely and hopefully will last a long time.
This picture was taken a few weeks before school started when we stopped by my school. Isaac is attending Pershing Elementary and I think it's pretty cool that he is a panther!
For months Isaac has excitedly pointed out every school bus or public transit bus that we have passed. This June we learned that Isaac qualified for the speech and language program and would have the opportunity to ride the bus too and from school we were all very excited! All summer long Isaac has looked forward to riding the bus to school. A huge milestone on the way to becoming a "big boy."
The time has come! We are wearing our Thomas the Train t-shirt and have our Thomas backpack. Mommy walks Isaac to the bus! (Aunt Wendy takes pictures for us!) This way probably the highlight of Isaac's first day of school because about 20 seconds later he finally got the message that he would be riding the bus alone which he was not anticipating! We tried to explain it to him, but how can you explain something he has never experienced? We tried to build it up and explain that he was such a big boy that he could ride the bus to school and back to Aunt Wendy's house every day. I think the hardest thing I've ever done, up until this point, was turn away as the bus driver lead my crying, heartbroken little boy to his special seat on the bus!
Apparently nobody at the school explained to Isaac that the bus would take him to his Aunt Wendy's house. My poor baby was traumatized! He cried the entire ride home and did NOT want to ride the bus the next day.
Isaac tells Aunt Wendy about his experience and she offers love and hugs!
Isaac tells mama, "No like ool bu! Scare!" (No like school bus! Scarey!) and then he make a screaming noise. "Scare!" It was so sad! We left Aunt Wendy's and walked over to visit Yeye (grandpa). Luckily shortly after our arrival at Yeye's the ice-cream man came through the neighborhood and we were able to get a yummy Sponge Bob Popsicle. I do believe that ice-cream can make up for a scary day. It helped Isaac recover. The next day we sent Isaac to school with a picture of Mama & Daddy to hold in his hand and a note to ask his teacher to explain that the school bus will always take him back to his Aunt Wendy's house after school is over. He did much better on the bus and reported, "No cy ool bu mama!"(No cry school bus mama!) with a huge smile when I picked him up on Tuesday. He ended his week with 25 stars for good behavior and was able to visit the treasure box where he chose some fun play dough! We hung his paper with the 25 stars on his door and he is very proud of his success!