Baking Cookies for Santa

Today the girls baked Sugar Cookies to leave out for Santa tonight. I am sure that Santa will appreciate all the love and tender care that went into these very special creations. We made lots so that the big brothers can have some too when they come home for Christmas tomorrow.

Excitement!

More Excitement! I'm not sure anyone will sleep tonight.

Maddie is sure Santa will LOVE these.

This is serious work!

Some cookies got a bit more icing than others

Snowed In

We have been snowed in since last Saturday. Western Washington just isn't used to this type of snow and without tire chains or a four-wheel drive vehicle we can't get out of our driveway. At last measure, we had almost a foot of snow on the ground in our yard. So we just had to make the best of it. Sledding down the driveway, building a snowgirl, and rolling around in the snow kept the girls busy for a couple of days. Now they are ready for the snow to be gone -- to be honest so am I! It's sort of funny hearing people in Seattle wishing for rain.

What can I use to make her face?

Ellie and our Hawaiian SnowGirl

Abby became very adept at sledding down the driveway

Hey, no problem, I can walk just fine in this slippery stuff!

Oops -- maybe not!!

Look at what we got!

We received the best Christmas present this morning! A dear internet friend is in China to bring her daughter home. She was allowed to photograph our Ruby! Oooh, I so want to hug this little baby and pinch those cheeks. OK, I can make it through the next three or four months of waiting to travel, I think, maybe . . . .

SNOW!!

We woke up to snow this morning! We don't get snow around here very often so it was quite a treat for the girls -- not so much for mom and dad. Any guesses as to how long it takes to get four little girls all bundled up to play in the snow? Now, any guesses as to how long they will be outside before one of them has to go to the bathroom?

The snow was very dry so no good for making a snowman. But the girls made lots of snow angels, decorated mom's and dad's cars, and spent lots of time tramping around making footprints in the white stuff. When everyone was properly cold and wet we all came inside for steamy mugs of hot cocoa sprinkled with marshmallows. It doesn't get much better than this if you are a kid! The weather forecast is calling for a week of sub-freezing temperatures and possibly more snow. Oh Joy!! Thankfully we have all our Christmas shoping done and the house is fully provisioned.

Abby

Ellie
Maddie

Annie

cleaning the snow off Dad's car

decorating Mom's car

Snow Angels

The Aftermath!!

13 Months Old Today

Our Ruby turned 13 months old today. Hopefully we won't have to miss too many more of her monthly milestones. We are on Day 12 of our official wait for LOA, with the current average around 90 days. I have been dying to post her referral photos and I just can't hold out any longer. So, without further ado, here is the little one we are so impatiently waiting for. I can hardly wait to put a smile on her face and get some pink outfits and hairbows on her!!

Thanksgiving

Our family has so much to be thankful for this year. We are thankful that the boys are all healthy, happy and very successful in their careers. We are thankful that Rob returned home safe and sound from his long deployment overseas and thankful for all he does to ensure that our country stays safe and free. We have four beautiful girls at home who are all healthy, happy and doing so well in school. And we are so thankful for our little Ruby who is still waiting for us to bring her home to join this big, silly, crazy, fun-loving family.

The gang's all here!

Abby (7), Jason (27), and Annie (4)

Rob (31)

Maddie (4) and Eric (25)

DTC!

As I am writing this post, our completed dossier is winging its way to China!! It should arrive there by Monday. What a relief to get this huge step out of the way. Now I get to just sit back and peacefully relax (ok, who am I trying to kid here?) while we wait for our Letter of Acceptance and Travel Approval to arrive. It's been just a little over two weeks since we saw Ruby's sweet face for the first time. Some days it seems like we have been waiting for her forever. And then on other days it seems like everything is going so fast this time around. Here's hoping that our wait for travel goes by quickly rather than slowly and that I get to add another little ladybug to my signature line very soon!

UPDATE: We received notification of our LID -- 11/25/08

Halloween -- No Tricks but LOTS of Treats!

We went Trick or Treating with our friend M and her kids, the two O's, again this year. Even though the sidewalks and grass were a bit wet due to the huge rain storm earlier in the day, the evening was so much warmer than last year. The girls were successful at filling their pumpkins with more candy than an army could eat. After doing our own trick or treating, we all went back to M's house to hand out candy. The girls were just as excited to do the handing out as they were at getting candy themselves.

AND -- the biggest TREAT of all this Halloween -- we got our PA (pre-approval) from the CCAA to bring home Ladybug Princess #5!! I am not allowed to post any photos of her yet but I can tell you that she is 11 months old, absolutely darling, and waiting for us in Guangdong Province. Our dossier is being authenticated at the Chinese Consulate right now. It should be sent to China in the next couple of weeks. We have to wait for everything to be processed but I am guessing that we will travel sometime in March/April 2009 to bring her home.

Random Photos

Summer is gone and we are now knee deep in school work. But here are some final random photos of the girls from our fun times this past few months. It was the last summer of "toothless Abby" photos -- I'm sure next summer will be full of "toothless Ellie" photos. And it was the last summer of the girls being a quartet. Stay tuned!