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!

Arches National Park

Our last major stop on this exciting adventure was at Arches National Park in Utah. The rock formations are an absolute wonder to behold! We spent hours hiking, climbing, studying the rocks, and drawing what we saw. Some day when the girls are older it will be fun to come back and hike the more difficult trails to get close up to the more remote arches.

Four Corners Monument

It's amazing how far into the middle of nowhere I actually convinced Brian to drive on this trip. The Four Corners Monument marks the point of the only place in the United States where the boundaries of four states (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah) intersect -- in a perfect perpendicular corner intersection. Anyway, it was a fun photo op and the girls thought it was pretty funny to have our family standing in four different states at the same time.