For those of you wondering, I am posting a map of China and of The Guangdong Province so you all can see where our little angel lives. We will be spending most of our time in Guangzhou, wich is where the U.S. consulate is located, and more than likely staying in the luxury of the famous White Swan Hotel. More on all that later.

I am still on cloud nine

Ok , so there wasn't much sleeping around our house last night, and it wasn't all due to the excitement in the air (we are almost ready to give Alex back, hee hee). But lets face it, we haven't had such a wonderful day in a long time. The waiting was excrutiating at times, but absolutely worth it when you get to see your little girl for the first time. I am in LOVE LOVE LOVE with her hair. My mom says it is official, she is printed out and posted on the Fridge. We think she looks very healthy and like a bright little girl. So Gwynne you are a Martin-Jamail now. Our dreams have come true.

Well.... we are over the moon!!!

We would like to introduce you to our new daughter Gwynneth Helen, formerly know as Jiang Cheng Juan . She is currently at the Yangjiang Jiangchen Social welfare institute in the Guangdong Provence. We expect to go to China in February to pick her up. She is 8 months old, has a quick smile, likes music and to laugh out loud. I know there was something witty and funny I was going to post with this happy news but I am too far gone and so totally in Love to remember anything!!! Isn't she beautiful!!!

Our feet are here, but our hearts are in China.

The Stork has been sighted.................

Well, this is it. Our adoption agency sent out an e mail today stating that our referral is on its way from China to there offices in Austin Texas. Sometime by Friday we should get "the call" where we will find out where in China she lives and how old she is, and finally get to see her sweet face!!! Although we really thought we would be bringing her home for Christmas, this is definitely the next best thing. We started this whole process officially January of 2005 so this has been the longest pregnancy I have ever had. And probably the most exciting, frustrating, stressfully and time consuming one yet! We are finally going to get our girl.

I know that Friday is going to be a crazy day, so check back at the Blog. I will post the picture just as soon as we get it. Thaks for sticking with us!!

A.

A Milestone in Parenthood .....

There is a point in your life as a parent that you question some of the things you expose your children to, and the other day we hit a milestone. Brad went out of town on his first business trip and I was alone with the kids for 4 days. We kept a tight schedule. After school we would have a play date, come home, eat dinner, bath and strait to bed. I decided it was much easier to bath the kids from inside the bath tub, and home alone you take all the easy stuff you can. So I would strip down and jump in every night. No problem. On the last night Brad was gone, Alex and I were sitting in the bubble bath waiting for Ethan to join us. He walked into the bathroom and looked at me very contemplatively. When I asked him what was on his mind he asked me.......
"Mommy, why are your boobies so LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG?"(sorry about the disturbing visual). And there you have it, The Last Time I will be naked in front of my kid!!!!!

There will be no photographs accompanying this particular post, hee hee.

So I have totally gone overboard ...

I know that I have gone over the top with this nursery, everybody is telling me so. But for goodness sakes, when you dont have to buy any maternity clothes you sure feel like you have a little extra money, hee hee. Now I am feeling just a little guilty that the boys rooms aren't quite so done up. I still think they are cute, and on my list to do next. I hope you like the pictures. There are still a few finishing touches left, if you can believe that.

Here are a few pic's from our Halloween. We downloaded the theme song from Star Wars and when Ethan would knock on a door we would start the music. DA DA DADA DA DA DADA DA DA, well you get it, hee hee. We were quite the hit!! I have to figure what we can be next year that has theme music. Ethan even looks like Anakin Skywalker and Alex shuffeles around like Yoda, it was perfect.

Hey guys, just trying to figure out how all this Blogger stuff works.

Brad set up this blog so we could share our journey into parenthood again, the unconventinal way, with you all following us to China and back. We just suffered a little set back last week. For some reason China decidedto start a little slow down. Any given month they will give our Adoption agency 60 to 160 referals, but for unknown reasons, the last two months have been 15 and 40 refferals. This puts us hopefull that we will recieve our refferal the end of November or first week in December. Because of Chinese New Year falling in January this year, I am prediciting that we will not travel to China untill February. Oh well, they say good things come to thoes who wait. I just don't know how much longer I can wait. At least when you are pregnant you have a definate date that you will bring that baby home by. The up side to the adoption thing is No Stretchmarks but all the love!!! I guess that isn't really Brad's motto but I am sticking with it.

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch and the kids were adorable, I will now attempt to upload our first pictures. Please keep your fingers crossed,