good morning! Today is Cameron's first day of preschool and he is sooooo excited! He wanted to go as soon as he woke up! I don't think there are going to be any first day jitters with him! (Maybe with me....) I can't believe he is going to preschool!
We also wanted to share Claire's official new name.....Claire Meili Marie Meislahn. Meili is a Chinese name we picked that means beautiful. Marie is mine & my mom's middle name. We wanted to give her a Chinese name but didn't want to use the name "assigned" to her by the orphanage. This is something that is unique to her.
Her nursery is almost complete. I will post pics when it is done! I am very happy with it. She could move in right now!!

Happy Monday!!!! I wanted to share the wonderful surprise I had on Saturday! My friends and family threw me & Claire a surprise baby shower!!!!!! All thanks to Mary & Ellen!!!!!!! I had ABSOLUTELY no idea!!!! I thought I was going shopping all day. Jeff had even lectured me on not spending alot of money and he was in on the whole thing! We received A TON of stuff. Lots and lots of pink! We are very blessed to have friends & family like we do. We love you all!!!

Well, we received our paperwork today and have signed the form. We will overnight that back to MI and they'll forward to China. Rumor has it that we'll received our TA (Travel Acceptance/invitation) w/in a month or so. We should also be receiving an update of Claire's size, etc before we go so I know if the clothing I have will fit her or not! Please pray that this moves fast and we can get there before Oct!!!!!!

Yeah!!!!!! We just got a call from our social worker that our LOA and travel package will be here tomorrow via UPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We also found out from her that if we renew our immigration forms prior to expiration we get to renew for FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All we have to pay for is our homestudy update! What an awesome day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yippee!!!!!!
I better stop typing and go start painting now, huh???

NOTHING NEW!

Ok--this post is for Merris! HA HA .........
Nothing new to report! We will most likely be renewing everything in the next month so please pray that I get thru this without blowing a gasket!
We have been keeping busy though, we painted Carter's new room on Saturday, moved Connor to his new room in the basement. I painted Cameron's new room today. I still have to paint the stripe around Cameron's room, finish stripping & redoing Connor's dresser (it was my great-grandma's so there's lots to strip!!), paint the bathroom upstairs, paint the hallway, paint the master bedroom, get the nursery ready, paint my living room, touchup the kitchen paint, stain the deck, declutter my entire house, buy everything for our trip and remember to breathe. So, needless to say we do have quite alot to keep us busy until we get word we can travel!
We have also learned that our WONDERFUL church family is going to sponsor a fundraiser for us on September 22nd. It is going to be a scrapbooking event, although I'm not sure on the details yet. I am really looking forward to it! It will be alot of fun and great to have the entire day to scrapbook! We are truly blessed to have such a great 2nd family at our church who takes care of us.
Anyhow, that takes care of our update. I will try to post pics of the new bedrooms as soon as I can!