Where the heck have you been?

I know that we have been delinquent in writing lately. There's been so much going on!!!

Here is Jonah with his friends at his birthday party.

I had two baby showers. One was given by the sweet ladies in my Bible Study who all brought delicious appetizers and got me a gift certificate to Supper Solutions (one of those places where they make the food for you and you have it in the freezer to just heat up). That should definitely be a godsend when we're all home, jetlegged, and trying to form a cohesive family of four!!! Thanks, girls! Such a sweet night!! Also, thanks to Marne for picking up the meals for us and putting them in the freezer while we're in China!!

The other was last Tuesday night. My friends Lana and Melissa (from my Stay At Home Moms Meetup Group) surprised me with another baby shower! That was tons of fun, with more great food, lots of gift certificates to Target (the majority of them have already been spent on the medicine cabinet we're taking in our suitcases for the four of us), some very nice presents (for Jonah, too), and lots of people signed up to take Jonah out to play and bring dinner to us! Apparently, I looked grumpy.....I wasn't grumpy! I was genuinely surprised!! I sometimes have trouble having people spend money on me and being the center of attention is all!!

We also celebrated Jonah's third birthday party on the 6th! He had a party at Funtastic Fun on Saturday with playgroup and church friends, and he really enjoyed the indoor ferris wheel, swings, ball pit, and bouncy thing, not to mention the icing on the cake. Then on the 6th, we played at the Children's Museum with friends. He's definitely a little challenging these days as a new three year old, but he is also trying to figure out how the whole getting a brother from China thing is going to work.

More pics from Funtastic Fun.

Here's the birthday boy at the Children's Museum!

Besides that, there has been some frantic buying of necessities (such as the large quantity of medicine and toiletries, etc. previously mentioned), packing, laundry doing, and house cleaning in preparation to bring home our second little son!!

I wanted to let you know a little about the itinerary that we have received from our agency as to what we're going to be doing on our trip:

2/13: Fly to China (leave at 6:15 Denver time). We're flying through San Francisco to Beijing

2/14: Arrive in Beijing around 3:30. Joyful reunion with Cheryl and hopefully a good night's sleep!!

2/15-2/16: Tour of Beijing

2/17: Fly to Lanzhou (provincial capitol of Gansu, the province Grady Guoyu is from) where the Chinese adoption will take place

2/18: Receive Grady Guoyu in the morning in our hotel and sign Guardianship agreement. Hooray!!!! :) There will be other forms to fill out and in the afternoon, we will go have our family's Registration photograph taken.

2/19: Go to the Registration office and finalize the adoption. Whoohoo!!! :)

2/20-2/22: More paperwork to be completed, some free time, and some optional tours. We'll just see how things are going.

2/23: Fly to Guangzhou (formally Canton). The consulate in Guangzhou is where all the American visas for the adopted Chinese children are processed.

2/24: Free day

2/25: Grady Guoyu's physical exam and visa photo.

2/26: Consulate appointment. We don't have to even go. We had to have this scheduled before we could buy our tickets, but our agency rep. will just deliver our paperwork to this appointment for us.

2/27: Go to the consulate in the afternoon to take oath and receive Grady Guoyu's visa.

2/28: Fly home! Guangzhou to Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Denver. Whoo!!

I don't think we'll be posting again until we're in China!! So, to all friends staying at home, please check this blog for updates and pictures while we're gone! (I'm trying to post this post via email so we'll see if that works!) To my online friends from the Yahoo adoption groups, I hope to meet some of you in Beijing or Guangzhou! Yay!!!! We're going back to China, and this time we're coming home with a son!!

Also, for those of you that are praying types, we would appreciate prayers for an easy transition of Grady Guoyu into our family, that our trip would go as planned, and that Ryan, Jonah, and I would have the patience needed for this trip/ adding a new person to our family! Thanks!

-Katie