mugsyboo

Sometime I Shop on Etsy Too

As soon as we sent in LOI for Frances, I knew I wanted to get a piece of jewelry with her name on it so I could have her close to me as we wait.  I searched on my favorite place to shop, Etsy and found just what I was looking for at a shop called Gracie & Me Design.

I just have to share that the shop owner Barbara was so nice and so sweet, she really went above and beyond and offered me so many different options so I could put together exactly what I wanted.  Having an Etsy shop myself, I know how important word of mouth is so I just wanted to share that if you are looking for a piece of jewelry as a keepsake of your little one, you should check her out.  The necklace has her Chinese name, dob, the symbol for love, and her birthstone.  Once we are home I am going to add another charm with her gotcha day on it.

This last weekend I took the necklace off and set it on the edge of the sink in the bathroom and as soon as I did the chain and birthstone charm slipped off and slid down the drain...it happened in the blink of an eye :(  Luckily the handy husband worked some kind of man magic and retrieved them for me and once again my necklace is intact but never again will I put it on the edge of the sink!

Day Trip

So our favorite t.v. show around here is American Pickers...

We both find it fascinating to watch Mike & Frank digging through people's stuff in their houses and outbuildings and they meet some pretty eccentric characters along the way...really it just comes down to the junk, I love junk!  A couple of weeks ago we were going a little stir crazy and decided to make the trip to LeClaire Iowa to go to Mike's store Antique Archaeology, it's only a little over 2 hours from where we live and we have been meaning to go for a while.  Just so you know, there's not very much to look at between Crystal Lake, Illinois and LeClaire...we took the back roads and were hoping to see something of interest but it was pretty barren.  We finally got to LeClaire and found the store tucked up in an alley, it was pretty easy to find, just follow the traffic jam of tourists!  

it was kind of cool to see some of the stuff we recognized from some of the episodes...hey look it's the big boot they picked from Johnny Walker :)

and the Philip Morris guy!

...and the Laurel & Hardy masks.

All in all it was a fun day and worth the trip...plus we got fried cheese curds, no day is a bad day when there is fried cheese involved :)

 

 

Bai Jia Bei

While we are waiting for Frances to come home, I would like to make a Bai Jia Bei or 100 Good Wishes Quilt....in Mandarin it means "100 family quilt".  This tradition originated in Northern China and involves asking family and friends for a 2 pieces of fabric and a wish for the baby.  One piece of fabric becomes part of a quilt and the other piece plus a wish goes in a memory book.  The quilt contains luck, energy, and good wishes from everyone who contributed to it and will be passed down from generation to generation.  I figured while we wait for LOA this would be a perfect time to start, plus the retail therapy has to stop LOL!!

While looking for examples on the interwebz, I found some there were quite detailed and far surpassed by sewing abilities!  I am hoping to make a simple block quilt similar to one of these...

I would love to gather as many wishes (pieces of fabric) as possible to make a quilt for Frances so if you would like to contribute, here is what I would need from you:

1.  1 8" x 8" square of pre-washed 100% cotton fabric to be used in the quilt.

2.  A second 2" x 2" piece of fabric attached to an index card or piece of cardstock or in a card, whatever you would like.  On the card please include a wish, or poem, or message or special song lyric...you decide!  These will all be compiled in an album for her so and the fabric swatches will let her know which quilt square you contributed.  This post and this blog have some great examples of what that can look like.

3.  Mail the above items to me. If you need my address, email me at wishesforfrances@gmail.com

Dyed Doilies

So after spending hours on Pinterest pinning tons of pretty pictures and great crafty ideas, I figured it was high time I gave one of those crafty ideas a go!  I used this tutorial to make some dyed doilies.  I think I use paper doilies on every LO that I do so the idea of having some in pretty colors intrigued me enough to put food coloring on my shopping list this week.  It was super easy to do this and super fast...I got a little heavy handed with the coloring but I still love how they turned out...

...and of course I had to use one on a LO :)

Scrapping Frances

When we got our referral for Frances there were 3 pictures included...they must have all been taken the same day as she is wearing (or should I say is bundled up!) in the same coat and pants with lots of layers. That's one of the reasons we aren't sure if the measurements we have for her are accurate as they were probably taken with her all bundled up.  We have these pictures framed and all over our house and we both have them in our offices at work and of course they are the wallpaper on our phones!  Yesterday I finally got around to scrapping one of them for her album, I was kind of intimidated to start scrapping her pictures as I wanted to make sure I did her sweet little face justice  This is the picture that was with her profile information...

I so hope there is a way for us to get updated pics of her before we travel.  We aren't sure when these were taken and would love to have some updated pics of her to see how she is doing.  There is a service that will do what is called an orphanage call where they will get updated info for us and they are often successful in getting new pictures too, we will probably wait until we have LOA to do this.  Until then we will keep gazing at the pics. that we have :)

Another shop update

A week off from work means I have had the time to update my Etsy shop twice this week :)

I just *love* that chevron stripe afghan, I have had it for a while debating if I should keep it or put it in the shop, the shop won so I hope someone gets it who loves it as much as I do!  

Where do we go from here....

One would think that once you were matched and had received pre-approval from China, being able to travel would be right around the corner.  Well think again, we still have the following things to get through:

LOA or Letter Seeking Confirmation-this is our final approval from China. This is what we are waiting for right now.  Our dossier will be translated and gone through thoroughly. This step can take anywhere from 30-100 days. Our PA should have only taken about a week but instead it took 46 days, we don't know if that put us way behind or if any progress was made during that time. Our coordinator did say our dossier was showing as "in review" at one point when we were waiting for our PA so maybe we aren't too far behind. It's anyone's guess and we just have to sit tight and wait.  Ugh this is the hardest step yet to get through as there is no rhyme or reason as to how LOAs are approved and for whatever reason some of them are taking a really long time right now.

 

I800 Immigration approval, we have previously submitted paperwork to be approved to adopt from China (I800a), this paperwork allows us to adopt a specific child.  This can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks.

NVC Cable- the National Visa Center will send us letter that has to be sent to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China.  This takes about a week.

Article 5- The Consulate needs to review that our daughter's visa application meets all requirements and then they issue an Article 5 Letter.  This step takes about 2 weeks.

TA-Travel Approval, can take from 2-5 weeks.  When we receive TA we then request a CA (Consulate Appointment) and once that is confirmed we can book our flights.  At that point we may be traveling as soon as 2 weeks after that!

In addition we had to submit a Supplement 3 to our previously approved I800a because Frances is 6 months older than what our homestudy was approved for.  We were re-interviewed by our social worker, completed another 20 hours of on-line parenting classes, and waited for the state of Illinois to approve our new homestudy.  I received our new home study about a week and a half ago and sent it in to USCIS to be approved.  We should have our approval in the next couple of weeks.  No matter how aggravating all of the paperwork may seem right now, I know as soon as we have her it will all seem like a distant memory and every single bit of it will be worthwhile ♥

Here's another snazzy picture of Frances, they certainly do enjoy the props at her orphanage...balloons and sunflowers and benches oh my!  The cuteness, I can't stand it!!

Etsy update

I've sold a few items from my shop recently & today I finally got around to updating it with some of the fun things I have found lately...things like rainbows, and puppies, and landscapes :)

Playroom

Yes we have her bedroom and her playroom done and we are still a few months out from traveling. Have I mentioned I already have a 3 page packing list I have compiled? I know I keep saying it but nervous energy = productivity!!

Since Frances' bedroom is upstairs and is fairly small, we knew that we wanted to create a playroom for her downstairs since that is where we spend most of our time.  Our house is older (1917) and not very large so the only space we had was an extra room we were using as a home office/library.  Since most home office activities were taking place on a laptop on the couch anyway we figured this was a space we could steal. We didn't really have anywhere else to go with our books so they are staying in the playroom, we figure being surrounded by books is a good thing anyway :)  Sorry for the dark-ish pictures, the lighting in this room makes it not the easiest to photograph.

I made the canvases in the vignettes over the book shelves, the bunting is fabric scrap paper and ric-rac mod-podged on canvas.  I added a couple of vintage children's sewing machines that are thrifted.  Once again all of the furniture is from Ikea (Ikea = budget friendly!)

Vintage crocheted runner on Ikea shelves along with vintage globe and painting on the wall.  I have a set of 2 of those paintings I got at the Kane Co. flea market...they don't really match much else that is going on in the room but I thought they were too cool not to use.  I found the little kitchen at Target on mega clearance so I had to get it, right?

Corkboards for all of her future art work :) Bunting is from the same fabric scrap paper as the canvases (Dear Lizzy I think).  The second of the groovy paintings, see they are pretty cool...how can you not love groovy girls with poodles and black cats?  Doll house from Land of Nod (on clearance of course as that is the only way I can afford anything from there!).  We are really happy with how this room turned out, we were a little worried about how we would accommodate all of her toys and stuff, but by having a room to house everything I think it will help to keep our small house from becoming completely cluttered.

Speaking of rooms, here is a LO I did yesterday of her bedroom for her album...

Care Package

As soon as we got our PA our agency let us know that we could put together a care package and they would get it to Frances' orphanage for us.  We could send an album of pictures of us, our home, and of course the pugs and their office in Beijing will put captions in Chinese on the pictures so that her caretakers can let her know who we are.  We also got to send a disposable camera with a note asking them to take pictures of her daily life.  I so hope it gets used and returned to us when we get her as it would be priceless to have these pictures to share with her later.  We also got to include a small stuffed toy which sounds easy enough but we second guessed every toy we found until we decided on Pooh who had just the right amount of snuggliness :) We are hoping she will have all of this in a couple of weeks.

The pugs are starting to figure out that things are about to change around here...Pixie looks a little concerned about what she is hearing!