Meet Kino, our Year of the Dog mascot

Ren was born in 2006, the Year of the Dog. Coincidentally, Ren's future godparents Kelley and Paul have a beautiful Alaskan Malamute who was also born in the year of the dog. In honour of Ren's year of birth and his future godparents, we asked them if we could use Kino's image in some of Ren's room decorations.

We were totally blown away by the beautiful pictures they sent us of Kino to use in the decorating! He is a gorgeous dog, and Kelley and Paul take amazing photos of him. Here are a couple of beautiful shots:

I mulled over several ways to use Kino's image but finally settled on this, a canvas print, with a 'painted' effect to the photo:
My friend Marianne had the great idea to embellish the 'painting' with a ribbon resembling a collar or leash and a little doggie name tag:

I'm really happy with how this turned out. The red really picks up the red in Ren's quilt, too. I just hope Ren's not afraid of dogs!

Claire was born in the Year of the Dog as well. It is said that peope born in the Year of the Dog have the best traits of human nature. They make good leaders and are honest, intelligent, straightforward, loyal, friendly, and affectionate. I think Claire definitely has many of these qualities. I can't wait to see how well these descriptions fit Ren. Best of all? Dogs are compatible with those born in the Year of the Tiger - which I was!

We have Travel Approval!

This is our Notice of Travelling to China for Adoption (also known as Travel Approval) to adopt Ren. We need to present one of our two copies to the officials in China in order to adopt Ren.

We now have only 23 more sleeps until we leave for China, and 27 more sleeps until we receive Ren. We'll be there soon, little one!

Claire is ready for China

One month until we hold Ren!

In exactly one month, we will receive our little boy. I know this month will fly by and for that, I am grateful. As much as I have enjoyed being a family of three, I know we are meant to be a family of four. Soon, we will be complete.

A friend of ours ordered some beautiful magnets from a seller on Etsy before Christmas and I decided to get Paul some stocking stuffers from the same seller. These paperweights showing our children's birth places were my favourite purchase. I loved them so much I recently ordered a set for myself!

Here is the paperweight of Ren's birth province and city (Zhuhai in Guangdong):

And here is Claire's, of Xinyu in Jiangxi: Gail (the seller) sells many other beautiful items, including pendants featuring the word 'mother', 'father', 'love' etc. in various languages such as Chinese, Amharic, Korean, and Russian. It's a great place for adoption gifts. Here's her address in case you want to do a bit of shopping! http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6124520

At this very moment, Claire is napping and I'm washing Ren's clothes. I never thought I'd enjoy doing laundry this much! Actually, I really enjoyed getting Claire's clothing organized too before we received her. It's so much fun to visualize our little ones in clothes we've specially picked for them. I'm trying not to overdo it in the clothes department this time, though. I really went nuts for Claire and now I'm faced with a ton of clothes I'm too attached to to sell or even pass on to others yet. Sheesh. I'm sure Paul is not thrilled with how our storage space is expanding with all the too-small clothes and how it's encroaching on his wine-making area! Oh, the dryer just beeped so I better go fold some clothes. Yay! (I really mean that!)

Ren's quilt

It may be a while before we have a bed set up for Ren so without further delay, here is Ren's cozy quilt by his Grandma K!

I think it'll make Ren's room look super-happy with all its bright colours. Best of all, it's incredibly snuggly. My mom and I think Ren will have lots of fun identifying the colours of the cars and wheels. I hope he loves it as much as I do!

Waiting

Doesn't it look like Claire is patiently waiting for her little brother? We leave for China in exactly one month, and I am not as patient as my little girl!

It feels like we're finally close to being ready for Ren (well, sort of!) and it's a great feeling. Paul and his dad put in all the flooring this past weekend, except for in the spare bedroom and the stairs (two areas I would feel comfortable putting off for several months). Our little office is nicely filling up with shelves and our stuff. I'm happy because I've actually been able to take the time to organize it instead of piling things in hurriedly. We still need to move the computer in there but that'll happen in the next couple of weeks. Baseboards and moulding will happen whenever; I'd rather see Paul have some down time before China than have those done.

Ren's quilt is here and it is gorgeous! I'll post pics soon but would like to have it on his bed for those pics. Unfortunately, I keep changing my mind about the bed frame I want to buy so who knows when that'll happen. Oh yeah, sometime in the next month for sure!

I also finished Claire's toddler lifebook last night and arranged to have it printed (I did it in digital format). I had started it several months ago but didn't want to finish it until I received her history report from China Babies. We received that report on Christmas Eve and I therefore thought I'd better finish it ASAP; I knew I probably wouldn't have the chance once Ren comes. The lifebook's not perfect - I could have worked on some pages more to get it looking just right - but I decided to let go of the perfectionism so that I'd at least get it done. Claire seems to be quite interested in talking about adoption and related topics right now and it seems like the perfect time for her to have this book.

Hmmmm ... what else have we been up to? Well, today Claire and I enjoyed the gorgeous weather we're having by taking a little trip to the zoo. That's where I took the above photo. Every time we go outside, she eats snow so I also have a lot of those pics. I have to watch her so closely or she'll pick up snow that is dirty from people walking on it. What a crazy little nut. I can't wait to know what Ren's personality will be like. Thankfully, it won't be long now!

Offline for awhile

Paul's parents are coming up tonight to stay for a few days. Tomorrow, stage 2 of our reno kicks into high gear and I will not have internet access for a few days.

Claire is beyond excited that her Baba and Dido are coming to visit! That's all she has been talking about all day. I am excited to see them too, excited about the work that will be done soon, and excited about something they are bringing with them: Ren's quilt! My mom finished it on Tuesday night (8 days of work in total, morning to night, pretty much). I'll post pics of our weekend and the quilt when I'm back online, early next week hopefully.

Have a great weekend everyone!

One snow angel, and another on his way

Ren lives in Southern China, where today it was in the mid to high teens. He has never seen snow. But I have a feeling he'll be a snow angel, just like Claire. Don't all kids love snow?

Today, we had the nicest day in several weeks. It had been ages since we'd been outside to play due to the cold, so out we went as soon as we could this morning. I know this is Ren's blog, but I have to post a few pics of his older sis enjoying the snow.

We booked our flights on Wednesday. It felt so amazing to do that! It finally feels real that we will have our Ren soon. We are flying to Hong Kong on Feb.19, arriving there on Feb.20 and staying until Feb.22 when we'll take a train to Guangzhou. We'll be departing Beijing for Canada on March 6. This is a day later than the scheduled departure date but this allows for a much better connecting flight in Canada.

I spoke to my mom this morning and no surprise, Ren's quilt is already on the quilting rack or frame or whatever you call it! That means the quilted top piece is already done and now she is stitching the front, filling and backing together. Pretty amazing, considering she only began it on Monday! That said, she did study the pattern very closely when she was here because she knew she'd had to adjust the size of it from basically a baby quilt to a twin-size bed quilt. Plus, she puts in major time - anywhere from 7-10 hours a day. Mom is always surprised by how fast she motors through a project but we, her family, never are. We all know it's her obsession!

Our little reno is also coming along nicely. Paul painted the little office space and put the cork flooring in over Christmas (just in that room) and in the last week, we've put in almost all of the shelving. And yes, I've filled most of it already. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get the rest of the shelves in and then I can really go to town emptying out Ren's room. We still have a fair amount of work to do in the basement before we can / should move on to working on Ren's room, but I think it'll all get done in time. I say this now ... let's see what I post in the next few weeks!

Planning

Things are moving so fast here! We only just received our LSC on Monday morning. By late afternoon, we learned we will receive Ren on February 23!

I expect that we'll book our flights later today. The usual route is to fly to Beijing, then to the child's home province, back to Beijing and then home again. Paul and I have decided we'll go to Hong Kong first for a couple of nights, and then do the quick flight over to Guangzhou in Guangdong where we will receive Ren.

And what shall we do in Hong Kong? So far, the plan is to tour a very important architectural and historical wonder ... Disneyland! That's right, Disneyland opened in Hong Kong not long ago and we decided that would be a special thing for us to do with Claire on our second-last full day alone with her before Ren joins us. (How bittersweet these last days are as a family of three. How Claire's life is going to change ... in a wonderful way ultimately but it may not always feel like that to her.) The tricky part with Disneyland will be to convince Claire that we do NOT need to pack any princess costumes. Thankfully we have a cute Minnie Mouse t-shirt and a headband with mouse ears from our good friend Marianne; that'll pack much better than a flouncy gown!

Yet another piece of great news is that we will be travelling in China with good friends Carolyn and Marvin! We met them on our first journey to China for Claire and learned about a year ago that our girls - Claire and Kennedy - were actually fostered with the same family. Such a connection we have with their family already and now this. Their beautiful daughter, Jaida, is also in Guangdong so we will be travelling with them from Guangdong on. I am so thrilled that we will reunite with them in China - the best possible place for a reunion - and that we will have their companionship and support once again.

Our letter has arrived!

Today, day 97 of our wait, we got the fateful call from Faith at Alberta Children's Services: our Letter Seeking Confirmation had arrived! Claire and I dashed downtown - missing Paul by only a few minutes - so that I could sign the letter. Faith told me that Paul had the sense to read the letter before he signed; for the first time in my life, I didn't read something before I put my signature to it! Thankfully, when I came to my senses and actually read the letter, everything was in order.

We also got updated measurements of Ren. He's approximately 32 lbs and 35 inches tall. His feet are 15.5 cm long.

I'm waiting to chat with our coordinator to get an idea of when we might travel. It's possible it could be in mid to late February so that's what I'm hoping for! In any event, it won't be long now. Yahoo!

By the way, I love that this happened on the 5th of the month. It seems to be a very lucky day on our adoption path:

- we were logged in for Claire on September 5 (2005);

- we met Claire on February 5 (2007);

- we were logged in for Ren on March 5 (2008); and

- we received our LSC - today, yahoo! - on January 5.

Happy New Year!

2009 is bound to be a good year - it's the year we will meet Ren and officially become his forever family! Happy New Year to all our friends and family.

Yesterday we sent off another care package to Ren. This time we sent it on our own (not through our coordinator) so we didn't have a size restriction. Most of the items are for Ren, but we sent a bunch of stickers and sticker albums for the other kids. The candy is for the nannies to have for themselves or to distribute as they wish. The package will arrive for Ren in time for Chinese New Year's (January 26).

We're continuing to enjoy Grandma's company here. Paul is working on the reno, and I've been spending time doing things around the house when I'm not with Claire and Grandma. Grandma is amazed by how much Claire has changed since she saw her last, especially in terms of language. She's talking full, long sentences now, with a few sayings that constantly pop up in our conversations. One of her favourites is, "We match!", which is used in various situations: when they are drinking the same thing, wearing the same colour, etc. It's kind of silly, actually, but very sweet too. It's definitely one of those sayings that we'll always remember. I've got to keep this short to get back to visiting with Mom and Claire, but here are a couple of pictures we took before church today.