Artwork Adventure

Another fundraiser is now underway! Chestnut Hill Cafe was so gracious to allow me to hang up my artwork for the month of July! Gulp. Yes, I'm showcasing my artwork. It has never been easy for me to display my art. It's very personal, but thanks to Ted and my family for always encouraging me! This time it does't have anything to do with how I feel. It's all about raising money for our little girl, Riley! All proceeds of the sales will go towards adoption. 80% will go towards our China adoption expenses, and 20% will be donated to olo, which is an organization raising money for families adopting from Africa and started by two wonderful gals right here in Lancaster.

532 West Chestnut Street, Lancaster

I love this place! Lots of good memories here for us...and awesome coffee!

Look! They listed MY name! Pretty cool.

Here are the hours so you can plan your visit this month!

I'm selling prints of the paintings I did while we lived in Maine. Good times!

Bass Harbor Light House, Maine - We only lived about 3 miles away from here on Mount Desert Island! Oh, I miss it!

This is my new and FAVORITE "doodle" art work. If I could find time to do it everyday, I sure would! It's so much fun. I use pen and ink, and then color pencil. This has some bling, but it's hard to see in the photo. 

Here's another one. All of my doodle art work has a saying or a word to inspire!

Kai-Lan's DVD

Nick's new favorite DVD!

I gave this DVD to Nick on Monday, and this is now the 4th time he's watched it! It was the first thing he asks for when I walk in the door. Last night he picked up the DVD case and lovingly said, "You're so cute and adorable! Don't worry, we're soon coming to China." Awwww... what a great big brother he will be!

Family Portrait

Family Portrait by Nicholas Edwards

I came home and caught Nick drawing our family. The one to the right is his sister. I sort of distracted him from his master piece. I can't tell if that's Ted's nose or mouth?! :-)

Waiting on Article 5

Waiting for our Article 5 to be completed in China, which should be done by July 4th! THEN finally it's sent to CCCWA (China's Adoption Headquarters) to have our Travel Approved!

Passports are home!

Sigh of relief! Our passports arrived back home safe and sound with our brand new China Visas!

All Around The World Cook Book

We're starting our All Around The World Cook Book! Our goal is to collect 150 recipes (or more!) and we'll print a professional cookbook through www.morriscookbooks.com. and sell for $12.00 each. We'll need to pay or the printing, but the rest will ALL go towards our very expensive airfare.

Follow these very simple directions to enter your favorite recipes...
www.typensave.com
User name: EdwardsAdoption
Password: potato785

Thanks so much for your support!

Visiting Family

Ted, Nick and myself escape for a much needed relaxing weekend with family. Nothing like fresh, mountain air, good food, and terrific company! Thanks for the hospitality and much needed laughter Mom, Dad and Aunt Ashley!

We took some photos of ourselves so we can put them in an album for Riley and mail them to China.

Super Grandpa!

Funny Grandpa!

Ashley's homemade moon sand.

Ahhhh...relaxing.

Memories.

Weee....fun!

Beautiful fog hanging around in the valley.

Someone's favorite dessert!

Yes, these ARE that huge!

Waiting on Grant Reply & Raising Money

Always more waiting. We applied for several grants to assist us with the extremely high costs of airfare. We should hear about one of them on June 15th. Thinking happy thoughts!

We received a lot of donations of items to sell on Craigslist from friends and family. It's a lot of work, but we hope it'll be a wonderful way to add some cash to our airfare fund. Thanks for the thoughtful donations! It's so appreciated.

Here's a few items we've posted...
http://lancaster.craigslist.org/bab/3076071365.html
http://lancaster.craigslist.org/clo/3076086958.html
http://lancaster.craigslist.org/cld/3076099566.html
http://lancaster.craigslist.org/bab/3076119081.html

Watch for other items! I hope to list more tonight or tomorrow. Thanks!

Yard Sale Score!

I could not believe the totally adorable little girl outfits that were scored at the yard sales this last weekend! I have to admit, girls' clothing is SO CUTE! I had to share with you...

Immigration Email

Well, no letter has arrived. :-( I guess I should explain. It was driving me bananas worrying about our approval letter's arrival was and wondering if it was lost in the mail, so I could not bare it any longer and decided to email the USCIS NBC Hague Unit, a.k.a. Immigration. I explained my concern, and asked if they could let me know when our Approval letter was mailed out? I can only imagine how many emails they must get from anxious and concerned adoptive parents.

ALL of my previous correspondence with Immigration has ALL come within the listed time frame, in fact, most items came EARLY! Plus, there was Memorial Day holiday thrown in that timeline as well, which I'm sure involved officers going on vacation etc. STILL, I worried. Hey, this is about MY CHILD! Right? One day delay is one day away from our daughter.

Friday night after grocery shopping and our exciting adventure of Fire Fly hunting at a near-by park, I came home and checked our email as usual. To my surprise I received a reply from our Immigrations Service Officer that is assigned to our case...all is well!!! Our letter should arrive within 5 to 7 business days! Yippee! Can you hear my sigh of relief? BIG smile!

NEXT STEP? Applying for our Visas in a week or two....

Hello Mail - Where are you?!

Waiting, waiting, and more waiting...you'd think I'd be used to it by now. Nope. Still hard to wait. What are we waiting for now (besides Riley)? We're waiting for our I-800 Provisional Approval, which should be here any day. Of course, now that I'm running to catch the mail everyday, it's not there. Ugh.

Now each step we take is a HUGE step! All those little steps are long gone. It was like are training for the big game. We're nervous and excited at the same time, and we really don't want to mess up anything. We're doing everything just like our coach told us to do. You should see my notes and my binders with pocket protectors...here's a photos of our YEARS of prep work...or training for the big, jumbo documents telling us to come on over and get your baby girl!

I'm working on the travel binder soon to be added to the pile!

Raising Money

Our China Benefit Yard Sale - Sat., June 2nd

Here we are catching a quick break between crowds with some great little helpers, Laurel, Bella, and Nick. It rained like cats and dogs the night before, but Saturday was a beautiful, breezy day with big, puffy clouds. Thanks for all the terrific support from friends, family and even from folks I've never met! It meant so much to us all!

Next yard sale? Maybe...hopefully...July.

New Update on our Riley!

We found out that her palate was repaired...by a doctor who lives only 45 minutes away from us! Amazing, isn't it? (Oops, just found out that the Doctor is TWO hours away from us, but hey, China to Pennsylvania?! Still totally amazing!)

She looks sooooo beautiful!

Gezzz, I can't wait to wrap my arms around her.

Wonder what she did that day the photo was taken? Really looks like she's holding a DVD case, doesn't it?

I've been prepping and preparing with what seems to be ENDLESS paperwork on top of raising money for our outrageous airfare to China. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining...just explaining. I can't wait to do the FUN stuff like blogging about my beautiful new daughter! My goal is to slow down (as much as I can anyway) and start posting about our daughter....I need to do this for my own well-being. I've been so focused on paperwork, and not letting the joy of the coming adoption actually soak in, so I promise you'll be hearing more from me about our Edwards Crew! It's an adventure of a lifetime.