Not Devil Horns, but Year of the Ox!

First of all one of my friends that commented on my blog suggested that these might not be devil horns but maybe oxen horns for "The Year of The Ox".  Well I looked up when the year of the Ox was and it was in 2009.  Jilliana would have been 14 months when The Year of The Ox was last celebrated and I believe that this picture is around that age.  So the mystery of the devil horns is solved! Thanks Shelnel!  I think she looks really cute in her Oxen Horns!

Tomorrow we are finally going to get our homestudy update back!  Tomorrow I will send one copy off to the USCIS along with our supplement 3 to extend our previous I800A that we used with Lily.  At the same time I will send another copy, overnighted to my courier in Sacramento.  She will then get the whole dossier certified and send it off to my courier to the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles.  When she gets it back, she will overnight it to me and then I will overnight it to Lifeline, so they can send it to China.  Then we will be officially DTC.  I am hoping to have this accomplished the week of September 27th if all goes well.

I just have to keep looking at her photo to know that all of the paperchase will eventually get us to her.  I feel so lucky to have so many pictures of Jilliana.

This last week we sent a small care package to Jilliana.  Our experience with care packages is that most often our children never received what we sent, except for the pictures of our family.  It can also cause problems in the orphanage, when some kids get them and some don't, so we are trying to keep them low key.  This package has pictures of our family found in the little pink  album and books (I thought these could be shared) a camera for hopefully taking pictures, a letter to the nannies and some hair things, since she loves pretty things for her hair.  We also sent a cake in the hopes to get more pictures.  I also was not sure how the orphanage would take this since I know the previous family sent many care packages and then they did not bring Jilliana home.  Maybe the orphanage would feel that this would not be in her best interest after what happened to her before.  I do know that it was a traumatic thing that happened to her.

This was taken in May.  Isn't she just the sweetest thing.

The other girls are happy to see that she loves to draw.  The girls are so excited about her.  They are including her in almost all of their conversations.  They talk about when Jilliana is here.

Emma wore this dress to Church on Sunday and when she got home she ran upstairs to put the white shirt underneath and add the red shoes.  She loves to be Dorothy!

Reading her Bible Story book.

Lily and Meilynn helping Daddy wash the car.

Not sure about Lily's technique, but they had fun!

On Saturday soccer started.  Emma scored two goals and was just a little tornado on the field.  Quite different from last year when she just stood in the middle the whole season.

Lily's first day of soccer.  She had a great time and is learning the game.

Dressed for school (homeschool)

Emma and Meilynn were supposed to wear their favorite color.  Can you tell what Emma's is?

How about Meilynn?

More wildlife at our house.  This is the second hummingbird we have had fly in and not be able to get out.  It is so sad to see them trying to get out the window.  Mike finally got it out.

Here he is getting the little bird out.  He had to use a little net the girls had for catching butterflies taped on the end of the lightbulb changer.