Our "Lily Bird's" Full Name........

Jack & I have decided upon Lily's middle name:



Hope is the thing with feathers that Perches in the Soul
and Sings the Tune Without Words
and Never Stops
at all.
...Emily Dickenson


Without hope in this mommy's heart, she never would have made it through this extremely hard experience in her life. She foolishly thought the pregnancy in her heart would be easier than Paige's pregnancy under her heart. But with hope in her soul, God in her life, Jack's help & her sweet baby girl, Paige, she was able to survive the last 4 & 1/2 years.


So ladies & gentlemen, our new daughter's full name is


Lily Hope Adler

......has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

I Think Paige Is Turning Japanese! I Really Think So!

here she is with her new hair do, styled after a Japanese Geisha Girl! Looks good huh?

I am a very talented hair stylist in Japan, you didn't know that about me did you? :)

The Side View.......

The Front View

and a very short video of Paige's Japanese language comprehension thus far :)

have I mentioned how much I love my kiddo?

a momentary blog break from our china adoption & our now 5 year old!, daughter paige:

My very precocious 4 year old niece, Miss Claudia, no she's not Hannah Montana; is getting ready for a vacation with her family to California.

You know how you never really "know" what a child thinks in their brain? For example, Paige who spoke to her Aunt Thel the other night, (Aunt Thel lives in Tampa, Paige lives in Orlando for those of you new to my blog- a little back info) so Paige says after hanging up the phone, "The next time I go to visit Aunt Thel do I need my passport? Because Tampa is in another state, you know Mom!" Can you tell Paige's parents are gearing up for a trip to China? There is MUCHO talk about passports, visas to China, etc. etc. etc.

Ok, so back to my precocious niece, Miss Claudia who is getting ready for her vacation to California, she says to my sister, "Mommy, I need to pack my jewels!" (she is obsessed with her plastic beaded jewelry) "And we should see Miley Cyrus' house while we are in California!"

Ummmmmmmm, yup! Claudia so very much "gets" her upcoming vacation to California! Get your Aunt Catherine an autograph while you are there & some Harry Winston jewels while you are at it! Love you kiddo!

We Had Someone Better Than Santa At Our House Today!

The FedEx Man! In his delivery TWO new pictures of our Lily! Sorry Santa, but that's hard to top!

I just cannot wait to kiss that sweet head.....

.......and rock her to sleep......

P.S. Santa: thank you for making all my wishes come true :)

Some More Pictures From Our Lily Day Yesterday!

We get the call from our agency, we can go to their office & see Lily's face!

Family of 3 about to turn in to 4!

1st Family Photo of 4!

A sight I never thought my eyes would see, my two baby girls!

And after more mountains of paperwork, it only gets better from here!

Meet Our Daughter........

Our Lily

........this moment is worth every minute of our 45 month wait :)

she is 10 months old

birthday february 26, 2009

waiting for us: GaozHou City Social Welfare Institute, Guangdong Province

her favorite toy are toys that make sound, she is a deep sleeper :), and is closest to care taker......

we hope to leave in 4 weeks or 7 weeks to travel around the Chinese New Year......WE ARE READY TO GO TOMORROW!

We Have Received Our Call, Today Is THE Day!

and we will wait no more, today our red thread brings our Lily to us.........we're off to the agency, we shall return with a picture to share!

We've Got A Feeling About Tomorrow.......

.......that the stork just may be flying tonight! this V-E-R-Y night! Fingers crossed and many prayers being said.......stay tuned!

Ummmmmmmm....Rumor Queen Post Tonight...

All I can say on this Christmas Eve is Thank You Santa & Thank You God......

Paige & I just got back from lighting candles & saying prayers for Lily at our local Shrine, and I get back to this post on the Rumor Queen website (for those that do not know Rumor Queen, it is a website that is like the bible for waiting parents who are adopting from China, she posts daily about what rumors are being said in the world about waittimes, the special needs program, travel approvals coming through, EVERYTHING) and this is her post tonight:

December 24th, 2009

"An agency has posted that the CCAA’s internal box has changed to show matches through April 3rd.

Usually we get a lot of agencies reporting this when it happens… but with today being Christmas Eve? We may not see agencies confirming it until Monday.

I’ve been peaking in occasionally this morning, but our out of town family will begin arriving soon and then I won’t be able to check in as often.

With only one agency saying it, it’s hard to give it an R rating. It is definitely not an R4 or R5 until we get more agencies saying it, though.

If the cut off is the 3rd, that would be very disappointing (unless you happen to be included, of course). Here are the projections. I really don’t want to have to make a smaller column."

WE ARE AN APRIL 3rd FAMILY!!!!!!!!! It appears our time is edging closer, and closer.......what an amazing Christmas Gift!

I am SOOOO happy to post this!

"Welcome to Child Referral

Traditional Program Child Referral

April 2006 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6

CCAI's LID - 4/03/2006 4/04/2006 4/05/2006 4/06/2006 4/12/2006 4/17/2006 4/20/2006 4/24/2006 4/25/2006 4/29/2006

12/23/2009 Working On The Next Set Of Matches We believe the CCAA is currently working on the next set of matches. We do not know the cutoff date on the next set of matches at this time. We will update this website as soon as more information becomes available. We wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season!" CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! Right now in China our Lily may already to MATCHED to our family! As Jack always says, "We're Adlers! We're FIRST!" So with that theory Lily's filed has probably already been matched to our family's file! I knew there was more than one reason I loved Jack! Santa, do you think you have room for our match in your sleigh tonight??!!

During Our Being "Next" Time........

There have been sharing ice pops & lolly pops with daddy.........

passing a little bit of boredom.......

.......and definately ALOT of silliness while waiting!

Oh Lily just you wait until you meet your family

and

discover how silly we are

and

how much we already love you!

Next!

China has matched up until March 31, 2006! Which means WE ARE NEXT when the next set of referrals come through. It will be a long month or more!

This set of referrals arrived December 2, 2009. We have at least 18 to 52 days until receiving Lily's referral--after waiting 44 months, now that we are down to days, I can handle that!

Paige & Her Imaginary Cousins In Action! #4

Last video/post! just gotta love my kiddo!

Paige & Her Imaginary Cousins In Action! #3

Video/post #3 continued in "imaginary cousin" video series!

one more to follow! :)

Imaginary Cousin, Video #2

........this one is continued from the video/post below so scroll down to see it.

.....more to follow my people!

Paige & Her Imaginary Cousins In Action!

So Paige played "Super Model!" today, she was trying on her holiday 2009 & going to meet Santa outfit today and needless to say her reaction to it was "LOVE IT MOMMY!"

Then, she started talking about her "imaginary cousins" which infiltrate our house regularly these days.........and I got it on video, there are a couple of videos so I will post more in different posts here, stay tuned for more "Paige Moments" and tell me if you think she needs counseling! :)

P.S: our phone started ringing in the end of this video, so it is NOT your phone ringing!

Paige Is Now Taking Musical Theater & Loving It!

Yes, my little ballerina has decided this year, she would rather take Musical Theater! So we hung up the leotard & tights and put on Paige's rather "outgoing personality" and love of putting on shows and sent her to Musical Theater!

Here she is right before her 1st class, as you can see by the video she was a little excited to say the least!

FINALLY Some Good News On The Adoption Front For A Change!

It seems I only have negative things to post about Lily's adoption, so I am THRILLED to finally have some positive news to put out there in the blogsphere!

Tonight we received an email from our agency letting us know that our pre-placement packet was ready to be downloaded from our agency's website for adoptive parents!

Believe it or not this is the LAST packet we will receive from our agency BEFORE we receive Lily's referral.........after 42 months of officially waiting & thinking many times this just isn't going to happen, we have finally received our preplacement packet! this is good news! It proves we are 1 to 2 months from receiving referral!

Fly China Center of Adoption Affairs stork, FLY! FLY! FLY!

The best part of this blog post, is this little gem:

Paige, the sweetest, funniest, smartest gift from God (thank you God!), handed me this picture she made for me. "This picture is Lily finally coming home to our house."

She is bald in the picture because I have told her numerous times that Lily may have a shaved head when we bring her home. She keeps saying, Lily will have cute pony tails and I don't want her to be disappointed. She is clearly listening to me!

She handed me this picture less than 30 minutes before I received the email telling us of our preplacement packet........I think God is clearly talking to my girl, don't you!?

Thank God For Madonna!

......and her song with Justin Timberlake (love him!) 4 Minutes.........

Paige LOVES this song and so do I, so no complaints from me!  The less Barney, Wiggles, and Playhouse Disney playing in my car the better :)

So this morning we are grooving and dancing our brains out on the way to preschool, we pull up to the drop off spot at her preschool, a teacher's assistant opens the car door, and for the 1st time ever in Paige's school career.......she CRIES and wails, "I want to go home Mommy!"

All of the other teacher assistants & the school's director, looked shocked and start whispering.....Paige is the kid who bounds out of the car, tells anyone who will listen what she had for breakfast and that she likes their shoes today......so this was a different Paige, one they had not seen.....yet!

I pull the car out of the drop off lane, and talk to my kiddo.........what's wrong, why do you want to go home?, are you scared of something?, tell me the truth.....Now there was a large part of me, that wanted to pull out of that school lot, take my babe home and make snacks and watch movies all day with her :)

Finally, she says, I need to hear Madonna one more time.......and so 4 Minutes is cued up on my ipod and we sing and dance without the constraints of a seatbelt & car seat harness.  And oh we danced!  I can imagine what the teachers thought.......We drove around to the drop off spot again, teacher's assistant asked if she was ready now, Paige responds, "Yes!  I just needed to dance with Mommy to my favorite Madonna song again!"

that a girl, miss Paige!

I am working on a Madonna playlist for my ipod for Paige, care to share your favorite Madonna song that you think should be included?  Leave it in the comments section of the blog!

Channeling Ray Charles' Spirit.....

From beyond...........

My Grandpa would be so proud!  He was a huge harmonica player!

This just tickles my pickle!