Toddler Shower, Preparing to Meet the Birthmother and other random stuff

Couldn't help but post this picture that Billi drew while we Skyped together last week! Its a picture of the four of us!!

My friend Stacey along with some help from my other peeps Claudia and Robyn threw me an awesome "toddler shower" - it was a great success, we had tons of fun and got such amazing gifts from everyone - we are very lucky people. Billi now has so many clothes and shoes - I am assuming she is the size of a big three year old, but it is just so hard to say, so we have many sizes of 3 and 4.

My family in Nor Cal has asked what I still need, but I have so much stuff now - I think it will just be exciting enough going to P town so Billi can meet all her extended family!

We were also just told that the birthmother wants to meet us. While Chad and I are both very nervous about this, I am really relieved that she decided to meet us - I think it will be very important for Billi to know that we met her. We will also take pictures with her...these will be priceless as well. Gotcha Day is December 1st - we will make sure to post on that day as I know everyone is anxious to hear about the big day. We have been told that we might not be able to do a play date with Billi the day before Gotcha Day as it is a long trip to make for the foster family and they would also have to house the social worker, so we'll see what happens. It would be great to see her before to help with the transition, but I also understand the logistics.

We have been so busy preparing for our trip and buying gifts for foster family, birthmother, etc. I think we have all the gifts taken care of which is a huge relief. Our friend Susanna not only helped us with learning some Mandarin words and phrases, she is also translating the letters I wrote to the birthmother and the foster mother. Susanna is from Taiwan, so she also gave us an emergency number for a family member while we're there! We leave on Wednesday (wow) so these last few days, I will be running around doing last minute errands, packing and getting everyone lined up to help with the house, dogs, plants, lizard, etc. - thanks to everyone in advance! We'll be posting along the journey, so stay tuned!