name, papers, school

Caleb update: Ping Ping. That's what our Caleb is called in China. His full name is Ji Ru Ping. Before we had officially decided on Caleb for his new name, we called him Ji Ru for several weeks. But as time went on and I read more and more about Chinese names, I discovered that the first part of their name is actually the family name or similar to our last name in America. I noticed, too, that many Chinese children are called by the last part of their name and that it is often "doubled". We are in the process of determining what we'll use as Caleb's middle name right now. I really wanted to find out which name they call him. As it turns out, a few weeks ago, I "met" a fellow adoptive mom from Sweden who was getting ready to travel to Chengdu to adopt her son. She is part of the Chengdu yahoo group I'm in. She just emailed us today and said that she asked about Caleb and they do call him Ping Ping. She also said she took three photos of him and will email them to us as soon as they get home! So, I'm leaning toward Ping for his middle name since that is the only name he's ever known. And we'll get a few more photos of him soon!!

Paperwork update: It looks like it may be next week before we get our i800 approval. As has been the story of this whole paperwork process...more delays and small glitches end up costing us a week here and a week there. The updated form that was guaranteed to be there by noon yesterday didn't arrive until after 3:00p.m. yesterday and as of this morning, the nice cis lady still didn't have it on her desk. I think she has it now. However, the letterhead that was wrong now has another problem and yet another revised letter is being sent today. It is supposed to be there tomorrow, but may not make it to the cis lady until Friday. As soon as that arrives, we'll get our official approval. Then we have to wait for the approval to go through the mail and get to our house. That puts us at next week. As soon as we get it, we fax our approval to our agency and they send it to China for our Travel Approval! That's the plan, anyway...

In the meantime, life goes on here as usual.

We all have spring fever and are ready to be done with school things.

The kids are done with most of their subjects which makes the next few weeks pretty easy for them...and for me. I'm already starting to make plans for school in the fall. I love new beginnings. I just love planning and organizing! Now, following through on those lofty plans? That's called work and that isn't nearly as fun. So I'm enjoying this season of being (almost) done with school and looking forward to next year.

And I just had to post this picture because it is one of my all time favorites now and I just crack up laughing every time I look at it...

No, he's not afraid of the grilled cheese sandwich. He was just about to make a funny face and I snapped this photo before he got his pose right. No one else here thinks it is as funny as I do. I just can NOT stop laughing!!! And I need to be laughing more these days.