Working on FuQi's room

This week didn't start very well. I had to leave work with a terrible cold on Tuesday and barely managed to get myself into bed. DH Magnus left for work and I slept and wiped my nose most of the afternoon and evening. Yesterday M moved our home office into the walk-in-closet all by himself and I cheered him from the TV sofa. Today I finally could lift my head from the pillow and we painted the room in 1 ½ hour! It looks really great, just the pale pink colour I had imagined and we put some toys in there to make it more cosy for the moment. Tomorrow we will buy a chest of drawers and then we can put all of her clothes in her new room. We will also organize the bed, a bed to sit on and read or just play in. She will have her crib in our bedroom to start with. My sister and nieces let us have their play stove and a couple of friends brought a rocking horse and a doll stroller. We have tons of stuffed teddies and animals ready but will not put all in her room at once, we don't know how she will react to them.

Today we went shopping for diapers, formula, canned food and such items. Some dishes look really tasty, some don't, but they sound good :) I guess her mom and dad will have to try her food eventually. I'm not sure all of our neighbours know we're adopting but today they must have got it, the diaper pack was huge and it's logo was enormous! "Did you see the couple in no. 3? They brought a couple of diaper packs in from the car, what will they use them for, they don't have any kids!" Yet!! Our kitchen window is facing the street and we can watch all neighbours drive by on their way to work and so on. I guess some of them will crash into our fence once they see our little FuQi at the table. We will keep our camera close by, ready to take a picture...

We haven't started packing yet but we'll have to any day. I bought some Pack-Mates from the Internet and I really hope they will do their job. We plan to take one suitcase each and if we do some heavy shopping in China we'll buy a new bag there. The weather in Beijing seems to be kind of the same weather we have here but Jiangxi is warmer. I'll bring my anorak and some warm sweaters so I can choose how many layers I need. I've heard the Great Wall use to be very windy.

Still waiting for TA but hopefully they will show up soon.

Another weekend

Today's Friday and another weekend is here. DH is working the entire weekend and I plan to do some baking, first batch of saffron buns for the season. Saffron buns are special for Christmas, in Sweden and the Nordic countries at least, and I always bake my first batch around December 1st. I hope they will last until we leave for China (they seem to evaporate in the freezer while I'm at work and DH has a day off). This Christmas will be different in so many ways and I need to keep some of my "old" traditions in the middle of the chaos around us travelling to China to meet our first. There actually is no chaos but we still have a zillion things to do before we go. I'm taking two days off from work next week to be able to catch up in all the paper work that is inquired for the adoption, to finish FuQi's room and to plan what to pack and bring to China.

Yesterday there was a package in the mail for FuQi, it was a soft pink jumpsuit from her paternal grandparents. My mother came to visit last weekend and she brought a cuddly bunny with long rustling ears and a rubber ring to chew on attached to it's back. We will bring it to play with in China. The info we got about her says she likes to ride in her stroller (I hope she will like the "Off-road" stroller "Emmaljunga City Cross"we bought for her), has a ready smile and laughs out loud when being amused. I hope she likes to be cuddled, I can't wait to hug her!

Still waiting for TA but according to preliminary travel plan we will meet her in less than 3 weeks!

One step closer

This Tuesday we received travel info from our agency. Still preliminary travel date but due to the info we got it seems pretty sharp...
Leave Sweden on Dec 11, arrive Beijing on Dec 12, travel to province and meeting our babies already on Dec 13! No spare time in Beijing :) Back to Beijing on Dec 20 where we will visit famous places like the Swedish Embassy, the Great Wall, the
Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and so on. Back home on Dec 27. I guess this Christmas will be something to talk about! I also guess this New Years Eve will be filled with formula bottles and diapers and not so much partying with friends... Hopefully we will not be so jet-lagged for her first birthday on Jan 10.

Home office is almost ready. This weekend my mother will come to visit and there will not be so much time for working on the nursery. DH works for following two weekends and then it's time to travel. Guess we need to find that powerful work light we keep in the garage as we have some painting job to do. Our closest friends let us borrow some clothes for little FuQi. We got a winter zip-suit and some playsuits in a smaller size than we bought ourselves. Last info on her was 68 cm and 7.4 kgs, this was in August, we really hope she's grown a bit. We will probably have to do some shopping when we return home and really know her size.

It's only 3 ½ weeks to travel date and we have a million things to do! Visas will be ready on Monday and we have made preliminary bookings with our travel agency. Come on TAs!!

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First shopping for FuQi

Yesterday FuQi's aunt Mona (my SIL) came to visit and she bought a blankie, a plastic bib and a pair of trousers for her new niece. Today we went shopping for some clothes and ended up with two bags of pink and purple outfits! This weekend we also have to start decorating the nursery and we bought some paint, a pale pink colour. A couple of weeks ago my PIL were here and as we didn't know what gender or age we were going to be reffered we couldn't start shopping then. They bought her first sets of linnen, a pillow and a blanket for the crib. There was a car seat sale last week and we got the one we wanted for abouth 30% off! The stroller has arrived in the store but we haven't picked it up yet, we don't know where to put it, we need to re-organize the hall first. To do that we need to finish the nursery and to do that we need to move our home office (our home office is in the nursery-to-be at the moment) and that's where we are now... painting the first coat of paint on the walls in the walk-in-closet where our new home office will be.
All I can say is that coming weeks will be quite busy... but we don't mind at all!

Here she is! Is she cute or what??

Finally!!!

We have a daughter!
Today we have been referred a little baby girl from Jiangxi!! She was born mid January and we are told she is very active and a bit obstinate, just like her mom-to-be :)

Preliminary travel date is Dec 11 and we're back home Dec 29. Christmas in Beijing, best Christmas gift ever!!

Waiting...

Last Thursday and Friday referrals started to show up in the US. Our file is returned to China for translation and the agency sends out this letter that says our file is back in China, it doesn't say anything about the child. Within 2 weeks we will get The Call, a friend told me it shouldn't be that long, our referral batch was rather small. So we're still waiting... Yesterday an agency representative called me regarding an update of a document and she let me know preliminary travel date. And it's quite soon!!! Suddenly there isn't enough time, we still haven't started the nursery, we don't know if we will be referred a girl or a boy and we really need to do some heavy shopping...

I did it!

OMG, I just created my own blogg!! I thought of myself as a computer illiterate... but here I am!

Waiting for referral with DH Magnus in a snowy cold Sweden (northern Europe). Our agency will return documents to China for translation so it will be a few days of extra waiting before we can see the face of the child we've been waiting for so long.

'later!
/Ullis