Something to take to China

This month's theme for the January DTC Secret Pal exchange was "Something to Pack for the Trip". My very cool secret pal sent a pink tie dye shirt for Nora! I have a pink tie dye shirt. Could this be our first mother-daughter matching outfit??!!

As you can see, she also sent disposable burp pads, travel baby toiletries, formula bags, travel wipes, a compression bag for packing and the cutest little pink snap-on bottle of Purell! Thank you so much Secret Pal for all the really useful stuff and the so cute t-shirt!

December out of review!!

Woo hoo!!! I'm not sure when this happened because I've haven't been stalking monitoring the CCAA's website in the way that I have in the past, but DECEMBER IS OUT OF REVIEW!!! This means that our dossier is either in review or has already (knock on wood!) passed review! This feels almost like progress.

New Addition for Nora's Library

I was feeling pretty down today (long story, work stuff), so Rob and Maddie decided to cheer me up with a lunchtime trip to Borders. We love Borders. Of course I ventured into the children's area and browsed through some of the featured books ... and found this:

It is the sweetest story about a lion who loves the library - especially story hour - and learns that sometimes it's ok to break the rules. I had to buy it for Nora.

By the way, it was only 55-degrees so Maddie really did get to go in the car, although we thought it best not to try to sneak her into Borders.

Congratulations Lun Lun!

Congratulations Lun Lun on the birth of your new baby!! You probably don't remember us, but my mom and I saw you when we were in Atlanta for Illinois' sweet sixteen game a couple of years ago.

For anyone interested, Lun Lun lives at the Atlanta Zoo -- she and her new baby are featured on a 24/7 panda-cam which you can access either from the zoo's website or from cnn.com. Right now the baby looks like a naked rat, but the zoo's website says he/she will begin to show panda markings sometime next week.

Great deal on great books

I read on another blog about a clearance sale at Little Treasure Books. They are (unfortunately) closing their store, but are (fortunately) having an incredible going-out-of-business sale. I ordered six books for Nora at incredible prices -- some of them were even books from our wishlist!

Check them out if you like kids' books!

P.S. On account of the holiday, I figure that today is Mega Mail Monday by proxy -- lived up to expectations with the big box 'o books!

Well, it's about time

FINALLY the CCAA's website is showing that November is out of review. This means that our January dossier is almost certainly in the review room.