Week Three--And the Baby's Name Is...

Well, I'm happy to report that our baby has a name. After much discussion and perusal of our Baby Name book, we are planning to call our little girl Sophia Cai . Sophia is Greek for "wisdom" and Cai is Chinese for "full of color." Nicholas already knows her name and will tell you if you ask him what it is. I think he is a little sad that we nixed his choices--but really, donkey, horsey, and tic tac just were not cutting it.

Bureaucratically speaking, we learned this week that our visa applications arrived safely in Washington, and we should have our visas by the end of this week. We also just received today our fingerprint appointment letter, so we can make the 6-hour roundtrip to Nashville knowing that we really will be fingerprinted when we get there. And we received our travel approval from China saying that we can officially make the trip to pick up little Sophia Cai. Now we are waiting to learn when our consulate appointment has been scheduled so that we can find out when we can travel. CCAI has told us they would like for us to be in China by 8/15 but that is dependent on the consulate appointment.

For now, we continue to stockpile "stuff" for the journey. I've spoken with a high school friend who made the adoption trip to China the summer we originally planned to go (2005), and she has been very helpful about what to bring. There is so much to consider--I think we'll just pack it all in and then revisit once we see how overloaded the suitcases are (there is a 44-lb. weight limit in China and you can only check one bag).

And, I'm happy to report that Nicholas has successfully spent the night in his "big boy" bed and claims to "love it!" Hopefully we will be blessed with an easy transition from crib to bed and he will not fight Sophia for the crib once she gets home! :-)