Happy happy joy joy

We got new pictures last week, plus a weight. She's up to 15 pounds, which is great! She's right on track for her age. And she's catching up to Dylan QUICK! He's only 22 pounds. We also found out today our adoption is moving along, but still no approval. We're hoping for an approval before Christmas, but who knows.

We also got to send her a care package. We sent some scabies medicine, though the newest pictures show some improvement there, a blanket, a couple footed sleepers, some toys, and a few other small things. We had to fit everything in a 12x12 ziploc bag. It was STUFFED, but we got it.

Dylan is not doing too well health-wise. He has strep for the 5th time in 3 months. We saw an ENT last week who put him on 20 days of an antibiotic (he didn't have strep at that point-just trying to knock out any remaining strains). Sunday morning, he woke up with a fever. Monday, still a fever, so we went to the doc. Amazingly, he had strep. He caught it while on antibiotics. He also has a nasty cough. I think his tonsils will be coming out soon. :-( But it will have to wait until we get back from Vietnam. I imagine we'll be there over Christopher's birthday (1/15). Sooner would be better, but that's a realistic expectation, I think.

Madison turned 5 months old Monday. Happy month birthday, little girl! We love you and can't wait to meet you!!

Still nothing and 1st Forever Family Day

No new pictures, no new measurements, no news at all. We submitted our I600 under the new process a month ago and haven't heard a word. It's not looking hopeful for travel in early December. In fact, it definitely won't happen. Once we get approved, it will be about 2 weeks before we go. Since today is the beginning of December, if we get approved now, it will be mid-December before we go. But we really have NO clue, which is more depressing than knowing the date and it being a month away. As it stands now, it COULD be February before we go. I certainly hope not.

We were so excited about getting Maddie at 5 months. Dylan was 8 months old when we adopted him. He was already crawling, and started walking a week after we got home. We were just hoping to go through some of those earlier phases (sitting up, crawling) with Madison.

On a happy note, a week from today will be our first forever family anniversary! It's hard to believe it's been a whole year. At the same time, it feels like we've always had him (in a good way). We're planning on taking him out to eat (maybe Chuck E Cheese-we've never been there) and giving him a present (a dump truck-shhh...don't tell him!).