How sweet it is to see our daughter's smile. We miss her SO VERY MUCH. Bella I can't wait to hold you in my arms again! 

Finally our girl is growing hair! Isn't she sweet! 

PGN wait begins- Well almost a month after we received our pre-approval our case is finally going to be submitted to PGN on Monday, April 24. I'm more than a little frustrated that a month has passed by and we are just now making it into PGN. We lost a week when we were not notified by the US Embassy that we had been issued pre-approval and I had to get my congressman involved to figure that one out. Then that took us into Easter break when nothing gets done in Guatemala. After that our attorney said he needed to update a document before submitting our case which was all this past week, and he promises our case is going in on Monday. I'm glad that he is looking at it now though instead of letting us get kicked out for minor errors when we do get into PGN.

I've been very busy with the events that have occurred with John's family so that had kept me distracted a little and has helped this month pass by. I do want to thank everyone who prayed for John's mother and us during her brain surgery, and also for praying for strength for us as we said goodbye to his grandfather who is dying of pancreatic cancer. He is somehow still holding on but he has been without a feeding tube for more than a week now so it won't be much longer. You prayers have helped us more than you know and we were able to find peace in God's strength through everything that was happening.

I was very much looking forward to having Isabella home in time for our family beach vacation in June. My whole family will be there and it would have been a great time for everyone to be in once place so they could get to know our new addition. It will take a pure act of God now though to get us through PGN and to our pickup date before June 17. I will continue to pray but am sadly struggling to accept that it may be even longer now since it seems there has been a slow down recently in processing PGN cases. I miss my daughter so much I can't even put it into words. My heart aches for her and I do hope that she will be home sooner rather than later. Until then here are so new photos of her and her nusery for all to enjoy.

Stay tuned for updates....

Janine S

Enough of this camera thing already. 

She is still not thrilled to have her photo taken. We recently received some live video of her though and she was hamming it up for that camera.  

Isabella in April. What a cute dress and she is wearing the sweater/socks and bow that mommy left her in Feb. The director of my adoption agency said she fell in love with Isabella's personality and told us how lucky we are to have her. But we knew that already :-) 

Isabella and her foster mother. This photo was taken in early April. Bella is 13lbs now and is reported to be sleeping through the night from 7pm to 5am. I hope that last :-) 

Here is the debut of Isabella's nursery photos! I would like to thank my mother for everything she did to make this room so beautiful, and for giving up her spring break to work her butt off with me on this room. I love you mom! Bella and I are so lucky to have you to look up too.  

A bed fit for our little princess. I had a little trouble
with the lighting in the room for photos. The pics
show the detail better if you click on them and
enlarge them.

This bedding set has been back ordered for two months but it was totally worth the wait. I love all the little detail. Now all we need is a baby!  

A few items we pieced together to match the room.  

This hutch and dresser was a gift to Isabella from Grandma Barb. We added a few details and it came out so beautiful. Thanks Grandma! 

My mother and I had quiet the adventure finding curtains to match this valance. The whole lot of these curtains from a popular linens store was mis-matched and we had to open every package in the store to find two that matched in lentgh and color. It was worth it in the end though...don't you think? 

I'm so in love with my little girl I thought this painting was fitting for her bedroom. 

Isabella's foot and hand prints from our visit trip in February. The ornament in between them is willow tree's mother and daughter ornamnet. Also, I customized her light switch a little too :-) 

Bella's closet. I know this organization won't last but I'll enjoy it while it does. 

Pre-Approval. Well we finally have it. This step has really been stressing me out because it too so LONG it seems. It seems our US Embassy in Guatemala just didn't have time to send me the e-mail I've been desperately waiting for. I kept telling my agency that I had a gut feeling that the pre-approval was issued and we just were not notified for some reason. They thought I was being a crazy waiting parent. So I finally got mad and called my congressman H. Brown this morning and told him my story. His very sweet secretary offered to contact the US Embassy on our behalf since the Embassy has to respond to congressional request within 48 hours. This evening we received the email with the good news that our pre-approval was issued on March 27th.

We are very excited and are now hoping that we will somehow make it into PGN before they close for Easter break. This is the last stage of court and it usually takes 3 weeks or so. When we exit this stage of court Isabella will be %100 legally ours. There will be about 3 more weeks of paperwork and then we will go to Guatemala to bring her home.

My mother and I finished her nursery today and I will post photos of that very soon. Got to go since I am very tired from decorating. More later...