Ava Lu's room

After months of waiting, it was time to start working on Ava Lu's room. I kept telling Jim, "we have plenty of time. We'll have 6-8 weeks after we receive our referral so, if necessary, we can get everything together then."

But, on Labor Day weekend, after months of Jim strongly encouraging me to get going with the vision for our baby girl's room, we went furniture shopping with my parents. After three hours in the baby store, my dad couldn't imagine that I hadn't made up my mind on the crib, dresser and armoire! I promised my parents and Jim that I would go back to the store the following day to place the order with my final decision. And. . . we did, we ordered the furniture on Sept. 4!

Still, we needed to select the paint color and fabric to start the transformation. Weeks later, my mom and I went to Calico Corners with the fabric swatches I had selected in January of this year. The good news is that they were having a sale on fabric, the bad news is that one of the fabrics I had selected was no longer in stock and we couldn't determine the fabric name for order. After going back and forth over the course of the next few days. . . I finally selected all the fabrics and placed the orders. My mom and I (mostly my mom) are sewing now. Photos of Ava Lu's room will soon be posted.

Thanksgiving at the Daly's

I thought I'd add some of our Thanksgiving pictures to our blog from our time with Jim's family at his mom and dad's house this year.

And. . . the day after Thanksgiving, (for the first time in my life) I was out at stores at 5 a.m. - with my sister-in-law, Jennifer and niece Bianca. We were at Best Buy with thousands of others in search of the $379 laptop computer! We found out quickly that we needed to be in line on Thanksgiving Day by 4 p.m. to even have a shot at it - how crazy is that? In spite of the craziness and cold, we had a very fun time together with lots of laughs.

We're all anxiously awaiting the referral of our baby girl. Cousins, Danielle and Bianca can hardly wait to have another girl in the family!

Hoping for our referral in December - Jim and Michelle

First Post

We are nearing the end of our wait to receive our referral and to travel to China for our baby girl, Ava Lu. We are excited, nervous and anxious all at the same time. We know that our lives will never be the same!

Our "official" journey to Ava Lu started in March 2004 when I said to my husband Jim after yet another fertility doctor visit, "What if God's plan for our life is to offer hope to a child who wouldn't have hope otherwise." We know that God firmly placed this thought, dream and hope into our hearts on that day in March. I'd like to say that our road from that point forward was without bumps, questions and delays, but that is not the case. Our journey been long but we have not given up hope and look forward to the fulfillment of this promise, dream and plan of God! We know that He is faithful.

For this child I prayed and the Lord has granted my petition. I Sam 1:27

/Michelle