3 months since I saw her face!

Today is 3 months since we saw our Juliana's picture! I can't believe it. We are so close to having our baby in our arms, yet it feels like it will never happen at this point. As soon as I start to lose hope, I look at her picture, and a fire begins in my belly! I need this girl home. This has to be the week! I am just praying and praying constantly that this is our time, and my phone rings with flight information. I will keep you posted.

We had a wonderful weekend. Busy, but that was good, it did help with the wait. Friday we went to Mr. Ray concert with my sister and two of her three kids (Gianna had dance). Carmela and Joey loved it, as did Dom and Anthony. The four of them sat together, ate together, and danced together. It is so beautiful to see their relationship! I really think they are more like siblings than cousins. They just love each other so much -- all 5 of them -- soon to be six.

Saturday we woke up and got ready and headed out to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. I highly recommend this for children 6 and under. It is $15 per person (kids and adults), babies under 1 are free. You can bring in food or buy from their food court. It was a fun day. I will attach some pictures!

Sunday, Carmela and I headed down to Somerset, New Jersey for Gianna's dance competition. Carmela's team received platinum (1st place) for their ballet and gold (second place) for their jaz routine. The best part for me was during the jaz routine. Gianna did a back bend, and then went in a circle about 5 times while in the back bend position! Woohoo! I was so proud of my neice and Goddaughter. She works so hard at it and loves it and it shows. A little funny during the show, one of the girls was doing a dance and her arms went in the air and she was throwing her body around (not good at explaining these things). Anyway, Carmela looked at me and said "Mommy, I am going to do that during my recital" Of course I told her to just do what her teacher tells her to do! But how funny! I can just imagine Carmela doing that! Here are some pictures of my first girl, Gianna, as she danced her heart out. In the first (the ballet) she was the scarecrow! And the last pic is of Carmela on stage with all the big girls. Gianna brought Carmela with her and boy was Carm in heaven with all the big kids!

Lastly, Sunday when we got home, the four of us went up to the Mall to Build-a-Bear. This is our tradition that started with Carmela. When she was in utero, Chris and I went to Build-a-Bear and made her bear with us talking to her. We didn't know her sex so we called her "baby", which we all laughed about last night. Then, when Joey was in utero, Chris, Carmela and I went and made him a bear. We all were recorded saying "I love you, Joey". So yesterday was Juliana's turn. The kids picked out a pink bear and a bathrobe for the bear. Carmela and I are always wearing our robes, and well since Juliana is a girl, Carmela says she will love hers too. So her bear needed a robe. We all recorded different things. I went first with "Juliana, can't wait to see you". Then Joey went with "I miss you". Carmela's turn "I love you.". Chris went last with "Come home soon". And that was that. Believe it or not, the kids got it on the first try! BONUS! We then stuffed our bear, and went to the computer to make a birth certificate. We argued about what to name her. Carmela wanted to name the bear "Korea". Chris wanted "Seoul". Joey wanted "May" (he just loves that their birthdays are so close together). And I just wanted to go eat LOL! Chris won and our new friend is "Seoul" bear! Once we had that done, I breathed a big sigh of relief, we are ready now -- for real. Nothing left to be done -- except clean my house because God knows I won't be doing much of that after Juliana is home!