Finding ads and and finding the SWI

Let's begin with smiley boy:

I am leaving for San Francisco on Thursday for a week for work, and I am so happy to have something to make some days fly by, for a week anyway...

In more exciting news, last week we received the "finding ad" for Ben. In China, whenever a child is found abandoned, an article goes in the newspaper with their picture and information about where they were found.  There is an adoptive dad who will find your child's ad for you for a fee, and send you a copy of the original newspaper if he has one. Even though I was pretty sure I could eventually find the ad online, Mandarin is daunting, even with Google Translate, so I asked him to find this for us.  We now have our earliest picture of Ben, it looks like he is about a week old, all cute and smushed face like a newborn!

In addition, I was searching for any information about the SWI he is in.  Sometimes there are entire Yahoo groups dedicated to an SWI, but I couldn't find anything, until I found...something.  Two moms who have adopted from this SWI in the past year. I found out  it IS small, less than 10 kids, and I was told there were MANY loving nannies around! It makes sense now why he is sitting, crawling, and big and healthy, despite having a cleft lip for 6 months of his life and a cleft palate still.  One of the moms was able to visit the SWI, surprising because it is 3+ hours outside of the capital of Henan province, Zhengzhou, where we will meet Ben for the first time.  She was there in March, and said she may have picture of Ben... and she did! Another new picture!!  And more than anything, I am so happy to know someone is loving him.  The mom I met now e-mails updates about her son to the orphanage who loves to hear about her son.

Also today I went to Tiffany and exchanged our "M" Limoges china keepsake box (a gift from a friend at our shower) with a "B".  God bless Tiffany for exchanging it almost a year later, no questions asked.  The "B" is quite cute and is our first "personalized" item:

And as I have been desperately seeking things to do, I have begun this cute project which is turning out good.  I still haven't decided if I am doing "Ben's Room" or "Benjamin".  The maps are maps of China, so far I've done B:

And we continue to decorate the play room, I just did this cute border with oversized flashcards from Land of Nod:

And we wait, both for more news on our front and more news from our adoptive friends!