Thanks to those that have gone before me.....

The adoption community on the web is quite a site indeed. And blogging specifically has a tendency to make a big, big world grow considerably smaller with a few clicks. I know that our adoption decision would have been made much more difficult were it not for us having the ability to learn and grow and read about other families as they walked this road before us. Watching a family journey to the other side of the world through their pictures and journaling as they meet their children is an experience that I never get tired of.

I say all of that because as we first began seriously considering adoption, Could we do this? What is involved? How much does it cost? What is the process like? I "stalked" other adoption blogs like a crazy woman trying to glean as much info as I could. Did I learn a lot. Yep! Did I learn all of the (sometimes) ridiculous hoops you have to jump through? Yep! Did I go through 12 tubes of mascara logging on each day and reading and seeing pictures of these mothers holding their babies for the first time? Yep!

But there is a little bit of fun thrown in there too! Like what on earth am I going to do with 5 maybe 6 kids in a hotel room for two weeks in a foreign land?! There will certainly be moments of down time when I have 10 eyes or 12 eyes lookin at me for a bit of entertainment...which is why I was so happy to learn of.....

The magic bag.

Sadly this is not my magic bag. But merely a photo of one. My magic bag will probably be a paper sack that Jack has tried to make a puppet out of. But isn't it perty?! It makes me smile just lookin at it. But I digress....

I have learned that it is a staple of this adoption process. A bag full of odds and ends that while you are sitting in one government office or another waiting for yet another appointment, or you have a couple of hours with nothing to do in a small hotel room that you can pull out "the bag".

Ooooo, I'm so excited about the bag!

And in the midst of all of the dulldrums of paperwork processing and filling out forms I have managed to throw in a little shopping here and there(Holla!) so these are the contents of our magic bag thus far....(magic cheap paper sack just doesn't have the same ring to it does it?)

For the airplane...did I mention it's 15 hours from here to there?!!.....never too early to start teaching them those ABC's!

A cheap camera I found on clearance for one of them. My goal is to have a camera for each of them. Seeing Ch*na through each of their eyes will be remarkable I'm sure. Jason and Jordan will be keeping a blog throughout their trip which I am going to turn into a book for them when we get back, complete with all of the pictures that they took.

Weird squishy things, because boys like weird squishy things.

Odds and ends. This mini bowling game I'm told will be a hit!

Rocket balloons, which, if you have children and you have never experienced rocket balloons drop what you are doing.....unless you are holding a baby...in which case you shouldn't drop it but rather take it with you........and go to your nearest store and get you some of these! You can thank me later.
(and punching balloons...because they are just plain fun.)

So that's what my magic paper sack has thus far! The hunt continues!

Any more ideas for the bag? Bring it!