I have been very busy addressing our adoption announcement envelopes and we are pleased to say most of them have made it to our local post office! Hopefully you have already received your envelope but for those that have not you may consider this post somewhat of a "spoiler".

With out further adieu, we are proud to post our Adoption Announcement!
Before posting the above picture we did some rather rudimentary editing & removed personal information. Our good friend Deanna, at The Baby Gardner (thebabygardner.com), created a one of a kind announcement per our request. She took our ideas and created a design we will always cherish!

Our Son...Zach's grandfather, Bop-Bop took this picture on the famed Red Couch at The White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou, China. It is a tradition for adoptive families to take a picture of their child sitting on the red couch (at the White Swan) for good luck. We have seen other families take this picture as a group photo with all the children adopted from their child's orphanage. However, we were the only family adopting from Zach's orphanage. And, surprisingly we only saw about 5 other families in Guangzhou (all in various adoption phases) staying at the White Swan. We took many photos on the red couch, but this one is our favorite.

Matt & I wanted to find the perfect stamp to mail out our announcements with. We visited the usps.com website to search for something that would suit our occasion. We never imagined we would find the PERFECT stamp!! I admit I have only visited the website for vacation mail stop! However, I was very impressed with all the different stamps available for purchase! We were jumping for joy when we came across the Commemorative "Celebrating Lunar New Year" Year of the Rabbit stamp! We wasted no time in making the purchase! And, it was issued in our neck of the woods- Morrow, GA! As some of you know, our little family of three was created in The Year of The Rabbit!

Here's a little more information regarding the stamp...
"Issue Type: First-Class Forever Commemorative
Issue City: Morrow, GA 30260
Issue Date: January 22, 2011
Issue Series: Celebrating Lunar New Year
Year of the Rabbit (Forever)
Browse The Postal Store’s Complete Celebrating Lunar New Year Collection This is the Lunar New Year: Year of the Rabbit souvenir sheet commemorative stamps.

On January 22, 2011, in Morrow, Georgia, the Postal Service™ issued a Lunar New Year: Year of the Rabbit Forever® commemorative stamp (44-cent), in one design in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) souvenir sheet. The stamp was designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Maryland.

The U.S. Postal Service® introduced its Celebrating Lunar New Year series in 2008. This is the fourth stamp in that series, which will continue through 2019 with stamps for the Year of the Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar.

Art Director Ethel Kessler, and Artist Kam Mak, who grew up in New York City's Chinatown and now lives in Brooklyn, worked on the new series. The artwork focuses on some of the common ways the Lunar New Year Holiday is celebrated. For the Year of the Rabbit, which begins February 3, 2011, the art depicts kumquats, which are eaten for luck and given as special gifts. The illustration was originally created using oil paints on panel. Kessler's design also incorporates elements from the previous series of Lunar New Year stamps, using Clarence Lee's intricate paper-cut design of a rabbit and the Chinese character — drawn in grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun — for "Rabbit." "