Saturday, July 31, 2010

Passports

We went to get our passports today. First we had to go get our picture taken. The poor kid at CVS was not too sure of how to use the camera. He was very sweet through it all though and I have confidence that he will know what he is doing the next time. :)

So after we got our pictures taken. We headed to the post office and we got all the paper work done to apply for passports. We should have them in 4-6 weeks! They kept our birth certificates too, but they said they would send those back as well. Here's hoping. So, there you have it. Passports done.

Tonight the plan is to write our application letter so our home study rough draft can be approved. So exciting to see things moving along. Tuesday is our fire inspection and then we are done with all the home study stuff aside from the child abuse clearance we are still waiting on. So, then we are on to finishing up our dossier requirements. So we are almost done with the hurry up so we can start to wait.  :)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Home study rough draft

Last night we got an email with our home study rough draft! We have only a few more pieces until it is done and we can plug away the last few things for our dossier. We are still waiting on our child abuse clearance to go through. We are praying this delay does not make a huge impact on the overall time frame. However, we are quickly learning how one paper can start a chain of delays.

It is so exciting to think our daughter could be home in less than a year. How amazing! Today some of our good friends came in town for a visit. She brought me her baby bedding they used for their daughter so we can borrow it for our daughter. I love it. It is pink and brown. So cute! I can't wait to meet our little girl. I'm getting very excited.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Fancy gadget

So I just added a time line for the adoption to the side bar. I like being able to track when each step takes place. It makes me realize I am not doing a great job of updating some of the events happening between papers and fundraisers.

As I was writing in the time line I was remembering specifically Asher's questions as we take each step. I know the concept of time is foreign to a two year old.  So, the fact that he has to wait for his sister makes little to know sense to him. When we went get finger printed for our BCI&I  clearance. We walked into the building and Asher told us "this is where they keep the babies."  We didn't think much of it until we were leaving and he asked "Where is my sister? We need to go get her." He thought we were bringing her home that day.

Last week we had our home study safety audit. Asher asked if our social worker would be bringing his sister. It is so cute to see he is excited. for her to come home.

Also, as I write out the time line I see the small glitches that have already taken place. For example we did our  physicals and our doctor dated the exam as the wrong date. Our notary dated it correctly making the paper invalid. Meaning we had to have the whole form filled out again and our notary had to come back to the office to have the form signed. We requested a notarized copy of our BCI&I clearance and it came with out notarization. So, we had to call and request another.

We are praying our child abuse clearance goes through quickly because right now they are held up and taking around 10 weeks. Apparently this is not how it usually is. Without this we can't finish our home study and our I600A can't be processed. We need that form to go through so we can get a form called an I-171H. Which we have to have for our dossier. This form takes a long time so. I'm seeing how one form being held up holds up a long process.

It is amazing to me that we have already been at this for over 3 months. I feel like while i will be a long wait I may look back and think how quickly it all went. I can't wait to meet our baby girl, though. I pray for her and I am so excited to finally hold her and bring her home.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Garage sale results are in...

We had our garage sale this weekend and we had an amazing turn out. We were so blessed to have so many friends donate some great stuff. We sold so much Thursday I was blown away. We had more dropped off on Thursday night and even more Friday night. We had so many friends helping us get ready the night before the sale. We are truly blessed!

Thursday was our big day. I think we had made $300-$400 by 9:30am! After all was said and done we came in right around $1000! How great is our good that he can turn our friends cleaning out their garages and giving generously into a great fundraiser to bring home our baby.

I love that we had so many people we didn't know that came to our sale and shared their stories with us about personal experience with adoption. What an encouragement. It makes me so excited to bring home our little girl. I am growing so anxious to meet her and just hold her. I know her daddy and big brothers are getting very excited too.

So a big thank you to all who donated, helped with the sale, and came out this week. We are so thankful and overwhelmed with all the support we have been shown.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Home study visit today

Today is our home study safety audit. Our social worker will come to our home and make sure it is safe for kids. It's kind of funny to me that we already have 3 BOYS and they are just now coming to make sure our home is safe, but I am excited to have another piece of the puzzle done. After this we will almost be done with our home study portion.

I'm a little nervous there might be something we forgot. I know our home is clean and babyproofed. I know I am a suitable mommy. It just feels like some one is coming to check my work I guess. Even if you know you aced a test you still want to see the final grade.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

the boys are back in town... and so is mom

Well, we are finally home from a week of fundraising. We had our first garage sale. We brought in over $500 to bring our little girl home! We also did a Chick Fil A night which the results are still out for. So, hopefully that will have also been profitable. We are so thankful to all who supported us during our fundraisers. Now we are gearing up for our next garage sale on July15-17. We have so much great stuff. So many of our friends have given generously. So hopefully lots of people will come check it out.