and finger prints...

Today was our appointment to get our fingerprinting done for USCIS. So, hubby and I got up early (5:30am) and went to down to Cincinnati. We got there early and waited for them to open. We were in and out fairly quickly. So then we decided to have some breakfast together at first watch. (Yum!)

After that we ran to the bank to get our cover sheet notarized for our dossier. We are so close to being done. We will be going on Thursday with our friends to get a few papers state certified. Then we will be going to check out an Ethiopian restaurant that is in Columbus. I think we may even make a quick stop at Cosi while we are in Columbus.

We are hoping that we will get our results back in the next few weeks so we can send our dossier to Ethiopia and get ready to wait for our little girl. (Screams of excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Pampered Chef for adoption

It is starting to get close to Christmas shopping time. I actually have most of my Christmas done for this year! Yay! Some of our good friends, the Rogers are hosting a pampered chef fundraiser. I thought I'd share with all of you in case you have cook in your life who may be excited about this for Christmas.

Our friends will receive 15% of the sales to go toward their dossier payment. (same thing we are working toward.) If you I were writing my letter to Santa I know a few goodies from the website I would add to my wish list.

 

I want this baby BAD! I love my stone so much I use it every day.  This bad boy has handles and I want it. :) So in case Santa reads my blog here is the link directly for this product.  :)

Now if you aren't Santa, but want something great from Pampered Chef for yourself or for Christmas here is where you go to browse all their great products. 

If you need reason to buy lots don't forget this helps our friends bring home their little boy from Ethiopia. YAY!

Oh, Spaghetti!

This weekend was AMAZING! The spaghetti dinner was a huge success. We had been praying that God would do big things and God is faithful! We weren't sure how much help we were going to have, but that was not a problem. 

 

We had so many friends volunteer I couldn't believe it. 

 

Saturday our house church was there serving food like crazy. We actually ran out of cooked spaghetti at one point. We had no idea how many people would show up to support us and eat some yummy spaghetti and Olive Garden salad.  Sunday we had friends from house church, youth, and many of the Rogers friends there to help us. It was amazing how many people came through to grab lunch. We were so thankful. God is good.

Isaac was so excited to help. He also loved chatting with Ms. Rita. She was so patient with him. :)

We were so moved that our friends sacrificed their evening to help us out! We are so blessed. 

Ben was our chef for the weekend. He kept the kitchen running. By Sunday we had a system down and we went through a ton of food. Tami and I knew what we were doing when we bought extra spaghetti and sauce. Even if our hubbies didn't believe us. They actually had to make a run after Saturday to get more food since we ran out. 

Even Isaac was ready to help. I think I may keep in mind that he now does dishes. 

Amaya really enjoyed the markers.

We were so blessed by the turn out of friends to serve, eat, and support us. We had so much fun joining with the Rogers. And like I said we prayed for God to do big things and did he ever. Each family raised over $1,300! EACH FAMILY! I mean, God is so faithful. I am blown away by how he answers prayers. 

We are so thankful to all who came out and supported our adoptions. We are blessed beyond measure to have the church family, friends, and most of all a God who loved us so much that he adopted us into his family. I so look forward to more understanding my relationship with my heavenly daddy as we adopt our daughter into our earthly family.

Fundraiser: Spaghetti dinner

As our paper work is slowly coming to a close we are gearing up for some serious fund raising. We are joining with another family from our church to put on a spaghetti dinner. The Rogers are also adopting from Ethiopia using the same agency, and are at just about the same spot we are in the process. We have been so blessed to meet them through our journey and we are so thankful God has brought them into our lives.

So, if you would like some tasty spaghetti, Olive Garden salad, and bread. You are more than welcome to join us after each of the Apex gatherings this weekend Oct 9-10. We will be serving you this awesome meal for a low suggested donation of $5/meal. Both families are working on getting our funds together to send our dossier (all this paperwork stuff) to Ethiopia. The cost is approximately $7,700 for this part. So we are praying that God blesses this event in a big way. Thanks for being in prayer with us and if you can make it to the dinner that would be awesome.

Oh so awesome news!

I am very behind in posting some great things that have happened lately regarding the adoption. We received our home study and mailed it out to USCIS. The next step is that we go to Cinci and get fingerprinted. Then we wait. Well, yesterday we got a letter in the mail letting us know we have a finger print appointment! We have to wait a few weeks until we can go, but this is the last major step in our dossier proccess. We still need to go to the county and state to get a few papers certified (I'm not sure exactly what that entails). But we are nearing the end of our paper chase phase.

I heard it compared that the paper chase is the first trimester of adoption pregnancy. I will say it is much less miserable for me than my other first trimesters, but it is longer. One of the awesome praise report we have is that Dan and I's finger print appointments are at the same time. We have friends that this is not the case...Praise the Lord for his goodness. Just another step closer to our little girl.

Home study complete

We got an email tonight letting us know our clearances we have been waiting on our final done. So, that means our home study is complete. Our social worker is shipping it priority mail tomorrow! We are so excited. Praise the Lord for his faithfulness!

wishing and hoping

We received an email today from our social worker. She is hopeful we will get our child abuse clearance by early next week. We update when it comes it. Once this comes through it will allow us to finish the rest of our paperwork. Also, we can start applying for grants once our fundraiser is complete. I am so excited to finally see some movement. :) Please pray for us that this does go through soon. I don't want to have my hopes up too much, but it is hard not to get excited.