Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Hoping to Travel in December

We just received word that we MAY be traveling in December.  Of course we are living in international adoption land, so we are trying to balance our frantic last minute planning with a pinch of don't-get-too-excited-this-could-all-change-tomorrow.  :)

Here's to hoping and praying that we get to eat borscht and pierogies and sour cream for Christmas!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Up and Away


Our Dossier has left the building!

This post is actually a little late...we mailed it on Oct. 28th, but it arrived in our yet-to-be-named son's, yet-to-be-named country this week.

We also wired $500 for it to be translated and processed in what is hopefully a timely fashion.

For those of you who have donated to our adoption fund we are forever grateful...and for those of you who have yet to donate, now is your chance!   We ask that you consider giving even a small amount toward the cost of "Eastons" adoption.

We don't have a huge following for our blog...about 230 this past month.  But, if each person felt led to give just $5, that would add up to $1,150!  Little amounts really do add up!

It is difficult to sit still after the last few weeks of paperwork craziness, but sitting still is about all we can do right now.  Our next step is to wait for a travel date to go get "Easton" and bring him home!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!

Well, fighting like crazy to not be late is a more accurate statement.

Each year, the he-who-shall-not-be-named country that we are adopting from closes for the winter.  We have an unofficial deadline of October 17th to get our backsides in gear and get everything to them by then. 

We are so close...SO CLOSE.

We just had the our fingerprinting appointment (3rd times the charm I hear) and now get everything notarized, county sealed and apostilled.  We thankfully live in NYC where all that can be done in one day if you are willing to run around like a crazy nut from one end of the city to the other all day.

Pray that our USCIS letter comes in a few days like its supposed to...it is the only piece that is out of our control.  Nothing like a little out-of-control-ness to add to the excitement of our lives and stretch our faith and invigorate our prayer times.
 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Put Off Long Enough

I have been putting off this post for as long as I could...

About a month and a half ago, we found out that Brandon had much more severe needs than previously thought.  After prayerful and frankly gut-wrenching deliberation, we realized that we are not the family that is equipped to give him what he will need.  We had to give back our referral request for Brandon. 

This does not change the fact that Brandon desperately needs and deserves a family of his own.  We are praying that God brings this about soon and we hope that those of you who read this and have blogs of your own would consider taking a minute to pray and advocate for Brandon.

We are moving forward with our plans to adopt and feel like God is asking moving our hearts to adopt Easton.  He will be 5 years old on October 30th and has CP.  I will add pictures soon, but you can see him on the following Reece's Rainbow link  http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsorwall.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Nesting

We just got the first draft of our homestudy back from the social worker and now everything has moved into hold-onto-your-hats fast forward.  Being the practical girl that I am, I have decided to painted the kitchen, picked out paint samples for my bedroom, rearranged the kids room furniture and because I can't think what else to do with myself, I am making croissants from scratch.

Wonder if I'm nesting?

I saw a shirt that said "adoption is the new pregnant." and at first I wasn't sure if it was offensive and then I thought it was kind of funny, and now I think it is spot on true.  The cravings, swollen feet and nausea may be different, but the crazy moods, and oddly ill timed bouts of redecorating are exactly the same.
   
Think I'll get off here and go clean something.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Brotherly Love

One thing that makes me feel super blessed as Elijah and Anna's mama is that they truly love each other so much.  They have their own separate rooms but choose to bunk together.  They call each other their best friend and love playing together and never understand why their friends don't want their sibling included.  One of their favorite games is pretending their hands are baby monsters (kind of like sock puppets without the socks)...Anna is " Little Sister Monster" and Elijah is "Brother Monster."  I have been a little worried how "Brandon" would be included, but on the way to the library yesterday I heard them include "Baby Adopted Monster." and realized that all is good.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Homestudy

Its a little after the fact, but we had our homestudy on May 4th and our 2nd interview is coming up on the 31st.  It was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be.  The social worker was very nice and really only wanted to get a feel for what type of people/parents we are.  We have been going through an extermination process in our building, (welcome to NYC!) so half of our belongings are sealed in plastic bags and were in the middle of the floor until about 10 minutes before the social worker arrived.  Brad and I spent many frantic hours trying to shove and stuff then in to closets and dresser drawers so that our house would not look like a tornado had just hit.  Thankfully, she never felt the need to look inside of anything. 

We are entering the long stretch of this process where we are waiting for certain things to show up before we can mail other things off.  (Like our marriage certificate...can't figure out how we don't have a copy of that anywhere!)  If any one reading this is ever considering adopting, I would strongly suggest having several copies of everyone's birth-certificates, your marriage license, passports (for international adoption) and online accounts with all your financial institutions (bank, retirement, medical insurance, life-insurance, savings accounts, etc...) so that you can get copies of everything quickly.  Also, make sure you keep the last year of your tax return.  We have everything but our marriage license and hope that it is in the mail and on its way as I type.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Fingerprints

Did you know that getting your fingerprints taken does not necessarily involve inkpads and cardstock?  It sure was news to me.  Brad and I got our electronic fingerprints taken today.  It was surprisingly quick and efficient and only involved putting your hands on a miniature computer scanner.  We actually had loads of time to spare today.  We would have had a date except we are trying to save money for a certain handsome little devil.  Here's to hoping that the rest of the adoption "hoops" are as easy to jump through as this one was!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Paperwork anyone?

We just got our load of paperwork for our homestudy and decided to have a paperwork party.  My Mom, Dad, Brad and I all got together and worked on it after the kids went to bed one night.  I wish I could say that we are done, but no such luck.  We did make a good dent in it though and if I could just remember all the addresses of every place we have lived for the past 28 years, we would be in good shape.  (Did I mention that we have moved 10 times in the past 5 years?)

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

We're Official!



Check us out at http://reecesrainbow.org/?s=brandon&x=0&y=0