Saturday, November 19, 2011

Time to check one thing off the list....

Our official home-study is complete!! Woohoo!!!

Today in mail came our official home-study! Which means we are ready to send our I600a paperwork off to the US government. I have no idea how long that will take to process (hopefully less time than the original fingerprints) but I do know that we are excited to be moving on to a next step in this adoption process. The funny thing is once this paperwork is processed we are given a date to get digital fingerprints done and then those have to be approved. I understand that the government wants to check us out, but come on were not criminals!

Anyhow, this is another expensive time in our process so we are so grateful to have had such a wonderful fundraiser this month. We continually want to thank all of our friends and family that have supported us in this journey. We appreciate all the money, prayers, and kind words everyday and know that we couldn't do this without you.

We love you all,
April

Monday, November 14, 2011

Getting Ready for Christmas Fundraiser

We had a wonderful fundraising event this weekend at my Moms (newly remodeled) house. One of my great friends Christina sells Mary Kay and offered to donate her proceeds from a party. So we came up with a plan to have a big "Getting Ready for Christmas Party" where we had Christina with Mary Kay and Denise with Scentsy. The plan was to help people start thinking about Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers while also helping out with our adoption fund. My sister has also made a ton of random gift items like stuffed animals, purses, scarfs, ornaments and flower pens. I'm pretty sure she pretty much sold out of her items and even has a few orders to fill!

We had a ton of food and just let everyone hang out and casually go over to the different tables where things were available. It was very low key and just felt right for a party like this. In the end the party was a huge success and we are so thankful for everyone that participated in making this fundraiser happen. Also, a thank you to everyone who came to support us and bought items towards our adoption fund.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Finally some adoption news...

Today we got some great news, as small as it is, we finally got our fingerprints back. Our home study can now be completed. It will have to be approved by our agency and then we can send off our I600a paperwork to the US government. I'm not really sure how long all this will take but hopefully not 11 weeks like the fingerprints. Once all of that is complete we will be able to send our paperwork to DRC and then we wait for our referral! Woohoo! We are so happy to be moving along again. It's so hard to be waiting all the time. I know that is how the whole process works, but it's nice to have little spurts of time where we actually have something to do.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween and Soccer

Halloween didn't quite go as expected but it turned out to be a wonderful night. My youngest sister is a senior in high school (wow I'm feeling old) and had her senior night soccer game changed to Halloween night. It was a great game and they clinched their league title with a big win. Woohoo!  Ashley will always be the baby of the family, but I'm so proud of what she has become. I know there are great things to come from her in the future. I can't wait to see her play soccer in the state playoffs this year and in college in years to come!!
 Carson (such a funny face, haha) and Auntie Ashley

Carson and Mommy
Carson was able to quickly Trick-or-Treat at two neighbors houses before we left and then his Auntie Alyssa took our little Tow Mater (thanks for the costume Auntie Lyssa) around to the neighbors of the soccer field. He had a wonderful time and even scored a king size candy bar. He was pretty excited about it and tried to give it to everyone in the bleachers.

On the adoption front there isn't really any new information. We are still waiting for our fingerprints (I  think it has been about 10 weeks already) and hope to have them back sooner than later. Once those are  completed our home study will be complete and we can send off our paperwork to the government.

With Love, April