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.

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

Carson's 2nd "Cars Birthday Party"

I can't believe Carson is 2!!! I don't know where the time has gone. I love every stage better than the last. I love all the communication and the fun times we have during day. We had such a wonderful birthday with Carson at the Zoo where he saw all the "animals". He loves going to the Zoo so it was the perfect day and with only a little bit of sprinkles.

We had his "Car's Birthday Party" on Saturday. It was so much fun to get ready for his first themed party and we had such a great time with many of our family and friends. Thanks to everyone who came and supported Carson on his birthday. Here's a few pictures from that day. (I can't get them turned the other direction, sorry. I'm working on it.)

Tow-Mater Cake

Riding his new Tow-Mater Truck

~April

And so we've begun....

We are moving along here in the adoption process. We were able to send in our first payment and the paperwork  that went along with it to our agency right before we left on our vacation/wedding trip to California. We had such a wonderful time getting to see family and many of Aaron's friends from high school. The wedding was beautiful and the weather down in southern California wasn't as bad as I anticipated (I'm really not a fan of the heat!).

We began our home study a few weeks ago and are just waiting for our fingerprints to be processed to complete it and then we can send in our I-600a paperwork to the US government. This set of paperwork tells the US government that we are trying to adopt a child from DR Congo. Hopefully our fingerprints will be completed soon (they've already taken the money out if our account so at least we know they are in process) and we can get this next step crossed off our list!  

Please pray for our patience as we continue this process. We are a tad anxious about all the steps it takes to complete an adoption. We are just so excited to meet our child and bring him/her home. 

Pennies.....

So today I went to the bank with our garage sale money, money from some bags I have sold recently, and with our change jar. We have been collecting pennies for a few years now and guessed we had about $20 in our little bag. We also had some other change in another jar so I decided to take it all in and just count it with our garage sale total. I was amazed watching the coin counter total go up. There was almost $30 in just pennies! Aren't pennies wonderful?!?! That pretty much made my day! Total we had $96 in change alone.
I am so grateful to everyone who has donated money towards our adoption. We really can't do this without you. I grew up hearing the African saying "it takes a village to raise a child." I definitely know that is true; and I know in our case, it's also taking a village to bring our child home!
We are getting close to having our first payment in. Hopefully we can get it in before the end of the month and start the next set of paperwork called the Dossier. The Dossier is the set of legal documents and other paperwork required for an international adoption. There are a bunch of forms that go into a dossier and from what I understand it can be a very long process. Please continue to pray for us during this process. We know its going to take a lot of organization and patience to complete everything needed, but the end of that process means we are at the referral stage and will one day get to see a picture of our new little addition!!!
I know I will be saying this a lot, but Thank You, Thank You, Thank You to everyone for your prayers, donations, and kind words. We are so excited to continue on this journey with the help of our friends and family.

1st Garage Sale = Success!

We had our first garage sale this past weekend. I was a little nervous since it was a holiday weekend but we decided to just go for it since we had a bunch of stuff all ready to go. We held it at my sisters house because she has a prime location for garage sales. She lives on a busy street and has a huge driveway to set things up in (as well as a garage for storage).

We decided at the last minute to start the sale on Thursday. It was about 10 am and we had only pulled about 2 tables out of the garage and people were already stopping. It was pretty funny. We had one lady who hung out with us over an hour just waiting to see what else we would bring out.  We did the sale through Saturday but it seemed like Thursday was our busiest day. I will definitely do a Thursday again.  Saturday was pretty slow but the wind and the heat kept things interesting. My parents are doing a remodel at their house and gave us some doors and windows to sell. As a man was standing there wanting to buy a huge 8 x 5 ft picture window a gust of wind blew it over and it shattered all over the grass. (I gave it to another guy for free later, hopefully he can find new glass for it). We had many things break over the course of the day, but since it was so hot there weren't many people in the afternoon and we started cleaning up kinda early. We were able to organize everything that was left and nicely stack it in my sisters garage. We are hoping to get some more donations (plus everything we have left) and have another garage sale at the end of September at my parents house (another prime garage sale spot).

Thank you to everyone who donated for this sale! We made over $700 and are so excited to be 1/4 of the way to our first goal. We are actively seeking more items for our next sale. Let us know if you want us to come by and help you clear out some stuff.  ~ April

Our first fundraiser... Hood to Coast

We just wanted to take a minute to thank all the wonderful people who donated to our first fundraiser. Aaron's mom has been thinking a lot about using her running as a way to raise funds for an organization. So with only a few weeks leading up to Hood to Coast she decided to put her first fundraiser in motion. She asked for people to donate money to her in support of our adoption fund. It was highly successful and we are so grateful to everyone who participated. Terree was able to raise over $500  $680 in just under 2 weeks (I'm pretty sure thats the final count but you never know, checks just keep coming in). 


For those who don't know Hood to Coast is the world's largest relay race. It starts at Mt. Hood and runs 200 miles to the Oregon coast. Each team has 12 members who switch off running between 4-7 miles 3 times each. It is a very exciting and tiring event that so many people love here in Oregon and all around the country. Hood to Coast is very competitive to enter because more than 3000 teams try to enter the race, but only 1500 are allowed to participate. It was disappointing last year because the team didn't make it in after over 10 years of participation. But that didn't stop them and they successfully made it this year and had a blast. Even with some injuries they came in very close to their projected time; completing the race in 28 hours. 


We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives that are willing to support us in our adoption adventure and we want to say Thank You!