I really suck at keeping this blog up to date, so I apologize. Part of the reason is there is either nothing to report as we are waiting, or we're in a very stressful situation at the moment that we're trying to solve. Our I-600A was approved. We got a copy of the I-171H and one was sent straight to Ukraine. We are gathering the last few things we need for our dossier. We are also waiting to gather the rest of the money we need at this moment. Once we get all that, we will be sending all of our stuff to Ukraine. It's very excited, but boy is everything so stressful. I keep thinking of the end result of having a child and a child having us. It will totally be worth it at the end and I just keep reminding myself this when it gets to be too much. We're really hoping to be able to go to Ukraine in the summer when Tim doesn't have as much work, but with the occasional delay, it makes me worried. I'm still hoping we can do it in June. Plus, with Tim's birthday and our 10 year anniversary, I think June would be perfect. The other benefit of a summer trip would be when our child would go to school, they would probably still start after everyone, but at least towards the beginning of the school year. AZ schools start between the end of July and beginning of August, depending on the district and if they are year round or not. Back to the adoption stuff though. I have a goal of Easter to have our dossier sent. Here's hoping we can do that!!! Crossing our fingers everything will work out. But I am confident it will work out all in a time that is meant to be.
In the meantime, when we aren't able to do things, I have been decorating the room, working on the Shutterfly photo book so they can get to know all the rooms of the house before they come home, and thinking of Americanized middle names we can give them. We will be keeping their first name so they don't feel we are taking their identity away. We will give them a middle name that we chose just for them, and we will obviously give them the last name as their family name.
It's late, and I'm sure I've just talked in circles, but just know we are still working at this and we are hopeful everything will work out shortly.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
USCIS Fingerprinting
I checked the mail today and was shocked to see we already received our fingerprinting appointment! They scheduled us for next Thursday!!! I'm so excited things are moving along, and as of now, quicker than I expected. I did start over estimating time so that I wouldn't be as impatient. I guess we better get our butts in gear and find ourselves a facilitator and find the rest of our money!!!
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Happy 2013
I hope everyone had a good Christmas and a Happy New Year. December has been exciting. While we didn't do a whole lot with gathering information, we did get some good news and things are still moving along. We sent our federal forms in and received confirmation already that they received them. Now we are waiting for them to process our information and send us an appointment date and time for us to go in and have more fingerprints done. We also just received a letter from our county stating we are acceptable to adopt. I'm not a fan of that word "acceptable" but I was estactic with the news. Even though we can't think of any reasons why they wouldn't approve us, it's always worry for each stage that we need to be approved. We are very excited to see what 2013 brings. I can't believe that there's a good chance, by the end of the year, we might be parents! We are still trying to gather funds so we don't have to stop at any time. I also don't want to stop and have things delayed because we have documents that expire after 12, 15, and 18 months that I would hate to have to pay to renew.
This month I plan on continuing to decorate our child's room. I want everything to be just right when they finally come home. I also plan on getting documents gathered for our dossier. That way, once we are able to send it we only need the notarization and apostiled stamps and don't have to waste time realizing we need more stuff.
The other thing we really need to get accomplished this month is to find a facilitator and translator. That seems to be our hardest part. It's practically impossible. We have no idea where to go. We're going to try contacting some people who previously adopted and see what they did. The faciliator and translator will be our lifelines while in Ukraine. Not only that, but they will also translate our dossier and all that other good stuff. They are probably the most important people in our process. Hopefully we can figure that out soon.
Happy New Year to everyone again. We need all the good thoughts you can sent our way to help us out. It will be an interesting year. I'm expecting a roller coaster ride with the best ending. I'm anxious to know around when we will be able to get out there, but in reality, we need to wait on people throughout this whole thing, so we couldn't even estimate a month. We are just hoping it will be this year. I would love summer time so we can escape the heat here though! :) (not to mention it will be easier with Tim's job to be during the summer). Take care! More to come.
This month I plan on continuing to decorate our child's room. I want everything to be just right when they finally come home. I also plan on getting documents gathered for our dossier. That way, once we are able to send it we only need the notarization and apostiled stamps and don't have to waste time realizing we need more stuff.
The other thing we really need to get accomplished this month is to find a facilitator and translator. That seems to be our hardest part. It's practically impossible. We have no idea where to go. We're going to try contacting some people who previously adopted and see what they did. The faciliator and translator will be our lifelines while in Ukraine. Not only that, but they will also translate our dossier and all that other good stuff. They are probably the most important people in our process. Hopefully we can figure that out soon.
Happy New Year to everyone again. We need all the good thoughts you can sent our way to help us out. It will be an interesting year. I'm expecting a roller coaster ride with the best ending. I'm anxious to know around when we will be able to get out there, but in reality, we need to wait on people throughout this whole thing, so we couldn't even estimate a month. We are just hoping it will be this year. I would love summer time so we can escape the heat here though! :) (not to mention it will be easier with Tim's job to be during the summer). Take care! More to come.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Home study complete
We officially have our home study in our hands!!! One was sent to the local court to go along with our Petition to Adopt. In the meantime we are now working on gathering information for our next step which will be our paperwork for the form I-600A, to adopt internationally. We just need to get a money order and send it on it's way. I've heard that can take up to 4 months before it comes back....so it will be another waiting process. I do finally feel like we are getting somewhere though and it's amazing. I can't stop thinking of this time next year where we will be. Will the process be complete, will we be with our child, will we be in Ukraine. The unknowing is scary, but exciting.
This weekend I met someone and talked to another person regarding my crafts. One person wanted to buy some baby blankets because she will be a Grandmother next weekend. She told me that her daughter had 5 miscarriages and this will truly be a miracle baby. She gave us encouraging words, telling us, our child is out there already, just waiting for us to come and bring them home.
I also talked to another lady via Etsy, who wants to place a custom order for her sister's baby. She also said this baby is a miracle after her sister had to endure 2 miscarriages and will also be the first grandchild. This baby will also be wrapped in the blanket, this will truly be a special blanket as I am recreating a blanket that her sister used to carry around as a child.
I feel I was meant to meet both of these ladies. It really feels good to know the babies will be so loved and wrapped in my creations! Plus to hear the encouraging words brings me a lot more strength. Times can be tough, but just work through them and miracles can really happen.
This weekend I met someone and talked to another person regarding my crafts. One person wanted to buy some baby blankets because she will be a Grandmother next weekend. She told me that her daughter had 5 miscarriages and this will truly be a miracle baby. She gave us encouraging words, telling us, our child is out there already, just waiting for us to come and bring them home.
I also talked to another lady via Etsy, who wants to place a custom order for her sister's baby. She also said this baby is a miracle after her sister had to endure 2 miscarriages and will also be the first grandchild. This baby will also be wrapped in the blanket, this will truly be a special blanket as I am recreating a blanket that her sister used to carry around as a child.
I feel I was meant to meet both of these ladies. It really feels good to know the babies will be so loved and wrapped in my creations! Plus to hear the encouraging words brings me a lot more strength. Times can be tough, but just work through them and miracles can really happen.
Craft Fair
Wow, I just realized this never posted and was saved as a draft, so here we go.
After months of planning, the craft fair is over. It was a success! We had 31 vendors that really had some neat stuff and they were all different from eachother. I sold some of my creations at the fair as well, which helped bring in some more money. My Mom and cousin Sarah both flew out to help us out, and thank goodness they did. I really don't know how I could have done it without them. We were slow in the beginning (as every fair is), and they went over to the pancake breakfast the town was putting on and handed out many flyers, getting us several shoppers! There was actually a time where my booth was busy! We talked to each and every vendor personally and all in all they were pleased with the fair. Even some had low sales, but they didn't care because their vendor fees went to a great cause. That's so amazing to hear how nice people are. Everyone keeps telling me I should do this twice a year. I'm debating it, but it's easy to say when they didn't go through the months of work. It truly was a lot of fun, but really, I could have worked a part time job with no stress for that! I do love crafting and crafty people though, it's a passion of mine, and I may consider doing a spring show. Spring is just so much harder than winter to get shoppers. We'll see....stay tuned :)
I am thinking to make signs up and every Saturday until Christmas go outside on the driveway and have a boutique around the same hours people have garage sales. If I don't make anything, then I just enjoyed a beautiful day, and if I do make something, then I got rid of some inventory and made some money.
As for the adoption goes, we are just about finished with our home study. Our social worker sent us the proof for us to look over before she sends it to the courts. Thank goodness we get to look at it first! There are spelling mistakes and errors all over the 15 page document. I already looked it over and wrote down everything I found. Now it's Tim's turn to do the same. We will then have to email her all of them and hopefully she will fix it and send it on it's way. It will probably take a month in the courts. At least the waiting time is over the holidays when we won't even have time to notice we are waiting!
One more thing. Since my Mom came out for the fair, we ended up having her stay through Thanksgiving, which is awesome! We decided what better thing to do together, then decorate the kid room. I was going to wait until some down time to do it, but this is perfect. We painted one wall lime green and blue, with a white stripe. It looks amazing and is not at all gender specific. We made it an alphabet room, so every letter is in the green section of the wall. Each letter is different. Either store bought or made my us, or decorated by us. It's so neat. We still need to get the letter "o" up there, and then it will be complete. I hope our child likes it, I love the room!
I think that's all I have to say for now, it's really been another crazy month, but everything is going very well. Please consider sponsoring some puzzle pieces, we really need to finish the puzzle before our child comes home. I really want them to feel so loved.
After months of planning, the craft fair is over. It was a success! We had 31 vendors that really had some neat stuff and they were all different from eachother. I sold some of my creations at the fair as well, which helped bring in some more money. My Mom and cousin Sarah both flew out to help us out, and thank goodness they did. I really don't know how I could have done it without them. We were slow in the beginning (as every fair is), and they went over to the pancake breakfast the town was putting on and handed out many flyers, getting us several shoppers! There was actually a time where my booth was busy! We talked to each and every vendor personally and all in all they were pleased with the fair. Even some had low sales, but they didn't care because their vendor fees went to a great cause. That's so amazing to hear how nice people are. Everyone keeps telling me I should do this twice a year. I'm debating it, but it's easy to say when they didn't go through the months of work. It truly was a lot of fun, but really, I could have worked a part time job with no stress for that! I do love crafting and crafty people though, it's a passion of mine, and I may consider doing a spring show. Spring is just so much harder than winter to get shoppers. We'll see....stay tuned :)
I am thinking to make signs up and every Saturday until Christmas go outside on the driveway and have a boutique around the same hours people have garage sales. If I don't make anything, then I just enjoyed a beautiful day, and if I do make something, then I got rid of some inventory and made some money.
As for the adoption goes, we are just about finished with our home study. Our social worker sent us the proof for us to look over before she sends it to the courts. Thank goodness we get to look at it first! There are spelling mistakes and errors all over the 15 page document. I already looked it over and wrote down everything I found. Now it's Tim's turn to do the same. We will then have to email her all of them and hopefully she will fix it and send it on it's way. It will probably take a month in the courts. At least the waiting time is over the holidays when we won't even have time to notice we are waiting!
One more thing. Since my Mom came out for the fair, we ended up having her stay through Thanksgiving, which is awesome! We decided what better thing to do together, then decorate the kid room. I was going to wait until some down time to do it, but this is perfect. We painted one wall lime green and blue, with a white stripe. It looks amazing and is not at all gender specific. We made it an alphabet room, so every letter is in the green section of the wall. Each letter is different. Either store bought or made my us, or decorated by us. It's so neat. We still need to get the letter "o" up there, and then it will be complete. I hope our child likes it, I love the room!
I think that's all I have to say for now, it's really been another crazy month, but everything is going very well. Please consider sponsoring some puzzle pieces, we really need to finish the puzzle before our child comes home. I really want them to feel so loved.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Garage sale madness
Yesterday we had our big garage sale. We completly lucked out with the weather. After dealing with 90's and 100's all summer long, we had a beautiful low 80 degree day. Tim and I woke up at 3:30am, no different then when we go to work, and were outside no later than 4am ready to set up. I was quite cold for about 5 minutes until I started breaking a sweat moving things around and getting things out of the garage. I quickly realized (which I expected), that we had way too much stuff for our driveway. It ended up taking the entire yard to have the sale. We weren't sure how we would do with the sale because everything was donated to us, most of which were items that others weren't able to sell during their sale. I was also a little nervous after finding out there were so many people having sales that day. There was a community sale across the street that had at least 74 homes participating plus many others in our neighborhood. It could've been a good thing to bring more traffic, or a bad thing if everyone spent all their money before coming to us. We had super busy times then had periods of nothing. We debated on continuing the sale on Sunday, but we were so exhausted and sore and couldn't imagine having to get up super early again and setting all that stuff up. Looking at our yard when everything was said and done, it didn't look like we even sold much, but after hauling it back into the garage it was evident we did sell some stuff. We had a final total of $453.10. Not too bad. I was definitely hoping for more, however, I'm glad we made that much. Every little bit helps, and this sale will help us out a lot, especially when everything was donated to us! It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. If we didn't have the home visit coming up next week, we would've considered a different weekend of trying to sell more, but it's ok. We both felt very done with it all. At the end when I was attempting to clean everything else up, we had people keep coming up and it was getting difficult to clean up around them, but we made some good money at the end, so I'm glad it worked out the way it did. With the sale over and the craft fair apps coming to end, it's about time to start thinking of other ways to get more funds. I'm so exhausted, but knowing our child is waiting on us and counting on us, is what's really making me keep going.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Officially started!
September has been an unusual crazy month. I took the Girl Scouts to camp in the beginning of the month, then my beloved Grandmother passed away and I needed to fly to Chicago for a few days, and then I was sick for a week. But, we are back on track now and going at full speed. The garage sale items are just about all priced (I will price the rest that day), the signs for both the garage sale and the craft fair have been made, and we got tons of paperwork filled out. We are officially started in the adoption process! It's so exciting. The paperwork was a little overwhelming, but we got through it just fine. Today was our first interview for the home study. I was so nervous because I'm a person that has a hard time talking about myself and was unsure of the personal questions that would be asked. I think we both did a great job and we really like our social worker. She is a person that is very easy to talk to, which helps greatly. She's open and honest and started preparing us for some things that we never even thought of. I'm excited we found her and I think we will be very happy with her getting us through this beginning process. We have our home visit from her on October 20th. I'm definitely not as scared about it as I was. I think it will go well. There are a few things we need to do prior to that; doctors visits, vet visits, fingerprinting, and a few other papers to gather, not to mention the garage sale. Today was the first time we had to spend some of our fundraised money and we truly appreciate the help everyone has given. We still have a very long way to go, so any additional help, would really help us along. I'm so excited we are officially started and can't believe we took the first steps in the process. I can almost picture this actually happening!!!
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