One late, but very important, Christmas gift

It's something so simple, and yet for us, has taken so long. BUT, we finally have it...my mom's FBI clearance!! It came in the mail today! It took 4 tries, but they finally accepted her prints :) Now we can send them off and our homestudy can be finalized!!! This is definitely the best Christmas present, a little late, but I'm okay with that! So, we are really hoping to have our dossier ready for the kid's country for February. That of course will depend on how quickly our 1-600A gets processed, but we are praying for things to move smoothly and quickly. We just can't wait to get our babies home!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We haven't posted much because Christmas kind of snuck up on us this year. Sad, I know, but with all of the paper chasing, we just had trouble getting it all in. We did have a wonderful time with Pumpkin and with family - she was an absolute riot this year, she just looooves presents, or resents, as she says - but it just wasn't the same. Our family was incomplete and we all felt it. Three little people are missing from our lives! Hopefully, not for long though.

So, Christmas was wonderful and yet sad all at the same time. I found myself wandering through the pages of the waiting children section of Reece's Rainbow more than once. The faces kept me up at night. No matter how good these kids are, there are no presents under the tree on Christmas morning, there aren't mommies and daddies to snuggle up with, and there are no Christmas decorations. That is the sad reality of life for these children. And as uncomfortable as it may make us feel, as "un-Christmasy" as it maybe, we must remember them. Please, look at their faces, pray for them, pass on the message. And maybe, next year, some of these beautiful children won't be "waiting", they will be home.

Birthday Kisses for Angel

Happy Birthday Angel! Today you turned 3 years old! Little do you know that many miles away there are birthday kisses and prayers being sent to you. You also don't know about the many preparations that are being made for your arrival, God-willing, very soon. Next year, and every year after, there will be real birthday kisses (and I'm pretty sure a few birthday tears from mom - but the good kind!) and of course, cake! You are so very loved and we are so very thankful for you :) What an honor to be on this journey to bring you home!

Paper, Paper, and More Paper

This week has been a long one, and boy, am I ever so glad tomorrow is Friday. Poor Peanut and George were battling colds, but are doing much better now (unfortunately poor NayNay is now fighting it off.) But it made for long days and sleepless nights! Which is why, I am going straight to bed after this - no late night blog reading for me (or Christmas card addressing for that matter!)

Even with that, we were able to get some major things accomplished this week on the paperwork front. Our I600-A was mailed out (yay!), we got our passports back (double yay!!), and we got our self-employed letter from the accountant (even though we may have to have her redo it becuz my husband is a jr. and it was left out of his name.) We also mailed out our state police clearance requests and had a bunch of paperwork notarized and faxed over for approval, before it gets sent out for apostilling. Last week, our medicals were finalized (but can you believe our doctor's license is going to expire in January, so we have to go back and get the copy of his "renewed" license when he gets it - which also means another trip for the notary oh well more $.) But that pretty much leaves us with only a few things left on our end, and then the waiting begins, and the fundraising goes into hyper-drive!! So, prayer requests for a quick and easy I600-A approval and for my mom's 3rd try of FBI prints to be accepted - we need it to finalize our homestudy and can you believe we still haven't heard back and the FBI can't tell her anything when she calls! Oh well, off to bed for me, even typing all that paperwork we did makes me sleepy :)

Little Kiril

I just wanted to drop a quick note to anyone who hasn't heard about the fundraiser for little Kiril. I thought I'd just share what Christine is doing in her own words. Hopefully she won't mind :)

I’m holding a $1 challenge over at www.findingkirilsfamily.blogspot.com, on the countdown to Christmas. Kiril is a little boy with significant special needs who has been waiting on Reece’s Rainbow for a long time, and has been bedridden in an institution for over 6 months now. My goal is to get as many people as possible to donate just ONE dollar to Kiril’s RR grant, and then pass this message on to just ONE other person of their choice.

Thought Provoking...

Today I read something that really hit home (for all you R.R. Digesters you've already heard this one.) But for the sake of anyone who hasn't heard it, I think it bears repeating. I actually think I may add this as one of my most favorite quotes...

"I'd like to ask God why He lets poverty and injustice exist, why there are so many orphans and why He does nothing about it.....but I am afraid He will ask me the same question".

PS - More checks off the list! Medicals notarized! Passports were mailed out to us from the facility today, so hopefully we'll have them Monday! Our CSP arrived in Eastern Europe today too! :) Monday means more checks off the list (God-willing) - hubby meeting with accountant to notarize self-employment stuff! So nice to see lots of checks off the list :)

P.S. to my little rant

See that verse in action here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zktEblmdRI

Notary News

YAY! We have someone lined up to notarize our medicals! I'm so glad I didn't have to change the appointment because this late in the game, I would have been charged a cancellation fee. The best part is, he is only going to charge us the notary fees, not travel fees! So, a BIG thank you God, and all of those who have been praying for us. Yesterday, when I started looking for a mobile notary, it just seemed like all the doors would shut. I called lots of places, even emailed and called one, and I either got no response, they weren't available, or they were out of business. Every time I started to freak today, God just gave me this weird peace about it. I knew He had it all under control - and He even cared about the traveling notary fees :)

So, that's the BEST part of taking this journey. It's so neat to see how God works. Our prayer has been that we would have His heart, that we would see the world through His eyes. And since we took that first step forward in this adoption, we just keep seeing Him move. We KNOW these children are meant to be here, with us. We also know that God loves "the least of these" and that His heart breaks over the way the world treats His beautiful gifts of life. I love the saying "God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called." We are living, breathing proof of this. We aren't special "saintly" people, FAR from it actually, we aren't Angelina and Brad (although my husband is hot :)) and we don't have huge amounts of money just laying around. But we DO realize that God has a plan for our lives and that it involves mostly Him and not so much of us! And might I add that I just CRINGE inside when people look at us in pity and say what wonderful people we must be to "take on SOOOO much" and somebodies got to do it, so thank you - HELLO we ALL need to do something about it and maybe, just maybe, we ARE supposed to "take on" as much as we can while we are living the life we've been given, after all isn't that the spirit in which our country was founded? Have we all gotten so lazy as to think our legacy should be shopping bags and credit card debit? Whatever happened to changing the world? We recycle and use special bags and drive special cars to save the planet, but what about the people in the planet???? I don't mean to get on my soap box, but I just don't understand the way most people think - this is where I should interject that our social worker classified me as an "idealist!" Trust me, I know we are "taking on a lot", I know there will be sacrifices, we are already making them, and I don't take it lightly AT ALL. But, I just think we have all gotten a little too comfortable in our lifestyles. So, I'll end my rant with this: "I've come to start a fire on this earth - how I wish it were blazing right now!" Luke 12:49 (msg)

First International Mailing :)

Silly to some, I'm sure, but very exciting to us...we mailed out our first envelope to the kiddo's country!! Our CSP, which notifies them of our intent for ALL THREE cuties, was delivered back to our house APOSTILLED at 5:00pm today from our state. Thankfully we were just finishing an early dinner, so I was able to hop right up from the table and fly out the door. I managed to get in the car and rush it down to our UPS store (we consider it ours because recently we are there almost everyday - notarizing, copying, mailing, etc.) The last pick up was at 6pm, so I made it just in time! Our CSP will be there on Friday - not a cheap thing!! In my excitement, however, I totally forgot to make copies. But thankfully, Meredith, our RR coordinator, was able to email me a copy of it! Sooo thankful :) Also, sooo thankful for my mom and George, who watched Pumpkin (and bathed her) and cleaned up dinner, while I was off running, not literally of course - but I would if I had to, down to UPS.

Oh, and on the medical front, I was able to find out today what in the world was going on with our lab results (we had our blood drawn last Tuesday for our physicals - normally takes 2 days tops to get back.) According to the doctor's office, they hadn't received anything. I spoke yesterday to them and they were going to contact the lab, but I didn't hear anymore, so I bugged them again today. Finally, they told me just to call the lab myself. So, I did and the lab told me they electronically sent the results for both of us on Nov. 24th. I asked if they could resend them. I called the doctor's office back, armed with this information, and was told their system was down (why didn't they tell me that before? umm, perhaps that's why they didn't get them the first time!!) But they did receive the second attempt, so our appointment to have the doctor complete and sign our medicals is Friday afternoon. Now I'm desperately trying to find a traveling notary, who can meet us at the doctor's to notarize everything. I didn't think it would be hard, but apparently a lot of traveling notaries in our area are no longer in business, probably due to the housing crunch here. I do have a call out, but no one has returned it yet. So, please pray that I will be able to find someone tomorrow and that they won't charge us an arm and a leg!