Immigration...

...cashed our check!

Making Room

Today we got a bunkbed for the girls' room. We also did some rearranging of furniture. While helping Adam carry down a bookcase, one of the shelves slipped out and landed on my foot! It was excruciating pain but I think I will be okay.

Caleb, Adam, Anna, and Dad put the bed together. It was a group effort!


Yeah--- one more thing done!

Beginning a Blogroll

Yesterday I sent off our immigration! Next week I will begin gathering all of the necessary paperwork for our dossier. As I glanced over this blog, I noticed how it does not have a blog list. If you are in the process of adopting or have adopted, please leave me your link so that I can add it to my blogroll. It is always nice to have links about adoption on an adoption blog--- at least I think so!

The Juggling Act Begins

We got our homestudy in the mail today-- times four! That is how many copies we will most likely need. Last year we only got three, but this time it was four because the process has changed a bit. Instead of mailing off our I-600A form to our local USCIS office-- all applications are now mailed to Dallas, Texas. We do the mailing-- not our homestudy agency. Not sure if this will delay the process, but no rush. I spent tonight filling out forms and gathering paperwork. John is making a few copies for me in the morning and then I will be sending off our immigration request! Woo-hoo!

Also, the process for Ukraine has changed too. Instead of waiting until our whole dossier is complete and then sending it over for translation and then submission, we now can send over only our homestudy. Of course I still need to notarize and apostille it, but then it will get mailed to our Ukrainian facilitator who will translate it and then register it for an actual submission date to follow-- hopefully not sooner than when the rest of our dossier gets there. The whole thing is now a bit of a juggling act-- everything has to be timed perfectly. If it does-- the process should be fairly easy, quick, and painless.

We shall see.

Homestudy in the Mail!

Things are moving along. We should get our completed homestudy in a few days. Then off to immigration-- this time it goes to Texas due to some changes in the process. I heard it is taking three months-- plenty of time to complete our dossier.

Applied for Passports

Yesterday we applied for Rachel and Caleb's passports. Afterwards, I took them and the little boys out to Wendy's for lunch. We all ate off the dollar menu which made for an inexpensive lunch for five and I spent most of the time trying to explain Ukrainian food to Caleb-- specifically their version of fast food restaurants. It brought back memories describing a couple of the places we ate at in Ukraine this past summer like the Potato Bar--- and I was surprised at how game Caleb sounded. He is a very picky eater in general, so I am curious to see how he is going to respond to the new tastes, smells, and overall difference in foods. Rachel is so excited at the thought of going back to her homeland---- and can't wait to eat all of the food!

Our homestudy is done-- just waiting on it to be finalized. As soon as I send it off to immigration I will begin the paper chase to gather our documents for our dossier.

Until then...

Can You Guess?

There have been definite changes in our house. All to the glory of God. Not that our kids were that disobedient to begin with, but there was definite room for improvement beginning with me. John and I are faithful that keeping our family in the Word and sharing with them whenever time allows (which is more than we all want to admit) is the key to their hearts and inner compass down a meaningful road. This has proven fruitful in a most miraculous way. I had the opportunity to talk with Caleb for a long time this past Wednesday when he had his routine orthodontist visit. We even went out to lunch afterwards. Gosh do I love this guys inner heart.

Fast forward to today.

Caleb and Rachel were getting ready to leave to walk to school. They opened the front door to see that the ground was wet from raining. He looked back at me with an optimistic look to see if I would take them to school. I told him that today was the one day I was not taking anyone to school-- so sorry.

"Besides Caleb, you need to get used to walking in the rain! You'll most likely be doing lots of it this summer when we go!"

Can you guess where Caleb has decided to go this summer? :) It is an answer to prayer.