FINGERPRINTS!!!!!!!

SOOO excited! We got the letter today! And the best part is NO APPOINTMENT NEEDED!!! We can go anytime during buisness hours!!!! So guess where we will be Monday?!?! I am shaking!!! I know its only fingerprints but...my adoption friends understand!! Thank you Lord!!!

So for those of you who don't understand my excitement...7 months of paperwork all for one last form....which will come after we get fingerprinted! Then we mail all our paperwork to our adoption agency who then forwards it to Ethiopia! Then we officially get on the waiting list!!!

So the next prayer is that our fingerprints pass and our 171H form comes quickly!! DTE in January? Hey I can pray for miracles right?!

Yes...still waiting...

It has been 4 WEEKS since the USCIS recieved our application! Everyday I go to the mailbox praying for our appointment letter...everyday Christmas cards and no appointment! The longer the wait the more discouraged I get. So many families have waited so long but I was praying that we would sail through! First the long delay with our Home Study, mix ups with paperwork and much outside disapprovel about our choice to adopt. It has been a trying 7 months and we haven't even really begun. I am a very...lets say it...controlling person( you have to be to raise a family..to some degree)..and I have NOOOO control over anything! I had all of our paperwork done it record time and now I look to the future and I fear it will expire before it is needed. Each document needed to be notarized with an expiration that was no less than a year. Well now I know why. State and county certifications, physicals, fingerprints, police background checks etc. They all can expire.
All I can help feeling lately is..I want my children and I feel like someone is keeping them from me. I know its weird to say when I don't even know who they are yet. Is my son born yet? Is my daughter alone and afraid? Is someone holding her and telling her they love her? Does she have food? Who will comfort them if they cry? I hug my kids everyday, give them kisses and tell them I love them. It is heartbreaking to know of all of the children out there that don't get that!
 So many families are traveling right now to pick up their children...what a Christmas gift!I wish them all safe travels and a blessed Christmas with their children.
Continue to pray for us during our journey..

Snow Day!!

Today we got our first winter blast of snow...so I tried to be productive..we took our Christmas picture!

Kisses from Katie

Everyday we have moments where we feel overwhelmed....Parenting is a daily challenge. Katie is a testimony to Gods grace, through him all things are possible. Katie is a 21yr old who lives in Uganda with her 14 adopted children. She is so inspiring, read her blog http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/ Do you know any 21yr olds who are as amazing as her?!

Blessings

Matteo and Marianna modeling thier face paintings

Francesca and Matteo modeling our shirts

                                              

My sister came to the Buffalo for Africa event..we met a lot of great people!

Today I am Thankful for all of my blessings. This whole process has made us open our eyes to the world in a whole new way. I am so thankful for the wonderful man that is my husband and my 3 beautiful kids. We all go on with life day to day often without much thought but how often do you count your blessings? We have the constant stresses of life, work, kids, errands, bills, etc. In the grand scheme all of the worrying and stressing what are we accomplishing? We have the love of the Lord and the love of our families....the rest will all work out! I am the first to stress about everything possible but when I have time to slow down and look at my life...I take a breath and realized I am blessed! My kids are growing so quickly if only we could slow life down and appreciate everything even the crazy days!

This adoption process has many ups and downs...it tests your faith with every step but in the end I know we will have 2 more beautiful..blessed children

One last form...

Finally we mailed our 600a application today!!! What does this mean? The government has to give us approval to bring the children back to the US, this is how we apply. Once they process our form we will receive our fingerprint appointments, then after everything is approved we will receive One More Form! After that we bundle up the major amounts of paperwork we have been compiling over the past 5 months and mail it to AWAA. They then mail it to Ethiopia and we will officially be DTE(dossier to Ethiopia) What that means...we will be on the waiting list! I am so anxious to be done with this paperwork..pray this next step goes quickly and smoothly! Until we submit our dossier we are praying that we can raise some more funds, as it will be close to $8000 and at Christmas time...We know that God will provide! Continued prayer appreciated!!

T-shirts

Ok change of plans here is the design we went with...If you would like to order a shirt the cost is $20. They are black short sleeve sizes small- x-large. We are hard at work trying to raise funds for the next step! Thank you in advance for all of your support!

FRUSTRATED!!!!

WAIT..WAIT..WAIT!!!! So our Homestudy was done 3 weeks ago and it is Still in the review process! We are at a dead halt! I know this whole process requires patience because there is ALOT of waiting but Im sick of waiting for paperwork. The longer it takes the more families that can jump ahead of us in line. I was SOOO quick to get all my paperwork done that I'm afraid stuff will expire too early into the process making us have to redo stuff.I so want everything shipped to Ethiopia by the end of December but its not looking so good. This part of the process is supposed to take 4-6 months, we are at 5 already and no clue how much longer. The next paper can take up to 12 WEEKS to receive and we haven't even applied yet!Ugh!

Updates

Ok all you facebook fans..we started our group Our Ethiopian blessings..join the group! On the adoption front we are still waiting for our finalized copy of our home study..they are still making final adjustments before they notarize it! Patience is so difficult..one more piece of paper! The past few weeks have been rough as the flu has made it through the whole family. I have all the windows open today trying to air out the germs! October and November are crazy with all the birthdays we are praying our other children will have spring birthdays! I'm adding some pictures from all the party's. Francesca turned 12 this year!! I can't believe my baby has grown into such a beautiful young lady!

Crazy..

Is it crazy that I get excited everytime I get an email from my family coordinator?? I can not wait till we are DTE(dossier to ethiopia) Every small step gets us that much closer to the end of the paperchase!

HomeStudy Finished!!

Yesterday was our last Home study visit!!!! Now we wait for our finalized copies so we can mail off our 600a form. To those of you who don't know this is the last thing we need to finish before we mail our Dossier. After another fee, another set of documents and another set of fingerprints..we will hopefully receive our I 171H form (this form allows of to bring the children back to the US). We are hoping by December everything will be wrapped up! It all depends on how fast the government works...Did I mention I hate to be at the mercy of others!!! I know this whole process is about waiting..and waiting but I just want the waiting to be for our children NOT for paperwork to get finished!

Pretty soon we will be making our official announcement..to those who are unaware of our process..so look out for our Facebook page..coming soon:)