USCIS approved!!!

Yup you read that correctly!!! We are USCIS approved!!! Just awaiting a letter to go renew our fingerprints so it can be official!!! Once those are done and they mail us the results we should be ready to ship the last remaining documents to the girls country to complete our dossier!!! 

Only things missing now is the USCIS approval, Jared's letter from a DR ( the one he went to a few weeks ago did the forms wrong) and a document from our mortgage co showing we are the owners of our home.

Getting so close!!!!! Hopefully it will all be there by mid March and then we start the countdown of waiting for travel dates. Which could be anywhere from the end of March (highly unlikely) to sometime in May. I'm praying for fast travel but we'll have to see. Please pray for the girls country as it's experiencing political unrest and turmoil right now. 

Results from the shoe/clothing fundraiser

We found out our total today from the shoe and clothing fundraiser we did with 3 other local families. It was pretty disappointing, yes there are positives in it. We talked to a lot of people about adoption and hopefully increased awareness but it would have been nice to  have made a big chunk of money to use for our adoptions. 

We spent months collecting and sorting through clothing and shoes, lots of hours rubber banding pairs of shoes together and bagging clothing. Driving all around to get donations and begging our friends and family to do the same. 

Yes I'm disappointed but I'm trying to see the good in it.......the other 3 families feel the same. We tried and now we know that this type of fundraiser is super hard. 

So here's the breakdown of our total that we collected, what they charged us for freight and our "profit" that's split between all 4 families......

Soo.....back to the drawing board on fundraising ideas......huge, huge thank you to everyone who helped us during this. I know it was a lot of work. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wordless Wednesday

Waiting on approval....

We are currently awaiting USCIS approval. We mailed in our request to update our file and sent them our new Home Study last week, I spoke to our officer this morning (since we still had an approval we get the same one from last year) and she hasn't received anything yet so hoping that it will make it to her desk in the next day or two. 

Once we get that approval we can send everything overseas and be submitted to the kids government to await a travel date!!!! Still need 2 documents besides our USCIS approval to have a complete dossier but we should have them by the time we get USCIS back. I'm so ready to be there.....

Things around the house are pretty hectic right now, we started construction and remodeling of our laundry room and half bath so we can have a big handicap bathroom instead of that teeny tiny half bath. This is a must since Pasha has gained about 10 lbs since coming home it's getting really hard to carry him up and down the stairs and lift him out of the tub. With the new bathroom he can just scoot right in and when he's bigger we'll have a bath chair in there for him to use so he can shower independently!!! He's learned how to get out of his wheelchair unassisted and safely and they're working on him getting into it from the floor unassisted!!! 

Callen is doing great at school also he rarely has a tantrum there now and is usually the class helper.  His speech is improving a lot too. In fact they plan on both boys being in regular education classrooms by kindergarten! For a Pasha that means next year....I get a little teary at that. I want him to grow up but it's hard not to think of him as my baby! At least Callen still has another year of pre k!!!

Adoption Adventures!

Today we hauled our stash of donated clothing and shoes up to the 28 foot trailer that's going to haul them to CA. We took our van and my parents stock trailer to haul them. We brought 155 bags of clothing and 18 bags of shoes. We are guessing the total amount loaded today from us and what the other 3 families had was 400 bags of clothes and 200 of shoes. Back in Dec Jared and I took another trailer full of stuff we collected up there of about 100 bags of clothes and 30 of shoes so needless to say I'm DONE with shoes and clothes (for now) lol 

A friend on Facebook offered some garage sale leftovers today to us from their high schools fundraiser sale so one of the families that live closer will be getting those today. We hope to have the check from this in about 2 weeks. We already know we were nowhere near our goal but we tried our hardest......thank you to everyone who gave us stuff:) we appreciate it very much :) 

This was our stock trailer 

Yeah.....my van got stuck in the mud after we had unloaded and were trying to leave!!! One of the other dads had to tow us out with his truck after we unhooked the trailer then the men and 3 teen/tween girls lifted/turned the trailer by hand and myself and 2 other mamas stood on the back of the trailer to hold it down.....fun times y'all! 

My 13 year old twin nieces and 11 year old daughter on the way home after unloading it all.

Happy Valentines Day

Today my super sweet hubby gave me candy and a candle and our kiddos each a small stuffed animal and candy. We are going to be celebrating tonight by loading hundreds of bags of clothes and shoes into my parents horse trailer so we can haul it up to Spring tomorrow! Sounds fun and romantic huh?!?! That's how we roll around here when trying to rescue our kids from being orphans:) 

Here's Callen trying out a weighted blanket 

And Savannah playing with trucks!! 

The many faces of paper pregnant mom

Nothing new to report yet but thought I'd share the many emotions, feelings and well just frustrations of a paper pregnancy! 

Content 

You need more paperwork???

What do you mean another delay???

Ummm pretty sure I sent that form in 3 months ago!!!!

Home study is finally finished!!!! Really??? 

The whole process leaves you feeling a bit off.....

Here's to hoping this paper pregnancy is over soon. Can't wait to get my girls home and be done adopting and just enjoy our children!!!

The shoe/clothing drive is almost over!!!!

Yesterday myself and the other 3 families doing this fundraiser together met where we have been storing the majority of the donations to pair the shoes and separate the clothes from them. This has been a very hard and long fundraiser and we are all ready to see if we made any profit. We do still have one week left to collect donations so if you have anything please let me know. 

And on the paperwork side of things our home study update will be done and sent to us this week finally!!! Next step is sending it to USCIS for their approval which hopefully shouldn't take as long because we still have an approval left from last year! Another family has seen our plus one twice in the last few weeks and she's sent messages to us both time saying how much she loves us and misses us so we can't wait to see both girls and get them home!!!

Clothes......

The focus of our fundraising since the end of October has been collecting clothing items and pairs of shoes. We thought that this fundraiser was going to end Feb 8th but one of the families we partnered with had a death in the family so we moved the date to the 15th of February. 

All 4 families have been collecting donations for months in hopes of making enough from the proceeds to take a pretty good chunk out of the amounts we still need to pay all of our adoption related expenses. We have tons and tons of clothes and shoes but still don't know if we have enough, and won't until after it's all loaded on the truck and arrives back in CA where it's weighed. 

I'm begging if you're in the Houston area please consider giving us any shoes and or clothing items you don't want anymore. Even items that are slightly stained or have small holes are acceptable. We also need help on the 15th loading the truck with the bags up in Spring if anyone's interested! 

My family is still hoping to bring 2 older girls home in a few months but to do that we need $14,000. One of the girls is Berkeley as she's listed on Reece's Rainbow, the other is a girl we hosted about a year and a half ago. We had problems last year when we went to adopt her but she's been working on them since we left last year. She very much wants to come back here and be a part of our family. She has been able to write us a few times and give messages through other families that have visited her orphanage. When she was here she had a favorite outfit she wore and I found it tonight while unpacking boxes of clothes I have been saving for Berkeley! 

I hope it won't fit her anymore but maybe it will fit Berkeley! I have saved all Ashlyn's clothes she's outgrown and we have been given some hand me downs in sizes that I hope Berkeley will be in and know our girl will be in since I know her sizes. I hung them all in the closet tonight of the room that will be theirs! I'm so ready to get them home.......