3 Days Left at Home

Well, this blog is giving me trouble....it won't let me upload pictures.....ugh!  So it has been an amazing few days!  We are running around getting everything ready for our trip to Bulgaria to pick up sweet Maria.  While we have been going crazy some terrific friends on the Reece's Rainbow fb page has been advocating for us.  They have been amazing!  One woman even set up a last minute fundraiser for us called Dollars for Rita https://www.facebook.com/events/389625864513635/.  Then yesterday we got a matching grant for $500......it is truly unbelievable!  We are so amazingly grateful to everyone for all of the support of our adoption.  You all are Maria's village and you have been instrumental in getting her home!  We will be forever grateful!

Woooo hoooo Figured Out How To Change The Picture

Ok so it only took me a year and a half to figure out how to change the picture at the top....yes I know, I am soooo tech savvy!  So now Angelita is no longer blurred out...Woooo hoo!!!  Speaking of Angie...she is growing up so fast. She is now potty trained.  She literally tells every person she meets.  She walks up to people at the grocery store "hi, I'm Angie and I'm potty trained." I will say people as good sports.  Pretty much all have them tell her good job or way to go...it is pretty funny.  She started preschool at the end of January.  It was a little rough at the beginning but now she loves it. It is hard to believe she is already 3... Time flys!

So here are some pictures of all of the kids being their crazy selves ;-)

Daniel and Jack shaved their heads for St Baldricks day.  It is for pediatric cancer research.  

before picture

While they were cutting.

after!

Grace was in the chorus for the school play...the girls enjoyed the cupcakes at intermission

Mikey attempting to get a plastic bag out of our tree....sadly it was unsuccessful...bag is still there

Some St Patrick's day fun 

We Are Getting Close

So the suit cases are open in our room.  We have gotten several outfits for Maria.  We are going to be there 13 days with no washer or dryer...so lots of clothes for her.  With the amount of space left I am pretty sure I am wearing the same thing every day ;-) I am trying to anticipate every need and possible freak out (impossible, I know). I bought a metal cup because that is what she drinks out of at the orphanage. I doubt that she has ever seen a sippy cup lol. It is so hard with the language barrier.  We are trying to keep things as normal for her as we can.  We really, really hope that they are preparing her that we are coming.  But honestly we have no idea.  We don't know if she is being medicated to sleep which we have heard is common. We have also heard that the withdrawals can be awful.
So we are super excited , scared, happy...every emotion you can imagine!  We just want to get our girl  home and start our lives as a family!!
 We're coming to get you sweet girl!



I'm sorry we weren't able to get you out while you were 7...in this picture.  But we will be there to celebrate your 9th birthday with you on the 18th!!

OMG We Have Travel Dates!!

It is so excited to finally be at the end of this process and the beginning of our new journey as a family.  This has been a very long process for us.....and the pick up trip is no exception.  Sadly, last Fall the USA added a new requirement of TB testing.  The children are already vaccinated for TB in this country so we are hoping that it doesn't mess up the testing.  Because of this new requirement our trip will be longer then we thought when we started the adoption process.  We also are traveling over Easter so this is making our trip even longer.  I am really ready to be done with the adoption process.  I hate being away from my other kids, so this is going to be really hard. Missing Easter and Daniel's birthday is hard.  But we have amazing friends who are helping us with the kids and we are so grateful!!Another downside of it now being Spring is the ticket prices have all gone up... a lot.  But enough whining.....

We are so happy to be going to pick up our sweet Maria!  We are really hoping that they are preparing her for her upcoming journey.  I am sure this is so hard for her to wrap her brain around.  She has only known orphanage life, so this is a big change for her.  The kids can't wait to get her home.....we all are ready to find our new normal!  Even Angie walks around saying "You go pick up Ria?"  We can't wait to get her here and see her blend into our family.  We have the suitcases out and the packing has started.  We are leaving in less then a month......it is so hard to believe it is finally here!!

Thank you all for all of the support, it means more then you can imagine!  Adoption is hard and it can be lonely, but having supportive friends and family really helps!!

On the home front, Jack and Daniel are shaving their heads for pediatric cancer research.  It is called St Baldricks Day.  We haven't seen Jack with out pretty long hair since her was 7 or 8, so we are interested to see what his eyes look like now ;-)

I am not sure if this will work as a link but it should get you to their page if you copy and paste it.  We would love some donations towards cancer research.  The boys are doing this in honor of our old neighbor Austin.  He lost his battle to pediatric cancer a year ago this week.

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/697672/2014/fb_action_ids/10151959012941451/fb_action_types/og.likes/fb_source/other_multiline/action_object_map/%7B%2210151959012941451%22%3A1396530027281318%7D/action_type_map/%7B%2210151959012941451%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D/action_ref_map/%5B%5D/


So once again thanks for everyone's support!  We are so grateful!

WE PASSED COURT!!!!

We passed court at 10:30 am in Bulgaria.  Our lawyer over there represented us!  She is now legally ours!!!  So now we wait for 7 days to get the court decree.  Once our lawyer receives that we will be given travel dates to go pick up our girl.  It is finally real!!  It is such an exciting day.  We were also so lucky to receive another matching grant from my amazing parents for $1000!!!!  We would love to be able to match it to pay for our flights.  Because we won't have more then a week or two notice to book the flights....they are very expensive.  Also the second trip is now longer because of newly required TB testing, so this adds more days of hotel stay.  But in the end it is all worth it to get our girl out of that orphanage!
So I am happy to introduce

##########. Maria Caroline Mayr  ##########


On another fun note....it is Grace's 14th birthday!  She got another sister for her birthday!  This is awesome because had we not had Grace, I'm not sure we would ever have looked into  special needs adoption! Thank you all for your support for this part of the journey!!!!

COURT DATE!!!

Sorry for the lack of posts.  Honestly, our adoption has hit so many slow downs that I was getting kind of depressed.  Finally, today I got the magic email.....we have a court date!! It is February 25th!!!!  This is Grace's 14 birthday, how perfect is that!!!  "Rita" becomes a Mayr officially on February 25th.  We are so excited......but now I am in panic mode LOL.  It means that we could be traveling to Eastern Europe in a few weeks......time to get organized for the trip!!!  I will write a longer post later, but I wanted to keep everyone posted!!!

Wonderful News!

Adoption is such a strange journey.  There are so many highs and lows.  Sometimes it feels like we will never get our girl home.......but we have to have faith and keep moving forward.  Today was an amazing day.  I was feeling kind of low....fighting off a cold that my generous son shared with me.  I was on Facebook when my amazing friend Jen messaged me and said that there was a family that wanted to give us a matching grant!!!  This was such an amazing pick me up to my spirits.  This awesome family doesn't even know us......isn't that unbelievable!!  We are so grateful to them, Jen and all of you who have helped us in our journey!


So we have passed our article 5 interview (ok honestly I have no idea what this is, but it is part of the process)  Our dossier was submitted to our sweet girls country for the next step.  Now it gets bounced around getting signatures from two different locations.  Once those are complete we will get a court date.  Our amazing lawyer Toni will represent us in court.  That is a really important day because after court she will legally be a Mayr.  We are hoping to get a court date soon.   This has been quite a marathon but we are nearing the finish.  Well, then we start a whole new journey of getting our girl here, helping her become comfortable with us, her new family.  We are excited to get to that point.  Once again, thank you so much for all of your love and support!!!