Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Happy thanksgiving everyone!  We have so much to be thankful for!  Our family is on an amazing journey to bring home a sweet angel from Eastern Europe.  We know that the journey will have many ups and downs but we are so thankful for all of it.  We are also thankful for our family and friends!  We are excited for all of the new friends we are meeting through this adoption.  Thank you all for your support and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pictures

Ok, I am not sure how to add pictures......so I am trying.  Hey I think it worked LOL  We just had our neighbor take this picture the other night for our home study.

Thank you, whoever you are

Thank you, thank you!  I don't know who you are, but thank you so much for donating to our family's adoption fund.  I don't know who you are, but I appreciate it so much!
Well, not much to report.  We are still working on paper work.......never ending paper work.  It is really hard to predict how long the adoption will take.  We have heard somewhere between 10 months and 18 months.  It seems like a crazy long time....but I hope it goes fast.  A wonderful woman named Jeri sent us an Eastern Europe language cd.  So we are trying to learn some words.  We are also trying to learn as much as we can about Arthrogryposis.....Amyoplasia type.  We have a lot to learn!

Vote, Vote, Vote

Ok, I hope that everyone went out to vote.  Paul and I utilized early voting and went on Halloween.  I love election day.  I find it exciting to watch the process.  I was excited to be a swing state, but after the 10,0000 political ad.....I am over being a swing.
So I heard from the social worker yesterday that our finger prints aren't back yet.....ugh.  This is not good news.  I hope that they come back by the 14th.  That is when we are meeting with the social worker to go over our home study.  When we began the process to become a foster family, my finger prints took forever.  Turns out that I have bad finger prints.  They were rejected twice.....all those years of cleaning have worn down my finger prints LOL  So hopefully it goes better this time!

Thank you, thank you whoever you are!  I was so excited to see that our account doubled.  We went from having $20 in there to $40!  You have no idea how excited and thankful we are by that.  We are funding this adoption with savings, a car loan and anything else we can think of.  It does seem overwhelming the amount needed to adopt.  But we figure we can put off getting Paul a car with less then 150000 miles for another year or two. We have no problem eating Ramen noodles and pb&j.  Because at the end of the day.......Rita is more important!

So once again.......thank you , thank you!

Home study

Well for those of you who are new to the adoption world (like we are) .....the first step is the home study.    This is when a local social worker comes to your home a few times.  She interviewed Paul and me as well as the kids.  She made sure that everyone was on board for adding another kiddo to the family.  Luckily, everyone was ;-)  Because we had looked at a couple of different kids that needed homes we called local agencies this summer.  Both of those kiddos found their forever families.  But we decided to start our home study anyway.  So that began around the end of August.  We have now completed most of the stuff required for our home study.  We are just waiting on finger print clearances to come back.  We are meeting to read and go over our home study on November 14th.  We are excited to have that piece done!  Next up is the dossier!  This is similiar to the home study but it has more pieces.  It has to be notarized and then appostilled.  It is my understanding that appostilling is like notarizing the notary LOL.  We have to take all the documents to Denver and they give them a gold stamp for each page.  It is $3 per page........nothing is cheap in adoption LOL.
Once our dossier is complete (which honestly seems like the impossible dream ) it is sent to Eastern Europe.  I believe that it is after that when we are invited to go meet Rita for the first time.  The whole process is about a year.  But they describe adoption like a rollercoaster.  Lots of ups and downs and you don't know what is around the next corner.  We are hoping that things go smoothly but realize that they may not.   But at the end of the day, it is all worth it to get this precious girl home  to our family.  I can't bare the thought of her being sent to an adult mental institution next year.
So I am hoping to keep people posted on our progress on this blog.  Feel free to ask any questions you want.........if I don't have the answers I will try to find them! 

Thanks for coming along on our journey!

So excited!

Ok, we are really new at this blogging stuff.........so be kind ;-)
We are super excited to be adding sweet Rita to our family.  She is currently living in Eastern Europe in a baby/young child orphanage.  They have kept her as long as they can.  If she is not adopted soon she will be transferred to an adult mental institution.  This is one of the reasons that we felt a sense of urgency to go get her!  I came across Reece's Rainbow web site a few years ago.  I was hooked.  I have been posting different kiddos information on my Facebook page for a long time.  This summer we decided it was our turn.  We are now in the paper work part of the adoption.  Quite honestly, it is very overwhelming.  We are hoping to get through it all as quickly as we can!
We will use this blog to keep everyone updated on our adoption and the rest of our crazy life ;-)
I know that this is not the right choice for everyone, but we feel that it is the right choice for us.  Thanks so much for all of your support!