4 Hours Until We Leave!!!

So I feel like we are as ready as we will ever be!

The schedules for each day are made and posted on the fridge :-)

The fridge is stocked and there is pizza money on the counter for the bigs.  All the littles are packed and their stuff is dropped off to the various places that they are staying.
I haven't slept more then four hours per night in a few days.......this will be great because I can sleep on the insanely long flight and then not have jet lag....right ?! ....this is my theory and I am sticking to it!

I will try to blog while we are in country.  But wifi can be spotty and I need to find out if we can post pictures of our girls (some places are ok with it, some aren't)  So I will do the best I can.  I am very excited to meet "Rita" and begin this amazing journey!  I am also more then a little sad leaving the kiddos at home.  I am glad that it is only a week because I know that it will be hard (way harder on me then on them I am sure ;-)

Once again thank you all for your support during this amazing adventure!!!

Almost Ready

It is so hard to believe that it is almost here!  All the kids packed with a weeks worth of clothes etc....check, basket of stuff delivered to where each kiddos is staying check, 4 gallons of chicken noodle soup made..check,  tons of pasta with chicken and cream sauce made...check, medical power of attorney, passports, cash in new bills for visa, call credit card company and bank, check, check, check.....I was packed, but then our amazing dentist at Colorado Kids pediatric dentist gave us 200 tooth brushes/paste to donate to the orphanage ....so had to move some stuff around to fit it all.
So all in all, it is coming together!  It is so exciting that we are only days away from meeting her after waiting so long!!

Thanks again to all our friends and family who have been so amazing on this journey

OMG We Are Going

I am such a bad blogger and have been neglecting our poor blog.  But the honest truth is I have been pouting.  Our dossier has been in Eastern Europe since May.  Each week we would wait for news that our dossier was submitted and each week we would be disappointed.  There was a newly elected government that was being put into place.  But I guess a lot of people weren't happy with the new government so there were (and I believe still are) protests in the streets.  So week after week the IAC meetings were canceled.

Finally at the end of July there was an IAC meeting.....but sadly we were told that our dossier was not submitted.  I wanted to crawl in my bed and not come out (and I did, well as much as you can hide in your bed with 7 kids. )  To make matters worse, the government shuts down every Aug for holiday.  So we resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't be traveling until November at the earliest. This would mean that our second trip to pick her up wouldn't be until Spring.  We were so bummed.

Well, last Wednesday I received an IM on Facebook from our placing agency saying "go check your email."  The email said "Surprise you were submitted at the July meeting and we weren't told.  You will get travel dates in the next 48 hours!"  We were soooo excited as we waited not so patiently for the travel dates to come.  The first dates that were sent happened to be when we will have company out to Colorado visiting us.  We thought that if we left our company with our kids and jetted off to Eastern Europe we might never have anyone visit us ever again!!  So we asked if there were any other possible dates.  Shelley emailed and said "if you can pull it together quickly, you can leave on the 31st."  As in this month.......as in one week from the email.....as in we are meeting our girl in a week.  Well, we made a few phone calls and things started to fall into place!  We are so grateful to Cathy and Jenny for all the help with our brood! Thank you Christy for all the equipment.

So now we are running around like crazy...doing laundry, packing, making meals, booking plane tickets etc.  It is hard to believe in less then a week we will be meeting our newest daughter!!!!!

Thank you all for all of your love and support...we are so grateful!

UGH still waiting, waiting, waiting

Well, I was hoping to have good news to report, but sadly there really is no news.  We are waiting for the government in our daughter's country to appoint a vice minister who will be in charge of parts of the adoption process.  Sadly, there is a lot of civil unrest over there right now.  There are protests about the government.  This is not related to adoption, adoptions are just caught up in the mix.  So until a new vm is appointed our dossier can not be submitted.  So sadly this means our girl will not be home by Christmas.  We are bummed but know that she will get home just as soon as we can get her here.
Baby A's case has moved to an adoption (WOO HOO)!  At this point I am not sure when all the paperwork will be complete and we will be given a court date, but I am hoping it is soon!  The kids are super excited to have her be a permanent addition to our family!  She adds so much to our family!  We are so grateful for all the journeys our family has gone on and we look forward to all the journeys in our future!

AMC awareness day

Today is arthrogryposis multiplex congenital awareness day!  Here is a great explanation on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoroBmYi5b4

This is what our sweet "Rita" has.........so today I am wearing my blue AMC awareness shirt!  We have spent the last 9 months learning as much as we can about AMC.  We have hooked up with some amazing people in the AMC world online. 

Well, on the adoption front......we are still waiting.  There have been protests going on in the Eastern European country where Rita is.  While they are not related to adoption, it has slowed things down.  Our dossier is waiting over there to be submitted.  So once a new vice minister is appointed our dossier will be submitted and we will get travel dates to go meet our girl.

Woooo Hooo our friends ROCK!

Thank you , thank you, thank you!!!!  Thank you all for all of the help you have given us!  The matching grant was met and we are so grateful!  Yes, adopting is expensive, but "Rita" is soooo worth it!! 
We are still waiting for our dossier to be submitted to Eastern Europe.  I guess there is going to be a new deputy in charge of adoptions........so we are waiting for that to happen.  It is really hard being patient.......not a strong suit of mine LOL  But I am learning :-)

Bunk Beds!

So a store by us is doing a give away of these amazing bunkbeds.  So I am sharing their page on here!

http://www.epochbydesign.com/blog/epoch-design-blog/post/giveaway-mckenzie-natural-3-piece-twin-bunkbed-set-in-aurora-colorado

Check them out!