We are submitted!!

OMG, OMG, OMG!!! I am soooo excited! We were submitted today!

Now we just wait to get our travel date, which should be around the end of September. What a birthday present for Mel to get to meet his kids!

And if everything goes right we will be bringing the kids home around my birthday!
Also, our little Clarebear turns 3 in October, no more birthdays in an orphanage!

What a great fall this is turning out to be.

Waiting

Anyone who knows me well, knows I am not a patient person. When I was pregnant with my kids I would start issuing eviction notices to them at 7 months. I usually can do a little better if I have something to work on while I'm waiting. We have an alpaca that is over due to have her baby by alot and it's making me crazy. I've had to resort to just pretending she's not pregnant.

When we started this adoption journey, it was crazy all the paperwork that had to get done. Getting things printed, ordered, notarized, faxed, apostilled, the works.

Then the happy day of mailing our dossier to our kids country. I thought I would be so happy to be done with all that.

Truth be told, I'm not.

Now I have nothing to take my mind off the waiting. I know I'm am such a baby. There are so many families who wait so much longer than I have to bring thier child home.

I was looking back at our blog and we committed to our kids on May 9th. That's right, just 3 short months ago. How can I possibly complain! But I think anyone could understand if your child was in danger or hungry or even in an unknown situation, one hour would be too long to help them.

But travelling soon is also a huge stress. I have never left my 5 kids for more than 2 nights and now I will be away from them for a total of 5 weeks. I am breaking it up into two trips, but still it is not a "happy place" thing for me to think about.

I have to just keep thinking about Thanksgiving. We will be done. Home. Everyone.
And then all 7 smiling faces around our table will make it all worth it.

How you doin' ?

Dossier in country

Got notification this morning that our dossier was delivered and is now in the hands of our translater! So, please pray that the translation happens fast and we can can be submitted to the SDA next week. It will then take about two weeks for them to issue a travel date for 2-3 weeks later.

Clare & Malachi, we are coming soon!

Dossier on it's way!!

It's finally done and on it's way over the ocean. Hopefully it will be translated by next week and submitted so we can get a court date by September!

What a huge load off my shoulders to know that we are done with paperwork and the next thing is to meet our kids!!

We will be there soon!

Golden Ticket

I am so excited I can hardly write, so here it goes....

1. All dossier paperwork complete.  Check
2. All dossier paperwork apostilled. Check
3. Got the Golden ticket in the mail yesterday. Check, check
( Here is where I start to hyperventilate)
4. Dossier ready to be mailed to EE tomorrow. CHECK, CHECK, CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything is moving so fast right now, it is hard to believe that I could see and hold and squeeze my sweet babies next month!

My mind is starting to race already with all the things that have to come together for this to happen. I have my 5 awesome kids here that grandma and aunt Rachelle need to come watch. Oh yeah airline tickets for Grandma and Aunt Rachelle. Airline tickets for me and hubby. Fifteen alpaca and to-many-to-count chickens that have to be fed while I'm gone.. Packing, packing, packing. Money to still raise (maybe that should be first). A ramp to be built for a widow with the Both Hands project. Did I mention I have 5 kids and animals to take care of?

Just breathe Erika, I can do this!

USCIS Walk in

We got our USCIS notice last week that gave us an appointment date of Aug. 16th. I was so excited to only have to wait 2 1/2 weeks thinking, "No big deal." But after reading a few other blogs and really longing for our kids we decided to take a chance and walk in to USCIS today. They didn't even blink an eye and we were in and out in no time. Soooooo, hopefully by the end of August we can submit our dossier! I am so excited, yet so nervous. We are no where near to being fully funded. We were  approved to do the Both Hands project, yet they ask for a time table of 8 weeks. Aaaaahhhh, I don't have 8 weeks! We will see what God can do. He truly is amazing.