Yard Sale Fundraiser

Yesterday was a BIG day for my family! We had a yard sale to raise money for the next expenses in the adoption. The HUGE payments are coming up and we wanted to prepare ourselves. Well, God blessed our day and we raised $899.00 with the yard sale and the kids lemonade stand over the last few weeks. Praise God!!! We are having another yard sale next Saturday, May 25th because we still have tons of great stuff to sell. After that all that's left will be donated to our church's Caring Closet for the needy in our area. All my local friends and family please pass the word along about the sale. I know it won't be as crowded because it's not a neighborhood sale but with help from you I'm sure we can get the word out.

As for the process on the adoption...we are still waiting:( I'm hoping the USCIS fingerprint forms will come soon so we can get that taken care of ASAP. Tomorrow we are having the dossier notarized. Later this week I will take all the pages to the Department of State in Harrisburg and have everything apostilled. That's $15 a page...so expensive. But honestly nothings cheap about adoption:)

Please pray that this next step goes well and we don't have to repeat pages. Also pray for our shots that we need. Anyone that knows me knows I hate shots...and we have to get lots. Did I mention each shot is around $140 and our insurance won't cover travel vaccines. It's going to cost around $600 for Mark and I...JUST FOR SHOTS!!!! I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.

Last but certainly not least thank you to all our friends and family that helped with the yard sale. We had some amazing donations (Mom, Dad, Sean, Rachel, Elizabeth, Matt thanks a million). Also a special thanks to my wonderful Mom who stayed over night and helped me set up. She also stayed the whole yard sale to help as well. I couldn't have done it without her. Mom you are the BEST!!!

Home Study

Today we were thrilled to pick up our home study. It is completely finished. Now we wait for USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) clearance. That is estimated to take 2 months but I am hopeful it will go a little faster. We mailed in the form and the money on April 24th and mailed the home study to go along with it today. I hope that will speed up the process. We still have our dossier to authenicate and be translated into Arhamic but other than that we are really moving along. Ahead of schedule...I may add. So now we wait, wait, wait...I guess we better get used to that. From what I've heard from here on out there is a lot of waiting.

Next Step

So the home study is done...but not in hand. We are still waiting on the FBI clearance. Hopefully soon:) Last week we mailed in our USCIS paperwork for the I600a. This is the approval from Homeland Security. We can't completely finish this step until the FBI clearance comes in and the home study and sent in. But we are hoping that because we sent it early that will make the process move faster. I can't believe the amount of PATIENCE (and MONEY) you need to adopt. So much is out of our hands. Well, that is really all that is happening for now. I hope to have more news next week.
Oh, I almost forgot we did have a significant change this week. We changed our request of a boy from 2-4 years old to a boy 12 months to 4 years old. I know...it doesn't seem like that big of a change but it is to us. We really hadn't thought about going back to a baby. But after a lot of prayer we decided to broaden the age range hoping that the process might move faster and the transition will be smoother when he arrives home.