Completed and approved Home Study...

CHECK!!!!

This is the closest I could get to a "happy dance" on short notice!

WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

And wowzers is that a big one! I picked up the completed homestudy today and now I am getting ready to make my appointment to deliver a copy to USCIS for the completion of the processing of our I600A application. Now we're really going to have to get our noses to the grindstone on the rest of the dossier! No more excuses now.

After quite a long wait...

ANOTHER CHECK!! We have received notification that we have successfully completed the required parenting courses and corresponding testing as required for our dossier. Small victories are still victories after all...

Making a little progress over here...

It's been a while since we've had an actual "progress report" - and honestly we don't have any complete check marks to report tonight either - BUT we are making progress! Our Social Worker sent a draft of the home study to our agency this week for approval and is making the necessary adjustments to have it in final form (Yay!) and we mailed all the information back to the psychologist for the next step of our psychological evaluation for that report for the dossier (another yay!).


More baby steps in the right direction! In the meantime, we're preparing for fifth grade and kindergarten to start next week. Where does all the time go? Weren't these babies just taking their first steps last week?




Sorry about the watermark through the middle of the photo, but better safe than sorry I suppose. Read more about what I mean HERE

Quick Weekly Recap

First things first, little Emma is home and proves again that God hears our prayers. Go read more about her recovery and her Mommy's "soon to be boring" blog here.

As for us, we're settling back in at home after about seven weeks of reconstructive chaos. And let me tell you it's nice to be home! Reorganizing the adoption to-do list is on the agenda for tomorrow. Among the gazillion other things we have to do, we absolutely, positively, without fail MUST finish those videos! And we have to get the FBI fingerprints and finish several other things too.

We hit a bit of a pothole on our fundraising road and depleted every bit of the savings we had set aside in our "adoption fund" for an unexpected expense. We were thankful that we had the money on hand even though we had expected it to be used to bring our children home. As is quickly becoming the norm, I came across a quite timely and reassuring entry in my Streams in the Desert devotional on August 5 which included this poem:

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercies,
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth and giveth again.
~ANNIE JOHNSON FLINT

Little Emma needs your prayers!

Emma is facing an extremely delicate surgery to repair her heart and SAVE HER LIFE! You may have seen the Emma's Hope button on my side bar. I hope you have and have clicked on it to the blog that chronicles the adventures the life and times of Emma, her three siblings, and her mom and dad. Even if you haven't, just wanted to put a bigger [and completely adorable!!] picture up and ask all the people who stop in to check on us from time to time to keep Emma and her family in your prayers this weekend - and especially on Monday when she goes in for her surgery.

Photograph courtesy of Meredith Cornish, Emma's mommy! Thanks Meredith!

If you have a few minutes check out their blog and say hello! It's a great blog about faith, hope, love, and even adoption (Emma and one of her two brothers was adopted from Ukraine earlier this year...but just like in every other adoption story the "adoption" is quickly consumed and only the faith, hope and love remain.)