Monday, December 31, 2012

Still Waiting



Our tree, pre-St. Nick's visit!
Well, when you hear people talk about all the waiting that goes with adoption, they sure aren't kidding! It has been 1 year now since we first saw information about the number of orphaned girls in Ind*a-and learned the fates many of the face when they age out of the orphanage system at the age of 14.

Can you imagine?


Ready for dinner after Christmas Eve Mass; we clean up quite nicely, eh? 









Leaving food for Santa's reindeer!





So, 1 year of reading, researching agencies, talking to people, and ALMOST getting scammed by another agency that claimed for $20000 up front we could have a healthy little girl in 6 months-ha! (don't worry, I turned them in to the BBB)

But, we are here, with an amazing agency, our home study done, our education training done, a ridiculous amount of international adoption books read, and an ever growing list of local professionals that deal with international adoption therapy, support and medical care
Reading The Night Before Christmas

And so, we wait to hear if we are approved by Ind*a.

After that, we THEN start the hopeful fundraising to grant applications, more yard sales, and spaghetti dinners and hope that we can raise enough money to make that big chunk payment that is  due when we send our dossier. I've started a little on gathering the dossier stuff, but since most of it must be notarized, I'm holding off a bit until we get approved.
I Think St. Nick has been here!

The months after we get approved will be crazy, with me sending off for grants like crazy, and trying to fund raise like crazy (and chasing the boys around in there, too!) and getting our 11 lbs of dossier all set to mail to our agency-and then to Ind*a for our guardianship and official matching to our Princess.

I am praying harder than I ever have before, but I must admit, my faith is lacking. I'm really scared and actually a bit angry that money could hold us back from making her adoption happen. I just can't accept that money could keep us from giving a child a home and family, and keep us from having the daughter we dreamed of for a year now. Sigh, money .

I had really hoped we could tell everyone at Christmas that we are adopting-as we have kept everything pretty quiet, awaiting that approval status of our home study. (So for anyone reading this that knows me on facebook, don't say anything yet!) So far, any mention of adoption as been met with great skepticism from our family members, so I long SO MUCH to tell them all about our sweet girl, and show them her photos, and let the real connection start for them.

And once we have the approval, and we start full steam ahead with grants and fundraising, I am just so excited to share the news, and print her photo out for everyone. I know special needs-especially physical AND mental ones-can be so scary, but I also just know that once they see her little waiting photo, and read about her, that everyone will fall as much in love with her as we are.

And in the meantime, we have some presents under our tree, that will wait for our Princess to get home and open them. I hope that Christmas 2013 sees us with her guardianship, and even better, sees us with her here, opening these sweet gifts.

A gift for the Princess! 

My favorite bible verse right now:
I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. -John 14:18.

Somehow, someway, we are coming to her.


Saturday, December 22, 2012

Goodbye 2012

Somehow, the 21st is already here! Thankfully, the end of the world ended up not occurring, haha! Though that does remind me that I need to get back to couponing so I can restock my pantry; I have been trying hard to cut back our budget as much as possible and putting every little bit extra into our adoption fund. So, I guess that can be my new years resolution-hunt down grocery sales! Because, you know, these boys just keep eating and eating and eating.....and making me wish I had their metabolism! It must be all the super hero fighting they do:

In other news, the school year is half over! Crazy! I have to register JR for kindergarten the second week of January; that just blows my mind. Didn't I JUST sign him up for preschool? And he is already writing his letters, starting to read sight words, and becoming just the most wonderful, sweet little man.

The other night he mentioned he wanted to dye his hair blonde like AJ's. It hurt my heart a bit to think he hated his hair, and I don't know if I handled it well or not, but I told him. that if he wanted his hair blonde, that when he got old enough to have it dyed I'd take him to do it-and I told him that I would probably dye my hair his red color, because I think it is such an awesome color like fire. He seemed quite pleased with that. Did I handle that OK? I have no idea, but at least he seemed pretty happy his hair was like fire-and he seemed happy thinking that he could change the color if he wanted. Maybe just knowing he could change it, will make him not as unhappy with the color he has? I know that some people have called him "ginger" and he hates that so much, so I am thinking that might be the source of why he wants to be blonde...but I don't know; next week he may decide red is the most awesome ever.

Little Dude is certainly a little dude now. He just seems so much like a little man these days. He is wise and sweet and so incredibly smart. We hung some ornaments on our Christmas Tree from India, in honor of Princess, and Little Dude asked if she would be scared or sad to leave her friends there and come here. We told him yes, since that is the truth, and explained that we would have to show her that she can trust us and love us, and that we will be her family forever-because right now, even though she has her friends and knows everyone, she doesn't have parents to take care of her, and look after her, or brothers to play legos with. He cried saying he didn't want her to be scared and that he would help make her feel peace.

Is he not the sweetest? Oh that broke my heart to hear him express concern for Princess's transition to our home.

Champ is growing by leaps and bounds. He loves Bill's truck, and says 'Daddy truck vroom vroom all the time" SO cute! I keep trying to catch him on video, but every time he stops talking and just looks at me. Eventually I'll catch him talking!

In overall news, last week there as a school shooting in Newtown CT-20 kindergarteners were killed my a crazy guy with a gun. On the Friday it happen, as soon as I learned about it, I took Little Dude out of school at 2 and we all got icecream. My heart broke watching all my boys play and thinking of the families who were running to that school looking for their children. This morning, there were police guarding his school with guns outside. The sight made my heart stop and I had to take some deep breaths to brightly and calmly tell Little Dude I loved him and have a great day. Seeing those police made me want to do nothing else but drive back home with all my boys and just cry. It is terrifying to realize I can't keep them safe, 24/7. And, playing on that fear, there was a radio ad I heard while driving back home, for a backpack company now selling bullet proof backpacks for kids.

But, enough sad stuff. This year, overall has been amazing. It is hard to realize that we started our research into adopting from Princess's country more than a year ago-and this coming March it will be an official year since we started the first of our adoption paper work. My, a year is going by quickly! And hopefully, the next year brings us lots of grant money, lots of blessings, and somehow, gets me through all the paperwork gathering for our dossier.

I'm really NOT looking forward to getting all those documents gathered and notarized and apostilled. But I am SO MUCH looking forward to using my passport, which came in the mail today.

My nice, new, UPDATED to married name, passport is now here. I'm ready to travel and go get our Princess. I'm so excited to see if we are blessed with her in 2013!

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