My awesome cousin, LaDonna, has graciously volunteered to donate all her sales this month to our adoption fund! She has a home based business with a company called Scentsy, specializing in wickless candles that smell soooooooooooooo good! I have one burning in my house right now, and it smells like LILACS in here, people!!! NOT like smelly little boys! For real. So if you are interested, just click on her link to the right and check out the catalog. They ship right to your door and the burners come in tons of shapes- from cute to elegant and everything in between! So you will be getting a great product and we will reap the benefits! LaDonna... you are the BEST!!!



Click away and see what you think!

APPROVED!!!

I just received this letter in my email inbox 2 minutes ago:


Dear Michael and Gayla,

Congratulations, you are now Gladney approved and ready to begin the dossier and ultimately the referral phase of your adoption process. I am mailing you both an approval packet with your approval certificate and quarterly training information for your “approved and waiting” period. (etc...)

WooHoo!!! That is a HUGE step in the right direction. It means our homestudy is complete and on it's way to CIS for final approval! It means we are very close to being on the "wait" list! It means this thing is REALLY going to happen!!! AAAAAAAUGH!!! I know we are nowhere close to the end, but I kind of got butterflies in my stomach when that email arrived. Wow. This is really going to happen. Am I up to this??? Am I up to this challenge??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So exciting and encouraging and terrifying all at once.

Frustrated.

I just realized today that CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services- formerly INS) is waiting on our home study documents before they will call for us to go be fingerprinted (again) and that after that their approval will take approximately 60 days. What that translates to is that although I was hoping to have ALL paperwork in by the end of May, which after everything is approved puts us on the official "waiting" list to be matched w/ children, now that's at least one month off the timeline I've had stuck in my head. So that sends me off on a tailspin in my mind. "Are we behind? Have I not been diligent enough? Could I have been more organized and efficient and put us where we need to be???" See? Tailspin. But when I calmed myself down I realized that truly all of this is out of my control. As far as I know our homestudy docs are at the agency and they are doing whatever they are supposed to do with them before they send them on to me for me to copy and then send to my dossier service and to the CIS office. And at that point the CIS office will start whatever it is that takes them 60 days, tell us to get fingerprinted again, etc... So really, there's nothing I can do about it. But be patient and wait. And trust that the timing is all working out the way it is supposed to work out.

I have tried not to get dates stuck in my head, but it is very hard not to. When I read the country updates each month that give the new approximate time frames for everything it's impossible not to start adding up the time and landing on a month in 2010 when we might be able to travel to Ethiopia to get our children... but I know that is foolish. All I can control is my part of the paperwork, which I do feel I have been diligent about, and then just relax and have faith that there is a perfect timing that is working it's way out for the best possible outcome. And even for me to think that all of the paperwork would be finished by the end of May was assuming that I was in charge of all of it, which I obviously am not.

SO! A lesson learned. Deep breath being taken right now. Tension being released... trying to release tension... trying... I think I need a massage.

So Hard.

Go here. Watch this.

Our lives are so easy and so blessed.

Non-Update

Well... there's not much exciting information to tell on the adoption paperwork front. Mick's passport and renewal application were returned today b/c his signature went outside the little white box (picky, picky!) and b/c they only want US Postal Money Orders, not ones from my bank. (Really? There's a difference? Okay, Australian Embassy, have it your way! I needed one more thing to do!!!)

Right now I'm waiting on...
...fingerprints and criminal clearance to come back from the FBI
...Becky's letter of recommendation (which I think is on it's way shortly)
...homestudy documents from the social worker.
...CIS (formerly INS) approval letter (sent for this in January... does it usually take this long???)
...my renewed passport (with very unflattering picture inside- waah.) to arrive

And I still have to...
...fix Mick's passport renewal application and re-send
...have both our birth certificate cover letters notarized
...print written statement and have it notarized on same day
...get 12 photos of our house actually printed off as photographs- not just digital copies. (do I even remember how to do that?)
...notarize FBI approval when it arrives
...notarize CIS approval when it arrives
...send new passport copies & passport numbers to dossier service after they arrive
...and I think that's it.

I know it may seem like a lot to you, but to me this looks like the shortest list I've seen in a LOOOOOONG time!!! I truly believe that God's grace is on me for all this stuff b/c 'normal' Gayla does not like paperwork, nor super organization, nor much of anything that goes along w/ getting through this phase. BUT... I've been able to do it all w/o stress and with great joy! Amazing, right??? I think so.

So there's your non-update. More later.

one day without shoes

one day without shoes

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