Waiting Stitches

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to our Friends & Family!  We have been blessed to spend some time with extended family that we don't see too often. It is always fun to catch-up and shoot the breeze. Today I'm feeling lazy, sitting around talking and getting some sewing projects worked on. There is a part of me that wishes I was getting a lot of things "done" right now, and the other part of me is so very thankful for the time to relax and just be for a day or two. The last couple weeks have been filled with work, preparing for upcoming concerts, swimming lessons, daily upkeep in life, and now more adoption paperwork. I started feeling a little like the burning of my candle at both ends, was turning into a full out fire. My candle was burning out a little too quickly. It's busy times like these where I realize it is hard to find what I'm thankful for, instead it is easier to feel stressed and complain about the little things. With Thanksgiving around the co...

Caleb helped us take our paperwork to the notary today. There is a big rock outside of the office that he loves standing on. Every time we pass it he asks for his picture to be taken. He is such a stinkin' cute and goofy kid! It was a huge relief to get the paperwork done and sent in the mail today. This means that we should have our dossier paperwork by next Tuesday so we can start to tackle it all. Can't say I'm looking forward to the dossier paperwork, but after looking at the upcoming checklist of things to do, it all felt very doable. Having just finished the Ethiopia dossier, I feel familiar with the documents and know which steps we should take first to help it all go smoothly. I kind of wish I could get started tomorrow! But realize it will be good to have a couple days to breathe and not think about the paperwork. Instead, I plan to do things like this... I love spending time playing games with Caleb and Jon! Tonight we played Train Dominoes, a game we just...

See all of the blue tags in the paperwork I am holding... that my friends is ALL of the spots that our Notary Public will have to sign & seal - 26 spots to be exact. Yikes! Bless her heart! She is a friend of ours and we are going to owe her a HUGE piece of chocolate, or something amazing, by the end of it all. Poor gal is going to have a hand cramp! So why all the papers? There are two different sets of paperwork here: the official paperwork putting us into the Philippines program with AGCI and the paperwork saying that we accept the Referral of Little C. Typically the referral paperwork is done AFTER the dossier, but we are doing it all a little backwards it seems! Once these things are turned in, along with the fees that accompany them, we will get all of the documents we need to work on for our dossier - that will be step 3. I have already spent two long & late nights working on Step 2 paperwork - not so much looking forward to Step 3, but I feel such a rush trying ...

After three weeks of not hearing anything, we have gotten our answer - We are to Go Ahead with our paperwork to adopt Little C!!  Yes, his name is now "Little C". We must keep privacy until he is officially home, but his name does start with a "C" and since Caleb also starts with the same letter, our new little one for now will affectionately be called "Little C"! I am thrilled! This an answer to prayer. Unfortunately though there is still some uncertainty. Our next step is to accept Little C's referral and then submit our dossier to the Philippines (which will take a couple months). Once they have our dossier, there is still a chance that we could be denied the adoption. The chances are small because they've already accepted our profile, but just knowing there is a chance, does make me nervous.  But enough about nervous thoughts! When all goes smoothly and government things move fast and social workers are timely... ;) We will bri...