Homestudy

HOMESTUDY APPROVED! I have my 4 sought after homestudy copies in my hands. USCIS here we come!!!! The mailman thinks I am nuts, btw.

A few more weekend snaps

Daddy and boys

Cuddling together

Jack's favorite bear

My new haircut from this weekend. Jack took this picture before my date Sat. :)

Anderson at work

Some pictures I snapped this weekend. (for Kelly) Trying to amuse Anderson, I gave him a tuppeware container and spoon to put inside and shake. (ingenious, I am) He liked it. And he has mastered climbing up on the chair and has decided he should eat all his meals that way and highchairs are for babies. (not cool)

Dreamed of referral

I had the most amazing dream last night. In it, we traveled to Korea and got our referral in a room full of people getting their referrals. A worker brought us a picture of her. She had pink on and looked like a combo of Olive and Max. (two of my bloggy friends kids) Strange, I think my mind could not conjure up an original image! The referral card was pink and had her name on it. I can't remember her first name but her middle name started with Ann (my middle name) and ended with Korean looking letters. It had on there the meaning of her name and I can remember seeing "little princess." Also in the dream we saw her birth date, and it would equal to be June of this year. I remember saying "Oh she was conceived a month before our first meeting." It was soooooo real. I still have her image in my mind. I wish I could print it out to show you. She was also very chubby and around 7 mos. old it looked. I just so remember being in shock and thinking this baby would be mine. Daniel and I watched a video in the dream and saw her playing. Strange that there was a room full of people getting referrals. Everyone was ooohing and aahing over their pictures. Such a good dream. :)

Weekend wrap-up

We had a great weekend! I see alot of my bloggy friends did, as well. I have tons of reading to catch up on!! Saturday I got to go out all by myself in the morning for a haircut and a little retail therapy. It was heaven. I love my boys, but shopping with Jack and Anderson is more or less pointless unless you enjoy looking for small boys under clothing wracks. My boys like to play. Not shop. lol. I am sure this is not wierd and totally the norm if you look at my husband. I do not like shopping with him, either. "Do you really need a second pair of shoes?" "Geesh, I will be lucky if they let me leave with my shirt on." (this is funny because he made this remark over a $7 thermos for Jack's lunchbox and his Mom was with us and laughed because he was being so overdramatic) :)
Anyway, lost my train of thought there.... then Saturday evening we got to go out on a DATE with some good friends to a nice dinner and band. It was sooooo fun and great to have adult conversation. We actually stayed out until 11pm. WOW. I don't even remember the last time I was out that late. Sunday was church and today I played with the boys all day and at the end of the day we saw a rainbow. Very cool and I was so so mad I did not have my camera with me. Jack was so excited. I think it is the first one he has ever seen. (or that he can remember)
I am STILL waiting on my homestudy in the mail. But I do know our international agency signed off on it and said it looks good. So my social worker should have mailed it to me by now. Don't worry, I will take a picture of it when I have it in my hands......

My favorite winter product for little ones

So I just have to share this sale LL Bean is having on these trail model fleece jackets. I love love these things for my boys. It is my third year using them for winter. You know what is perfect about them? You can put them on your kids in the house and they actually will wear them in their car seats because they are not bulky. Now, if it is freezing ouside, we will either layer up under them or bring our heavier jackets to put on at the park. But they are 62% off now, and you just can't beat $14.99 for this jacket. I use mine 3 seasons for the boys. And I may have a 6-12 month pink one in my shopping cart currently.

http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/52099?pi=865805&catalog_id=TK&attrValue_0=Azalea

So those of you waiting on baby or with a small one - check it out. They go up to 4t in the sale sizes. Very true to size, if not a little big. Your welcome. (no i do not work for ll bean)

Adoption is about love *with link*

This is a new design on CafePress. I am thinking about getting it on a bumper sticker - Isn't it fabulous?

Here is the link: http://www.cafepress.com/+3quot_lapel_sticker_48_pk,425650254

I am actually not sure if there is a bumper sticker - but you can put the design on tshirts and lots of other things. There are stickers that I guess you could use as a bumper sticker.

Holding Pattern

I am so anxious this week. I am waiting on our homestudy to be mailed to me and right now our international agency should be reviewing it. I think I am the one that will be sending it to USCIS so I can get our fingerprinting appt. but still waiting to hear back on that. HOLDING PATTERN. I hope I have those homestudy copies in my hot little hands by Monday. I may lose my mind. Seriously. This is hard. Everything is so out of my control. I have to wait on the agency to get me my copies, then I have to wait on USCIS to issue our fingerprinting appts. Then once we get that done I have to wait for clearance. I feel like if I can just get our paperwork to Korea, I will be able to have something to look forward to. I will be actually waiting for a referral. Right now I am just stuck in a muck. It feels like it is taking forever to get our paperwork to Korea. Thanks for listening to my whine. I am tired of organizing and cleaning. Daniel actually told me I am cleaning too much. lol. I just don't know what to do to feel better about this. Maybe I need a hobby. That does not involve Mr. Clean.

Wordless Wednesday

Jack in his snow fort :)

During our big snow about a month ago.

Pure and genuine religion

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
James 1:27

My prayer for today is for the orphans. May each one find a forever family.

Melt my heart

Jack is apparently very excited about his baby sister. When Daniel picked him up from Sunday School today the teacher told Daniel that Jack told her all about his baby sister from China. (lol- we can't seem to convince him she is from Korea and not China) Then later today while I was putting away groceries Jack was running around the house singing this rendition from "He's got the whole world in His Hands" : He's got my baby sister Leah, in His hands, He's got my baby sister Leah in his hands........
Melt my heart.

Lots on my mind

I have alot of thought going thru my brain on this early Saturday morning. Don't worry, I have already chugged 2 cups of coffee so I am starting to think clearer already. Daniel and I stayed up late last night figuring out where we are going to put Leah when she comes home. As in, where do I get to put a crib with pink bedding??? He suggested our room, ummm, no, she has to have her own space. That suggestion was quickly tossed out. She can share a room with her brothers. Ummm...no.. we are not having 3 children in one room, sorry. (fine if no other option, but we have another spare room) The problem is we have two bedrooms upstairs and one down. SO we mulled over adding an addition to the front of our house for a small baby room but decided that is crazy since we want to move in a few years and would rather save that money to move to a larger house faster. SO we decided to move Jack to the main level bedroom and get him a sweet bunk bed setup to convince him this is a really great idea. Anderson and Leah's room will be painted light green, and I will get this sweet pottery barn bedding with pink in the stripe for Leah and boy stripe for Anderson's big boy bed. Then I can decorate a little girly over on Leah's side of the room and do something new and fun and boyish on Anderson's side. Jack can pick out his theme - to hopefully get him excited about his new room. What do you think about my plan??

I was thinking about stripe baby bedding for Leah and blue stripe toddler quilt and bedding for Anderson's side of the room. With the owl plush for Leah's bed with a mural over like in this pottery barn picture, and the frog plush for Anderson with the frog mural over his bed. (or the fox or dog) And both sets of bedding have a light green stripe like in my future wall color -

Working with two agencies

Alrighty, I just have to get this off my chest. I am fed up with working with a homestudy agency and then a seperate international adoption agency. I get two different ways to do things from both of them on everything. It is so confusing and I am frustrated!! Did any of you send your own homestudy in to USCIS? From our international agency perspective, our homestudy agency should be doing this, but they refuse. I spoke to our international agency head today and she is very frustrated with my social worker and says she is not being very "accomadating." I, in turn don't want to mess with USCIS, and sent in my I-600A with a cover letter that our agency was sending in my homestudy. I told our international agency today, that it fine, if our SW wants us to send it in, no problem. But she told me she is calling my SW's supervisor to see what is going on. AGH.... this is so stressful. I just want a baby from Korea.
Did any of you work with two agencies, and if you did did you run into any issues?

Wordless Wednesday

You have to hear about our visit

SO first off, we are approved to adopt and everything (almost everything) went well. Here is the story. Anderson was eating a snack in his highchair while we were sitting at the table discussing our adoption. I was, a nervous wreck trying to hold it together. Anderson started screaming so I took off his tray and tried to pull him out of the highchair. Danie said "I buckled him in" I remember he was stuck in it so I turned around to set his tray on the table so I could unbuckle him to get him out. Next think I know I hear a plop, the social worker gasps and Anderson is sitting on the FLOOR. Oh my gosh. I look at Daniel and say " i thought he was buckled in??!) Daniel just nervously laughs and Anderson starts laughing, luckily, and was not hurt. I scooped him up and tell him I am really sorry and tell the social worker that has never happened before. OH MY GOSH, again. What in the world happened?? After the sw left, I looked at Daniel and he tells me I unbuckled him before turning around. I HAVE NO MEMORY OF THIS AT ALL. I was so nervous I was not even thinking right. What a story, eh??
Luckily, the rest of the visit went great, and our social worker was really nice and did not seem phased by what looked like a totally crazy mom. She told us she would have our study written up by the end of the week. She left smiling...... Someone give me a relaxer....

Count DOWN

24 HOURS people, 24 hours. My house is spotless, I have a mountain of research on special needs I have looked into over the weekend, I have a book on Korea for children Jack and I will be going over today. (he keeps telling us we are getting a baby sister from China, and I am trying to help him understand where Korea is and how it is different from China) I am not really doing this for the visit, just picked it up at the Library for him and want to read it. Bring on the home visit!
(and Daniel informed me that if I "happen" to be reading this to Jack when our social worker walks in, he will pretend to not know me!) haha

Picture Book

Yesterday I bought this for Leah. I am going to send it to her and her foster family once we get her referral, so she can look at pictrures of us. Some things I love about this book:
1) It is pink
2) My baby girl will one day hold it
3) I can fill it now with pictures of us and her brothers
4) It looks durable
5) It has a sweet little bee on the front
6) It was under $10 so I did not feel guilty indulging
7) It is soft
8) It will be filled with people who love Leah

Special needs info

I am thinking it may be good our homestudy has been delayed, as we have not discussed with our social worker yet the special needs we are open to, and will need to do that at the final home visit to get that written into our homestudy. Maybe some things happen for a reason..... If we would have had this back 3 weeks ago I had not even thought to ask our agency for the paperwork I filled out on special needs to forward to our social worker. (2 agencies , one for homestudy, one for international aspect) SO, yesterday this all hit me (duh!) and I wrote a bunch of emails and got that all situated. BUT I found out this from our social worker: in order for her to approve us for these special needs requests, I need to let her know how we would manage them, what resources we have checked out in the area the addresses the needs, and all the research we have done on the need and experience we have with each issue. GULP! I have done very little research, and have very little experience. Jack was a premie, so I have that to go on, but not much else....
So my question for you all - anyone know of any great books on this subject Barnes might have? I can power read this weekend..... Or websites?
And by "resources" do you think she means I need to call some local doctors or have some names ready?? I have talked to our pediatrician, but I am not sure if she means specialists? I am really relieved to have a few days to figure this out......
We have a fairly big list of special needs we are open to, so I do have alot of research I need to do this weekend.
If our little Leah has some of these needs, it may have all fallen thru for her to be with us if I looked like I was totally unprepared to handle them at our meeting........
So now I can stop organizing for awhile and start researching!!

Wordless Wednesday

How many stockings will I be able to hang next year?

Question for those of you that are adopting

To all my new adopting friends: how long was it before your homestudy was wrapped up? I know a few of you moved thru at lightning speed...but I was just wondering an average here. I think ours should be written by the 4 month mark and hopefully we will be fingerprinted sometime shortly around there..... Just wondering... I know I could go stalk all your blogs but I am tired and hoped some of you would just give me some numbers.... thanks! ;)

OH and what was the time frame in starting paperwork to having your baby in your arms??

Pororo loot

My Dad lives in South Korea and works as a flight instructor in Seoul. (for Korean Air) He was coming to the states for Christmas so of course I begged for any Pororo loot he could bring back for me, errr my kids. He found these cute little Pororo bath squirters over there. He brought three packs. One is a pack of 3 with Pororo and 2 of his little buddies. The other two are singular and one has a little character with a pink scarf and the other is just another lone Pororo character. Funny story, Jack decided that the pack of 3 was his (duh, more for him), Anderson gets the other lone character (Eddie the fox) and baby sister gets the one with the pink scarf, named Petty. So I hid Leah's away in her "stash box" in the closet and Jack keeps finding it bringing it out telling me "this is my baby sister's toy." SO CUTE! Every time he does it it melts my heart a little.....

The toys look just like these.... might be the same actually. So cute - Dad, if you are reading I need more Pororo. :)

Christmas pictures (finally)

Here are some pictures of our trip to Georgia for Christmas!

Organizing like a mad woman

Ummm.... I am not sure what it is, but I am organizing my house like a crazy woman lately. It has gotten worse this week, I think "maybe" it is my way of dealing with not being able to control much of anything about this adoption. When our social worker delayed our last home visit, I think mentally I started organizing closets. I am organizing stuff I have never organized before. I bought a whole system to organize giftwrap. "really? giftwrap?" Yes, you need a gift, I can wrap it for anything. Oh and a whole three drawer cart for organizing all my stationary and cards I have bought for people, then lost before I gave it to them. So today I spent most of the morning locating those cards and storing them in my neat little cart. Need a card? I am Hallmark. Let's not go to the toys. I have them all sorted by dinosaur type, car type, you name it. Tomorrow I am on to pictures. And the kids closet. By the time Leah comes home I think I will have everything cataloged like the library. OH DEAR.