She's walking!

Evelyn is officially a walker! She is finally walking more than crawling :)

Pseudo Update

We are planning on sending our dossier over to Eastern Europe this Thursday!

Eek! It's so exciting just typing that.

I asked for a rough idea of "what's next" and this how I understand it:

We will wire over a translation fee and our dossier Thursday.

In the next couple weeks, a lovely woman will be translating our documents for us.

Once that's done, she will submit our documents to the adoption officials.

Then the facilitator will get in touch with Olive's social worker - and see how long it will take her to get all of Olive's paperwork ready to be adopted.

At that point we will have a better idea of when we'll be able to travel.

The estimate at this point puts us traveling the end of November or Beginning of December according to our wonderful state-side coordinator.

The way I understood it was that they wouldn't allow people to travel late November or later...

So, I've emailed back asking for clarification.

But, the idea that we could be 7 to 10 weeks out from seeing our daughter just tickles me pink!

And it gets better yet - another mom is traveling to adopt her little boy in the same orphanage that Olive's in and she got to see her!

I wasn't expecting it - but she might be able to get me a photo of Olive tomorrow!

I love knowing any little bit of information I can get about our little doll face, and a picture is like heaven.

I asked Tammy how Olive looked, because she always seems so pale and frail in her pictures.. and she said that she didn't look pale, and she was just laying there in her crib looking at her talk to the facilitator in the doorway.

It just dawned on me that if we travel in that time-frame, our process would have taken 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 months - the same as a pregnancy! Strange, considering I've always said that (albiet cliche) were pregnant on paper & compared our process to a pregnancy.

Our big boy...

Ethan has officially boycotted his "little drums" and convinced Karl to let him play on his set...

Is it possible?

Is it even possible?!

While attending the "your church and the orphan" conference today, I ran in to our homestudy social worker...

While she was asking me about where we were in our process, I explained that the main thing we were waiting for (aside from finances, of course) was USCIS approval of our I-600A... And she proceeds to tell me that all the sudden her families are waiting 4-6 weeks instead of the previously quoted 90+ days.

Do you know what that means?!?

That means that we might be able to travel this fall still! At least it's a heck of lot more likely!

It made my day!

I now have a fire under my butt to get this paperwork done and get the finances in order to prepare to leave this fall (if its God's will).

I'm excited, hopeful, anxious, scared, and eager to see how everything unfolds!

I had the sweetest dream of Olive the other day that refreshed my love and commitment to her, and it was such a blessing!

I am so nervous about leaving my other two babies, but so anxious to embrace my other baby in eastern Europe.

Hopefully we can have our dossier done and sent off by the end of the week, and some grant applications too.

And who knows, maybe in a month or two we could be kissing the sweet cheeks of our chromosomally enhanced angel!

God is so good! Amen!

Best buds...

Amelia came to sleep over this weekend.

We didn't do anything too special - because we were having our garage sale.

But, I did get a lot of pictures...

Biting my nails

I've been biting my proverbial nails (I'm not a biter) waiting to see how everything is going to unfold.

I've been hesitant to finish up our dossier and send it over, because most likely we aren't going to travel until February, and don't want anything to change between now and then, that would require me to re-submit it.

But, this week, my goal is to get those last few pieces together - and just send it over, in that very small, unlikely chance that everything falls together for us to travel this fall still.

We're submitting an application for a matching grant, and possible no-interest loan to help ensure those last few thousand dollars will be there should we need them.

We're praying that everything will come together just as God would have it, and should Olive need to stay in the orphanage for another 6-8 weeks, or 5 months - that God will protect her, and that He'll help us to trust in His plan...

I am so stressed about leaving our 'other' kids at home while traveling.

We have only gone 1 weekend with out the kids, and missed them every minute - I'm starting to have anxiety about 3 weeks!!!

Garage sale...

We're having a last-ditch effort on selling garage sale items before the winter.

We are going to be holding a garage sale Friday 10-5, Saturday 10-5, Sunday 1-5, Monday 10-4

We're praying for a good turn out.

We haven't had much luck with fundraisers so far.