Road Block

So, who ever said international adoption was easy??? Well, I know that no one in their right mind would say that... and I have been fair warned so my first little road block occurred this past weekend... frustrating to say the least.
Our home study has been going great we are finishing up collecting our final documents. When this past weekend we received a letter from our placement agency. They increased our fees by a pretty decent amount.
Well, I should say they increased everyone's fees that will receive a referral after mid July which is 6 months before we would even possibly see a referral. So, my dilemma is that I do not like the way that my agency has been handling this and now I have a choice. Being that I am in the beginning stages I would receive a refund all but my little application fee at this point if I decided to switch agencies. So, I have been back on all of my research groups scouring the agencies that I had in my top group to see if there is another agency that would fit my standards a little better. I am not saying that I will switch... I just feel compelled to at least take a breather and make sure that I am on the correct path.
I know that God has a plan and that if there is a little boy in Africa that is supposed to be our son... the day will come where we will bring him home. And, that is what comforts me now.
But, if any of you with more experience want to leave me some feedback I would be grateful!!!

Elias Sime & Friends!!!

Yesterday I was fortunate enough (thanks sweetie) to sneak away from work and my kiddos to enjoy a fun day with H & some new friends. We went to see the art exhibit where we met the Ethiopian artist Elias Sime... he is Ah-Mazing!!! All of his pieces were made with found materials it was incredible. And, did you read we were able to actually meet him... wowza!!! You can read more about Elias here... and you will notice I stole one of the above pics from Kat (thank you!!).

I had so much fun meeting the other adoptive and prospective adoptive parents (AP's and PAP's in the adoption world). Kat showed us around Little Ethiopia in LA and we were able to eat a traditional ethiopian meal at Messob. It looks a little funky yes, but it is delicious... mmmm!!! I can't wait to go back a group of AP's and PAP's meet there monthly to let the kids play and the adults chat... sounds like a good time to me.

On the adoption front Hubby and I have now been LiveScanned (basically lots of fingerprints) so were are dwindling the long list of paperwork to do's off our home study list... and we should be receiving the instructions for our dossier next week!!!

(Oh... the shoeless pic is b/c Tom's Shoes had a day without shoes yesterday)

Help for Mingi ("cursed") Children

The following video tugged at my heart while I was reading some adoption blogs today at lunch. It was posted here first, but I felt compelled to share. It made me want to pack up and go help. Please watch...


Drawn from Water from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.

Happy Easter!!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We had so much fun this Easter. It all started with a city egg hunt at the sports park yesterday. The kids were all in different age groups so I was happy when my parents unexpectedly showed up and helped out. The kids were all so fast the hunt was done in a few seconds. Then we moved on to Aunt L's House for some egg dying, egg hunting, Easter dining, puppy loving, drum learning, and wrestling... what??? Yes, it may not be traditional but it was tons of fun. And, for the record don't worry that actually is NOT our puppy. That is Bentley who belongs to L's family plus Cousin D (a whole other story).
Easter continued with Captain waking everyone up b/c he swears he saw the Easter Bunny on our neighbors roof. So, we convinced him to watch some cartoons in our room so we could squeeze in another 45 min of sleep (he initially woke up at 5:15am). We found baskets from the Easter Bunny and went on a Easter Egg Hunt in our backyard.
I hope your Easter was just as much fun!!!

Field Trip Fun!!!

Captain's Kindergarten Class (and the other kinder class at his school)
Meet Captain's friend D... he lives on the farm we visitedAbove is D's Backyard playground... what???--Amazing Right?

Captain loved holding all of the animals this is a hen

They learned how to brush horses

This is D's dad taking Captain on a pony ride

Yes, of course he has a zipline too!

Captain loved the peacock... which he called the peecot

Here are the best buddies!!!

So, this week flew by... as do most. We had a lot of fun on the field trip to D's farm. It was truly an amazing place. They raise cashmere goats and taught the kiddos all about farm life. They had goats, cows, pigs, dogs, kittens, a baby lamb, horses, ponies, chickens, chicks, alpacas, peacocks and ducks. And, this is just their home that they were coerced to hold a field trip on so needless to say we felt very lucky!!!
On the adoption front we completed our home study meeting which is a big mile stone in this lengthy process. We loved our social worker and we thought our interviews went great until we brought the kiddos in. For some reason (probably feeding off our nervous energy) they acted like crazy monsters... such is the life sometimes as a parent. So, I would not say that we were able to showcase our best parenting skills to our social worker. We will have to see what she writes in her report...yikes!!!

Universal Studios

The above picture was so funny... Cuddlebear hugged Belle tightly on purpose b/c he was soaking wet and Belle had been avoiding getting wet. Poor Baby Belle was so mad at him... but lucky they made up and the proof is below-- little does Belle now this kind of baffoonery is just getting started!!!







Well, our spring break has come to a close... we had a lot of fun this weekend. And, Universal was no exception. The kids enjoyed playing in the Curious George Ball area and water park. And, Captain also enjoyed the big kid rides (Mummy and Jurassic). Captain was also picked to be a volunteer in one of the shows where he wears a suit and he thinks he is controlling this huge monster... I have it on video and I will try and post it when I have time. He was so brave it was adorable... I was really proud of him!(especially considering that I would have been to scared and wimped out). But, now it is back to school tomorrow...weep...weep.

A Fun Day!

Whew... we had a fun filled day today... we started out at Captain's second basketball game at 8 am (a little early for me). He is doing so great playing defense and he also shot one basket today as well. Out of all the sports he has played this one is by far the one he enjoys the best. (And, yes we need to take better pics at the basketball games-- Captain is the blurred out kid running back after his basket.)
After bball we headed over to the park to meet our good friend and her boys... we love hanging out with them they are such a blast!!!
And, we finished off the night making some Easter cupcakes and now we are getting ready for a fun filled last hooray day before we are back to school Universal Studios trip.
Trust me Jaws will have nothing on this tired momma by the end of tomorrow.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday!

Home Study Ahead!!!

On the adoption front we have hit a couple little milestones... yay!!!
1) I have sent in enough paperwork that my social worker (whom I love) is coming to do our home study meeting next week. This is a big deal in our adoption world b/c it is a 4 hour meeting where she will interview Hubby and I together and alone, the kids and take a tour of our home to see if we are fit enough parents to add another little one to our crew. I am seriously kind of freaking out about cleaning my house and hoping that everything goes smoothly next week (the big day is Thursday).
2) I sent in the remaining paperwork and payment to my placement agency so that they can send us all of our dossier instructions. Basically, just more paperwork to complete. And, much of it coincides with paperwork that the home study agency needs. So, needless to say I am grateful that we have raised enough funds to get started on both at the same time. Which brings me to my next task which has been to raise more funds... and I am trying to be clever.
So far we have:
sold items on craigs list, sold some of the time share points that we owned, and booked a vacation for someone using our dvc points, gave up eating out (we didn't do much of it anyway so not a huge savings), gave up spending on wants-- now we only spend on the needs, and we also asked for donations during x-mas and our bdays in lieu of gifts. This has gotten us to about $6,000. The entire adoption will cost us about $20,000. But, we have time and more ideas.
Like the Yard Sale... so if you have any junk that you don't want lying around anymore... please consider donating it to us to sale at our yard sale. We will pick up and store anything you may have. We plan on having the sale this May.
And, if anyone out there has any more ideas please let me know :)