Happy Holidays!

Nothing much to report on the adoption front. We're having our home visit next week, and we're starting to work on the stack of papers needed for our dossier. Mostly, though, we've been enjoying some time together with family and our little ones that are already here. We've also been re-arranging and organizing our bedroom, and even though it's not done, it's the cleanest it's been since we moved in.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and that you can continue to enjoy the end of this year and the beginning of the new one! I haven't had a chance to put pictures from this Christmas on my computer yet, so I'll leave you with a picture from last year.

Introducing Our Daughter!

We're excited to finally be able to share with you the little girl who we hope to make our daughter!

We first found her picture on Reece's Rainbow, and have learned more about her since from families who have adopted from her orphanage and met her. She is listed as "Brigitte" on Reece's Rainbow, but that is not her real name, just a pseudonym used by them to protect her privacy. We'll continue to use it here on our blog for the same reason. The picture above is the one shown on Reece's Rainbow, and it's probably about a year old. We do have other pictures of her, some more recent, and I look forward to sharing some of them here, but this is the picture I first fell in love with, so I wanted to share it first.

As things stand now she will be available for international adoption in June, so we are planning on traveling to her country in Eastern Europe then to bring her home. There is a small chance she will be adopted in her home country before we get there, but we feel like God has led us here, so we're trusting that he will continue to watch over this process.

There are a number of things we need to finish before we can adopt, but we're working on them. We have a social worker coming to visit our home in 2.5 weeks, and we're gathering lots of papers to send to our little girl's government to show them we are capable of caring for her.

Soon I'll update the blog to feature her picture as well, and we'll also get a button to put on the sidebar that links to our family's donation page, if anyone wants to donate toward the costs of our adoption. I looked the other day and found we already had our first donation! I don't know who gave it (I promise I'll find out soon so I can send you a real thank-you note), but whoever it was, Thank you!

A Few Updates

I know, I've been horrible about keeping up on this blog. I promise I'll do better in the coming months! But here are a few updates from the last month:

1. There's still no official word on the special needs list in our girl's country. Maybe in January we'll know for certain when she'll be available. (Just to remind everyone, she'll be available in June no matter what.)

2. The little boy on my sidebar, who I was a warrior for, now has a committed family, and they have accepted his file in his country, and they get to meet him tomorrow! (Actually, with the time difference, in just a few hours!) If you, like me, want to follow along, their blog is http://threemorejacobsons.blogspot.com/.

3. I finally set up an etsy shop to sell some flower hair clips and cards to help raise money for our adoption. I'm going to figure out how to put a link in my sidebar, but until then, the shop is at http://www.etsy.com/shop/vadascreations. The pictures aren't the best, but I promise the stuff is super cute! And I have a whole bunch more cards and clips to add, so if you want something specific keep checking back or send me an e-mail.

4. We're working on "officially" committing to our girl, so hopefully soon we'll get to put her picture here! At that point we'll also have a link you can use to make tax-deductible donations to her adoption, if you're so inclined.

5. We're working on our home study, should have our home visit later this month, and will hopefully have it completed by early January. We're also starting work on dossier documents to send to our daughter's country.

So, even though I haven't been updating, things have been progressing, and hopefully will continue to do so at an even faster rate!

Keeping It Real

So, October has come and gone, and we continue to wait on word from our daughter's country to help us get a better idea of the timeline that we'll be able to adopt her. Even though I know she should be available for adoption in about 7 months even if her country doesn't change anything, most days the waiting is just hard. Sometimes it feels like she's not really real, and like she'll never be here. On one of those days I comforted myself by shopping.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I don't like shopping. A bookstore is the only kind of store that will actually inspire me to leave the house (not that I don't ever go to other stores, especially the grocery store -- I just never really want to). But don't worry, I didn't have to leave the house! (Yes, I _adore_ the fact that I can shop online and have things sent directly to my house. I wish I could get more groceries this way.)

So what kind of shopping did I do? I'm glad you asked. I went on ebay and bought a lot of little girl clothes.




This is just a sampling of the cute clothes that I bought for our new little one. Even though it feels like it'll be ages before she's home, I now have a few reminders sprinkled throughout the house, and every time I catch sight of them it makes me smile and remember that she really is coming.

And now, for an additional dose of cuteness:


My boys love to play with the camera, and usually when I pick it up again I find interesting pictures of their toys taken from weird angles, or pictures of cartoons on the TV. But occasionally I find a gem like this, taken by my 3yo of my 5 and 6yos. I can't wait until their sister is home to join in their antics.

Showing Up

The other day a friend of mine linked to an article entitled "Showing Up". It was much-needed encouragement for me. I work on writing novels -- I have several works in progress, and hopefully someday soon I'll finish one of them. I've always known that as great as it is to write when I feel inspired to (and that's when some of my best writing comes), I never really make progress unless I make myself sit down and write a certain amount every single day. So much of our work, whatever our work is, is simply showing up and doing it.

So, since I haven't been very good about writing lately (it's something I love, but it's also one of the first things that gets pushed to the back burner when life gets out of control), I decided I needed to renew my goal to "show up", and write a certain amount every day.

While I'm at it, I decided I needed to do the same thing for this adoption process. I've been frustrated with the lack of news from our daughter's country, and our resulting inability to move forward with many things. I realized, however, that there's still a lot to do, and rather than spend my time being frustrated, I just needed to do my part. So every day I'm going to "show up", and do something to work on making this adoption happen. Some days it'll mean paperwork (there's lots of that). But even when I don't have paperwork, and am waiting on others in that regard, I can always do something -- cook freezer meals for whoever's going to watch my boys while I'm gone, make cards to sell to raise money for the adoption, or work on learning a little more of my daughter's language. So far it's going well, and it's giving me some satisfaction and direction in this whole process, even though we're still in limbo.

Still Waiting

The new list of special needs in our little girl's country has not been published yet, even though it was supposed to be. Hopefully it will be out by the end of the week, but in the adoption world you can't really take anything for granted. Please join me in prayers that it will come out soon, and that our little girl's need will be on it!

In the meantime, I'm working on a few other things, like unpacking and writing an autobiography. I'm also going to update a few things here on the blog. I got the code for a button so you can donate to the little boy I'm a warrior for, so hopefully I can get that put up soon. I also unpacked my crafting supplies and will hopefully have an etsy store up and ready to go soon so that you can buy cards and I can donate the profits to him! I also really appreciate seeing what people are raising money for and spending money on when it comes to international adoption, so I'm working on a list of our costs to post here. Check back for the updates soon!

One Week

Actually, by the time I post this it'll be 6 days, close to 5. So, less than a week before a crucial decision is made in our little girl's country. The government of her country ruled a few months ago that children under the age of 5 were ineligible for international adoption unless they had a special need that was on a very limited list. Since that time advocates in that country have been working with the government to expand that list of special needs, so that more children have more chance of being adopted. Next Monday, October 10, those in charge of making the decisions will be meeting to determine which special needs will be included on the expanded list. Right now our little girl is unadoptable because her special need is not on the list. I'm hoping and praying that her need will be added. Even if it's not she will be 5 next June, and we will go get her then, but right now not having any idea of the possible timeline, and no control over it, is eating me up. I'm trying to focus on other things for the next week, and I'm hoping at that point she'll be available and I'll get to post her picture here and really start working to go and get her! If you're so inclined, prayers for those working on the list would be appreciated.

In Love

Since there are absolutely no guarantees in international adoption, and since we're still in the beginning stages of the adoption, I've tried to stay a little bit detached. I know there's the possibility that no matter how hard or quickly we work we might not be able to adopt the little girl who we're working on bringing home.

Still, I've mostly failed at staying detached. I was in love with our little girl the first time I saw her picture, and I've only fallen more in love. I was sure from the beginning that she was supposed to be part of our family, though for a long time I didn't think that was going to be possible. That didn't make me want it any less, though I was happy that she would be going to a good home, even if I was sad it wouldn't be mine.

Since I found out that we would be able to work on bringing her home my love for her has grown even more, I think because I don't feel like I have to hold it back any more. Her picture is up on my computer constantly (many pictures of her, really), and I look at it multiple times a day. It's similar to looking at my boys when they're sleeping -- I feel this great outpouring of love, and want to go over and hold them, even though I don't. That's what I feel when I see her picture. I am so in love with this little girl, and I absolutely cannot wait until I get the chance to go over to her and pick her up and give her that big hug I've been dreaming of.

And, since I can't share pictures of my little girl yet, but I love pictures on blogs, here's a picture of one of my little boys sleeping:

Working On It

Sorry for the lack of updates. I think the combination of not being able to commit to our daughter and the slowness of our progress so far makes all of this not seem quite real yet. However, we are working on things, and (slow) progress is being made. I had my physical yesterday, so now the whole family has seen the doctor and gotten our medical forms for the home study signed. We also got all the blood tests for the EE medical form done, so we can get that signed and taken care of soon. We pretty much have all of the paperwork gathered for the home study, other than the most time-consuming ones -- the personal data form and our autobiographies. Of course, those are the ones that need to be done before we can schedule the home visit. With Jacob's work schedule lately I'm not sure when those are going to be done, but hopefully soon.

Other than that I'm just working hard on unpacking (we only moved here about 6 weeks ago) so we don't have boxes everywhere when the social worker comes. (Actually, we already don't have boxes everywhere, but if she looked in our room she might wonder about the complete lack of space to walk.) And I'm also working on getting things taken care of for our boys (specialist visits, dentist appts, speech therapy, etc). Hopefully we can get everyone on a great and regular schedule so that when we do need to travel things can keep running smoothly here for whoever comes to stay with the kiddos.

Starting...

I'm happy to announce that we're starting the process to adopt a little one of our own! I can't talk about who it is yet, but I will be talking about the process some as we go along. First up, of course, is the home study, which I'm busy filling out paperwork for. I'm so excited about all of this, and I hope you'll follow along!

Advocating

Another thing I let fall by the wayside during the last few crazy months was my plan to start advocating for some of the (marvelous, adorable) orphans who I've fallen in love with since I started thinking about all of this. Just after I started this blog I asked to be a warrior for one little boy in particular.

Shawn touched my heart the first time I saw him. He's just a couple months older than one of my sons, and his smile and the way he hugs his little stuffed friends just made me fall in love. I don't think I'm supposed to be his mommy, but I'm hoping that whoever she is, she'll find him soon. I'm going to do my best to help him be found, and also to raise at least a little bit of money so that when his parents do find him, they'll be that much closer to going and getting him.

I also started to set up an etsy site just before I moved so that I could sell some crafts and donate the proceeds to Shawn's fund, but that's another thing that fell by the wayside. I'm hoping to get the crafting stuff unpacked and set up soon, so check back and you can find (or request) some cute cards, and donate to an orphan at the same time!

Trying This Again

I started this blog with such high hopes and good intentions four months ago, but, well... life happens. Specifically, a new job, a long-distance move, selling one house and buying another, spending a month living in a hotel, a sister's wedding, a new school for the kids, a new placement for one kid and the start of K for another, and lots and lots of cleaning and then lots and lots of unpacking, with way too much driving to even try to explain thrown in the middle. And quite a few other things that just weren't nearly as significant and time-consuming.

But now we're in our new house, largely unpacked (in just 3 weeks!), the kids are 2 weeks into school and settling into their new routine, my husband is settling into his new job, we have a contract on our old house, and things are finally starting to get back to (a new) normal. So I'm slowly picking things back up that fell by the wayside in all the chaos, including blogging. I hope to get a few more posts up here soon, so everyone whose blogs I so adore following can get the chance to get to know me a little better just as I've had the opportunity to get to know them.

A Placeholder Post

This post was originally created as a placeholder while I worked on setting up the blog, but I got my first comment on it, so I'm not going to delete it! Still, stay tuned for some actual posts.