INDIA - Dossier time!

Hello all!  Much needed update follows!
     We are adopting this little girl we told you about earlier!  Her name is Abha, and I'll just tell you right now, she's adorable.  I hesitated posting more details because for a while it was back and forth.  Do we have her or don't we?  Can we pursue or not?  We prayed and prayed for wisdom and calm and that Abha find a safe family, as things were uncertain and thankfully God answered our prayers AND allowed that we be the family for Abha which was just icing on the cake.  I firmly believe that God is guiding Abha to a family and also guiding our story, we feel privileged that it could be us entrusted with Abha.  So far so good!  We are two approvals into the 6-step gauntlet.
     We were matched with her on March 20 after much uncertainty.  There was a system error that appeared that we could not continue with her referral, but then the region said they were under the impression we were matched, so that was good news! Then a few weeks later the central authority said no, because of the previous mistake another family had reserved her.  Then a few weeks later after our agency appealed on our behalf, the central agency granted us the reservation and matched us with her.  Phew!  Talk about a roller coaster!  So we continued on with the immigration paperwork, and one of the papers appeared unacceptable.  After about a week, and a discussion with the supervisor, it was decided that the paper was acceptable.  NOW we are ready to obtain the necessary documents to fill out the DS-260 to obtain a visa for Abha to eventually travel to the US!  In the meantime, our acceptance dossier (see following pics) is traveling through India being approved (the next two approval steps) and will hopefully end with our NOC (no objection certificate) then it's the two court processes.  Little by little, we inch through!  Also we are going to be getting more info from the orphanage about her likes and dislikes and details about her day.  Hopefully in a little while we'll be able to send her gifts and pictures.  Once we pass court, I can share pictures.  Until then, I want to show you what an international dossier looks like, in case you ever wondered. I'll give you a hint.  It looks like a mountain of papers.

Yipes!  Imagine the postage!  It'll give you nightmares!

TRAVEL - the 10 day waiting period

After our court date, we had 10 days to hang out in the town visiting Gianna.  It's a law in Ukraine that any court decree has a 10 day mandatory waiting period afterward during which anyone can appeal the decree.  Then after the 10 days it is final.  That time ENDS TOMORROW!!!  Tomorrow we will sign Gianna out of the orphanage forever and we will have a new daughter living with us!  Cue freak out!

During this period we have gone to the orphanage every day to visit Gianna.  7 of the 10 days we walked, the other days we took a car depending on the activities of the day.  It took about 40 minutes each way.  Most days we visited between 10-12 and one of the days we visited from 4-6.  Those are the orphanage visiting hours for people like us.  We have had sunshine and clear skies every single day and today looks no different.

These flowers are amazing.  They have little snails living on them, and no matter how wimpily you kick off the thistle heads, they always sail 10 feet into the air! :)  A fun walk activity.

One day the whole family walked together

We did various activities with Gianna, most of the time we made our rounds on the playground equipment, then went in the shade to color or draw or dig through mom's purse for lotion and coverup to play with.  The last few days I brought nail stickers and stuff and practiced braiding her hair.

Her favorite, the merry go round

practicing braids

nail stickers

The rest of the days, we tried to have a variety of activities to entertain the boys.  We tried to make each day a little different for our sake, too - to break the monotony a bit.

There are a few playgrounds close to the clinic.  Carrie and Drew took them to these often while we visited Gianna.  This ride was their favorite - it was pretty close to Cedar Point worthy.

This play place was also a favorite activity while we visited.  It was at a shopping center close to the orphanage.

One day we visited the orphanage together as a family. (they allowed us to do that one time)

We visited the Ackerman fortress one morning.

It was really fun climbing around on the stairways and walkways at the fortress.  Kian was delighted to see a "real castle"!

ice cream was a popular evening activity, of course.

Carrie helped him after it dropped on the ground for the 3rd time.  Breaking the parts off where it fell made it smaller and smaller and we were afraid he wasn't going to have any ice cream left to eat!

A few evening we had a taxi take us downtown to visit the restaurants and parks.  The parks have various activities, like riding around in RC cars...

playing on the statuary...

eating at the fine dining establishments...

...and saying hello to the gnome statues.

Another morning we visited the Black Sea.  It was a delightful time of dipping our toes in the ice cold water, eating ham and cheese and chips, and building sand castles.  The boys loved it and so did we.

So now our Bilgorod time is coming to a close.  I think we sufficiently filled our days with good family time, and now we are ready for Gianna to join us on the rest of the journey!  Pray that Gianna feels peace, and if she feels sad or scared that I am able to comfort her even though I don't speak the language.  Continue to follow as the story unfolds!

IN BETWEEN - Pink!

Pink is our little one's favorite color - so this crazy nesting mama went a little crazy.  Pink crazy.  She requested her room to be painted pink.  Pink it is!

She loves dolls.  The kids have a doll with one outfit, and I had some infant clothing that I loved and bought just in case we had a girl.  I have such trouble giving them up because they are so darn cute, so I decided to take a few favorites and refashion them for the doll I have.  I thought the results were pretty cute. :)

Before

Little pantlets after

After

Also, I went shopping.  There are so many cute hairbows at Sol's in Berlin and I went a little nuts.  Just a little nuts, cuz I want her to be able to choose her own when she returns.  So I consider it harrrdddly nuts, and mostly okay.

Oh yeah, there was a tutu also.  And the headband is from Save and Serve so it doesn't count. :)

There's tons of pink in my laundry basket! It's really cool and exciting!

We leave on Tuesday, and the next several days are simply packed with getting things ready.  Ready to go, and ready to come back. :)

IN BETWEEN - Court

Well, since yesterday was a holiday, the SDA probably won't get to "approving" our court date until Monday, but our facilitator said to go ahead and book tickets.  She is fairly certain we'll get that date. :)  Now we just wrap things up here again and get ready to head out again!  We've been enjoying the fine weather and getting as much outside time as possible.

IN BETWEEN

Enjoying the sunshine today!

Went out and bought paint this morning - I hope it's "pink" enough for our girly girl.  She requested pink, and I bought one titled "Tinted Rosewood".  I think it will be lovely.  Our inspiration:

Writing thank you notes today.  Nothing like thank you notes to give you a sense of awe.  I'm just amazed at all the wonderful, supportive people that are joining us in this journey!  Thank you all, even if you didn't get a thank you card - we appreciate your prayers and support!

^Totally sums up how I feel today.

TRAVEL - back home for a bit!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh the joys of jet lag.  Zack got up at 4:30am and couldn't go back to sleep... so he went to work!  Not kidding.  I woke up about 5am all aflutter with the new "in between trip" to do list on my mind.  So I spent a good 2 hours before the boys woke up with minor papery things and starting to unpack.  The boys adjusted back to the home environment pretty good today.  I had to do a little more reviewing of the discipline strategies we had employed previously. :)  They had a blast at Grandma and Grandpas' houses and big thanks to them and Pat and Emily for helping with them while we were gone.  And our orange tree was expertly watered thanks to Patrick and Christine, and our mail held thanks to the USPS.  I'll keep you updated with how we are preparing to go back to get our little girl, and hopefully early the next trip I will be able to post pics on social media sites - including this one!!!!  Oh happy day.  If you're in the area and would like to see pics - just stop on by, I can show you a whole bunch.

I wonder what she's thinking about today?  I wonder if she's looking at the little book we made for her?  Stay strong little one!

TRAVEL - the countdown is on!

it is now 7 days until we hop a jet plane for our new child(ren)!  We have been very busy with prep - making list after list.  We experienced the first of a set of acute money hemorrhages.  It was painful - but this week we had several blessings in that way, too.  Our church had some extra money in their adoption fund that we weren't aware of, we received word that we got a grant that we applied for, and a friend gave us a chunk of money that we weren't expecting, and we counted $100 more change from our change jar.  God just comes through!  It's amazing!  We've also been working on a few other little projects.  Yesterday my friend and I worked all day on filling our freezer with meals to fatten our orphanage kid(s) up!

See that one shelf?  That's a portion of the 31 meals we cooked up!

Also, I've been making a mini welcome book that someone can keep and look at, show to friends maybe?

It was a little set that I found at Save and Serve for .50.  I was pretty happy with the result.  There's several other pages - Mom, Dad, Grandparents made it in, and our house.

Another update on waiting

So here we sit.  I procrastinated writing this post because it's a little bit depressing.  Ok, that sounds worse than it is.  Come back, keep reading, it's not that bad.  We had about a month delay with our paperwork.  We were hoping to be approved late February but now we will have to wait until late this month to hear whether or not we are approved.  So that puts travel around May/June.  This adoption waiting is weird and vortexy but all told, it's not so bad.  There's lots to keep us busy.  Also, the more we think about this new timeframe, the better it seems.  There are a few pieces we can put into place before we travel.  We may even be able to take two trips which would be ideal.  So anyway, with that in mind, thanks everyone for sticking with us!  We'll keep you posted!  We're super close, and soon my posts will be way more exciting!!!

PAPERWORK - Dossier in Ukraine!

Update sorely needed!  First of all, our dossier has been apostilled and sent off to Ukraine!  I'm told it's being translated and reviewed by staff in Ukraine.  Picked apart ad nauseam.  Then after the first of the year, (Old Christmas is celebrated in Ukraine) it will be submitted with the SDA.  That is, if we don't have to redo a portion - which often happens.  If it gets submitted early in January, we may be looking at travel by March!  That's so exciting to have a clearer picture of the process.  Liiiiiiittle by liiiiiiittle we are inching our way towards our child(ren)!!!  Carrie and Drew are being updated regularly on all this, too, as they are having to plan their lives around potentially traveling with us.  Kian asks every so often, "are we going to get my sister from Mykraine today?"  I have to tell him, "No, today isn't the day yet."

I am excited and yet terrified at starting this journey.  There are so many unknowns.  It's still so vague and impalpable.

The other day we were at Once Upon a Child in Canton, and we went over to the older youth clothes to take a look.  It put things in perspective.  I bought a size 8 outfit (no clue what size they'll really wear), just because.  It wasn't as large as I thought it would be - it still looked like a little kid to me.  I also bought two extra pairs of Christmas jammies.  Just cuz.  Our hearts are more and more ready - and it feels right that our family is just about ready to expand again.  Christmas is keeping me busy - after Christmas I'm going to need to find things to do.  Until we get our invitation to travel I'll probably be pacing the floor!  I'll keep you all updated, but it might still be boring for juuuust a little longer!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!