Dossier paperwork getting closer!

Our dossier paperwork is getting closer and closer.  We got our medical reports completed and signed in the proper way.  It was a more difficult process than I thought it was going to be but we got it done.  We have everything collected and now have to get them all notarized.  We have to have 3 of every document, and every document has to be original .  That is going to be a lot of signing and notarizing.

Our Pampered Chef party closes Today, Thursday 28th.  If you would like to place an order check out our fundraiser page and follow the link.

Thank you to everyone who took part in our 31 party.

I would also like to thank everyone that has used our amazon link for all of their amazon shopping.  We are currently at earned $70.60 with a few more larger purchase that have not been added into the total yet.  (as a reminder the link will be available to use and benefit our journey throughout the duration of our journey.

Home Study and Fundraiser Updates

This morning we got word from our social worker that our home study was sent to the State of Illinois on Friday.  We pray that there are not many home studies currently on her desk because she is the only person that reads  and approves them.  Hopefully we will hear something back by the end of the week and then we will be able to send it off to immigration so that we can get their approval!



As you may or may not know, tomorrow (Tuesday, March 26th) is the final day to play the 31 orders!  Thursday is the final day to order Pampered Chef.  We also learned tonight that Friday will be the final day to order Mary Kay.

This week will be a big week for us with these three fundraisers coming to an end.  You can click here to get to our fundraiser page or click the link at the top of the page!

Update and News

 Today was the day of our pizza fundraiser.  We had  the ingredients purchased (see previous post), the boxes put together and labeled ready for them to be filled.  Today was the day that all of the planning came together.  We were blessed to have some great women and their children step up to help us assemble the 85 pizzas that were ordered. (some of which were ordered through people that we did not even know!)  I was not present during the pizza assembly but it sounded like everything went very smoothly and we can not thank the families that helped us enough.  We would also like to take a moment to thank everyone that purchased our pizzas.  We hope that you enjoyed them.

Today we got word that our home study is making its way to the State of Illinois to get approved.  In most states once your home study is completed by your agency it is then sent to immigration, however in the state of Illinois you have to be approved by one lady that works for the state that reads all international home studies and approves or denies them.  Today we also got our dossier papers to work on today.  We can work on them while we wait for approval.  I was a bit worried about the amount of work in the last round of paper work, however most of the work is getting everything notarized because every document has to be done in triplicate and they must all be originals, oh yes and you have to sign your entire name and not just your middle initial (like if found out when signing a document incorrectly).  We are hoping to get all documents ready to notarize the first part of next week so that we can get a copy sent to our agency to double check everything before we can have the Secretary of State Apostle them.  Before this process I had no idea what that meant.  It is the process of taking the documents that have been notarized and they verify the notary is a valid notary.  CRAZY!!!  For now we keep working on what we can work on and trying to move the process along.

Amazon Update:  To date we have raised just over $60 from supporters using our amazon link for their purchases

You can also check out our other current fundraisers on our fundraiser page!

Moving along

Friday we got the next thing to work on in the process.  I was able to get that finished so that I can pass it on to have it checked.  With that step done, we are just waiting on the home study to be approved by the state of Illinois.  We are praying that there are not a lot of international adoptions home studies currently finished because they are all read and approved by one lady in Springfield (which ironically there is legislation in committee  to eliminate thus making the process easier to adopt in Illinois).  

This afternoon we had to pick stuff for our latest fundraiser.  We are a part of a home school group and they offered to help us with a "take and bake" pizza fundraiser.  Linda and I were up for it and they offered to help, so we put together an order form.  We thought that there would be about 30 or so pizza's ordered.  It was a good thing that we took orders because we would have only had about half the ingredients needed because  we ended up with 85 pizza orders.  We had people offer to take orders for us that we did not even know.  We were blown away by the support.

We ordered all of our supplies and ingredients and had to pick them up today.  Does anyone know what the ingredients for 85 pizzas looks like?  Here it is:

Home study Done and awaiting approval

As many of you know we had our final home study visit on Monday.  I was quite impressed with our social worker.   She basically had the entire home study first draft completed and just had a few areas that she had to fill in the blanks.  That was done on her visit on Monday through the individual interviews.  We answered all of her questions and showed her around the house for the safety visit.  By Tuesday morning at 10:00 A.M. I had the first draft in my inbox.  I was very impressed with the turn around time.  We read through the 20 page single spaced story of our life and made a few minor changes here and there and got it back to her.  We are now waiting for our international agency to review it and then it will be off to the State of Illinois for approval.

While we are waiting for the home study approval, we get to fill out an application that is sent to immigration along with our approved home study.  We will also be working next week on our Dossier which is the document that will be sent to L@tvia and translated to be presented to the court system.  We are hoping to get that process going next week as the dossier can be being translated while we wait for immigration approval.

A Great Day!

Today was the day that we knew our final home study visit was scheduled.  We knew that it was going to consist of our final one on one interviews and a tour of the house.  I had heard from other people going on the same journey we are that the final interviews were more questions to answer.  I came home on my lunch hour and sat at the dining room table and was prepared to answer the tough questions.  Turns out, that I just had to answer a few questions about how old people in my family work, what their occupations were and things like that.  The list of questions were pretty easy and painless to answer and within about 30 we were all done.  She told us that we would have our first draft of our home study tomorrow and it will be sent on to the next people to be finalized by the end of the month!

As I was heading back to work I decided to go check the mail box.  It was full of a lot of stuff.  There were a lot of envelopes that looked the same.  I pulled them out and found that their was one for every person in our house  2 sets of 5 envelopes.  I opened them up and found that our Passports had arrived in the mail today.  This is HUGE because now we can start the process of filling out our Dossier which goes to L@tvia!

Just a reminder to check out our fundraiser page for Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, 31 gifts, Disney Vacations, or oh ANYTHING from Amazon.com

Grateful!

Caden waiting for the next pizza to work on!

Today we had the pleasure of being a part of a "Take and Bake Pizza" Fundraiser that was done through Treasured Adoptions support group.  It was great to see all of the support for us as well as the three other families that are in the process of adopting.  I was the delivery boy for the pizzas that were ordered through us.  When I walked into the kitchen it was an awesome sight seeing the generosity of everyone offering their time to help make this fundraiser possible.  Caden and Libby were excited to help assemble the pizzas and were a big help.  We were also blessed this morning by two separate  families that chose to help us bring him home.  We are truly grateful and humbled.

Libby getting ready to put on some pepperoni

Tomorrow is our final home study visit.  This visit consists of one on one interviews and.  a tour of our house.  After tomorrow we will be waiting for the first draft that will be produced from all of the questions that we previously answered in our paperwork as well as the answers from our interviews.  We are excited to get through this part of the process and onto the next stage.