home study mailed off!!!

many will not understand how huge this is...but it is.

our finalized, notarized homestudy arrived in the mail this afternoon.
i put it in THE envelope and headed to the post office.

so...the week before Christmas.
4 kids.
4 pm.
could have been awful.

we brought a bowl of candy and decided to pass it out and spread some Christmas cheer!



now what??

we wait.
{surprise, surprise...}

we have just mailed off a form (with $830!) asking our government to be approved to adopt internationally.
it takes about 8 weeks to get the approval letter back.

in these 8 weeks we will be compiling our dossier.

what is a dossier??
a bunch of paperwork that we submit to Rwanda so that they can get a picture of who we are as a couple and as parents and as a family...our homestudy, financial statements, physical exams, pictures of our home...and refer us 2 precious boys to add to our family.

once we receive approval in 8ish weeks we will be able to include it with our dossier and mail it off to Rwanda!!!

THAT will be a BIG day!

but, today is also a big day and we are rejoicing!

a snapshot

a snapshot into where our kids are.
from an adoptive mom there now.

improved my mood a bit

ok.
a lot.

got the mail and our passports were in it!

WE CAN GO GET OUR KIDS!!!
{well, not really..but you know...}

and in other adoption news...this is sitting on our counter...
once we get our home study back from our agency -- NOTARIZED -- we just have to stick it in this envelope and put it in the mail!!!

then we wait...again...
{"they" say it can take up to 3 months to get approved...but it seems like it typically takes as little as a month...we'll see!}

bailey

this afternoon...
a neighbor was driving by.
we were playing in our front yard.

she stopped.
we were chatting.

bailey ran up and said,

"guess what?!?"
what?
"in a long time we are going to africa to pick up some kids!!!"

:-)

an observation

as i've been cleaning...and looking around my home "through someone else's eyes"...

there are LOTS of...

WORDS...

BOOKS...

and PICTURES!

just an observation...

_______________________________________________

now for the real stuff.
it's been insane.
i'm insane.
seriously.
it is a GOOD THING that we only had 2 days notice of this home study meeting!

had to ask pat's forgiveness last night because any little bit of kindness i might ever have flies out the window SO quickly when there's something "stressful" on my plate (kindness really isn't my strength. i hate that. we're doing a book study on it in our Shepherd group and it's ugly...my heart, that is...UGLY!)

had to ask joshua and bailey's forgiveness this morning...for hurrying them through things that they shouldn't be hurried through.

it's been quite a day.

cleaned the whole house...
and, in the midst, decided that this morning i should highlight my hair.
like...with a kit...you know, the cap and you pull your hair through it?
i've NEVER done it before.
just bought it...um...3 weeks ago...and decided to do it THIS MORNING??

see...i'm INSANE!

sawyer had a dr appt - he has these weird spots on his leg (for about 6 months)...they are just some form of ezema...but we had to go to the dr. to get it diagnosed and get some cream for it. well, dropped the prescription off for the cream...who knows WHEN i'll get a chance to pick it up!

and then, after rushing home and feeding the kids lunch and getting joshua on the bus, we ran to Target to buy more shirts amd a couple other things! (YAY! for shirts selling!!! and YAY that they had them!) but i would have much rather been sitting reading books to bailey.

so...here i am.
didn't get to mopping.
didn't get the last basket of clothes put away {kids are sleeping in the rooms i need to put them away}.
but it's good enough.

we are ready to take the next step in this fight for 2 children's lives.

{and i'm sure i'll have to apologize again before the day is over...}

we knew it wouldn't last...

and it was really getting on my nerves this week...

THE mohawk...

i like it.
i think it's cute.
and SO many people comment on it...

but i already do 2 girls' hair every morning.

i don't need another child's hair to "do."
and i have to do his twice a day...the gel wears off...

so i knew it wouldn't last.

but then we got a call yesterday!

from our home study social worker!!!
she's coming TOMORROW!

{some last family pics with the mohawk...and our water shirts!...and some silliness :-) i LOVE joshua looking at me in this one!}

so...the mohawk is leaving {i KNOW, i know...it doesn't have to...but it was just a good thing to put me over the edge}...

good thing Monday is my cleaning day!

{so basically, once our social worker meets with ALL of us (which we are hoping she has time to do it ALL tomorrow...it "normally" takes 2 meetings) she will write up our home study and we will be DONE with at least 1 major part of this process!!!! we are ready to check something off...did you know there is a 99% chance that our kids are born now? did you know that i think about that every day...many times?}

why i won't be posting today...

MADLY TRYING TO FINISH ALL OUR PAPERWORK FOR THE HOME STUDY!!!

{pat is taking today off to do all of this...after the crazy day yesterday it's making today even that much crazier...}

this is insane.
you don't have to read it.
it's more for me...

5:15 Courtney up - run and read
5:45 Pat up - to church for men's morning thing
6:30 C make lunch for Rebekah and get breakfast set up
7:00 Kids up, dressed and fed
7:30 C and 4 kids take Rebekah to school
7:35 C home - take shower {while Sawyer takes everything out of the bathroom cabinets and drags it all over the upstairs}
8:00 P home from church
C leave for dr - have TB test read from Monday and get bloodwork drawn for physical
8:30 C at dr {they open at 8:30}
P leave home with 3 kids and meet C at dr.
9:00 P get physical including bloodwork {you have to fast...they didn't tell me that...}
C head home with 3 kids
9:30 Home - Sawyer nap
10:00 Mom arrives {!} and stays with 3 kids at home for the rest of this madness...
P gets home {hopefully}
C and P leave together for post office
10:30 and 10:45 Passport appointments {praying for no "hey, you needed to fast" surprises here...form printed off and filled out but not signed...}
11:15ish leave post office and head to sheriff's office
by 12? C and P at sheriff's office getting fingerprinted
1ish C and P grab lunch somewhere and run by grocery store to get a couple things for meal C is making for someone tomorrow...
2 C and P get home
2:15 C go up to school to pick Joshua and Rebekah up from school
P wade through emails from work
2:50 C (and Rebekah and Joshua) get home
2:50 C and P leave to go back up to school for parent-teacher conferences
3:05 Conference with Joshua's teacher ("he's very quiet"...)
3:30 Conference with Rebekah's teacher ("she's a little too talkative"...) :-)
4 C and P home
Mom gets to leave! {THANKS SO MUCH, MOM!!!!!!!!!!!}
Homework
Kiss sweet kids
Hear about their days
Make dinner
Eat dinner
5:45 Leave for Joshua's soccer practice
7:15 Home from Joshua's soccer practice
Baths
Bed!!!

and at the end of this day all our paperwork should be done for the homestudy!
hoping we will be moving quickly through the rest of the homestudy.
trying to be patient.
trying not to think about who's kissing their faces when they are sick.
who's losing sleep about them when they don't seem "right?"

this will be a crazy day.
but i would do it again in a second if i had to...for them.