Tales From Boyland : December 2007

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

When Will I Be Old Enough?

Spunky trying on his big brother's sparring gear. Notice his fight stance, and I can also vouch that a kihap accompanied that front punch.

We had a great Christmas! Here are a couple shots of the boys with their gifts. They loved their fleece "sleep tubes" from their grandparents...they have barely set them down for two days. Bobcat was very surprised by his sparring gear, and Eaglet delighted by his tow truck. He had accidentally ripped the paper as he pulled his package out from under the tree...and went CRAZY when he saw the word "Tonka". It was quite a sight to see him open the rest of it. Spunky Cub's gift did not come in the mail in time--so we went with a spur-of-the-moment replacement wooden pizza. He thinks it's cool, but it certainly didn't get the reaction that his hockey set would've. Oh well...Christmas is not about the presents anyway. We'll save it for his birthday coming up in a few weeks (Shh! Don't tell!)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Orange Belt!

Bobcat had a surprise in karate class Tuesday evening. At the beginning of class, his instructor pulled him aside and told him he'd be pulled out of class for his orange belt test. We had no idea; in fact, we had thought he was scheduled to test in January. True to his character, Bobcat took it in stride, and gave it his all for the duration of the 45 minute test. Today, we got his results....way to go, Bobcat!

Mmmm...Gingerbread

We did it! We managed to create a gingerbread house before the ingredients were consumed. Any guesses on how long it will last?

Mission Accomplished

Eaglet on his last day of swimming lessons.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Thanks Great-Grandma!

We got some little packages from Great- Grandma recently...the boys are quite delighted. She also sent Wisconsin cheese!

Puttin' Up the Tree

Per tradition, we put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. We cut one down from our woods...I wasn't up to the mess that accompanies a dead-when-u-purchase-it Home Depot tree this year.

Belated Thanksgiving Post

I just visited a blog of a friend who has been diligently posting an "advent picture of the day" the entire month of December. Alas, here I am, posting my Thanksgiving pictures.

We're Officially On Our Way!
Boyland is on the adoption train. We've had some twists and turns (including welcoming precious son #5!) and a whole lot of waiting before the official waiting for this child began...but...our application has been approved with Children's Hope International! We are considering that day, February 21, our official "begin date". We're gonna need a LOT of support and prayer along this journey...so please...hop on the train with us (and maybe, just maybe, even consider jumping on board a train of your own?!)

The Timeline:
Summer 2010: Heard God's call for adoption. Began researching in earnest

October 2010: Decided to go for it! Held fundraiser #1. Began paperwork for home study

November 2010: Discovered we were (!) pregnant. Paperwork went on-hold in order to grow and welcome our sweet baby!

May 2011: Held adoption fund raiser #2

June 2011: Welcomed our beautiful 5th son!

August 2011: Found what would become our adoption agency

February 8, 2012: Application and $100 sent to Children's Hope International

February 21, 2012: Application approved; approval paperwork began.

March 1, 2012: Approval paperwork completed and sent in with $1000. Officially in CHI's Ethiopia program! Re-started home study paperwork.

March 24, 2012: After lots of paperwork, collecting documents, being fingerprinted, and having health exams, the home study paperwork and $725 were sent in.

April 21, 2012: First home study visit completed.

April 30, 2012: Second home study visit scheduled.

May 7, 2012: We're home-study-approved!

July 6, 2012: Home study and preliminary application sent to USCIS in Dallas, TX with $890. Balance of $1725 sent in to Catholic Social Services for completion of our home study. Compiling of documents for dossier is in full-force....WHEW....lots of papers...and they all seem to cost something. $25 here, $50 there... Lord, please keep replenishing our fund!

August 1, 2012: Reported to Homeland Security for USCIS fingerprinting appointments.

August 2, 2012: Applied for Jessica's passport $135

August 3, 2012: Applied for Tony's passport $135. Please pray these come quickly so we can send in our dossier. Also please pray for God to provide $5500 because that's what we need to send WITH our dossier.

August 17, 2012: Jessica to Homeland Security for fingerprints AGAIN. Scanned and sent over all dossier docs to our agency for proofs. Waiting on passports, USCIS pre-approval and about $4,000 to be provided.

September 10, 2012: Turns out my fingerprints are "unclassifiable" (whatever that means) so we needed to send in State Police clearance for USCIS. Waiting....waiting.... but the passports are here and our agency has gone over our dossier docs. Basically we've got some snail progress going on.

October 8, 2012: We've finally got it, Folks. Our I-171-H is in our little hands. We need to make a change on our Power of Attorney for our in-country assistant, and need a re-do on a notary on a document. Waiting for someone to return to Alaska in order to have the notary re-done.

October 23, 2012: Mercy, I'll be SO happy to have this dossier completed. The last two documents are re-done, and have been sent to be checked by our agency. As soon as we get the "OK", the whole shabang will be sent to Juneau for State Certification. Oh...also found out we need to send some docs to Minnesota and Wisconsin for State Certification. Does it ever end?

November 1, 2012: Faithful God sent a family to our doorstep with a check for $1500. We pray--He hears--He makes things happen. WHAT an encouragement, and just when it was sorely needed. All our documents are en route to Juneau, AK, Madison, WI, and St. Paul, MN, respectively. Praying they all get where they need to go, get the approval needed, and return to us safely. After working on papers for 6 months, it was practically like sending a child on an airplane to send those out of my hands!

December 2012: Documents have all been State-Certified, returned to us, sent on to our agency for bundling, sent on to Washinton D.C. for final certification and authentication, AND sent on to our representative in Addis Ababa! Faithful (always) God has provided every bit of the $ dossier fee. We're officially a waiting family (#104) and waiting to be matched with our child. In the meantime, we've got the other 1/2 of our adoption expenses to raise, which includes travel, in-country expenses (translator, lawyer, etc.) and other immigration expenses. It is such a relief to be to this point. Prayer needed and appreciated. Pray for our child(ren,) our birth mother & family (who knows what they may be going through?) Thank God for funds raised, and pray for remaining funds to be raised.

July 31, 2013: We have lots of "no news" at this point. Continuing to save and raise funds. We are #72 on the "waiting families list."

October 24, 2013: We are #63 on the list. There are some significant slow-downs in some regions of the country at present, and it affects paperwork completion for children to be referred for adoption. Prayer appreciated.

September 30, 2014: We are #54 on the list. Our agency has not received any referrals in months and months. Unless a major miracle takes place, we cannot adopt from Ethiopia for several more years, which means this is fast becoming the end of this path for our adoption. We still have hopes to bring a little one or two into our family somehow. Pray with us?

January 2015: We received official word that Ethiopia is essentially closed. We will be withdrawing from CHI. Uncertain as to whether we'll be pursuing another means to adopt or not...waiting on His Word. We will continue to earmark our adoption savings for adoption until He tell us otherwise.