One Authentication down . . . two more to go. We hope to get both of those done tomorrow! DC here we come.....
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
We are getting closer!
Just returned from a few relaxing days at the beach. Pictures to follow soon.
Heading to our State Department and then on to the US Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy this week for our final Authentications! Hoping to stop at a little Ethiopian Restaurant to celebrate on the way home.
Our upcoming week in a few words: (B.U.S.Y.)
*Visit and dinner with out-of-town friends
*Sports Physicals for both boys
*Visit Extreme Home Makeover Site (Our builder and friend is spearheading the construction of a new EXTREME home for a local family – we received VIP passes etc. to visit the site, so I guess we’ll go see Ty Pennington and the crew one evening this week)!
*Baseball Game (yep, we’re still playing, and made it to playoffs too)
*40th Birthday Party
*Help Friends Move
*Graduation Party
PLUS all of our notarization and authentication appointments. . . . Hope I’m not forgetting anything! I’m ready for vacation again!
Only 50 days until our case becomes active again… but who’s counting J
Oh, and word came out of Ethiopia that they are lifting the 5 case per day limit on reviewing adoption cases! Yay!
Friday, June 10, 2011
No Way!
Guess what we got in the mail today?? Yep, our new I-171H - NOTICE OF FAVORABLE DETERMINATION CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR ADVANCE PROCESSING OF ORPHAN PETITION.
I cannot believe this. We tracked our extension request package, and they received it on June 3rd. According to the envelope, our new I-171H was mailed out on June 6th. The whole process took 1 week! Praise God! We were fully prepared for it to take 45 days or more!
So now, we can stick this puppy in our Dossier package, get a few more notarizations, and head onto get our authentications.
Yay! I'm so excited!
I cannot believe this. We tracked our extension request package, and they received it on June 3rd. According to the envelope, our new I-171H was mailed out on June 6th. The whole process took 1 week! Praise God! We were fully prepared for it to take 45 days or more!
So now, we can stick this puppy in our Dossier package, get a few more notarizations, and head onto get our authentications.
Yay! I'm so excited!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Dossier Update - Update :)
As mentioned in a previous post, we had to redo our dossier because the documents contained in our original dossier are approaching 2 years old -- they expire in November! [when we go to court in Ethiopia, documents cannot be more than 2 years old] Plus, with the addition of Baby Faith, we had to do a Home Study Update, which then becomes part of our dossier update as well.
We submitted a copy of our updated dossier to our agency for a quick review. In between the UPS man picking up our package and our agency receiving our package, a new Dossier requirement was established.....(seriously??)
MoWCY is now asking for a notarized copy of I-171H form to be included into new dossier packages. That is the form from USCIS approving us for adoption. Cool! We have that form... BUT, oh yeah, it expires in August and we have requested an extension. (the I-171H approval notice is only valid for 18 months, so if you do not complete your adoption within 18 months, you have to request an extension). The extension request and new form could take 30 to 45 days to arrive. We would have requested it earlier, but you cannot ask for an extension EARLIER than 90 days prior to expiration. Geshz....
ARE YOU CONFUSED YET?? Yeah, me too. It took me the weekend to wrap my head around what we need to do!
So, long story short (sort of), we have to wait to receive our new I-171H form to put into our dossier package before continuing the process. The addition of this form into the package changes a few other documents...so we will have to re-do, re-sign and re-notarize about 4 other documents too. [sigh]
Again, I truly believe God is in control of this adoption, and He's probably beginning to see that we are serious about this little girl coming home. A little bit of paperwork confusion isn't going to deter us!
Praying that our I-171H approval arrives sooner than later! I want to get this package off of my desk before something happens to it!!!
We submitted a copy of our updated dossier to our agency for a quick review. In between the UPS man picking up our package and our agency receiving our package, a new Dossier requirement was established.....(seriously??)
MoWCY is now asking for a notarized copy of I-171H form to be included into new dossier packages. That is the form from USCIS approving us for adoption. Cool! We have that form... BUT, oh yeah, it expires in August and we have requested an extension. (the I-171H approval notice is only valid for 18 months, so if you do not complete your adoption within 18 months, you have to request an extension). The extension request and new form could take 30 to 45 days to arrive. We would have requested it earlier, but you cannot ask for an extension EARLIER than 90 days prior to expiration. Geshz....
ARE YOU CONFUSED YET?? Yeah, me too. It took me the weekend to wrap my head around what we need to do!
So, long story short (sort of), we have to wait to receive our new I-171H form to put into our dossier package before continuing the process. The addition of this form into the package changes a few other documents...so we will have to re-do, re-sign and re-notarize about 4 other documents too. [sigh]
Again, I truly believe God is in control of this adoption, and He's probably beginning to see that we are serious about this little girl coming home. A little bit of paperwork confusion isn't going to deter us!
Praying that our I-171H approval arrives sooner than later! I want to get this package off of my desk before something happens to it!!!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Where have we been?
{sorry -- this is a long post} :)
Hi All. Sorry to those of you who keep checking for updates. I cannot believe 4 weeks have gone by so quickly! We’re here, just been crazy busy with school events, getting our dossier update together and baseball… and more baseball! With all of the rain, we have had a lot of rescheduled games so now we are jammed packed with something like 6 games in 5 days. . . all with baby in tow!
Faith is doing extremely well with our busy schedule! She just smiles and goes with the flow of things. She’s rolling now, trying to pull her knees up under her, and is getting quite the cute personality. The boys still adore her! She is quite the little princess.
Where are we with the adoption?
Glad you asked! Honestly, the last 4 weeks have been tough with our schedules and getting our paperwork together for our dossier. All minor things, but just general pain-in-the-rear-end things that kept delaying the progress. I look at it as a little test from God to see if we are still really serious about the adoption, because seriously, some people would have said "forget it"... "it's too hard." But, we're not giving up that easy!
Here's what we've accomplished:
• We completed our home study update and have that document in hand.
• We completed our dossier update to include the addition of Faith and update all of our documents. Our draft dossier is on its way to our Agency. Once they give us the go-ahead, we’ll head to our State Department for Authentication and then onto the U.S. Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy again for the final Authentications. After that, it will go back over to Ethiopia to replace our original dossier.
• We had our one-time, no fee fingerprint updates for the USCIS (our previous ones expired).
• We submitted a request and our new home study update to the USCIS for a one-time no fee extension to our I600A, Application for Advance Processing or Orphan Petition (ours will expire in August).
The no fee USCIS request and fingerprint updates are a blessing because to re-do them, it would cost about $850. Hopefully, the USCIS will approve our I-600A request. (**This document needs to be current in order for us to go to court).
I talked to our Case Manager as well. Once baby Faith is 6 months old in August, we will become ‘active’ again. Before we become ‘active’ status, our case will go before the CWA review board. This is normal procedure, and we do not anticipate any issues. So, we are hoping and praying for a referral in August or September… but, it just depends what children are available at that time, and if they match our criteria – which is pretty much wide open – female, 0-60 months. A little girl around Faith’s age would be awesome! I admit, we’d have our hands full, but it would be great for them to grow up together and have each other as playmates.
After our referral, we’d have to wait for the courts to reopen from the rainy season and then get a court date. After that (and a bunch more paperwork that I’ll blog about closer to the time), we wait for our Embassy appointment. So, in a nutshell, it might still be 2012 until E comes home. We are praying for her to be home by the end of 2011, but not sure if that will happen.
So, wheeww, it’s been busy. Looking forward to school being done for the year and to relax and play in the sun. I’ll leave you with a bunch of pictures over the past month!
Hi All. Sorry to those of you who keep checking for updates. I cannot believe 4 weeks have gone by so quickly! We’re here, just been crazy busy with school events, getting our dossier update together and baseball… and more baseball! With all of the rain, we have had a lot of rescheduled games so now we are jammed packed with something like 6 games in 5 days. . . all with baby in tow!
Faith is doing extremely well with our busy schedule! She just smiles and goes with the flow of things. She’s rolling now, trying to pull her knees up under her, and is getting quite the cute personality. The boys still adore her! She is quite the little princess.
Where are we with the adoption?
Glad you asked! Honestly, the last 4 weeks have been tough with our schedules and getting our paperwork together for our dossier. All minor things, but just general pain-in-the-rear-end things that kept delaying the progress. I look at it as a little test from God to see if we are still really serious about the adoption, because seriously, some people would have said "forget it"... "it's too hard." But, we're not giving up that easy!
Here's what we've accomplished:
• We completed our home study update and have that document in hand.
• We completed our dossier update to include the addition of Faith and update all of our documents. Our draft dossier is on its way to our Agency. Once they give us the go-ahead, we’ll head to our State Department for Authentication and then onto the U.S. Department of State and the Ethiopian Embassy again for the final Authentications. After that, it will go back over to Ethiopia to replace our original dossier.
• We had our one-time, no fee fingerprint updates for the USCIS (our previous ones expired).
• We submitted a request and our new home study update to the USCIS for a one-time no fee extension to our I600A, Application for Advance Processing or Orphan Petition (ours will expire in August).
The no fee USCIS request and fingerprint updates are a blessing because to re-do them, it would cost about $850. Hopefully, the USCIS will approve our I-600A request. (**This document needs to be current in order for us to go to court).
I talked to our Case Manager as well. Once baby Faith is 6 months old in August, we will become ‘active’ again. Before we become ‘active’ status, our case will go before the CWA review board. This is normal procedure, and we do not anticipate any issues. So, we are hoping and praying for a referral in August or September… but, it just depends what children are available at that time, and if they match our criteria – which is pretty much wide open – female, 0-60 months. A little girl around Faith’s age would be awesome! I admit, we’d have our hands full, but it would be great for them to grow up together and have each other as playmates.
After our referral, we’d have to wait for the courts to reopen from the rainy season and then get a court date. After that (and a bunch more paperwork that I’ll blog about closer to the time), we wait for our Embassy appointment. So, in a nutshell, it might still be 2012 until E comes home. We are praying for her to be home by the end of 2011, but not sure if that will happen.
So, wheeww, it’s been busy. Looking forward to school being done for the year and to relax and play in the sun. I’ll leave you with a bunch of pictures over the past month!
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| Faith -- the baseball princess! |
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| Dylan - getting ready to hit! |
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| Mommy & Faith on Mother's Day |
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| Dylan in an All Star Game |
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| Colton pitching for his team |
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Happy Easter!
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| C, D & F (We are just missing our "E") |
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| Even the BIG kids enjoyed the Easter Egg hunt at MeeMaws |
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Girls' Nursery
I found these pictures as I was going through a memory card that was in our camera bag. I took these photos a few days before I went into labor with Faith. We haven't brought everything into the nursery that we originally got for "E", but her presence is known in that room for sure! We have her crib and matching quilt set ready and waiting.
I have two favorite things in the nursery that remind me of "E" .
The first is my belly picture: the pendant says, "Expecting from Ethiopia." Some people think it's wierd that I got that picture taken. In fact, one photographer I was going to use wouldn't do it for me. I think this picture shows 2 miracles in-one and it's really special to us.
My second favorite picture thing that reminds me of "E" is her puzzle. We decided to get it framed and hang it now. I cannot tell you how much Faith loves that puzzle! I KNOW she sees something in it. Every time we lay her down to change her, she looks up at the puzzle and smiles and babbles and talks.... she can be in the middle of a full-out crying spell, and when she looks up at the puzzle, she stops, smiles and talks. I'll have to try to get it on video! It was hard to get a good picture of it because of the lighting in the nursery, but you get the idea!
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| A keepsake box with things from my shower. |
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| Our little "Tree of Hope" |
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| Our picture corner of the room. |
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| 4 days before delivery... Uggh. |
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| We were packed and ready to go! |
Busy Weeks!
It's been a busy 2 weeks in the Baxter family. In the last two weeks, we've
- had our adoption physicals, along with our 'booster' travel shots (ouch!) which took care of our home study and dossier needs;
- met with our NEW home study provider;
- procured our bank letter for our dossier;
- received our fingerprint update appointments for USCIS;
- received most of our reference letters for our dossier;
- had a 15th Birthday party for our son!
- began the craziness of 'baseball' season
- Faith had her 1st round of immunizations (double-ouch!)
oh yeah.... and I go back to work in 1 week! (where did 12 weeks go??)
Our new home study provider was awesome. Did I mention that she is an adoptive mom of 2 kiddos from Russia, so she is very helpful and sweet. She is redoing our home study/update for 1/2 the cost of what our original social worker wanted just for the update! SWEET! Plus, she seems to be pretty speedy, so hopefully we'll have our draft home study back in a week or so, then we will be almost ready to submit our 2nd dossier to CWA for a quick once-over. Then it's off for authentication and back over to Ethiopia with Baby Faith added to our paperwork! After that, all we will need to do is submit our home study update to the USCIS for our I600A extension... then we'll just be on wait status again.
Regarding the wait -- our agency's policy is that Baby Faith needs to be 6 months old before we can get a referral... so that would be on August 10th. We are going to ask, however, if (under the current circumstances) we still have to wait the 6 months, since it will probably take at least another 6 months or more before we'd have E home. But, worst case... we'll have another 3-4 months of waiting...so either way.. it's getting close.
I guess time flies when you're having fun... and we are having plenty of FUN!
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| You go back to work WHEN?? |
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| Colton practicing his pitching techniques. |
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| Tummy Time |
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| Dylan trying his luck at hitting the ball! |
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| Happy 15th birthday to Colton! |
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