Can I Shop Yet?

Okay, so is it my imagination, or are there adorable baby things everywhere you look? I must be crazy to be getting caught up in looking at baby stuff, but I can't help it. I've bought a few little blankies and an Asian diaper bag, but that's all so far. That's not too bad, is it? At least I'm not buying clothes yet. I realize that would be beyond nuts, since we're months away from a referral. But I must admit, I've looked. I've held the adorable, soft, cottony little sleepers in my hands and thought, "If I hold on to my receipts, maybe..."

We're going to need everything for this baby, and I do mean EVERYTHING! We got rid of all our baby things, because Darrell had seemed so closed to the idea of another baby for the longest time. I thought we were done. He SAID we were done! Of course the fact that we need to buy everything again is just adding to his worries about the expense. So, I guess I better keep the shopping under control a little longer and try not to compound the poor man's stress! ... But, I did see the cutest little stuffed giraffe. I need a 12 step program.

Actually, Darrell is jumping the gun, too- just in a different way. He keeps checking the prices of plane tickets! We don't even know when we'll travel and he's trying to figure the price of the trip. I check crib prices and he checks airfares... We're both nuts.

Adoption Day #5

Today, we celebrated our family's fifth Adoption Day with Bri. It's amazing that 5 yrs. has flown by. Each year, on Adoption Day, we add a few charms to a bracelet for her. Her charms this year are the Chinese characters for "Treasure" (Bao), and "Daughter," and one that says, "Born in my heart." She also got a bilingual Beginner's Bible, a bouquet of flowers, and cupcakes. Celebrating the day we became a family has me thinking ahead to the day we'll be able to celebrate meeting our new little guy in Vietnam! I can't wait!!!

Homestudy almost ready to submit...

We had another homestudy appointment today at the Social Worker's office- should be the last one. Everything went well and she had a first draft for us to review. It looked pretty good. Everything is coming along just fine, but nothing really exciting to report. It looks like we've found some affordable health coverage that we will be able to add the baby on to. We have 2 of the 3 parenting classes finished, and we are about done with the Parenting Resource Plan our agency asked us to complete. That's basically a questionaire that asks the parents to imagine they've already brought the child home and discovered afterwards that he has special needs. You have to explain how you would prepare for that; what resources you have available in your community, etc. It's a good idea to make parents stop and think about those kinds of things- but also very difficult to write out detailed explanations of what we'd do, when truthfully, we have NO IDEA what we'd do! Anyway, we're answering those the best we can. We probably sound like a couple of idiots. Nothing new there.

Sooo... We're moving right along, and will continue to post on our progress, but it will probably be a while before the exciting stuff starts to happen. The next steps will be: Turning in the homestudy for our agency's approval, and sending off the I600A (This is the "Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition" which goes to the USCIS). We'll be notified by USCIS to go up to KC at some point for fingerprinting, then we wait for them to issue the I171H; our approval from them to adopt. After that point we can receive a referral on our little one in Vietnam, then wait again til it's time to travel. Altogether, we're still looking at months and months of waiting I'm sure.

Hang in there with us... We'll have a precious picture posted here before we know it!

Homestudy Update...

Our homestudy appointment went well. The SW stayed for approx. 3 hrs. and interviewed us, including each of the kids. Tucker wanted to use his time to share his opinions of Spiderman 3 with the poor lady- not quite the information she was looking for. Other than that, I'd say it went smoothly. She asked Tuck what types of chores he does to help out around the house. He sat there, with a blank, and slightly confused stare on his face. So she rephrased the question to ask him what types of chores should he be doing. Then, he knew how to answer- lol... When she asked Darrell to describe himself, he said, "I'm good lookin." I laughed; she did not. He also described me as "beautiful" (aawwwww- what a sweetheart!). Our next appointment will be in her office on the 24th, in Ark City- over 2 hrs. away!

We have a crazy schedule coming up... I have a funeral to go to this Sat. in KC (hours away), the same day my mom's coming up for a week-long visit, the girls have their dance recital Sunday, kids' baseball and softball games all week, a trip to KC with my mom Wed. (hours away AGAIN!), the next homestudy appt. Thurs., Alex's birthday Friday, our granddaughter's birthday party the next Saturday (Guess how far away it is!), which is also the same day my mom leaves, AND Adoption Day #5 is Sun. the 27th... In addition, we'll be starting the on-line parenting classes, we still have to finish up our taxes for 2006 so we can submit our financial info., I need to pick up our medical letters, we need to write a detailed "Parenting Resource Plan" for our agency, and we're still working on tracking down some affordable health insurance. Add that to working on the remodeling and... Oh, my- I think I'll just go sit in this corner and cry for a moment... Is it okay to suck your thumb at 40?

Homestudy Begins TODAY!!

Our first appointment with the Social Worker is this afternoon. I'm nervous, although I shouldn't be. This is the same lady who did our homestudy for Brianna's adoption, and she's wonderful. Still... Anyone who's visited our home knows that it LOOKS like 6 kids live here! It's never in a clean, orderly state for very long. Oh well... You do your best and let God do the rest.

The only other progress we've made so far is signing up for on-line Adoption Prep classes (an agency requirement- we have to take 10 credit hours of classes), and gathering all the documents for the homestudy. We still have to get health insurance for Darrell, at least, and the new baby (another agency req.).

Anyway, we'll post more after the homestudy. Wish us luck!