hoo-ray!

I was so excited when I got the mail today! We received our USCIS fingerprinting appointment! It is set for Monday, July 7th. So we will head down to Cincinnati for our "biometrics". It is great timing, because our homestudy should be done soon and it can join up there and then we will begin the wait for our I171H paper. I was jumping up and down when I got the mail today. It is just so nice to have another part of the puzzle in the works! We also got our passport applications sent out Friday, so we are hoping and praying those don't take a sweet forever. So yeah, hooray for fingerprints!

Our little sweethearts...

home visit...part two

Today was the final visit to our home from the social worker. Actually, she is still here, I am just in the other room! I already did my one-on-one with her and now it's Phil's turn! Things are going great. Really and truly, nothing to be nervous over. I can hear her laughing out there, so Phil is on his game, haha. I am excited to say we are done with all of our homestudy paperwork...except for one little paper. Our financial info can't be completed because we are still waiting for finalization of our life insurance. We faxed it all last week and I talked to a guy who said it can take as long as six weeks, or as short as two, so to maybe plan for four. Please join us in praying it is two!!! Everything is done except for those two little blank lines...taunting me. It would just be so wonderful to have this phase complete. I was looking at our dossier sheet today, and there really isn't that much to be done. We are waiting for our fingerprinting appointment, and I really hope we get that letter with our appointment date this week. It looks like we should be able to make our August deadline that we made for ourselves. But as many know, we certainly can't count on it! Who knows what the pesky I171H will decided to do.

two down, two to go

Today we had our first home visit from our social worker. I really wasn't stressed or nervous at all, and now I'm glad I didn't work myself up, because it really was great! Our social worker is so easy to talk to, and it was like talking to an old friend in our living room. She did a great job of asking us all of the questions in an easy, conversational manner. I also really liked just talking through everything. It was nice to revisit why we decided to adopt, and just how God has worked in our hearts to bring us where we are. We were also so excited to schedule our next visit for Monday! I only have a few stray papers that I hope to get by Monday, and our part will be done! Then we will just wait for her to write it all up. She said our fourth and final visit would be to look over everything and just tie up loose ends. Now that our homestudy papers are almost done, we can really focus on gathering more for the dossier!

clearing things up

I have had several people come to me confused. Apparently, we tripped a few people up when we started this blog! So to clear it up, we do still have our own personal blogs up and running. We will just be posting here regarding our adoption. So please check here for the latest details, and for the every day stuff, you can still find us at:

www.mamalovesadeal.blogspot.com

www.philwing.com/blog


Thanks for keeping up with us!

onward

It looks like our first home visit from our social worker will be on Tuesday! We are so glad to have this scheduled and have the ball rolling.
Today we went and had our BCI fingerprinting done and got our police clearance letters. I am thoroughly enjoying crossing things off of our list of to-do's. It feels great! Of course, there is still a lot to be done, but we're moving along. Hopefully we will hear from USCIS soon and get our fingerprinting appointment. Our next goal to tackle is passports. I have our applications, so we need to get our photos and get over to the post office. Hopefully I can say that is done by the end of the week!
It is easy to keep pressing on when you read about other families who are further along. Here are some people that are in Ethiopia as we speak, getting ready to bring their sweet children home!

The Kidds
The Wests
The Cordells
The Gardners

Still here

So I have just been bad in general about updating my blog, and here as well. We are staying busy though. I will also try to update the timeline in our sidebar soon since we have made progress! We are waiting to hear from our social worker right now to schedule our first home visit. We only have a few stray papers until we have everything collected on our end for our homestudy. Yay! That is victory. I can't wait until we can say that part is done! I went downtown to get a few things today and it was frustrating to say the least! Finding parking was a nightmare, the kids were just totally acting out-of-control, and I got a $15 parking ticket. Seriously?! At least I got a few things crossed off my list, so I am trying to look at the positive instead of the dent in our wallet and my sanity. We are hoping to get our BCI fingerprinting and the police letter done this week, and our physicals will be completed next week. Other than that, I am just waiting for other people to get things to me.
We have had some major storms and flooding around the area last night and today. Since we were trapped at home, Gibson got a long-awaited hair cut from Daddy. It was his first big boy buzz cut, and I'm still getting used to it. He just looks old and it makes me a little sad. Before we took it off we left it in this mohawk...and I'll be honest, I kind of wish we would have left it because he looked so darn cute:

He really wasn't sad in the picture, he was just concentrating on his Wiggles DVD.
On another note, I am researching preschool homeschooling material. Any suggestions?