Homestudy Received!

We got the rough draft of our homestudy this morning. Definitely an awesome belated Christmas Present! I've reviewed everything and made the corrections. The next step is sending it to TOL to make sure everything is there for Bulgaria to accept it. After that it's the enfamous USCIS approval that I'm sure we'll be waiting until march to get back. Getting our homestudy is such a major step I feel like because it's one of the final things we have to have for the US, everything else is for Bulgaria. We are hopefully only a few months from being registered with the MOJ. My goal for March is looking a little unreachable, but we're still hoping, because we've got a great God who can make anything happen miraculously fast!

In the mean time we had a wonderful Christmas. Mom bought Makenna her first uk t-shirt and of course a cabbage patch doll that comes with adoption papers. Fortunately there aren't as many adoption papers as there are for an International adoption! I'm so excited to see the support and love that is already pouring out from our family's and friends. We have been so blessed this weekend, not only because of Christmas but also because we are seeing God working in the lives of people around us. We have been so encouraged by members of our congregation, not only by prayer, but even financially. God truely is in this process and we couldn't be more amazed by with the way He's been working. It is our deepest prayer that this adoption will change the life of a little bulgarian girl, and also our own lives, as well as many lives around us.

Hope you all had a merry Christmas!

Little update

Well just for a little update.... Our homestudy is drafted and we were missing a few things like a letter from my Dr. and an employment verification. However I've already gotten those too our social worker and we are hoping to have our homestudy rough draft by early next week!

As Christmas is approaching it makes me so excited to think about life when there is 3 instead of 2 of us. Just the thought of being able to share Christ's love with a small child who has never known it before is such a blessing. We continue to bring things home to decorate her room just to keep our minds off of how long it's going to take once the wait begins.

We are also getting better educated on several Special Needs that we feel our family could manage. So we are updating our special needs list daily it seems like. This really is a good thing because it just opens the door to so many more children who deserve a great life!

The results are in!

Well Dustin and I found out today we are free of disease (not that it was in question)! One closer step to adopting our Bulgarian Child. Our bloodwork came back good so now we just have to get it notarized by our physicians and check one more thing off of our Dossier checklist. In the mean time we are following a couple other blogs, waiting on our homestudy to get typed up, and continuing to fundraise. I feel myself becoming less anxious as this process goes along which is definitely a good thing. Prayers are really helping! Sorry this one is short!

Well that went Fabulous!

SHEEEW what a relief...not that we were THAT worried! Our homestudy is over and it went so well! Our SW is so great and made us feel so comfortable! Even better she's hoping to have it typed up and ready to proof read by end of next week. That's great news because that means we can go ahead and send off our USCIS paperwork!

I'm going to make this pretty short since dustin is trying to sleep right now! We ask that you all just keep praying for a speedy process! Our first fundraiser is going great by the way. We have passed out baby bottles to family and friends and asked them to fill it with their spare change! We've gotten over $150.00 in just 2 weeks! We truely are so blessed!

On a side note, Dustin's dad just bought a house 10 minutes from us! Looks like we got ourselves a babysitter! We REALLY are blessed!!!!

Well goodnight, and I'll keep you updated when the next big event comes our way!

Homestudy Time!

Well today is our homestudy and we are excited, a little anxious, but most definitely ready for it to be here. Once our home visit is over and approved we can send our USCIS approval off and start applying for grants to help fund the second part of our expenses. I have been working on our dossier paperwork on the side, and have mostly everything except the stuff pertaining to our homestudy and of course our FBI and USCIS approvals. Once we have those it's off to the Secretary of State to have everything apostilled. The final step will be sending everything to Bulgaria. We've set a goal for ourselves of having everything on its way to Bulgaria by March 1st! That gives us plenty of time but I like setting goals that I have the potential to meet early!!

This past weekend Dustin and I spent cleaning and rearranging our bedrooms. We moved the guest bed into the office and cleared out the guest room for all of Makenna's stuff. We've started a pile in the corner and it just keeps growing! We've also been taking pictures of family, friends, our house, schools, the yard, and our pets because we have to send all of those things to bulgaria with our dossier.

I'm hoping to come back tomorrow or maybe even tonight with a really good report from our Home Visit! Please keep us in your prayers!