Apostilled

Yesterday my sister-in-law and I made the long treck up to Frankfort to get our Dossier Apostilled.  So glad we are finally at the point where we are getting ready to mail our paperwork to Portland, Oregon, then on to Bulgaria!  I feel like I recheck myself 20 times a day to make sure I have everything. I'm currently working on our photos, and I question every photo, "I wonder if they'll want to see this".  Oh well, I hope all works out and we've gotten everything our Bulgarian judge will want to see.  I suppose our next step will be getting our dossier over and translated, then wait for a registration date.  After that comes the HARD part....waiting, and waiting, and waiting! But isn't it wonderful how God's timing is so perfect.  Even though we already have our little girls room basically ready for her, we are so glad that God is in control of when she'll be here and who she is! 

obviously we need a few more things on the wall, but we're getting there!

I have fulfilled my first etsy order, that is helping to fund this adoption.  I was so excited that my first "customer" was an adoption mom herself!  I feel so blessed to be apart of this adoption community!I'll post some pics below of the neclace charms I made and sent!   If you're interested, find me on etsy!

Extra Steps, Good News, and Paint

Well I had scheduled to go to Frankfort yesterday to get our dossier apostilled. However I ran into a few problems, which thankfully saved me a wasted trip. After looking at my dossier one final time I realized our Homestudy's Agency License wasn't notarized, and they hadn't sent us the proper paper for our Child Abuse Clearance letter. I called them to try to get this figured out so I could pick it up on my way to Frankfort and she informed me I would have to then take it Boyle County Courthouse to get it certified. WHAT?!?! No one told me about this..booooo! I called our placing agency and she says, oooooh yes you live in KY 1 of 3 weird states in this country that requires this extra step. Every document I have notarized has to be certified at the Courthouse to prove my notary is still registered, of course an extra $5 per document. I would live in 1 of 3 weird states, go figure. So I call our courthouse, and low and behold the one person who knows how to do it and how much it costs is out ALL WEEK! Fabulous! I guess frankfort is put off until next week. Atleast I figured it all out before I went up there and had teh secretary of state send me back home.

On a good note....We received our apostilled copy of our FBI clearance back from the Dept. of State today which did not take very long at all! I mailed in on the 6th via Fed Ex ground and got it back on the 19th....I'd say that's pretty good!

Dustin and I painted our Bulgarians beauty's room yesterday. It's soo pretty and purple! I can't wait to start hanging things on the wall and get it ready to be her new home! Hope she likes bright colors!! haha Check out all our hard work in the pictures below!

* Dustin hard at work doing the trim*

*Rollin my heart out and pourin the sweat*
*Us after the first coat was finished*

*Isn't it Beautiful*

APPROVED!! (for real this time)

Only 7 days after getting our fingerprints done we received a letter in the mail this morning. I quote "You have been approved to adopt one child from the following Convention Country: Bulgaria"!! I tell ya, God is sooo good. We really thought the whole USCIS process would take a lot longer but the time was nearly half of what we expected! I only hope the referral process goes by that quickly :)! Now all that is left is to take our paperwork to the Secretary of State to get it apostilled. Unfortunately there is a new step in part of that process which includes mailing our FBI fingerprints off to the Dept. of State because the SOS will no longer apostille that document. Otherwise I'll be hand delivering everything else (assuming they let me do so). We officially have raised enough money to pay for the first half of the adoption. This is the part that includes everything to get us registered. Nothing else is due until we receive a referral. We will definitely be applying for some grants once we get registered. As always continue to keep us in your prayers!

New Goal: to be registered in Bulgaria by May 31st!!