happy new year

Happy New Year!

2008 is going to be an amazing year for us. It will be the year that we finally become parents! This house will have a child in it, and toys, and laughter, and we will be a happy family. We are so excited about going to Russia and about all the changes that are coming our way.

We hope God blesses you all in 2008!

P.S. Our family members and friends are reading this blog, but haven't posted any comments. In 2008, I would love for you to share your thoughts with us, because later, our child will be reading this blog.

apostilles...almost

On Friday, we drove 2 hours to get our dossier apostilled. It was very hard to turn loose of it and give it to the receptionist to take to the back! That was the 1st time the dossier has been out of our hands since we started the process. After waiting for 45 minutes, it was done, but with one problem. R's employment letter was not correct. It was signed and then notarized by the same person, and that's not allowed. :(

So, as soon as R. goes back to work on Wednesday, he'll get another employment letter and we'll FedEx it to be apostilled. Shouldn't really cause us any time delay, but it's really annoying!

We had good news yesterday though! We got a letter from the Dept. of Social Services. They approved our home study and sent it to immigration on Dec. 21! That means we should have our 171-H in a few weeks! We were both so relieved!

Christmas gifts for our child

Time to update! We had a great Christmas, even though we did not have as much time with family as we had hoped. My sister and her family had to return home early, and R's brothers did not come after all.

We got some wonderful gifts for the baby. I had so much fun opening everything. R's mother gave us a set of matryoshka dolls, which are nesting Santas. The matryoshka dolls were on my list of Russian things that I wanted our child to have, so I was very happy to get them! My sister gave us some wooden alphabet blocks with the Russian alphabet on them! We both loved those. I gave R the book A Little Story About a Big Turnip which is based on a Russian folk tale. I'm glad we already have some things for our child which reflect his/her Russian heritage.

Our child also got a rubber ball (perfect for playing in the backyard) a Pat the Bunny book and bunny (I just love that book!) a fabulous wooden snail pull toy, bibs, a This Little Piggy hand puppet/book that I can't wait to play with, a little plaque that says "heaven sent" that I'm going to put on the nursery door, and a boo boo bunny! I know with the hardwood floors in our house our little one is going to fall at some point and that boo boo bunny will really come in handy!

We also got stuff for our trip, lots of travel size items and containers, which we really needed. I put all the stuff on the bed in the nursery, so now I've officially started the packing process!

I had so much fun putting all the stuff in the nursery. Except for putting the crib together, it looks ready for our child to come home!

Our family was so wonderful and all the gifts were so thoughtful. We love you all so very much.

Last Christmas, we hadn't made the decision to adopt. We loved sharing Christmas with our family and watching Gracie and Nathan enjoy their Santa Claus, but it was bittersweet for me too, because there was the sense of not having that joy in our own lives. This Christmas was very different. As I watched them enjoy their Santa Claus this year, I kept thinking about how wonderful next Christmas will be with our child, and I experienced the joy more fully. Even though our child is not with us yet, that sense that we are missing something is gone.

merry christmas

We are having a wonderful Christmas so far. Later today, we'll go to the candlelight communion service at our church, and that's one of my favorite parts of the holiday. Then we will be spending the next few days with our family. I'm looking forward to playing with our 3 year old nephew; we don't get to see him nearly enough. This is our last Christmas without a child. As we enjoy this year, we are thinking constantly about how wonderful and amazing next year will be, when our baby is finally with us and we celebrate as a family.

We are thankful to God for the ultimate gift, his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Hope everyone has a very joyous and merry Christmas!

notarized

We got all our documents notarized today! Except for our medical forms and our 171-H, we have everything for our dossier notarized and ready for apostilling! It feels so good to have that done! We are one huge step closer to traveling and finally meeting our baby.

Our notary works at the local university where R. works. She was so nice and helpful. Turns out she has a granddaughter who was adopted domestically. She was very sympathetic to our cause, and understood when we handed her the huge stack of papers to be done! She made it very painless, and I am very thankful for that. Now if only the rest of our process will go as smoothly as today!

home study done

Late yesterday afternoon, we received the final copies of our home study! YAY! Except for our medical forms (which we will take care of in Jan.) and our 171-H, we have all of the documents for our dossier. We are so excited! Monday morning, we'll find out when we can take everything in to be notarized. The human resources director at the University is going to do them for us. We're hoping she'll be able to notarize everything on Wednesday. Then our plan is to take everything to be apostilled right after Christmas, and then hand deliver our dossier to our agency, probably on Jan 3. We won't be able to get the dossier turned in before Christmas, as we originally hoped, but it's ok. It will be a great way to start the new year! We're thrilled to be at this point in the process!

We're still in the nesting phase. R. spent all day working in the basement. We've been in this house for 6 months, and now finally the last of the boxes have been unpacked. He organized all the bikes and bike parts, as well as all the tools. It looks really good. Now we can go to the basement and actually find something if we need it!

I've spent a lot of time thinking about next Christmas, and how much fun it will be when our child is here and we are celebrating our first Christmas as a family.

I enjoyed this article

Eight Similarities Between God’s Adoption of Us and Our Adoption of Children
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/1991_A