A blog makeover

Look who got a blog makeover!! YAY!! Isn't it cute! My friend J/P made it for me. Thank you so much girlie. I love it! :)

girlfriends

My friend Amy posted a blog about our Ethiopia Adoption Project. She's having a baby girl any day now. She's an amazing photographer and she posted a picture of herself in one of our Ethiopia Adoption Project shirts. Doesn't she look so cute?! :)

Amy, thank you for your friendship and your support. I've been so blessed to have some amazing girls in my life to support me and give me a word of encouragement when I needed it. I feel so blessed. Speaking of great friends, last week I went to dinner with girlfriends. What was so cool about this dinner was our common bond...adoption. We're all adopting children internationally. It was so amazing to spend 3 hours chatting with girls who really "get it". They know what the process is like. They understands the ups and downs of adoption first hand. Amy is adopting from India, Melodie is adopting from Guatemala and Amanda is adopting from Guatemala as well. I had such a good time with you girls and can't wait to get together again soon.

I can't talk about amazing people and not talk about my 2 little sisters. L & R are so awesome. They've been so supportive since the very get go with our adoption. They are just excited about meeting "M" as we are. They are stoked about being Auntie's again. I love you girls.

Quick...I need your help

For those of you with Gladney, how did you decide to check the PCR form. Just got a message from Anne and we somehow skipped this form. She's just sent it to me and needs us to check it, sign it & send it right back. What did you do? 1 PCR test or 2?! Help!!

YAY for Tara & Eric

Big Congrats to my friend Tara & her hubby Eric, they recieved a referral today for sweet baby Malak. Go check out her blog. Tara, I'm so excited for you guys. He's absolutely beautiful.

2 steps forward 1 step back

I don't know if you guys remember me venting about what a hard time I had getting an insurance letter from Blue Cross. Well, it took about 3 months for them to finally get it to me and even then I had to get my head human resources girl to deal with them. Anyway, I sent some of our dossier over to Natalie at Gladney yesterday for her to double check it all before I had it authenticated. The crazy insurance letter has to be redone. GRRRRR!!! I had a complete breakdown last night when she told me that because I KNOW it going to be a battle. They didn't notarize it the correct way. It has to have the "subscribed and sworn...." thing added to it and blue cross didn't do that. They also didn't state in the letter that it was HEALTH insurance (rather just insurance) and it doesn't translate well so I have to redo it. My frustration isn't with Gladney or Natalie...they are super supportive and understand the frustration as well but it's with the insurance company for being SO difficult to deal with. The insurance company isn't the only thing that has to be redone. There's about 5 or 6 things but they all seem pretty simple to fix. The insurance letter is the only concern I have. Things like this puts us further and further behind. My DREAM of having her home by Christmas is looking less and less likely. I KNOW that God is in control and I HAVE to trust Him. Today is one of those days where I have to remind myself that He's in control over and over.
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an update

Our homestudy is complete....WOO HOO!! We're still waiting for Villa Hope to send a copy of it to Anne at Gladney but that should be done this week.

Also, we sent off our I600A on Saturday. Villa Hope wanted us to wait and send it off after our last home visit so that's what we did.

This week we are hitting the dossier pretty hard. I'm hoping to have it ready to send off for Natalie to double check it all by the end of the week. We'll see...

We haven't applied for passports yet but plan on doing that this week as well. Those have to be back before we can send our dossier off so we will be waiting for a few weeks for that.

Think it's possible for us to be on the waiting list by the beggining of March? That's the goal....