This week has been crazy busy and emotional as one can imagine.
Our poor kids have lost their normal mom and in place have been given a serious space head! Thankfully, we have the most amazing and awesome and patient (most of the time) kids. So, if this message is all over the place, I apologize in advance. Please forgive me.... I have (paper) pregnancy brain ha ha!!!
I had to write out two really big checks this week. One for the agency fees and the other for our flight. It is so real now! I will admit, I am freaking out about the travel....freaking out! No matter how many people tell me, it will be ok...it still doesn't help! Not until I am experiencing it for myself. Instead, I am trying very hard to fight off all images, etc. that keep popping up in my head. If you would like to pray for me personally...this is where I need it...peace of mind. Corey too....we are a bit scatterbrained. He is having a hard time concentrating at work when his mind is across the ocean.
The girls are super super super excited. The youngest has been waiting almost two years to share her room with New Sister. She has New Sister's life all planned out already. It's SO cute!
So, when do we leave? We will be leaving for the airport on the 22th. We will stay in London for the night and arrive in B*lg*r*a for the 24th. We should be able to see New Sister on the Monday...yay! Our travel agent said we are able to bring 3 suitcases with us and so we plan to take as much as we can to the orphanage. If you have stuff, let me know and I can arrange something :)
My mom will be driving up to watch the kids while we are travelling. Please keep her in your prayers. She may be travelling alone 6 hours in the snow and that can be REALLY scary! We are so thankful that she was able to get the time off to help. It will be the very longest I have ever been away from my kids. Other than hospital stays, I have never been away from the kids. Can you see why I am freaking now?!?! It made me physically sick just writing out that sentence :( I am sorry to anyone who comes in contact with me in the next month (plus last week).
Our main man (driver/translator) in B*lg*r*a got permission to take pictures and a video of our girl to send us. He is going there on Wednesday to do this. I sure hope he is quick with feedback! The curiosity is killing me!!! The picture that we got with her referral is almost a year old and it isn't clear what color her eyes are. Maybe she will be crawling by then...eek!
I got the photo book completed a few days ago. A very good friend of mine took some pictures for us. She came the night I asked her so that we could get the book ordered and here before we left. We had just got home from school and swimming lessons and work....it was chaos. I wondered how she would take a decent picture of us since we spent no time getting pretty ha ha! She did over and above what I had envisioned. SHE EVEN BROUGHT US SUPPER to eat after we were done!!! Seriously, she is awesome!!! We are so blessed to have amazing people here!!! So blessed!
One of my sister's also got the brunt of the chaotic photo book. Because, my family all lives elsewhere, she was the lucky one to run around the city taking pictures of grandparents, great grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins. She downloaded them into the program as I was creating ha ha! I am truly grateful for her help with this project too. Now to wait for it and pray it turned out well.
Because of the surprise (grr) increase (grr) in fees (grr) that we received this last month (~$4000), we have been FREAKING about finances. We're so dumb. We know better. God brought us here, God will get us through it. And He is. We were blessed with a lovely financial gift yesterday. It has taken us out of the red in terms of our projected budget for this trip. We are without words at how amazing it is to watch God's hand in every teeny tiny aspect. Even the bank paid for most of the fees/transactions that involved the adoption. Why do I put pressure on myself? It doesn't help. God's got this one.
Hmmm...I don't know what else needs to be covered. Thanks for the support. Thanks for the prayers. Thanks. We can't WAIT to meet our daughter :)
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
The commitment
We are committed. I am sure some people think we ought to BE committed ha ha!
All kidding aside, we are proud to announce that we have accepted the referral given to us for another beautiful daughter to join our crazy pink household!
It has been a SUPER CRAZY and UBER EMOTIONAL week. It is surreal. In one month, we will be in-country meeting New Sister!
As you probably guessed, the doctor saw nothing in her file that screamed out anything we didn't already prepare for. We figured as much but it was nice to get the official second opinion.
It was neat taking her file to the doctor. Although she was not there in body, it felt like the first thing I did for her that made her more real; more as a daughter. I walked out of the doctor's office and quickly got in the van before the tears fell. It was official now. Real. We are having another "baby".
The proposal papers took longer than we anticipated getting to our house. Finally they arrived on Friday! We had enough time to run to the bank for the certified cheque and mail it off at the post office. Hopefully our agency gets it tomorrow.
I don't know why there has been so much communication problems with our agency. We had a fee schedule that we budgeted for and when the bill came, we had another two thousand dollars in surprises! Seriously, we are so hurt and mad at this. Between, the additional jack in fees last month and then this month's surprise, we went from happily relieved and funded for this trip to a thousand dollars short! A thousand dollars! Arg! (That is me being nice)
A cool thing that happened this week... Hubby and I are trying to put together a durable family photo book to leave with New Sister and her caregivers at the orphanage in between trips. (We are praying her caregivers will show her the pictures of the family to get her used to us as much as she can ). Anyways, the books can be quite costly especially with shipping to Canada. Well, hubby bought a coffee from McDonald's on Saturday(which ...is RARE) and WON A FREE PHOTO BOOK!!! It was one of the brands we were looking into as well!!!!! Thank you GOD! Awesome, awesome. Now we have to get it done so we can get it here before we leave.
So, we have faith that everything will work out according to God's plan for us and for New Sister. We are throwing around names so that we can stop calling her New Sister and I think we may have one picked. Maybe...ha ha! We are also waiting on an updated phot of her and hopefully a video. The picture in her file is almost a year old...she should have change a lot since then!
I can only imagine how seriously cute she is now :)
Please continue to pray for our journey. Thanks you for the support. We have a lot of very caring and awesome people along for this ride. What a village!
All kidding aside, we are proud to announce that we have accepted the referral given to us for another beautiful daughter to join our crazy pink household!
It has been a SUPER CRAZY and UBER EMOTIONAL week. It is surreal. In one month, we will be in-country meeting New Sister!
As you probably guessed, the doctor saw nothing in her file that screamed out anything we didn't already prepare for. We figured as much but it was nice to get the official second opinion.
It was neat taking her file to the doctor. Although she was not there in body, it felt like the first thing I did for her that made her more real; more as a daughter. I walked out of the doctor's office and quickly got in the van before the tears fell. It was official now. Real. We are having another "baby".
The proposal papers took longer than we anticipated getting to our house. Finally they arrived on Friday! We had enough time to run to the bank for the certified cheque and mail it off at the post office. Hopefully our agency gets it tomorrow.
I don't know why there has been so much communication problems with our agency. We had a fee schedule that we budgeted for and when the bill came, we had another two thousand dollars in surprises! Seriously, we are so hurt and mad at this. Between, the additional jack in fees last month and then this month's surprise, we went from happily relieved and funded for this trip to a thousand dollars short! A thousand dollars! Arg! (That is me being nice)
A cool thing that happened this week... Hubby and I are trying to put together a durable family photo book to leave with New Sister and her caregivers at the orphanage in between trips. (We are praying her caregivers will show her the pictures of the family to get her used to us as much as she can ). Anyways, the books can be quite costly especially with shipping to Canada. Well, hubby bought a coffee from McDonald's on Saturday(which ...is RARE) and WON A FREE PHOTO BOOK!!! It was one of the brands we were looking into as well!!!!! Thank you GOD! Awesome, awesome. Now we have to get it done so we can get it here before we leave.
So, we have faith that everything will work out according to God's plan for us and for New Sister. We are throwing around names so that we can stop calling her New Sister and I think we may have one picked. Maybe...ha ha! We are also waiting on an updated phot of her and hopefully a video. The picture in her file is almost a year old...she should have change a lot since then!
I can only imagine how seriously cute she is now :)
Please continue to pray for our journey. Thanks you for the support. We have a lot of very caring and awesome people along for this ride. What a village!
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
The call
Supper was just about to be served when hubby decided to follow up with a call that was made to us. I saw the phone number a couple of times in the day on call waiting but the name on the little screen did not ring a bell. We figured it was a solicitor since a message was not left on the machine.
I watched Hubby's face during the call. First he realized WHO it was and then WHY she was calling us so urgently. He brought the phone to me and placed her on speaker. The one and ONLY thing that I heard or got out of that whole conversation was: "We have a proposal for a little girl".
That's right folks, we have been MATCHED!!!!
With all the stuff that happened with the country's government, we stopped thinking this was going to be a possibility until the new year. We are in AWE!
15 minutes after we hung up (and after the kids got settled with their dinner), I had to call back our agency and confess that I had not listen to a WORD she said after she told us we were matched. Naturally, she laughed at me and proceeded to explain the details again. This time, adding to it, that she had just sent us the file via email. So, while I was finishing our conversation with our agency, hubby has already snooped in my email and scouted the sweet child's picture in the file!
Aw, she is darling. Simply precious. We will not give any info on her quite yet. We have a week to decide if we want to commit to her and start the process. During this time we are advised to seek a medical opinion.
From the time we commit, it should be around 6 or 7 weeks until we travel on our first trip to meet her. So....around Christmas...
This trip is not a pick up trip! After meeting her, we will have to tell our agency that we have seen her and are still interested in pursuing her adoption. More papers get filed and processed. Our in-country agency will do all the legal stuff and court for us. When court accepts us as her parents, she becomes legally ours and travel arrangements get made to go pick her up. It is estimated that all of that portion of the process is 3-4 months from the first trip.
Soooo....still more waiting. And a lot of moolah that we still need to fundraise. If you have ideas, let us know.
PLEASE pray for our family and this sweet little girl!!!!!!!!
I watched Hubby's face during the call. First he realized WHO it was and then WHY she was calling us so urgently. He brought the phone to me and placed her on speaker. The one and ONLY thing that I heard or got out of that whole conversation was: "We have a proposal for a little girl".
That's right folks, we have been MATCHED!!!!
With all the stuff that happened with the country's government, we stopped thinking this was going to be a possibility until the new year. We are in AWE!
15 minutes after we hung up (and after the kids got settled with their dinner), I had to call back our agency and confess that I had not listen to a WORD she said after she told us we were matched. Naturally, she laughed at me and proceeded to explain the details again. This time, adding to it, that she had just sent us the file via email. So, while I was finishing our conversation with our agency, hubby has already snooped in my email and scouted the sweet child's picture in the file!
Aw, she is darling. Simply precious. We will not give any info on her quite yet. We have a week to decide if we want to commit to her and start the process. During this time we are advised to seek a medical opinion.
From the time we commit, it should be around 6 or 7 weeks until we travel on our first trip to meet her. So....around Christmas...
This trip is not a pick up trip! After meeting her, we will have to tell our agency that we have seen her and are still interested in pursuing her adoption. More papers get filed and processed. Our in-country agency will do all the legal stuff and court for us. When court accepts us as her parents, she becomes legally ours and travel arrangements get made to go pick her up. It is estimated that all of that portion of the process is 3-4 months from the first trip.
Soooo....still more waiting. And a lot of moolah that we still need to fundraise. If you have ideas, let us know.
PLEASE pray for our family and this sweet little girl!!!!!!!!
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Update, update, update
Update, update, update...
Nothing too exciting. It's been a while since my last post. What has happened since???
We had to do our yearly homestudy update yesterday. For so many reasons this makes me want to cry. For one, it is an additional cost and not a cheap bill either. $500 to update our Homestudy and $1200 for an annual File Maintenance (we won't even go there with how I feel about this fee...I'm SURE one can imagine!!!!). Secondly, it is a nagging reminder that we are STILL WAITING for things to progress (for us to get matched)...tick tock, tick tock....$$$$....$$$$$....
We have been asked by a few people about our Homestudy Update. Let me start by saying what it is not. It is NOT going to speed up the process! So many people have asked us this. What the update is for, is to change anything in the previous homestudy.
So for us, the kids got older, joined new activities, ended other activities (like kickboxing because the whole school was shut down whaaaaa), we had a cat before (now we don't), our back yard got an awesome play set and we LOWERED our age parameters (still a girl though).
Why did we lower our age limit? We discussed it quite a bit and realized that if there was a girl who was younger but wasn't being matched with us because she was months shy of what we requested, we would hate to miss out or have her orphaned longer than she needs to be. So, if we end up with a baby (which I really doubt would happen) then so be it. We've done babies five times already ha ha!
Thanks for praying for us!
Nothing too exciting. It's been a while since my last post. What has happened since???
We had to do our yearly homestudy update yesterday. For so many reasons this makes me want to cry. For one, it is an additional cost and not a cheap bill either. $500 to update our Homestudy and $1200 for an annual File Maintenance (we won't even go there with how I feel about this fee...I'm SURE one can imagine!!!!). Secondly, it is a nagging reminder that we are STILL WAITING for things to progress (for us to get matched)...tick tock, tick tock....$$$$....$$$$$....
We have been asked by a few people about our Homestudy Update. Let me start by saying what it is not. It is NOT going to speed up the process! So many people have asked us this. What the update is for, is to change anything in the previous homestudy.
So for us, the kids got older, joined new activities, ended other activities (like kickboxing because the whole school was shut down whaaaaa), we had a cat before (now we don't), our back yard got an awesome play set and we LOWERED our age parameters (still a girl though).
Why did we lower our age limit? We discussed it quite a bit and realized that if there was a girl who was younger but wasn't being matched with us because she was months shy of what we requested, we would hate to miss out or have her orphaned longer than she needs to be. So, if we end up with a baby (which I really doubt would happen) then so be it. We've done babies five times already ha ha!
Thanks for praying for us!
Monday, July 22, 2013
Still waiting
It has been over a month since our last post. Why?? Well, NOTHING has changed. Nothing. Nadda. Zip!
Our hopefully-one-day-we-will-be-matched-daughter's country had a new government elected. The elections took a long time and then afterwards the people of the country have been protesting to have the new Prime Minister resign. Because of all of this government delay, the adoption committee does not have a delegate from the government appointed to sit in on their referral meetings. This has caused a GREAT delay in referrals. It stinks!
It has been rumoured though that there is a meeting for special needs referrals on the 23rd!!!
I bet you know where we are going with this!!! PLEASE pray for our "daughter's" referral to be placed in our agency's hands! Please pray for their government too. We hope that good things will come out of everything that is being protested. We also are REALLY anxious to have a referral!!!
This waiting is HARD! We knew it would be but it is still tough to continue life never knowing when we will get "the call". It doesn't help that two of my friends here are both pregnant! Paper pregnancy has nothing to show for it. That is until you have a referral. Right now, it's just a thought, a wish, a hope, a dream.
We are also very sad to hear that hubby's company may not be getting bonuses in a few months. We had counted on that to help with the fees. It was a huge disappointment to hear that news. We are still PRAYING as nothing "official" has been addressed to the employees :(
If you can, we would love for you to pray for us and with us. For the adoption. For the government. For the last $10000 (minimum) we still need to raise/come up with.
Thank you.
Our hopefully-one-day-we-will-be-matched-daughter's country had a new government elected. The elections took a long time and then afterwards the people of the country have been protesting to have the new Prime Minister resign. Because of all of this government delay, the adoption committee does not have a delegate from the government appointed to sit in on their referral meetings. This has caused a GREAT delay in referrals. It stinks!
It has been rumoured though that there is a meeting for special needs referrals on the 23rd!!!
I bet you know where we are going with this!!! PLEASE pray for our "daughter's" referral to be placed in our agency's hands! Please pray for their government too. We hope that good things will come out of everything that is being protested. We also are REALLY anxious to have a referral!!!
This waiting is HARD! We knew it would be but it is still tough to continue life never knowing when we will get "the call". It doesn't help that two of my friends here are both pregnant! Paper pregnancy has nothing to show for it. That is until you have a referral. Right now, it's just a thought, a wish, a hope, a dream.
We are also very sad to hear that hubby's company may not be getting bonuses in a few months. We had counted on that to help with the fees. It was a huge disappointment to hear that news. We are still PRAYING as nothing "official" has been addressed to the employees :(
If you can, we would love for you to pray for us and with us. For the adoption. For the government. For the last $10000 (minimum) we still need to raise/come up with.
Thank you.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Poker Tournament
Saturday night some friends from kickboxing held a poker tournament to raise money for the adoption. It was such a FUN night! THANK YOU everyone that came out!!! It was such a relaxed atmosphere (especially if you were like me and didn't have a clue what you were doing). I highly recommend this type of easy and FUN fundraiser. We had BBQ Burgers and hot dogs and amazingly delicious cupcakes for dessert!
Our friend worked hard at getting prizes for the winner (we didn't gamble real money...everyone was given fun money to play with). She was able to get a one night stay at a hotel, a two week pass at a boxing center and a gift certificate for a local pub.
I didn't come remotely close to being at the winners table ha ha! Did I mention is was FUN??? I would love to do something similar to this again just for the socialization! Momma needs another night out ha ha!!!
$712 was raised from that night (including money from people who didn't attend, yet selflessly donated)! Wow! Awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We are grateful and once again, humbled! Thank you!
We will update the thermometer when the donations get put into the adoption account.
There have also been donations trickling into our agency!!! We are waiting for a grand total to date from them and we will let you know where we are standing in our funds :) (if my memory serves me right, there is over or around $600 donated through the agency).
If you want to donate through our agency, there is a tab up top with the info on how to do that. You can request a tax receipt from them as well!
I don't know if this works: http://sparklesgigglesandtiaras.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page.html
Did I mention that God has been faithful throughout this adoption?
Thank you to all who made this a great night. Thank you to all those who have poured over us with positive and uplifting comments. Thank you to those who are praying for our family.
In case you were wondering where we are at in terms of the adoption... we are still waiting for our match!!!! The government had just gone through a transformation (new government elected in). This has slowed down adoptions.
So, as far as we are aware, things are starting to move again (slowly) as the new government gets settled in. They will be settled in just in time for their one month summer break!!!! Yep, the government takes a month off in August (I'm not sure when that starts but it does affect adoption time schedules again).
It would be a miracle to be matched SOON!!! Wouldn't that be awesome?? Hopeful thinking...hopeful thinking...
Our friend worked hard at getting prizes for the winner (we didn't gamble real money...everyone was given fun money to play with). She was able to get a one night stay at a hotel, a two week pass at a boxing center and a gift certificate for a local pub.
I didn't come remotely close to being at the winners table ha ha! Did I mention is was FUN??? I would love to do something similar to this again just for the socialization! Momma needs another night out ha ha!!!
$712 was raised from that night (including money from people who didn't attend, yet selflessly donated)! Wow! Awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We are grateful and once again, humbled! Thank you!
We will update the thermometer when the donations get put into the adoption account.
There have also been donations trickling into our agency!!! We are waiting for a grand total to date from them and we will let you know where we are standing in our funds :) (if my memory serves me right, there is over or around $600 donated through the agency).
If you want to donate through our agency, there is a tab up top with the info on how to do that. You can request a tax receipt from them as well!
I don't know if this works: http://sparklesgigglesandtiaras.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page.html
Did I mention that God has been faithful throughout this adoption?
Thank you to all who made this a great night. Thank you to all those who have poured over us with positive and uplifting comments. Thank you to those who are praying for our family.
In case you were wondering where we are at in terms of the adoption... we are still waiting for our match!!!! The government had just gone through a transformation (new government elected in). This has slowed down adoptions.
So, as far as we are aware, things are starting to move again (slowly) as the new government gets settled in. They will be settled in just in time for their one month summer break!!!! Yep, the government takes a month off in August (I'm not sure when that starts but it does affect adoption time schedules again).
It would be a miracle to be matched SOON!!! Wouldn't that be awesome?? Hopeful thinking...hopeful thinking...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
FUNds and FUNdraiser
Our thermometer just jumped up $1000!! Yipee!!! God is Good!!!!
Thank you to whomever donated a big portion of that!
We are getting closer and closer to having the funds for Trip #1 where we will get to meet our child!! Oooo, I cannot wait until that moment!!!
I have nothing profound or exciting to say today. I just wanted people to see that we have bumped up our thermometer accordingly. If you click anywhere on that thermometer it will bring you to a breakdown of where our fees are allocated.
Our travel fees are based on a humanitarian rate offered by the travel agency. This is the best price that we have come across thus far. It is also based on prices 6 months to a year ago so I am sure our estimates are rather low.
We also have not factored in updating our homestudy because it will be a year soon (it needs to be updated every year) and childcare for the two trips. Child care is a bit ambiguous right now. It really depends on when we get matched and when our travel dates are to take place. Ideally, summer holidays would have be perfect. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't look like this will be the case since summer holidays are quickly approaching.
I don't know...I always had this gut feeling that we would be in B* over Christmas holidays... I guess we will see what happens :)
I am really excited about our next FUNdraiser happening June first! If you are in the area we would LOVE for you to come out to this event!
It is a Poker Tournament. YOU DO NOT NEED to know how to play!!!! There are CHEAT SHEETS! There is NO GAMBLING of your own money. The coordinators of the even just ask for a $20.00 "Buy-in" (a spot to play/donation to the fundraiser). You are given a certain amount of fun money! Spend it all at once or figure out how to outsmart your tablemates (yep, I made that word up ha ha)!!! The hubby will be BBQing (I should probably tell him that ha ha). There are prizes! I really hope to see some people there (or it will be a really boring game by myself).
If you cannot make it out, I have heard that they are accepting donations! There have been a couple of people that have already gone this route and I just want to give a great big THANK YOU for their support! We are really truly amazed at the love that people have for this little girl to find a FOREVER FAMILY!!!! AHHHHH, I can't wait to MEET HER!!!!
There is a Facebook Event page for the Poker Tournament. If you need the details, leave me a message here, talk to me in person, FB, etc.
Have a super wonderful fantastic day!!!
Thank you to whomever donated a big portion of that!
We are getting closer and closer to having the funds for Trip #1 where we will get to meet our child!! Oooo, I cannot wait until that moment!!!
I have nothing profound or exciting to say today. I just wanted people to see that we have bumped up our thermometer accordingly. If you click anywhere on that thermometer it will bring you to a breakdown of where our fees are allocated.
Our travel fees are based on a humanitarian rate offered by the travel agency. This is the best price that we have come across thus far. It is also based on prices 6 months to a year ago so I am sure our estimates are rather low.
We also have not factored in updating our homestudy because it will be a year soon (it needs to be updated every year) and childcare for the two trips. Child care is a bit ambiguous right now. It really depends on when we get matched and when our travel dates are to take place. Ideally, summer holidays would have be perfect. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't look like this will be the case since summer holidays are quickly approaching.
I don't know...I always had this gut feeling that we would be in B* over Christmas holidays... I guess we will see what happens :)
I am really excited about our next FUNdraiser happening June first! If you are in the area we would LOVE for you to come out to this event!
It is a Poker Tournament. YOU DO NOT NEED to know how to play!!!! There are CHEAT SHEETS! There is NO GAMBLING of your own money. The coordinators of the even just ask for a $20.00 "Buy-in" (a spot to play/donation to the fundraiser). You are given a certain amount of fun money! Spend it all at once or figure out how to outsmart your tablemates (yep, I made that word up ha ha)!!! The hubby will be BBQing (I should probably tell him that ha ha). There are prizes! I really hope to see some people there (or it will be a really boring game by myself).
If you cannot make it out, I have heard that they are accepting donations! There have been a couple of people that have already gone this route and I just want to give a great big THANK YOU for their support! We are really truly amazed at the love that people have for this little girl to find a FOREVER FAMILY!!!! AHHHHH, I can't wait to MEET HER!!!!
There is a Facebook Event page for the Poker Tournament. If you need the details, leave me a message here, talk to me in person, FB, etc.
Have a super wonderful fantastic day!!!
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