hip hip hooray

What a good week!

Melia had her spring performance at school. Okay, how cute is it to watch 3 and 4 year olds sing! They did a great job. Kylie sang right along with her big sister from the audience.

Melia has recently started this I-am-nervous-put-my-fingers-in-my-mouth-thing. For a mom who is pretty much a germ freak - this is soooo not cool. She said she loved being up on stage and boy did she know all the words and movements to the songs.

Is she a little Josh or what!

The other EXCITING NEWS is that on Friday we drove up the highway to our adoption agency's office in Portland and turned in our DOSSIER!!!!!

Documents in hand. Melia started chanting, "Jo-Jo, Jo-Jo". It was such a great moment.

(FYI Jo-Jo is the nickname for our son... No real name for him yet.)

All God's Children International. Isn't it a cute office! Such a fun neighborhood too.

Since Josh was working, my mom offered to go with us.

I definitely have the best momma on the planet.

Someone's excited!

No trip to AGCI would be complete without a celebratory

dinner at one of our family's favorite places to eat.

Flexing our adoption muscles!

We are on our way folks! Our case worker will now review our dossier and make sure all is done correctly. It will take up to a month and then be sent to the Rwandan government. I pray for my boy everyday. I think about him all the time. Is he born yet? What does he look like? Is someone loving on him right now? Would you please stop and say a quick prayer for him.

adoption update

We are getting closer! Our home study is complete and we received it in the mail this last weekend. With our home study complete we can now get busy and finish up two very important next steps. First, our dossier. Last night we were able to get every document notarized by my friend Maryanne, who is a notary! We hope to head down to the state office today or tomorrow and have our dossier authenticated with the state of Oregon and then.....(drum roll please) turn in our dossier to our agency this Wednesday. That's the plan anyway. :) The agency takes up to a month to translate and authenticate our dossier before they send it to Rwanda. Once the Rwandan government receives our dossier it's about 3 1/2 months of waiting for a referral. Could always be longer.

The other important next step is sending our home study along with an application and fee to the US CIS office in Texas. It's a part of homeland security and ya need an approval letter from these guys in order to bring our boy into the US. It can take up to a couple of months to receive this letter but because it's a US thing, it won't slow down our dossier (international) process. We need this letter before we travel.

That's where were at. At this point I am mentally tired. I am soooo looking forward to handing in our dossier and US CIS application and being done with it for a bit. I am grateful for all the support from friends and family. I can't wait to hold my son.

Mermaids and armor

The only picture I have of Melia and Kylie together. Before the festivities begin....

Enjoying birthday treats. Kylie sure loves sugar... I wonder where she gets it from?

Sidekick and partner in birthday crime, Tara, helping me serve up some birthday love for all.

Kylie's own special cake that is just for her to eat. Made the mistake of starting this with Melia and now I have to make a special cake every year for each child on their birthday. It is definitely and tradition and a birthday must.

Kylie took opening presents in stride and enjoyed a lot of help from family and friends.

I had a hot flash as Josh brought Kylie down to blow out her candles and almost set her hair on fire. Okay, slight exaggeration but it felt like a close call. :)

Happy Birthday to Josh and Kylie! It was a fabulous day of celebrating with family and close friends. (yes, Josh is wearing armor that was a gift given to him by my dad). :) Hard to believe Kylie is 2 already. I love you special people

comfortable

I wrote this post last Friday...thought I lost it when my computer decided to shut down....found it saved as a draft so here it is.....

I am a person who likes to be comfortable. Melia and I often refer to clothes as cozy and comfy. I like to be comfortable in life. I enjoy having all my ducks in a row. I like to be in the "know", feeling financially secure with a positive outlook on tomorrow. This my friends, has not been my reality as of the last week. Sure - I have soooo many blessings, don't get me wrong. The list is endless. This little life of comfort I was carving out for is maybe not the way Jesus wants me to live. I am being stretched in ways that I don't like. Obedience means being that oftentimes that push out of your comfort zone into a wonderful world of TOTAL reliance on Jesus who provides the only source of true inner peace. I can't do it myself and I have to submit to Him. I'll spare you the details as of late, but this last week has been stressful. I have been too exhausted to keep you updated on adoption stuff and life in general. Not to get too crazy spiritual but I have felt the lion prowling hungry for his prey. I have also felt this internal peace from my Savior. A peace way down in there that I know comes from Him. We are on the right track. Please keep us in your prayers.

Things are going smoothly with the adoption process. We had all four of our social worker visits last week. Jodi, our social worker, is great. She asked us every question imaginable, from growing up years to marriage to family/parenting styles. I feel as though I should now add her to our Christmas card list. :) The purpose of all the questions is to make a report that that will be sent in as a part of our dossier telling whoever reads our file in rwanda about us. Gives them a little background and insight into our lives.

We did receive our FBI checks in the mail. Yahoo! Thank you for praying. That means that we can now hand in all our dossier info to our case worker at AGCI (once our home study is complete) and she can begin to make sure we have everything in order before sending to Rwanda.

Next step...once Jodi's report is done and AGCI has checked it out, we get to send our entire home study along with a new form (I 600 A) to the US CIS office in Texas. What is the US CIS office you ask? Great question. It's the department for US citizenship and Immigration Services and is within the Department of Homeland Security. Whoooo- sounds so official. An approval letter from US CIS gives our son permission to enter the US. We have started to work on all the info that we need to send in with our application and home study. Hopefully, we will send that off next week sometime.

Lastly, It's my sweet baby girl's birthday today! I praise God for this child. I was cuddling her a bit last night before bed and humming the song that I would sing to her every night when she was a baby. My mind flooded with memories of intense, hard baby nights and...what a gift she is to me. How my life has changed since having her in so many wonderful ways. She makes me want to be a better person. She adds so much joy and blessing to my life. It's hard to remember life when we only had Melia and it's only been 2 years. Thank you Jesus for my Kylie!