good news!

Want to hear some good, no, GREAT NEWS? Our dossier is officially on it's way to RWANDA. Oh yeah! It came back to our agency last Tuesday from the Rwandan embassy in Washington D.C. where they recommended us for adoption. Our case worker sent it out the same day to Rwanda. I am so thrilled to be this far. It takes a week to get to Africa and then up to two weeks to be processed into their system. I'm guessing that it's there now, since it will be exactly one week tomorrow.

Our case worker is suppose to be notified when we are in the Rwandan system and she is going to let us know. That means we will be officially in "their hands" and waiting to be placed with our son. The waiting has already begun for us.....but once we are in their system we've been told waiting for a referral could take up to 6 months.

My heart already aches to have my boy. I thought already having two kids and lots to keep me busy that the time would fly by... but that is not the case at all. I want him here with me now! No six months, thank you. I can see this will be a test of patience for me.

This is great news and I am so thankful to my Jesus for bringing us this far....

dear friend

Here's Shauna holding her daughter Ella (on left) with me and Melia at the garage sale. I somehow deleted the pic below....keeping reading to find out about her.

the time had come

Yes, two garage sales in two weeks! Grand total of money made for our baby boy's adoption.......$1,500!!!!!! Are you freaking out right now? I am! What a ton of money! I never would have dreamed that we would have made that much. A HUGE THANK YOU to all who donated items to be sold. My words won't come close to my heart here but I am humbled and so, so, so grateful.

A few pics from our second garage sale. As you can see we had a ton of stuff !

I was starting to go a bit loopy from all the distributing, organizing, and pricing.

Melia and her best buddy, Ella (on left) sitting at their concessions stand just waiting to make some money. If a few minutes went by with no takers for candy or drink, Melia would shout over to me in front of all the garage sale customers in a very frustrated, annoyed tone that no one was coming and buying from them. (I'm thinking that she probably doesn't have a future in sales.....or maybe she does because she was determined to move some product.) She did tire of sitting at the table really quickly and was off to play soooo concessions wasn't as big of a hit as I had hoped but my goal was made for having her feel apart of the experience.

My question is how could you NOT buy something from these two cutie pies?

Ella is the daughter of one of my dearest friends, Shauna. Shauna selflessly helped me out sooooo much at BOTH of my garage sales. She worked her booty off and kept me in a great mood. When I would try to let her off the hook to go home she would say, "no way, this is what friends do for each other". Thank you my wonderful friend for supporting me and my family in such a giving way. I love ya!

I'll end this blog on a light note.... What do you do with old winter tights now that the weather is warming up? Well, pull them over your head and pretend you're an invisible spy of course, sneaking up on the bad guy (daddy) and wrestling him on the bed. Continue to wrestle daddy, laughing hysterically, until you are worn out and the bed is a total disaster.

They could see out...I don't know how - but they could!

What's better than one garage sale......

....having another one, of course! Last week I learned very late in the week that the street next to ours was having a street garage sale. Hello lots of people! Time to make some money. We were going to originally have our garage sale THIS week (Friday and Saturday) but this was just too good of an opportunity to miss soooooo we went for it. My sister and bro-in-law graciously let us use their house (yes we live one street apart). We raised $700 bucks!!! How awesome is that. Our application for the US CIS is just a little bit more than that so I love to think that the cost is almost completely taken care of! God is good. I give him all the glory for such a great turn out and weather.

Turning to this week.....we had a little bit of stuff left over AND we have a few more friends that were going to donate items to the garage sale this week soooo....why not go for it again? Hello 76 degree weather! Let the people come and feast their eyes on all of our treasures and partake in great deals. Melia will be running her concessions stand with drinks and candy. Yes, yes I am using her cute face and curls to make some money. Judge if you must. :) Will be open for business this Friday (8-3) and Saturday (9-12). Stop by and say hi!

blessings.

let the waiting begin...

We headed up the highway yesterday to AGCI and turned in a few dossier documents that we had to update. (I'll spare you the boring time constraint details and why we had to redo two documents. It almost confuses me enough trying to explain it out-loud to you. Reason # 342 why I loving having a case worker. She says to fix something - we do it and move on. ) Our dossier was sent out yesterday to Washington DC where....wait for it..... it will receive another official certification from the national level. Seriously I'm not quite sure what they do there. Check everything over -- maybe put a seal on it??? Again, just another step that we say "alrighty then" and off to Washington it goes.

It takes two weeks for our dossier to come back to AGCI and then Julie will send it directly to Rwanda! I was giddy with excitement yesterday as we drove home. The BIG bunch of our paper work is d-o-n-e. Josh was cool as a cucumber. That is the balance of our marriage folks. I am jumping around in the car doing some pretty sweet dance moves from the waist up and he looks as though he is playing a game of chess with all emotions firmly intact. His life would be so calm without me. :)

We were hoping for a referral within 3 months but Julie said to plan on 3-6 months now. Oh no. Guess it has slowed down for some reason. He could always come quicker than expected but don't bet on it. And get this.... we are the first dossier for the Rwandan program from AGCI. That means we are first on the waitlist baby! Not sure if that's really cool or really nerve racking? I'm going to go with being really cool. Oh how I do love to blaze a trail.

In the meantime we have lots here to keep us busy! We are going to have a garage sale in two weeks, May 15th & 16th (weather permitting). We need sun or at least no down pours going on. I am clearing things out of my house. Some close friends and family have donated great items to our adoption garage sale. All proceeds are going to our adoption fund. One cool part of our adoption story that I am experiencing is how people support and love on you in real and practical ways. I didn't really think about this aspect before we jumped into our journey. It's humbling and overwhelming all at the same time. I am forever grateful for the love and encouragement we have been shown. (You know who you are!)

So save your money and come buy some great stuff: furniture, exercise equipment, clothing, home decor items, awesome crib bedding (girl) that was hardly used, kid toys, etc.... I think I am going to have a concessions stand for people to buy pop and candy? I've heard that can be a huge hit.

I'm also working on another fund raiser idea that is pretty unique. More on that in a later blog.

blessings!