Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas!

Somebody is Two!

Happy Happy Birthday to Samuel, who turned two on the 24th.    I don't know where the time has gone. I couldn't find my camera over the last few days (even though it was sitting right next to my computer - oops) so I didn't post sooner.  We went on vacation to Disney.world the second week of August.  It was hot and Samuel was clingy (he started running a low grade fever towards the end of the trip) and didn't sleep in a pack n play but overall we had a good time.  Chris has all of the pictures on his camera so I'll have to post those at a later time.  His vocabulary exploded while on vacation and now we can have actual conversations with him and its super awesome.  He is so sweet but has pretty strong opinions about almost everything!

Remembering him as a tiny (well, not so tiny) newborn:

We took him for his formal portraits but he would not sit still long enough to get a decent picture.  Here are some recent pictures of my rambunctious toddler off of my camera.

Fun summer times in the pool.

Enjoying his birthday cupcake.

More backyard fun.

Opening his birthday presents from Grandma while on vacation in Florida.

Having fun on the Honey I Shrunk the Kids slide at Hollywood Studios.

Sweet boy.

Happy Birthday to Davis!

Today is Davis' 7th birthday.  I cannot believe what a sweet boy he has turned into.  Granted, he has his moments of attitude, but mostly he is super sweet and we are so lucky to have him as our son.  We've been celebrating the birthday since last Saturday, when he learned to ride his bike without training wheels.  He wanted mommy to teach him instead of daddy and although he was scared, he did great.  We went out the next day and bought him a brand new bike for his birthday.

Last Sunday, he and I went to the circus.  We had seats on the second row and were "Circus Celebrities".  At one point during the show, we got to go sit on the floor to watch for 20 minutes or so.  It was a great show and we had a really good time (although we really missed the motorcycles in the big cages that they had last year).

We are waiting to have his party until after school starts so he can invite his school friends.

Here are a few pictures to enjoy:

Davis as a newborn (3 lbs 9 oz):

Circus Pictures:

    People shooting out of a cannon!

Update

We have had a lot going on since my last update.  Davis left for a visit with his grandparents (Chris' parents) in Birmingham, AL on Friday, July 16.  He will not be home until July 27 and I already miss him like crazy.  He is having a fantastic time.  Yesterday, he and his granddaddy saw Despicable Me and the day before that they drove to Huntsville to visit the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.  He got to ride on rockets and see a Star Wars exhibit.  I am pretty sure that Davis is going to be bored to death when he gets back home.  The good news is that we leave for vacation in Disneyworld just a little while after he gets home and he'll get to see his grandparents again.  I am posting this at work so I cannot upload any pictures but hopefully when Davis gets home, I'll have lots of pictures from his trip to be able to post.

Samuel is being his typical super-cute self.  He is still so busy with everything.  His vocabulary has been exploding lately.  Its so cute to hear him say new words.  He is going to school 3 days a week and seems to be thriving there.  He is learning a lot and making new friends.

I turned 40 (gasp!) years old on Friday, July 16.  At first I was all depressed about it but realize now that its just another day.  I did pamper myself with a pedicure and a 110 minute massage that was heavenly.  On Saturday we had a sitter that stayed with Samuel all night (first time we've ever done that) while Chris and I headed up the road an hour to Oklahoma to WinStar casino for a fun night out.  We went to a nice dinner, saw Bowling for Soup and Better than Ezra in concert, and lost money at the casino.  It was nice to get away and both Samuel and the sitter seemed no worse for the wear when we arrived home on Sunday morning.

We've made a lot of progress on the adoption front.  It took a while for our dossier to be fully authenticated by the Rwandan embassy but we received it back yesterday and today it is officially on its way to our power of attorney in Rwanda who will deliver it to the Minister's office so we can officially be DTR (dossier to Rwanda).  We are in the waiting stage now and it could be quite a while (I am thinking a year or so) before we hear anything. 

Sorry for such a long and boring post but we've had a lot going on and I have not updated in forever.

At the Embassy

I got our documents back from Austin on Friday and fed-exed them to Carol at Dependable Adoption Courier Service (highly recommended) on Saturday.  She received the documents on Monday morning and had them completed at the state department on Tuesday (she had to do them over two days since there were too many documents for the state department to do in one day).  The documents made it to the Embassy of Rwanda today where hopefully they will approve us to adopt and we can get our dossier to Rwanda.  I am hopeful that we'll be able to have our dossier officially submitted by mid-July.  Then the waiting begins. 

On the Way to Austin

Our dossier documents are on the way to Austin for authenication.  This the first of a three-step authentication process before we can send our dossier to Rwanda.  We are excited to be moving forward and hope the authentication process moves quickly. 

Approved!

We got our USCIS approval yesterday so now I am frantically pulling together the rest of the documents we need for our dossier.  I have my medical on Friday (and am hoping the doctor will just sign the form since I was just there for a physical for the homestudy) and am really trying to get everything ready to send off to Austin next week.

We still have a long way to go but are so grateful to have this one step complete.  So glad that USCIS changed the process and we weren't processed in Dallas.  We'd still be waiting.

What is it like?

Please read this post to get a glimpse as to what life is like in the orphanage where our son will come from.  I just read the post and I am crying and praying for our son and the other boys and girls who want and need parents who will love them more than anything else.

Where Has the Time Gone?

I cannot believe our little guy is already 19 months old.  Where did the time go?  It seems like just yesterday that he was a helpless newborn that needed us to do everything for him.  Now he is an independent (almost too independent if you ask me) toddler that is the light of my life.  At his 18 month appointment he was 25.6 lbs and 33.75 inches.  He's been sick the last few weeks - he started daycare part time and his immune system is working overtime.  He's been well for about a week now so hopefully we are on the mend. Here are a few of his 18 month pictures.  He got really sick the day after these were taken so I bet he wasn't feeling well for the pictures but they turned out great anyway.  Enjoy!

Another step closer

We had our home study visit this past Saturday and it went really well.  We should have the final report in 30 days or so.  We have to gather a few more items for the report and send them to our social worker but we will be done with this part really soon.   The best news is that since we were a client of his from our prior adoption, he charged us much less than he would normally charge for a new international home study. 

Even though we had been through the home study process before, I still fretted about the house being perfect (which is nearly impossible with a 6 year old and an 18 month old tearing it apart as fast as I can pick things up).  We had a really nice visit together, then he talked to Davis by himself (I evesdropped on the questions - mostly he asked Davis about our discipline methods and whether he was excited about having another brother) and finally talked to me and Chris individually.  The last part was a safety inspection and since our house is already baby proofed that was no problem at all.

Our social worker did warn us about the Dallas office of USCIS.  They are notoriously slow in processing the i600s and usually send back letters saying the application is not complete without including a name/number to call for more information.  Typical government bureaucracy!  Nothing that I didn't already know but still upsetting.  I really want to get our dossier into Rwanda by July but it will totally be out of my hands. 

Making Progress

The social worker that we used for our home study when we adopted Samuel will be doing our home study for our new adoption as well.  I really like him and he thinks this home study will be pretty easy for him since he'll just need to update our old one and add a few additional things needed for an international adoption.  That does not give us much time to clean up the house but I know we can do it and the SW is pretty laid back so it does not need to be perfect.  I'll probably take a day off of work in the next week or so to get the house picked up since our weeks and weekends have been so busy lately. 

I also have my physical scheduled so we are moving along.  I think I have all of the official documents (birth certificates, marriage certificate, etc.) that are needed so hopefully once the homestudy is complete we can file our i-600a and officially start the waiting process.  We'll continue to work on our dossier during that period too but the dossier requirements are not too bad.

There are 9 families in Rwanda now picking up their 12 kids and most of them have blogs that I have been folloiwng.  It is making me very anxious to be there too.  Soon.

Big News!

Although a lot of our family and friends know this already, I am officially announcing to the world that we are starting the process to adopt again.  We are going to go the international route (from Rwanda) this time and I am very anxious to get the process started.

From all of the research I have done, we should have a new son join our family in 12 - 18 months.  I have already called the social worker that did the home study for our domestic adoption and he is willing and able to do our home study for this adoption too.  I am hoping that we'll be able to get the home study done relatively quickly since he already knows us and can use our prior home study as a starting point for a lot of the boiler plate stuff.  Unfortunately the first part of the process (after the home study) is getting approval from the INS and the Dallas field office has one of the longest processing times in the country.  The national average to process a I-600A is 3.5 months and the Dallas office averages 7.7 months.  We are just starting the process and I am already annoyed by the potential delays but just pray and hope that our son is/will be well taken care of until we can get to Rwanda.

I'll be using this blog to track our progress in this journey.

I will be happy to answer any questions if you leave them in the comments.