We are still in the "waiting" part of this adoption. We are waiting on our home study to be approved by Beacon House (the Russian agency that works here in the U.S.). They are located in Iberville Parish in Louisiana and they work with adoption agencies like ours (Building Blocks Adoption Service) here in Ohio. We chose Building Blocks because of their Christian facilitation of adoptions and because they were a "one stop shop," where we could be guided and provided home study services as well as help and guidance through forming the paperwork (called dossiers) for Russia. Two of these packets are required for Russia. One of them is submitted before we meet our little Katie Allison and the second is submitted after our first trip to the region in order to schedule a court date.
We wanted the process to be as simple as possible and though there is A LOT of paperwork, they are awesome at guiding us through it and are always there when we need to talk to them via phone. I even got to visit the agency the other day when I went up to Cleveland (their offices are located in Medina--about 45 minutes outside of Cleveland). I saw a bunch of bulletin boards with babies and children that they have placed in "forever families." We can't wait to add our Katie Allison's photo to that board when all this is final. Well, now on to the actual real purpose of this note.
So, Aaron and I had a wonderful day today! We took a walk around the block near our apartment because it was SUCH a beautiful day today with so much sunshine!!!! As most of you know, we have been living here in Beavercreek for over two years now (going on three) and we did not even know about this little furniture store around the corner called Woodcraft. It is awesome!!! Apparently, a lot of their furniture is made by the Amish and the quality is amazing. Plus, how could it get any better?
The prices are phenomenal and they will stain almost anything to match other items in your furniture. Her furniture is mostly Cherry colored, with her dresser being a darker version of Cherry...but I don't mind so much if there are some variations of the wood colors.
I now have an official wish list of stuff from this place for Katie's room and for her in general. We purchased the rocking chair below, but here are some other things I spied that I want for her room and her little play areas:
1) Armoire (since Katie doesn't have her own dedicated closet, we will need a place to hang all her pretty little dresses). We fully intend on dressing her in cute little dresses as often as possible. Aaron said, "You're going to make her a girly, girl aren't you?" To which I replied, "I certainly am."
2) Wooden Toy Chest (this is nice because it has a safety feature on it where the lid locks into place and won't come down on her little hands or head).
3) Shelving unit (my plan for this is a place to put pretty colored canvas fold-out boxes to store diapers and her personal things...maybe bath stuff, etc.) and then the lower shelves can be used for books and her toys
4) Her own "Katie size" rocking chair!!!
Man, if you had seen this place and you were expecting or adopting, you'd have felt like you were in furniture heaven!!! I can't wait til' we get some more stuff for her room and our house for her arrival. I guess the beauty of it is that we have a few months before she will be our forever baby girl!!!!
Do you ever sit back and ask God why you are here? Like what is HIS infinite purpose for you? I tend to do that a lot and if I had to guess, I would think most Christian women do, at times, wonder about the purpose of their lives. Firstly, before launching into this question, I want to emphasize that NOTHING I write is because of a desire for pity on me. This is my life and God has given it to me to live! I have for years and yet He showed me again this month, after having already saved my life two other times! If that's NOT God, then I am not sure what it is. On 9/28, I went in for a tummy tuck and breast reduction. Pain I’m having is temporary, but the former pulmonary embolism could have easily been at the finale of my life (I am 40 years old with a beautiful 12-year-old daughter an amazing husband). Our beautiful family, in 2011, in February when we took our last trip to Russia to bring Katie home. I only pray to God that he watches over myself and my family. God watches over...
Today, we visited Katie again at the baby home in Ussirysk and returned to find out that the entire city of 800,000 in Vladivostok has no water today. They turned it off apparently to fix pipes before the cold season. This is really roughing it for us! No showers tonight and no laundry either. I was going to wash some clothes, but we will just have to do without tonight. Often, as Americans, I think we forget some of the luxuries we are afforded when others in this world, like our Katie are not so lucky. But WE are the ones who are eternally blessed that God allowed this match between us to happen. Here are some photos from today. We will have to save the videos to upload when we return next week. The internet is just too slow here. Ussirysk Baby Home #3 Waiting for them to bring her to us today... She LOVES bananas!!!! She already really loves walking around holding BOTH our hands... My favorite l...
So, today we received an update from our agency on the status of Russian adoptions. It looks as if (thank God) that the U.S. and Russia will reach an agreement and adoptions will not be halted like what was originally reported. Our home study was sent to immigration on April 26th, so I am hoping for a speedy approval and that all-important I-171H to be in our mailbox before the middle of June. Between Aaron, myself and our adoption coordinator, we agreed that I would begin the first dossier (which is the Russian documents we send in to get our referral--and meet our little Katie Allison). We will get to begin these sooner than expected and will be doing so the last week of May. I hope to have them finished so as soon as the I-171H comes in, we can send them to our agency for review and then I can take them to Columbus to the Secretary of State's office for their apostille. I can't believe we are FINALLY at this point and it feels like we are moving in...
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