WOW!

So, quite a bit of news! Right before Brando and I left for Montana for Christmas, we received a voicemail from our social worker wanting to set up our home study visits "as soon as possible". We returned her call, but left town, so we didn't get in touch with her until today....Our visits are scheduled for January 7th and January 14th! After that, she would like to complete the write up immediately and get our dossier submitted by the end of January!!!!!

YIKES!

So, I spent the day working like mad on our dossier and Brando called up friends and family to come work on our house next weekend! With hoping to have everything completed by the end of the month, we have got to get busy! House to remodel, paperwork to chase, and money to find! We are going to be very busy little prospective parents :)

Also, the director of our agency branch passed on our contact info to another couple that is hoping to adopt a baby boy from Ethiopia and lives just a few blocks from us. We met her for coffee and are so excited about having another family so close by. This means at least 5 little Ethiopian babies within a 1 mile radius of our home! YEH!

Life is good. Real good.

Merry Christmas!

We're off to celebrate with the Schmidt family and then on to Montana to hang with my family.

Not too much to update on, but just for Jamie ...

A few things have accomplished lately, we:

Paid Holt for our home study (This means we'll schedule our interviews soon, probably for January)

Received a letter from Citizenship and Immigration Services, acknowledging our I600A and receipt of payment.

Not any huge leaps and bounds, but we are taking baby steps here people! Baby steps...

Our first baby purchase!

We have no idea the age or sex of our children, so we purchased this in size 18-24 months!

This is completely unlike us, but we were inspired by how completely adorable it was. Would I be a bad parent if I insisted my child wear only Baby Gap Product Red every day?

I thought your answer would be yes...

I feel like I am back in college again...

More parenting classes! Yup, this time it will be Baby & Toddler Care Class for Adoptive Families. The class is all day Saturday, January 12th at a local hospital.

I don't know much about it, except that we should "plan to arrive early to allow enough time to select a baby, etc". I know they will be baby dolls, but for some reason I am smiling at the thought of our class just raiding the hospital nursery...

The Schmidts are parented up!

Brando and I had our first two adoptive parenting classes this Friday and Saturday. Being the dorks that we are, we took before and after shots to show how our intelligence level differed.

Here we are before: We are trying to look very uneducated in the ways of parenting....


And here we are after:


Simply brilliant and ready to parent! Yes, that is a teddy bear, and yes, we do look like some ridiculous 1970s ad in Parent Magazine...

Seriously, the classes were very helpful and covered some very important issues such as loss in adoption, attachment, etc. We also got to meet some more Holt families. Although no one in the class was adopting from Ethiopia, we did find that one couple lives in our town, and another just down the road...not bad when there were only 4 other families in the class!

Also, Brandon's cousin gave birth to a baby girl on Friday night. We were able to visit the new family in the hospital shortly after and it made me even more excited for our newest little nephew to pop out! Hurry up Sawyer!

Citizenship & Immigration Services...Can I hear a whoop whoop?

Brandon and I completed out I600A tonight! The I600A is a the Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition or, for those of you that do not speak Adoptese, the form we fill out to let Citizenship & Immigration Services know that we plan to adopt. Brando plans on mailing it out first thing tomorrow morning and even sealed it himself!

We also finished the remainder of our home study paperwork, excluding our medical visits (which are scheduled for this Friday). Once the medical visits are submitted, a social worker will be assigned and we'll schedule our home visits!!! So, hopefully by this Friday, our end of the first round of paperwork will be complete!

On a slightly more subdued, but just as positive note, I have to say that this has been a great experience for us so far. Answering the 16 pages of detailed questions about us, our families, marriage, parenting styles, etc. has been a great exercise. I was amazed at how similar some of our answers were and I teared up a few times reading through Brandon's, as I could see how much thought and love he put into it. More importantly, I could see how much that man loves me! I cannot wait to see what an amazing father he is going to be.

Friday Night Fun

Last night we went to an event hosted by a group called the Pacific Northwest African Adoptions Group. It was so much fun! There were at least a dozen other families that were either in the process of adopting or had already brought their children home. The best part was all of the beautiful little Ethiopian tots running around! The night included an Ethiopian dinner, coffee ceremony, a slide show by the organization Ethiopia Reads (http://www.ethiopiareads.org/), and then a nice round table discussion between the families. The highlight of the evening was that Brando made contact with a couple that will be hosting some Ethiopian cooking classes and he'll soon be joining them! Another great moment was when this tiny little guy (probably around 18 months) crawled up in Brando's lap in the middle of the round table. He just cuddled right into his chest and loved him for a bit before running off to play...I almost melted!