Mother's Day

First of all, a shout out to my Mommy!!! I hate having to be so far away from you on your day, but know you are in my thoughts and I love you oodles and oodles and bunches of gobs!

As for me, I honestly never gave a thought to Mother's Day this year as it pertained to me. I didn't feel sad to not be a mom and didn't even think about that fact that I am a mother-to-be, so I wasn't expecting any attention from anyone, let alone everyone!

To start with, Brandon and I joined his family at their family beach house for the weekend. When I woke up and stumbled upstairs on Sunday morning, my father-in-law told me that he had a gift for me....the gift was a beautiful silver bracelet and one of the sweetest notes ever letting me know that even thought I am not a mother quite yet, he knows my children are somewhere waiting for me and that I'll be a great mom.....AWWWW!

Then, my sister-in-law gave me a great book with guides to being a mom in the Portland area and a very sweet card.

Finally, my sweet sweet hubby gave me a book for our children called "Happy Adoption Day" and the most adorable little wooden train set!!!!

I am so lucky to have added this family on to my own and our children are even luckier to grow up with such great family!!!

Here are a few pics of my loot :)

I am a horrible blogger...

Man! It sure has been a long time since I've blogged! So, what have I been up to? I'll list a few highlights below...

Wednesday, April 30th - We met up with 4 other Portland area families that are adopting from Ethiopia via our agency. We met at a nice Ethiopian restaurant in north Portland and had a great meal. The owners were so warm and welcoming and offered to have us back as soon as our children come home to celebrate.

Thursday, May 1st - I had all 4 wisdom teeth removed! Seriously, NOT FUN! I had them put me out, but I was still pretty terrified and it was pretty painful.

Friday-Monday, May 2-5th - Ate my own body weight in sorbet and had my husband wait on me hand and foot.....Hmmm......maybe I can find a few more teeth to have removed...

Saturday, May 10th - We attended our first "waiting families" get-together. This an event our agency sponsors where families in all phases of international adoption and in all countries get together and mingle. It offers sort of a support group, if you will, of people who know what it feels like to be waiting what seems like an eternity to bring a child home. The meeting was pretty fun, and we got to see a slide show of a recent visit to Ethiopia by our agency Ethiopia Program Director that included quite a few pics of beautiful little Ethiopian children!!!

Finally, Sunday, Mothers Day - I'll include a separate post about how great this day turned out!

We received our I-171H

On Tuesday! Yup, I have been a very bad blogger! Brando and I took a little trip to Montana again and we just got back on Tuesday evening to find it in our huge stack of mail.

For those of you wondering what the heck an I-171H, it is the final piece of paperwork from the Department of Homeland Security stating that we have been approved to adopt! Officially, it is our "Notice of favorable determination concerning the application for advance processing of Orphan petition". Wow! Who wouldn't understand that one?

So, as you guessed, we are still waiting "patiently". I think because we don't know the ages, gender, etc. of our children, it makes this whole process very hard for me. I am a planner and a dreamer and I don't even know if I need 2 cribs, or a crib and a toddler bed, etc. so nesting and baby shopping isn't really an option. Brandon, of course, it taking it all in stride. He is very excited, but patient and calm at the same time. Hmmph!

Nothing.

I don't really have anything to update on, and to be quite honest, the past few weeks have been pretty hard on me patience-wise. I know we really haven't been waiting that long, but I feel frustrated that I have nothing to do to bring our children closer to us. I long to know who they are, see their faces, and start preparing for them to enter the great little family we are building!

I know I need to cheer up and be strong, but seriously, I never had much patience to start with! It has been 5 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days since we started this process...but really, who is counting?

On a happy note, we are heading off to Montana again this weekend! I have some work over there, and Brando's parents are coming as well, so that should be fun. I'll try and get some spring in MT photos and cheer up my next post!

Our dossier has landed!

Just a quick update to let everyone know that our dossier has been received in Ethiopia!!!

From here the dossier translation process will begin. Once we receive our referral, it will then be submitted for processing through the MOWA and the Federal Courts.

Can I hear a whoop whoop?

Montana Pics

As I mentioned below, we escaped to our cabin in Montana for a little Easter break. We did a fair amount of playing around with the camera and here are a few of the promised pics:

Look, I can take a decent picture!

Zulu hurt his paws on the ice - This is Brando applying salve

We made sure to use his snow boots when we went on long walks

Is Zulu trying to catch a snowflake?

Just a girl and her dog, talking a mid-day nap after a long hike...

I am a very serious card player!

and here is my proof....he didn't stand a chance!

My car, my husband, and some bad weather...

Jump on over to Brandon's blog and check out more pics of what happens when I let him use my car while I am out of town...

http://www.fotovitae.blogspot.com/

I had a date with my father-in-law last night...

Yup, when the husband is out of town, why not date his dad?

I can explain....

Last night was one of our African adoption get-togethers and since Brandon was out of town shooting a wedding, and his Mom was not feeling too well, his dad was my date :) The event was pretty good, I met a few new families and finally got to meet little Malachi . I spent the evening smiling and playing with all of the beautiful little children and catching up with their parents. Brandon was pretty jealous that he had to miss it.

Also, four Holt families received referrals this week and my friend Jody brought a picture of her beautiful little girl to the event. Also in attendance was Andrea, with pics of her handsome little guy! Yeh! Go Holt families!!!

Our dossier is in transit!

Our dossier is all bundled up and headed on over to Ethiopia! It is expected to arrive in country by this Thursday.

Great news, since today marks 2 months of officially waiting!

I know, I know!

So, Jamie again sent me a message, cussing me out for not posting in so long! I was out of town! Brandon and I escaped to Montana for a few days to spend some time at our cabin and help my Mom with her annual community Easter Egg hunt. Directly after, I spent the week working outside of Burns, OR (basically, nowhere, USA) and just got home on this evening. Whew! I'll post pics from our Montana trip in a bit, but here are a few pics I took during the work week:

Oh ya, I had better mention what I was doing during the work week...I was doing an archaeological survey along the Malheur River.

This is a side-notched point - My find of the week!!!!

A quartz biface fragment

And one very tired field crew :)

We had a great time, as it was the first time all four of our staff members worked on a project together. BTW, I have to mention that no artifacts were collected from the field and all locational information is protected.

New lens

I mentioned below that Brandon got a new lens recently (Canon 50mm f1.2) so here are some recent cute pics he took just playing around. BTW, Ignore my double chin...I am blaming it on the paper pregnancy :)

Oops

I just realized that I still haven't posted about our CIS trip. Nothing too eventful...everything went smoothly (as far as we know).

Brando had been out of town the 3 days prior to our appointment, so I played hookie to spend some time with him and I also already had to take time off for the appointment, so that justified it (wink wink). Anyway, we arrived early and had some time to kill, Brandon just got a new camera lens, so we wandered around Portland for a 1/2 hour or so to kill time and take pics of course. We checked in with the security guard, filled out some forms, and then waited no more than 10 minutes for our appointments to be called. Smoosh, smoosh, they took our prints and off we went! We tried to go to a new Ethiopian place, but they were closed, as well as our usual Ethiopian spot, so we settled for Sushi instead and headed home.

Funny how I can make a long story over something so short and uneventful...huh? It's a talent. Ask my husband :)

So, once we got home we had the AWESOME idea of making a picture of our fingerprints. Ya'all had better agree to the awesomeness that is this pic:

P.S. Notice what my shirt says!

We are authentic!

I just talked to a member of our agency staff and she let me know that our dossier has just been received back from authentication!

So, what is authentication?

Well, the first stop is the Department of State, where our dossier is examined, and the Secretary of State's paperwork is authenticated-- ie, the Dept of State verifies that the document really was OK'd by Oregon's Secretary of State.

Once the documents pass that inspection, they go to the Ethiopian embassy in Washington D.C. There the Department of State's stamps are inspected, and the Ethiopian embassy verifies that the Department of State's stamp of approval is a legitimate one. Once the dossier receives this final seal of approval from the Ethiopian embassy, it is returned to Holt and assembled into it's final form!

Whoo Hoo! One more step complete. We now have our fingerprinting appointment with CIS in 3.5 hours :)

1 month and 1 week

Yup, we've been waiting "patiently" for 1 month and a week.

Nothing new on the adoption front. Last week Brando took a CPR & First Aid course. I am always certified through my work, but he had never taken a course so we figured he had better get on it before we become parents! The original course was cancelled, so the instructor came to our home and gave Brandon and his dad a private class. It worked out well as he was able to focus more on the pediatric side of things and they were able to ask tons of questions, etc.

So, that is abut it. We'll get fingerprinted on Tuesday and I'll probably have some more lame pics to post of the geeky Parents-to-Be.

We got our fingerprinting notice today!

Our appointment with USCIS is next Tuesday!

For those of you not well-versed in adopto-lingo, the fingerprinting appointment is a required part of the I600 Petition or the “Petition to Classify an Orphan as an Immediate Relative.” It is the first step in the USCIS (United States Citizen & Immigration Services) process for an international adoption.

Once the local USCIS office receives the I600 (and home study) they will then schedule fingerprinting appointments for all adults over the age of 18 living in the home. After receiving the fingerprint reports that say that we are well behaved citizens, we will receive the I171h, or the golden ticket of approvals that will allow us to adopt.

Now lets cross our fingers that the post-fingerprinting process goes quickly (it can take months) and that our golden ticket will be soon to come!

Some links

I was just checking out a few of my favorite links and thought I should share. I'll post them on the side as well, but here ya go:

A blog of Holt's recent trip to Ethiopia, including pics of the orphanage, intake area, Ethiopian staff, and most importantly, the beautiful children!

http://holtintl.org/blog/

YouTube video of Holt's president in Ethiopia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMXhlJVe24s

This is why I have been so quiet....

We have an old house (almost 100 years old) and unfortunately people have done some pretty mean (and ugly) things to our house over the past century. We have "redesigned" the entire house, added an upstairs, removed and rebuilt walls, etc. We have replaced all of the lathe and plaster and our sheet rock guy is downstairs right now finishing up our new smooth coat walls. Hopefully we'll be primed up soon and ready to start painting!

Hallway leading to our bedroom and the nursery

Brando "hard at work" on the stilts

Gee, I sure love priming walls!

We put his mom to work, priming the nursery :)

Zulu worked hard as well...

Our nephews stopped by to check out the progress, and we put them to work too!

We have a new front door! Zulu looks like he'll miss the ugly purple one....

And finally, our new door from the outside!

So, we still have some work to do...trim, paint, etc. on the inside, and Brandon wants to start stripping and repainting the outside pretty soon as well. Hopefully we'll get this placed spruced up in no time at all!

Long time no blog!

Sorry for such large gaps in the postings, however now that we are in the "waiting" phase, we are doing nothing but just "waiting". Let me tell you......waiting sucks! I know, I know, we have only been waiting for 3 weeks, and I have many more weeks to come, but those of you who know me well know that patience is something I lack! I was talking to a friend at work the other day about my lack of patience and control freak personality...she laughed and said "What on earth made you think that waiting months in an international adoption process where you have no control over anything would be a good idea for you?" Hmmm - No answer for that one!

Anyway, we have been keeping busy. Our house remodel is in full swing and our sheet rock guy is working hard right now as we speak! Most people paint little rooms pink and blue to prepare for a little bundle of joy....here in our home, we knock out walls, remove lathe and plaster, get new windows, etc.

Also, we spent last weekend at the beach for Brando's Granny's 85th birthday. It was so much fun, and many of Granny's 12 (yep thats right...12) children came for the occasion.

Brandon has run off for a photo shoot, but I'll bug him this weekend to get me my pics of the house and of our beach weekend.

Valentine's Day

This year was Brando and I's 8th Valentine's Day together!!! On our first, he wrote me a poem and it turned into a tradition that instead of cards, chocolate, or roses, we write each other a poem (or song). Our poems are pretty special, so I won't post all of his, but he is so clever...he wrote me a poem about our last year as a family of 2.

Here are a few of my favorite lines, in no particular order:

Privacy, soon to leave
Dirty diapers, I do believe

Say goodbye, to our rest
The time has come, to share our nest

The way we choose to get them here
Stork or plane, you nav...I'll steer

Seriously, I cannot believe I get to love this guy everyday! He is the most amazing husband, friend and lover and I know he'll be an even better father!

We are Officially Paper Pregnant!

This means that our dossier is complete and all of our papers are in order! We are heading to Yakima this Friday to be fingerprinted and then we'll eventually receive our 171H, but then we'll just have to wait for the referral for our children!!!!!

After what feels like years (but was really only 3 months) of paper-chasing, legwork, government appointments, phone calls, parenthood classes, workshops, seminars, and home study visits we can finally sit back, relax, and wait!

I think the sitting back and relaxing will now be the hard part. My mind races with all the possibilities of our children; I wonder what they will look like? What their laughter will sound like? What will their personalities be like? I think about the memories we'll make - trips to our cabin in Montana, weekends at the family beach house, little every day things like watching their father dance around our living room in the mornings...I've been waiting for hours, but it already feels too long, and I have quite a bit of waiting ahead of me!