Whistle While You Work

Ahhhh, this is a nice seat. Cold, but comfy! (Blizzard 2011)

As I type, I am currently uploading two groups of pictures, and awaiting a phone call. I am a busy gal... and I'm behind on our blog, again. So once this is published, or shortly after, you should find Hayden's "Honk Jr." play photos, and our fun filled day of playing in the snow during the "Blizzard 2011" on our Daily V's page.

What's new? The past few weeks we have been busy waiting for and filling out our registration papers for baby D. They are now complete, and have been sent to our agency for a quick review. Once we get the ok, we can then get them notarized and apostilled (yah - a trip to Chicago in the winter!!!)... and then mail them to our agency. Once they receive them, they will mail them to our coordinator in Russia who will give them to the adoption committee for processing. This may take anywhere around 3 weeks or so... we hope.
In addition, while going over our paperwork, we noticed our fingerprints expire in June. So if things don't move at a rapid pace from here on out, then we will need to get them redone. Yes, you heard me folks. We will need to be fingerprinted - Again. ;)

What's new with Hayden? He lost another tooth a few weeks ago - but that's not all exciting anymore. His report cards have been beaming with plus signs. He has been growing like a weed and surprising us more and more every day. Every week his teacher sends home a newsletter mentioning what the class works on. She reminds parents that the children may need help with writing in cursive, brushing up on their spelling or recently their math facts. More so, their subtraction facts - but flash cards are just so so so boring. I hit up a teachers store and bought some great little finds. We now toss around a cube like beach ball a couple nights a week that has subtraction facts on it, taking turns answering them, and we play a game called "Number Race". Number Race is set up like a candy land board, however, you make the path with the math facts - it makes math fun - and makes Hayden laugh. PLUS it's helping Mommy brush up on her skills!

Michael and I have been juggling the house - once January hit, I was in full organization mode. I knew baby D's room needed to be done, but I have been going crazy with all the clutter that is coats and boots. We just haven't figured out a system that works and have spent many a minutes looking into Rubbermaid shelving, etc. This huge organization project then branched into my office, junk drawers, the pantry.... whoops! ;)

Well... now that I've caught your attention, I should probably leave you starving for more.
Until next time! 0 comments

Posted by Mel at 1:55 PM

When it snows, it's a blizzard!

Another month's gone by, but this time we have some really good news to report!  We have received a referral for a 2 and a half year old beautiful girl (who we will refer to from now on as baby "D")!  After e-mailing back and forth between our agency's coordinator with the Russian coordinator and the Russian adoption board, we passed all their questions and were approved!  But (seems like there is always a but these past 3 years) there was a problem when they were going through her paperwork.  Turns out another Russian family had visited her, and while they verbally said "no" to adopting her they did not sign the paperwork.  So we had to wait for them to be contacted. The problem with that was they were away on vacation with no way to contact them.  The Russian board then decided to send them a letter saying they had 30 days to respond.  And the wait began again.

After a dinner out with the family on Friday, and some shopping around for some organization ideas for our office and laundry room, we came home to a blinking light on our answering machine.  Hayden hits the play button and we hear our coordinator's voice and listen intently to THE wonderful news.  Hayden does his little jumps with a huge smile on his face, Mel's face brightens up, and my heart starts racing...our coordinator informs us that baby "D" is now our official referral and we can legally proceed to adopt her!

Later that evening, we received our registration papers in our email to fill out and a list of pictures to take of our house and her room.  After filling them out we'll resend them to our coordinator to make sure we filled them out correctly, then get them notarized and return to Chicago to have them apostilled.  After Russia approves them, which may take about 3 weeks, we can travel for our first visit to meet baby "D".  Hopefully, March will be our target month.

In the meantime, a blizzard heads our way starting tomorrow afternoon until Wednesday afternoon.  Predictions say we may get up to 20 inches of snow, with possibly 8 to 10 foot (yes foot) snow drifts!  Excited for a snow day, not so sure I'm too excited about shoveling it all though.

Fingers crossed all goes well from here on out!
Michael 1 comments

Posted by Mel at 8:19 PM