We had such an awesome time at the beach this year with our family! It was such a good break from all the cleaning and projects we had done to the house to get ready for our home study. I loved seeing how the boys grow every year and the "risks" they are willing to take at the beach! Tyler boogie boarded most of the time, while Jake eventually waded out into the deeper water towards the last day. Brady made a friend with a 70ish year old man whom he named Maggie! Don't ask why he named him that, his name was Raul! He was his shadow the entire last day! Funny kid!
All in all we had a fabulous time and are now ready to start getting this adoption process underway!
Many friends have been asking how our home study went with our social worker. Hmm...what to say, what to say, other than, it was AMAZING!
Over 3 days, and four visits later, we knew we were OK! It's true what everyone says, about how you would clean your house like never before and they don't notice you've vacuumed! I will admit, I was a little upset she didn't go out to the playscape to see that we had sanded it!!! J/K. But, it would have been nice if she looked in the pantry to see how "organized" and "clean" we are, or were! Get the picture.
The day she arrived I went to pick her up at the airport. Scott stayed home with the kids because if anyone has ever taken a ride in our car, with all the kids, they'd know that would not be the perfect, quiet scenario! It would even be a good idea to wear earplugs in the car at times. So, battle #1 was fixed. When we walked in the door I thought Scott had drugged our kids, or the invasion of the body-snatchers had come to our house. They were angels. Not once did they argue, scream, or even use one of their familiar bodily functions! Sorry! They sat on the floor in the living room for an hour while we talked. That has NEVER happened!!! I think I prayed TOO hard for them to behave. I almost hoped (almost) they would have shown some signs of the "boys" they are. Oh, I forgot, Brady did point a gun at her and say, "I shoot you," and Jake told her to "kill all girls". Luckily she laughed and played along with them.
Our social worker couldn't have been nicer! She was definitely an answer to prayers! She even complimented us on how we were a "fairy tale" family, (whatever that means:)), and that she has never had a family she has worked with be so prepard to take on the task of adopting a possibly "special needs" (meaning probably needing speech therapy and ot) child. A lot of it had to do with how we had already gone through the process of speech and language therapy with Tyler. She was very impressed at both our family lives! I don't want to brag, but we do have the most awesome family!!! We wouldn't be the parents we are today if it weren't for our upbringing , (and our awesome friends/support system).
She said it would take her a month to complete her report. So, that's 2 more weeks! I'm calling her the day the two weeks are up! Once we get that, we can send it to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), with our "application to adopt" and wait for their approval (which usually takes 2 weeks). Then we will get fingerprinted and once we get those results, we can send that in with our dossier to Russia! Sounds so simple, right? Wrong! Russia makes EVERYTHING you notarize (which is a lot), apostilled. So, there's a lot of legal things, and dotting of i's and such to be done correctly.
Pray that everything goes smoothly so we can be put on the list in Russia! I so badly want to meet this little girl God has picked out for us!
On a more fun note, I purchase my first "girl" item! It was the cutest little bathing suit with ruffles on the bottom. I couldn't resist! I figured if I got a 2T she'd eventually grow into it at some time (or I could squeeze her into it:) ). Well, that's actually the second "girl" purchase. We needed a shower curtain for the other upstairs bathroom. Guess what color it is! Hot pink...with a little green!
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