My husband is the BEST!

He traded in his 2010 Mustang for a new Ford Escape. What a GUY!
We need room for our family ;)

I-800a on it's way!

Can we get a WHOOOT WHOOOT?
I-800a application and backup documents on their way!

FREE and Clear!

Got an email fro Hillary at CCAI--- all of our background checks have come in and now we can submit our I-800a form! YEAYYYYY!!!!!!
We know, we get OOOBERLY- excited over the littlest things.  But quite frankly... that is what keeps us going! We HAVE to celebrate every little thing. Can you imagine what we are going to be like on our "gotcha day"? *BEAMS*

The Good Stuff...

Mike checked the mailbox today! We have our PASSPORTS! YEAY!
And we had our physicals this morning too! Everything went well, we should be able to pick up our signed forms in a few days from the Doctor's office. They have to wait for blood work results to come back.
We also had a visit from Mr. Roto-Rooter. Sump pump stopped working. Hasn't worked in a while and we knew that it needed fixing. Works great now-- thank you Mr. Rooter!
It's amazing all the "little things" that keep popping up... but we know that with each little challenge... we are a few steps closer.... we can hardly wait!

HUGE smiles!

Well.. we received our marriage certificate back from the state of Nevada yesterday... and it's authenticated! We have our physicals this coming wednesday and we will get the physical forms and financial statement notarized and will send them off to get authenticated by the state of Colorado. We have some more picture taking to do!

WOOOHOOO!!

Give it up for the state of Pennsylvania! Received my authenticated birth certificate today!
C'mon Nevada!
Hehehehe

I can't believe it.....

When Mike and I got home last night from our "date night".... there was an Express Mail packet laying on the fron porch. We had such a great time seeing the new Harry Potter movie and had a nice dinner at Red Lobster... I didn't even think about the possibility of any important papers coming our way.
I let Snickers and Nougat outside and just kinda stood there looking at it. The first thing that came into my head was... oh crap... what did I forget to send? what didn't I do right? did I forget to send a check? I took a deep breath and zipped open the envelope... and there it was...
Mike's birth certificate. Authenticated by the Wyoming Department of State! I couldn't believe it! a 2 day turnaround? Holy cow! I let the dogs back in and went into the house to show Mike. He's like... what's that? I said... it's your birth certificate, back from Wyoming already!
Needless to say, it made us both smile.
Now, we just patiently wait for mine to come back from PA and our marriage certificate to come back from NV.

Colorado- Clean records!

YEAY! Hillary from CCAI sent us our Colorado Bureau of Investigation reports for Mike and me. We are clear... which we knew anyways. But now, we have our official Colorado clearance!

Certificates Received at Destinations!

Krystal's Birth Certificate:
Delivered On: Thursday,  07/28/2011 at 9:13 A.M.
Destination: Harrisburg, PA

Mike's Birth Certificate:

Delivered On: Thursday,  07/28/2011 at 9:27 A.M.

Destination: Cheyenne, WY

Our Marriage Certificate:

Delivered On: Thursday,  07/28/2011 at 9:59 A.M. 

Destination: Carson City, NV

Crosses fingers.... ok let's pray that these are processed and mailed back to us as fast as possible!!! We enclosed prepaid Express Mail envelopes... pre-addressed... (says a prayer they make it safely back to us!)

Packages sent!

UPS overnight... is an AMAZING service! Birth Certificates off to Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Marriage Certificate off to Nevada! Crosses fingers and hopes for SPEEDY processing! Then, it's off the the US Dept of state....

Thank you Tuesday...

Thank you Mr. Post Office Master...
For making us stand in the corner for over an hour as we anxiously waited to right-hand swear that yes indeed, we both really need a passport.
One more check mark.... ;)

Homestudy Approved!

Smiles. Jan, you ROCK! Jan is our caseworker. And Snickers LOVES her... I've never seen him act like this to someone he just met. Jan came to our home this past Saturday and we had a very nice visit with her. And (OMGOODNESS GASPS>>> I had dirty dishes in the sink!)  It took every ounce of energy I had to NOT clean everything so perfect... I didn't want her to think that I wasn't a good housekeeper. I did what I could, and it was just fine. We all talked and had a very heart warming conversation. She is so easy to talk with and is SO helpful with our questions.
My Dad came to Colorado for a week and helped us with SO many projects around the house. He and Mike bonded while repairing our back deck. Isn't it a shame that we had to repair something that was just built in 2004?? New home construction? Shakes head. and OMGooodness..... we FINISHED the backyard!!!! We HIRED a local company, Newlandscaping. Great owner, Andrew and a wonderful staff too! A young bunch of lads with HUGE amounts of energy and all of them had a particularly unique way of YODELING to European disco music. It was certainly entertaining! Pics soon to come... I just have to find the time to upload them here.
Birth Certificates and marriage certificates are mailed out.... to their corresponding Secretary of State's offices to get certification that they are indeed, official documents. Once we receive them back in the mail, then we send them to the US Department of State to make sure that they are indeed authenticated by the right people and that they are indeed official. Then, once we receive those back....it's off to the Chinese Embassy in either Illinois or Texas... again depending on where the documents were first originated from... we get to mail them, Via courier service to the corresponding Chinese Embassy. Thus the reason of the process we are in is called... "THE GREAT PAPER CHASE". Then once we receive those back... we can compile our dossier, submit our family photos and submit it all to our adoption agency who interprets it and translates it into Chinese and submits it to the People's republic of China.

It's hard...

not to run a white glove over everything in the house.
It's hard to find EVERY single lil' dust bunny in every corner.
It's hard to ACTUALLY put clothes away where they belong when they are out of the dryer.
It's hard to have such a quiet house...

CHEEESE!

Here are our recent couple pictures that we took in the Garden of the Gods this past Sunday morning. Our friend, James took these! We had a great time and are slowly gathering our pictures needed for our Dossier. Next photo session... this weekend... location.... front porch. 

We are officially Paper Pregnant!

For the last few years, I've been so excited out seeing our first ultrasound picture! Today, we were told that we are officially paper pregnant and that we could be matched very soon to a little heart... just waiting to hear about her new Mommy and Daddy. We are anxious, excited and full of smiles just thinking about how this is all coming together! Chasing paper has never been so much fun!
We spent a wonderful afternoon with some awesome people at CCAI and were able to spend time with Lilly and Josh, the founders of the adoption agency. They were a pure joy to listen to and were SO genuine. We are so grateful for them and their loving hearts.... they are helping us create our family... they are helping us fulfill our dream...

Application APPROVED!!!!!!

OhmyGOODNESS!!
Mike and I traveled to Denver today to meet with Hillary from CCAI and she approved our adoption application today! Now it's onto dossier preparation, classes and our home study. We are looking at 5-6 months to get our dossier compiled... three cheers for paperwork!! Positive attitude... going with the flow.... Murphy's Law ROCKS....positiveness... We've waited for over 12 years for a little one... what's a few more months right? This is our destiny. I feel it in my bones. I feel it in my heart. This was the path we were given and we are soooo looking forward to our journey!
We have been so blessed from our families on support and that really helped us get to this point! They helped rocket-launch us closer to finding Kaylah and bringing her home. The support has been amazing from friends and we thank everyone and will need your continued support in getting her home!

Murphy's Law Rocks...... (or at least it HIDES things)

Social Security cards.
hmmm......
Guess we are going to the Social Security Office to ask for new cards.
Smiles.

Thank You Tuesday...

Thank you, Mr. Husband... for helping me finish entering in all of our information on our adoption application for CCAI! Whew! All pages have been scanned! YEAYYYYY
2 "official"copies of our marriage certificate.... ordered tonight! At first, when I searched the Clark County Clerk and Recorder's website, I couldn't find our certificate. Kinda freaked me out a little bit. But after I tried 4 times, I finally found it! Whew!!!! Now, we patiently await for them to appear in our mailbox and we can then turn in our application for processing. Our plan is to turn it in at the end of next week and we are SOOOOO excited!!!

Mother Nesting??

For some crazy reason, I'm finding it hard NOT to re-organize all of our closets, drawers and shelves in the ENTIRE house. I pick a spot and empty it out, clean it and reload it. Maybe it's because we are trying to gather things to have a HUGE yard sale. When I find a penny or a dime.... I ~RUN~ to the kitchen, where we keep a ziploc baggie for loose change. Each little coin chime reminds me that we are one step closer. Taking that little baggie to the bank makes me smile. Each trip adds more into our savings account where we have a cheering squad now. The tellers smile when they see me... they know our mission... and they cheer when the deposit goes in.  Which reminds me, Mike sold an autographed baseball to a guy at his work... so he placed the cash in the baggie. We need to make a trip to bank!
There's a little one out there...
We plan on getting her home as soon as we can!

Thank You Tuesday... just one day late

Thanks Murf for taking me to get new glasses! I can see!!!
Mike and I went to get glasses tonight, we will be posting pics soon!

But even better news....
We FAXED over our Medical Conditions Checklist and our Basic Qualifications' Checklist to CCAI today! I was nervous.... stood there in front of the fax machine at work... took a deep breath... and hit SEND. Then I SMILED! We are on our way Kaylah!

SO... my Thank you Tuesday is dedicated to whoever invented the fax machine! (I should Google that!)