Whew! AND good news!!!!

Done. All painted, cleaned up (for the most part) and showered. Many thanks to my good friend, Alicia for coming down today and helping me this afternoon painting Kaylah's room. Even her son, Colton got to help us out a little bit!

Alicia

Me

Extreme close up of me. (Mike's idea)

 Me again. Hair, OMG.... bad I know. 

But it's painted. Two coats. And I guess after it's all dry, we will be able to see if we missed any spots!
Next.... painting the tree on the wall with fun leaves and owls! I have a few ideas, just need to tweak it a little bit.
On Saturday, we received our invitations to get our fingerprints done for our I-797! YEAY!!!!! Immigration paperwork is almost done! Then we can be done with our dossier! My goodness... how time flies.

Garage Sale

Last weekend, Mike and I decided to have a HUGE 3-day garage sale. We were SHOCKED at how much stuff we had to get rid of. And honestly, there's more hiding in the upper cabinets and closets and my oh MY.... the basement! There are some WONDERFUL people in this world and we were surprised that by 2pm Sunday, we had made over $671.85!! It went directly into our adoption savings account and will help us with the ongoing expenses of bringing little Kaylah home. We even had a wonderful neighbor that we never met before make an appearance and donated $50 cash towards our adoption! Needless to say, I couldn't stop the tears. Mike even went over to her and gave her a nice "side hug" and thanked her. She and her hubby are working on bringing home a little one from Congo. She also told me to make up a few adoption fundraiser signs... which I immediately did. What a great person... thank you.

Let the FUN begin!

Okie Dokie! We got all of the supplies needed to begin the FUN painting project for Kaylah's room!
I felt the need to do this now. Painting is always such a HUGE task. And it can be one more thing that can get done and marked off the MASSIVE "To Do List".
More pics to come tomorrow!

Sunday Snapshot

OK- I was told I need to post MORE pics of things going on. And I promise to.
Here's a snapshot of Mike and me when we recently went on our date weekend getaway. We were celebrating how far we have come along in our adoption journey and needed to get away to renew our spirits and to just relax!

Chinese Consulate Docs!

Well, we have received SEALED Birth Certificates, Marriage Certificate, Physical Forms, Financial Statement,  Adoption Petition and Employment Verification letters!!!
The ONLY thing we need is our I797 immigration paperwork, then we have to send it off to Chicago to get sealed and THEN, we can submit our DOSSIER! YEAYYYY!!!!!! Then we submit it to get logged into the People's Republic of China!
It's hard to believe all of this paper chasing is almost done! Then, we just have to patiently wait for our match. Which REALLY could happen ANY day. It's exciting to think of the day when we get an email or phone call from CCAI re: a potential match for our family. I try not to check my email at work, but can't seem to hope that one day soon, there's going to be an email saying that the stork has LANDED!
Smiles... Life is GOOD!

WE have paint ;)

Went of Lowe's this evening to  pick up a few gallons of paint for Kaylah's room this evening. I wanted to get her room painted in september... overtime might start up at work in the warehouse in mid-late september and my weekends are going to be busy with parenting classes and OT.  They offered extra shifts at work and I ran to sign up! Any extra money is going to go straight into the adoption savings account! I'm also working on some craft projects to sell at a craft show over the first weekend in December with my mother-in-law, Dee ;) We do this craft show every year and we always have a BALL!
Dossier items are almost complete! Some of our documents are in Washington DC, on their way to being processed at the Chinese Embassy, and some other documents ate in Chicago at THAT Chinese Embassy.
Our I800a should be going out any day, we are just waiting on confirmation from Hillary at CCAI that she mailed it out. ;)
Life is GOOD.

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.