Sunday, December 4, 2011

Article 5

I am not sure that anyone is even reading this blog.  Not much going on.   We had our Article 5 appointment on November 29th.  Apparently, everything went well and we got the Article 5.  One more step complete.  This means that the US government states that all Hague and US requirements have been met for the adoption to proceed.  Now we wait for the Bulgarian court date.  Let's hope the come soon.  We can't wait to bring these kids home.

Friday, October 21, 2011

And the waiting begins......Again

Yesterday, we sent off the I-800.  I guess from this point we just wait a few more month before we he anything more.   I am sure not much good at waiting.   We are trying to put together a time to Skype with Meghan.   The social worker said it would be a good thing to keep that going until the adoption time comes.  Since I didn't travel, I can't wait to see her.

We've sent the second half paperwork to Toni.  But, of course we missed one page, so that is off getting the appostille completed.  Then we can foward that along.

Nothing left for now except waiting to hear something.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Trip #1

Because of some unforeseen circumstances, we had very limited notice for the first visit.  We had been planning for a year to take a family trip to Hawaii.   So, off Jerry went to Bulgaria and the kids and I went to Hawaii (story for another time).   Jerry and I were limited to email communication while he was gone and during that time, MSN cut off our account and wouldn't reactivate it for anyone but him.   Goodness, was that frustrating.   We ended up using our Gmail accounts for email.   

So, my entire recount of his trip is based on emails received during his visit.  He first went to visit Kaden and couldn't believe how well he was doing.   He is 9 now. Oh how time flies.  We learned watching him color that he is left handed.   He really likes to play soccer (a boy after my own heart).  He played soccer with Jerry for about 2 hours.   It wasn't long before he was calling Jerry Daddika and would tell anyone who would listen that this was his daddy and he has a mama too.   Here is a picture of him blowing kisses to me through the camera.  What a cute kid.



After the week, it was on to visit with Meghan.   She sure has grown.  She is all girl.   He brought with her girlie things, head bands, nail polish.   She just loved it.  Just like Kaden, she was calling him Daddika in no time.  I don't know how they figure these things out.   She is supposed to be a little bit delayed, but he really didn't notice that at all.   She talked up a storm and they were able to communicate even though they didn't speak the same language.   They were able to take her to a park.  It was the first time that she had been on a real playground.   Can you imagine at 8 years old.  She is very ready to come to America.   It was so hard to leave the 2 of them behind.   Hopefully, the time will go quickly before we can go pick them up.  Here she is showing off her newly painted nails.                   






















Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Ok, I'll post pictures for now, then I'll start filling you in on the first visit.


These are the Reeces Rainbow pictures that were posted when we found them - introducing Kaden and Meghan.

Here are the pictures of them today.







I am still learning how to work this blog stuff.
Here is a picture of our family at Disneyland last year.

Our family and our Adoption

I know that people going through through the adoption journey like to follow along with others going the the same process.  So, I thought I would finally start a blog.

A little bit about our family and our decision to adopt at this time.   My husand, Jerry, and I have been married for 13 years.  We currently have 2 adopted children:  Kaley (age 11) family adoption and JP (age 10) adopted from Guatemala at 18 months.  We had thought about adoption again, but weren't able to financially.  We really enjoy travelling together and just spending time together as a family.

We recently became involved in a new church and met a family who happen to have a daughter with down syndrome.  After spending more time with this family, we started thinking that maybe special needs adoption was for us.   I started searching the internet for information and ran across Reeces Rainbow.  They are an orgnalization established for helping families adopt special needs children with a focus on children with down syndrome.  When we started looking at the children available for adoption, we knew almost right away that this was for us.  We jumped in with both feet.  After looking at the criteria for the different countries, we narrowed it down to Bulgaria.   Then we found our boy, and 8 year old with down syndrome.  We were able to review his file and thought he'd be perfect for our family.   We continued to look at the children available for adoption (and my daughter wanted to have a sister).  Jerry fell in love with a girl with a sparkle in her eye.   He knew that she was the one.  So, off we were, getting our home study ready for 2 children.....and the nesting begins.