Getting Closer.....

It's almost March, and Eric and I are managing to get through our initial paperwork quicker than we thought! The hardest part so far was writing our individual autobiographies. They had to be 5-8 pages in length and cover several topics. We got through it, though, and are now onto our second phase which involves getting several things notarized and mailed to various places.
Our home visit will be happening on March 12th. This is where our social worker comes to our home and makes sure that we meet Wisconsin standards as far as saftey, space, fire codes, electrical and plumbing. While we organize our house and try to clean as we've never cleaned before, we will also be working on our cultural worksheets from our international adoption agency that we will be working with. They are the ones that help us complete the necessary govmnt. forms and coordinate our child referral and travel process. The worksheets involve thnking about ways that we will incorporate our child's culture into their lives. How we will teach them about where they came from, the kinds of places we will take them (such as meetings with other families who have adopted from Ethiopia), and books we will use to help them understand what adoption means.
Today, we mailed in our application for our child's temp. Visa. We also applied for fingerprinting (which must be done in Milwaukee). They will mail us a date and we must go on that date for our fingerprinting. We also have to recieve a clearance from our local sheriff's dept. and send in two passport photos of ourselves.
The exiting thing is, once our home visit is complete and as long as the international agency approves us, (the last big hurdle), then we are very close to being put on the waiting list for a child. The current wait time (it changes frequently) is about 7-9 months. After the referral, we wait another 10 weeks, and then are able to travel to Ethiopia.

Dog Fun in the Snow

Hazel and Gracie could not be happier about all the snow we've been getting. Gracie likes to jump into snowbanks and bury herself up to her eyes. For some reason, they also really like playing with this blue deflated ball that was frozen to the ground from last summer.

We are pretty excited because our first meeting with the adoption social worker is going to be tomorrow night!! She said it is ok to meet now instead of waiting for our tax return to be done. Yay!! No more waiting! :)

One Cause

Hi there! I recently realized that the one cause information letter did not state which organization to choose when setting up an account with them. For those of you who wish to sign up and get asked this question, it should be the "National Adoption Foundation".
Not much new here. We have our initial paperwork filled out, but need to wait until our tax return is done in order to complete the last section. So....a little more waiting and then we should be able to turn it in and start our initial meetings with the social worker.