Fund Raising

I'm really excited to anounce our first fund-raiser for our adoption. We're making doll beds for Madame Alexander, American Girl, Journey Girls, Gotz, and other 18" dolls. These are awesome farmhouse style beds that any girl will love in her room. It's not painted yet, because I will be doing custom orders. This one is for Miss Ella's birthday, and it will be a pretty, traditional white.

I've opened up an Etsy shop to sell these, although if you're a local friend, we'd obviously love to skip the shipping completely, as these babies are expensive to ship!

If you want to check it out, our Etsy store is http://www.etsy.com/shop/2ndchance4love where we will also be selling trendy bedding and outfits for 18" dolls. We're really hoping to bring in funding for our adoption, as we have several big checks due to our adoption agency coming up pretty quickly. I can't wait to get started on this project, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Almost Done!

After much hysteria and gnashing of teeth, all of our paperwork has finally made it to our home study agency. Which means we're ready for the final interviews with our adoption specialist, Cara. She's booked up until next week, so Ryan's appointment will be on Monday and mine will be Wednesday. From there, Cara will confer back and forth with our adoption agency and our home study will be done!

I never realized how much depends on a home study before we started this process. We can't file paperwork with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (aka USCIS), apply for grants/loans or send in our dossier to the Congo. A lot is resting on this very expensive stack of papers. :) So here's what I'm working on:

1: Selling the Subaru for two reasons a. It won't fit our family anymore b. We need the money for our adoption

2. Filling out grant/loan applications. We can't send them in until we have our homestudy, but I can get them ready. These take anywhere from 4-8 weeks to be approved.

3. Filling out USCIS paperwork. Same as with the grants. Preparation. This is also taking a while. On the short end, it's taking 45 days. But I've heard it can take up to 3 months. Eek!

4. Praying. We don't know their name, age, sex, or when they'll come home, but our kids are living in pretty terrible conditions, and we desperately want them here safe.

5. Looking for fundraising options. Adoption is an incredibly expensive process, and we're working to raise the "ransom" to bring our kids home.

So, please keep us in mind as we navigate this process. It will all be worth it once our kids are home, but it's an incredibly invasive and time-consuming (not even mentioning expensive) process, but we're excited all the same! We'll keep you updated on paperwork and fundraising as these things arise. Thanks for all your support-we appreciate you all!