Answered prayers

Praise God, who answers our prayers about even the smallest things!!

On Sunday, we sent an email to the organization (New Song) sending our "parent tool box", letting them know we had not received the one they sent. On Monday, it arrived!! It was postmarked June 21, and why it took so long we'll never know. We promptly called New Song and let them know it had arrived and not to send another! Now we have 6.5 hours of DVDs to watch and paperwork to fill in as we go. Then we will send them a notarized statement that we have completed the course, and they will send us a completion certificate. Hooray!

Also, we are very grateful that we found comforters this past weekend! We had initially decided to wait until the back-to-school sales to buy comforters, and the sales have started. We found reversible comforters, machine wash and dry (very important to Courtney!), in neutral colors on sale, and we had two coupons!! We were able to get two twin comforters for less than the price of one normally. Yet another hooray!

We have heard some "complaints" ;) that our children are going to be very bored with our current color scheme. Well, there are two issues at work here. One is that we have no idea what gender of children we will have. The other is that it is usually very easy to overstimulate these children. In the orphanages, they do have toys, but they are not toys that make noise and flash lights, etc. The walls are usually painted a neutral color, with few pictures or hangings on the walls. We will be starting with a very simple room and toys for our children, and gradually introducing them to more stimulation. We want this transition to be as easy on our children as possible. They are being moved from the only home they've ever known and transported to a new place with none of their friends or familiar caretakers, and everyone speaks a different language. That's usually a trying situation for adults who know and can understand what's happening, much less small children whose world has just been turned upside down.

I had to include a picture of my most adorable husband playing base ball. This was taken last weekend at one of his games in Illinois, when the Perfectos played the Ground Squirrels and the Marauders.

Delays

I apologize for the delay in posting. We have been waiting to hear back on our I-600A, which is our approval to adopt from the INS. Since it has been over a month (June 8) since we were fingerprinted (and they had said it should be done within a month), we called yesterday to see if we could find out what's going on. It turns out that our adjudicator (the person who decides on our case) went on an extended leave, and on July 8(!) our case was transferred to another judge. This judge will have 30-60 days to decide on our I-600A. Basically, it means we're still waiting. I know many of you are anxious to get this process moving, as are we! We'll try to keep you posted as we know what's happening.

On the note of delays, we are required to take parenting classes through the Hague Convention (see an earlier post for explanation of the HC). These can be done in person or by video, but we need a certificate to take with us when we travel that says we have completed our classes. Our facilitators require us to use a group out of Kentucky for our parenting classes. They offer classes during the week and also a "parent tool box" that can be viewed and completed in your home. Since we can't travel to Louisville a few times a week, we had sent them a check to send us a parent tool box. Lo and behold, 4 weeks later, still no tool box. We called this past weekend and it turns out they shipped it 3 weeks ago! We have had a number of postal issues since moving to MO, so it's not a huge surprise that it's not here yet--or has vanished completely. We're waiting out the week to see if it shows up, then another will be shipped, which hopefully will make it.