An optimistic update from our agency:)

I got a program update from our agency today and it made my heart skip a beat a little bit. It said we are one of only TWO families from our agency waiting at Ayudame right now! I remember back in May 2009 , I asked about where we stood at Ayudame at that time & I was told we were around the 9th or 10th family waiting to be submitted. Now we've been submitted since June and are either next or second next up for referral! (they don't necessarily give referrals to families in the order that they were submitted & I don't know between us and the other family who has been submitted longer anyway)

I guess I spoke too soon yesterday when I said there was no news to report about the adoption:)

Toodles!
~Nic

Horses and Snakes and Caterpillars, Oh My!

We went on a fun little hike this weekend with 'the girls' (Amber & Ena:) It was such a beautiful fall day and perfect weather to venture out. We saw a snake, a frog and several caterpillars. There were even some people out riding their horses on the trail. They stopped so Athena could pet the horses. Yeah, she was a little bit excited! We walked for an hour and covered about a mile and a half. The slow pace was mostly due to the fact that we had to stop and examine every caterpillar and frog this closely for about 5 minutes.

The snake however did not recieve this close of an examination from our little nature explorer! He was laying so still at the side of the trail though, that Athena was literaly just one step away from actually stepping on it by the time we noticed it. When she stopped to turn around to see what it was John and I were telling her to quickly look at, she did almost step on its tail!

Fall is definately here. We spent the afternoon after our hike hanging out at home cooking and baking. We made our first apple kuchens of the season and took one over to my parents to share. Oh, and our lawn is covered in frost this morning:)

No adoption news to report today.

~Nic

Mornings can be pretty funny when you let your 3 year old choose her own outfits:)

Check out my little fashionista! Ena picks out her own outfits and I felt her creation today was picture worthy:)
















Preschool is going awesome for Athena. Each day at drop off time there is a little less clingy-ness from her. She comes home with positive daily notes every day and for the most part enjoys telling about her day-who she chose to play with during play time and what a few of the activities were. Her teacher is so nice and she has a nice small class, only 7 kids. One thing that doesn't surpise us at all is that her daily notes often comment on what a good eater she is:)

I went ahead and put our name on the waiting list at Athena's preschool/daycare for daycare for the new baby. Right now they are at about a 5 month wait. They know our situation of not having an exact time line and are being very accomodating. I spoke with the assistant director the other day and she said we could get on the list and if when we're up for the next opening we don't yet have a referral, they can just pass over us. When we do get our referral we can have the next opening then.

September 28th will mark month 18 for us in our wait for a referral and 3 months of being officially submitted to Ayudame. Our FBI fingerprint clearances came back a couple of weeks ago so we're good with those for a while. Today we sent our materials to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) to apply to extend our immigration pre-approval for another year. Our next step is to wait for them to contact us with our appointed time to come down to the USCIS office in Milwaukee to have our fingerprints re-done by them also.

Have a great weekend!

~Nic

I totally caved.

We knew right from the start that this adoption would take considerably longer than Athena's did. Our agency was very up-front with us about this from the start. Because of the long wait, I decided I didn't want to do anything to set up the nursery until we actually got the phone call. Who wants to look at an empty nursery for 3 years?

Well, opportunity has knocked and I couldn't resist:) What do you get when you start with one free hand-me down dresser from a friend (thank you Stacia:), a few bucks worth of paint and new pull knobs, and a couple of hours of sweat equity in the form of sanding and painting? A beautiful new dresser/diaper changing table! I unpacked the changing pad & also the lamp that matches our nursery decor to see how it all looks together. Look at how great it turned out!

We went ahead and pulled out the tall dresser from the guest bedroom and put the 'new' nursery one in it's place:) It's the first step we've taken in changing the guest bedroom into the nursery. Athena loves it and has moved her bathroom step stool into there & has changed her dolls diapers on it about a hundred times already.

Hope everyone else is having a great holiday weekend also!

~Nic