Happy Family Day Athena!

Happy Family Day to our sweet angel baby Athena!  Here is a little trip down memory lane back to April 11, 2007.  The day this precious, perfect, gorgeous 3 month old baby girl was placed in our arms for the first time and so began our new life together.   Athena wants to celebrate her special day with a fish fry, so family festivities are waiting until Friday.  We may just have to talk daddy into going for ice cream tonight to tide us over until then though;)

After we arrived back at the hotel from the orphanage we took some family pictures in the court yard.

While we were working on paperwork in the front office, our program coordinator took our camera into the back and took some pictures of Athena waiting for us. 

She already had a crazy amount of hair at 3 months old.  They said they had even trimmed it that day because it kept going in her eyes!

A piece of my own heart placed in my arms forever xoxoxo

Happy Family Day Athena.  We love, love, love you!!!

A Big Day For Athena!

Athena had a very big day (and night!) this weekend! She slept in her own bed, by herself, all night for the first time since she's been about 18 months old! She has separation anxiety that surfaces at night time. John and I have been very patient with having her sleep with us knowing that it is what she needs to feel secure. It's been hard when we felt like we needed to defend it to others who have no idea about adoption and separation anxiety but we know we're doing the right thing. We told her that when she felt ready to sleep alone in her own room we would get her a pet fish to have in her room to keep her company. We headed out today to pick one out:) We know she's going to have a long road ahead of her until she feels secure enough to hop into bed by herself with no tears every night, but we sure celebrated that first night and her getting her pet that she earned!

Here she is with her new pet Goldie the Goldfish. Yes, there is a fish in there-hiding behind the red plant in the corner after her exciting day of a ride in the car and a new home:)

We even celebrated with a goldfish breakfast! A PBJ cut out into a goldfish (a circle for the body and a heart for the tail), then covered with orange carrot 'scales'. The eye is a dried blueberry and the bubbles are cookie sprinkles.
We'll see how tonight goes! She's tucked in and reading books to Goldie right now, but she was very anxious about being alone in bed again tonight. I think we'll also do a sticker chart where she can earn other fun things for sleeping in her big girl bed. The sticker chart worked great when she started at preschool and there were tears every morning when it was drop off time. I needed to use it for about a month. After that she was used to drop off and we didn't need it anymore.

One thing is for absolute sure. We love her so much and are so proud of her no matter how long it takes! We're going to continue to be patient and do whatever it takes to help her be successful at this next big step:)

Post Placement

People are quite often surprised to learn that there is yet more paperwork that needs to be done after you have traveled to adopt your child and bring him/her home. It's definitely not the shear amount of paperwork that you do leading up to the adoption, but it's a decent amount. In the state of WI where we live, we have post placement paperwork for 6 months after receiving the child as per the state. We need to fill out a small questionnaire/report each month for six months as well as have our doctor fill out a form each and every time the child visits a doctor for any reason during those first 6 months whether it's for an illness or simply a check up. We also need to meet with our social worker to discuss how things are going at month 3 and month 6. At this time, after the 6 months have passed, the social worker helps us to fill out the correct forms and use all of the information she has gathered from the reports and meetings from the last 6 months to apply for adoption finalization (re-adoption) in the state of Wisconsin. Some people choose not to do this because the adoption is fully legal and binding from the court system in Colombia so it's not really necessary as far as the adoption process goes. We always choose to do it though because there are benefits. The biggest benefit is that the child will be issued a Wisconsin recognition of birth certificate. Though it may seem silly to get this when the child was not in fact born in Wisconsin, it just makes things a lot more convenient down the road. When we or our kids need a new copy of their birth certificate for any reason (register for school, apply for marriage license, etc...) it's a heck of a lot easier for us to go to our county court house to get a new copy then to try to get one from the county they were born in in Colombia. It also makes the application for a social security number down the road a lot easier too and thus applying for a US passport down the road as well.
Now there is also separate post placement paperwork requirements for Colombia in addition to the Wisconsin requirements. For Colombia there is a longer report/questionnaire to be filled out every 3 months for 18 months. Along with this report they also request 5 pictures of the child only (no other family members) to show that the child is growing and doing well. Again the adoption is in no way hinging on these reports. The adoption is legal and binding from the court system in Colombia once we singed sentencia. The main reason for the reports back to Colombia is that the orphanage staff and directors truly care about, love and have genuine concern for all of the kids and really do want to see how they are doing:) I also think there is some element of them reporting to the ICBF officials about how the children they placed are doing in order to keep their license/ability to maintain an adoption program, though I don't know the specifics. The following are the photos I choose to send for Altons 6 month post placement:) Handsome little man!


After the 18 months of post placement report are done, you don't need to maintain any further contact if you don't wish to. I do though. I still send information back to the orphange once a year for Athena and will for Alton. Just a photograph and a short letter saying how she's doing-what types of things she likes, activities she's involved in, how she's developing. I figure after the gift of family that they have given us, it's the least we can do to let them know that the kids are amazing and doing wonderful:)

Love. Not like. Love:)

When we were in Colombia adopting Athena in 2007, we bought her a beautiful emerald since Colombia is known for their emeralds. We will give it to her some day when she is old enough so she has a little piece of her birth county from the weeks that we spent together there before returning home with her. We wanted to do something for Alton also, though we weren't completely sold on getting another emerald for two reasons. First we thought it might be better for each of them to have something different than each other for their special thing from the trip. Second, aside from putting it in a tie tack we couldn't really see what he would do with his emerald. Well, we kept our eyes open each time we went out and about & to the markets the whole time we were there. When we got our sentencia and knew we only had about a week left, we were about to just give up on finding something original for Alton and we were going to go ahead and get him an emerald too even though we weren't super excited about the idea for him like we had been for Athena. We went to the markets one last time. While we were shopping we stopped an an artist's stand with piles and piles of canvas paintings. I told him I was looking for something with trees or flowers or something 'naturey'. He dig through the piles and pulled out one kind of abstract painting of some very colorful trees with falling leaves and one more realistic looking one with purple flowers. We were going back and forth deciding between the two and then I put them side by side to compare and once I saw them next to each other, I wanted both of them. I thought they had just enough complementing style and color that they would look awesome hung side by side in identical frames. John still teases me that I ruined any chance he had to do any bartering because of my excitement and insisting on having them both no matter what:) So, after carefully rolling them and rigging up a travel container made out of puff cans duct taped together the paintings made it home safe and sound. We took them in to be professionally stretched and framed. That, BTW will cause you a bit of sticker shock if you've never had that done before! Yowza! But it was so worth it!!! They turned out gorgeous! Of course they will be Alton's some day, but until then they have a home in our master BR where they look amazing:) This wall has been blank since we moved into our new home 2 1/2 years ago and I think fate made us keep it blank because it knew we would be bringing these gems home from Colombia some day. Of course the snapshots here do them little justice, but it gives you an idea of how awesome they are:) I lovelovelove them!

Horse riding lessons?

I took Ena and Alton to the zoo on Monday. Alton did good and the elephants seemed to be his favorite:) They were being really active and whipping dirt everywhere. Being that Alton also loves to get dirty and throw things, this was right up his alley!

I usually let Athena choose one extra activity at the zoo. She usually chooses to ride the carousel but this time she wanted a pony ride. She loved it and was beaming the whole time! I've been considering looking into horse riding lessons for her for something fun to do and I've read that it can help kids with self-confidence. I'm thinking maybe this could help her with her separation anxiety. Well, after seeing her so proud of herself and beaming the way she was on that pony, I"m for sure going to start looking for some horse riding lesson options in our area:)

This bush has been going gang-busters blooming this year so I wanted to take some pictures of the kids in front of it while it's in full bloom:)

Daycare

Going back to work this week went great:) I am excited to be back, though day care drop-offs are rough for Alton. He cries bloody murder each morning when I drop him off. After 10 years of teaching pre-school and kindergarten I've had many opportunities to be the adult on the recieving end of a parent dropping off a child who is having a hard time with transition, so I know that the child is always fine 10 minutes later! It doesn't make it any easier to see him crying and upset every morning, but at least I know it's short lived and his day goes fine and he has fun once the transition of being dropped off is done. When I show up to pick him up at the end of the day, he's always happily playing and his daily note always says he's eats and naps like a champ during the day. His teachers are so sweet and that helps me to feel comfortable dropping him off too. I've read in a few attachement books about ways to make the daycare transition easier & one idea is to bring a treat along to give the child at pickup each day. This helps to establish a routine and enforce the mommy-always-returns happy feelings. So, he's been having a yummy cookie to eat on the way home each day. I'm pretty sure he's picking up on this routine after only one week because yesterday after I had him strapped into his carseat he was looking at me with an excited look of anticipation for me to hand him his treat:)

Check out these cute bunny ears he made at school:)

Look at this big strong bunny crawling with his belly off the ground now! No more army crawling for this big boy:)

We're coming home!

John picked up Altons visa on Friday and our representative stopped by just now with the last of our documents to bring back home for everything we need to do once we get back. We are all set to fly home on our original plane tickets for tomorrow!! We're being picked up from the hotel at 6:00am for our 9:30am flight. We have a 5 hour flight from Bogota to Atlanta, then have a 3 hour layover in Atlanta. Hopefully just the right amount of time to get through customs, immigration for Alton, re-check luggage and get the kids something to eat before boarding the next flight to Milwaukee. We get into Milwaukee at about 8:30pm:) My mom and John's moms will be picking us up:)
We're enjoying our last day in Bogota with our friends. We're heading out for lunch at Archies again (the place where the kids make their own pizza), then running to some stores for a few last minute purchases of things we want to bring back with us.
Watch for our next post from home:)

Look who has a passport!

We (our representative Luz actually) got all of our paperwork snafoos figured out now, so today we got a lot accomplished with our final paperwork:) We picked up the final clearance papers from the ICBF main office. This is something new since Athena's adoption since the Hague was implemented. We also applied for and got Altons Colombian passport. Next we had our last meeting with the director of Ayudame to get final permission to travel home with Alton. Later tonight we have a doctors appointment for Altons medical clearance to apply for his visa.

Tomorrow we take his spiffy new passport to the American Embassy to apply for his visa to come home. We should be able to pick up his visa on Friday & that will be our ticket home!

SENTENCIA!!! SENTENCIA!!!

We had a super fun day out being tourists with Angie's parents Judy and Roger and came home to the best news:) We have sentencia!! John is going to go sign the papers tomorrow morning at 8:00 am:) Not sure when we'll be flying home at this point. Our return tickets right now are for next weekend. We'll see how many days it takes for all of the final paperwork. We got Athena's done in 2 business days, but that was pretty fast. Everything happened to fall into place and fly along with hers.
It's a hefty fee to change the flights though ($250 EACH) so we may just hang around and enjoy our last few days and wait it out & fly home on our original tickets. I'll keep everyone posted when we figure it out!

Busy Day!

Today was a busy and important day for our adoption process. We had our documents authenticated at 2 different Colombian Notarias this morning. Then we had a great surprise when we were told our Defendor of Minors appointment was this after noon! This appointment could have been as late as next week Tuesday, but we were lucky enough to get ours today. They said our papers would be submitted to the court tomorrow. Some courts have a reputation for being slower for adopting families and some are faster. As far as we know there is no rhyme or reason as to which one you may be assigned to and it's all just luck of the draw. Send us some luck people;) The Defendor of Minors appointment takes a long time. We were there 2 1/2 hours with the kids in a tiny hallway of a room with nothing but some chairs. John did a great job entertaining Alton for a good part of the time and then I got him to fall asleep for a while to help pass the time too. Athena was a total champ too! Her and I played with a sticker book for a large part of the time and we knew from other families experiences that the wait could be long, so we saved her last 2 bags of goldfish crackers to eat during that time as well:)

We're so glad to have other families here with us this time around! The Jaenisch's are amazing, always coming up with fun things to do and are so welcoming to Athena when she wants to come into their room and play with what their kids are playing. Last night they even had every one of the big kids from the hotel in their room at the same time watching a movie! We have more friends joining us this Saturday when the Reedy family arrives too!! Can't wait to meet their little guy Cruz:)

Isn't this the cutest picture ever:) L-R: Athena, Eloina, Lauren, Jose, Ben.

Here are Alton and daddy enjoying a little after breakfast siesta. He's not a thumb sucker like sissy, but prefers his fingers instead:)

This is my view when we're out and about and I'm carrying the little monkey in the carrier.

More teeth!

We think Alton is cutting more teeth as he has been a cranky bear the last day and a half. He has a low fever, red butt and is pulling on his ears and gnawing on his fingers. Not being ones to bust out medication unless necesary, we haven't given him anything yet. Tonight though for the sake of hopefuly getting a little bit of sleep, we're going to try some tylenol at bed time;)

We're going to the notary tomorrow with our agency representative to get our documents ready for the courts and will hopefully have our meeting with the Defendor of Minors on Wed. or Thurs. This is the meeting that will officially submit our case to the courts and usually occurs about 10 days after the presentation date that you receive the child.

Today was the first rainy day we've had since being here. We ventured out for a quick walk to the grocery store this morning before it started raining to get some rice cereal and yogurt for Alton, but other than that we have had a day hanging out here at the hotel. I'll post when we know for sure when our meeting is with the Defendor!

Alton Joseph

Some details from our presentation day and some information about our sweet baby boy. We went to the orphanage directors house to recieve Alton. Very different than it was with Athena when we went to the actual orphanage. We could hear him giggling upstairs with his caregiver while we were going through the paperwork part of the process downstairs. When they finally brought him down he came right to us and even had smiles for us right away. They said he likes bright colors and he proved that to be very accurate when he continually tried to grab the pink flower on Athena's jacket:)

Alton currently weighs 19 lbs. 13 oz and already has 8 teeth! He eats like a champ! He has 3 bottles and 3 meals a day so far. His first night with us he fell asleep during his bedtime bottle at 9:00 and slept until 5:30 this morning.

Athena is doing great being a big sister:) She is excited and is constantly kissing him and helping. We did have a few tears last night when she couldn't have mommy's attention while I was giving him his bedtime bottle, but overall she is doing awesome!! We're so proud of her:)

Napping angels:)

Photo shoot outside with daddy while mommy and Alton were inside ordering coffee at Juan Valdez Cafe!

Jammie buddies and the fun instrument toy Athena scored at Maku:)

He's perfect:)

Prepare to have your heart melted. We'll post more details about him and about the day at a later post. For now enjoy the pictures of the 2 most beautiful kids in the world:)

Love from Bogota!!

Day numero uno:)

Hey!

We slept in until about 7:45 this morning which is pretty late for our household. Athena was so excited to get dressed and head downstairs to eat breakfast and check the place out so we were off right away! At breakfast we got to meet the other family from our agency who are also staying here at Hotel Paris, the Jaenisch family. After pancakes, strawbery juice and coffee, we made plans to head out to a Sunday market together with them. On Sundays they close down one of the large busy streets to car traffic and open it for walking and biking only. It was a beautiful sunny, warm day and we got some great exercise and sun;) We didn't buy much at the market since we definately have plenty of time to window shop now and go back to purchase over the next several weekends. When everyone else headed out to another market area, we headed back to the hotel. We wanted to stop at the grocery store to get some snacks for the room and head back for lunch, then have some quiet time back at the hotel for Ena to take a nap after being up until almost midnight last night. (We all 3 ended up zonking out for about an hour and a half;)

It's great having friends here to hang out with. Athena and the Jaenisch's 2 older kids Lauren and Ben play great together so far and really help to entertain each other.

Our presentation date with Alton is still set for Tuesday at 11:30. We were told to travel either Saturday or Sunday and we would get him either Monday or Tuesday. We happened to get the combination of days that had us get here 3 days

before we get him. Oh well, it will give Athena time to settle in and get her bearings a bit before having everything changes!

Have a great night! Here are a few pictures from our first day:)

We're here!

We made it to the hotel safe and sound at about 10:30 last night. Flights went fine and Ena was a trooper the whole day! We just had coffee, pancakes and strawberry juice for breakfast and are heading out for a walk to the markets with the other American family who is here at the hotel:) We wanted to let everyone know we got here safe and sound last night, but we couldn't get the internet connection until just now. Someone please pass the info onto my mom that everything went fine!! (they don't have internet)
Love from Bogota!
Zuge's

Travel dates!

We have travel dates people! Tickets have been booked for January 29th. Our presentation of Alton is set for the morning of February 1st. We have appointments to get our Visa's at the Colombian Consulate in Chicago this Friday the 21st.
The to-do lists have begun! I'll update more info over the weekend:) Just wanted to let everyone know our news!

Keepin' our eyes on the prize!

An update on the paperchase again: We got the email that our Article 5 came through from the US Embassy in Colombia on Friday (the day Alton turned 10 months!) Now that our representative in Bogota has this document in-hand, she can request travel dates from Ayudame! We've requested our travel dates to be 'as soon as possible', so we'll see what they end up being. Usually 'as soon as possible' is within 1-2 weeks. The program coordinator did say that the orphanages are a little bit behind right now with being able to schedule the presentation dates as quickly as families would like them since they too are still working through the 'holiday back-log' of families that kind of pile up in line over the long Christmas break.

The Secretary of State came through and got our appostilled Special Visitor Visa documents done in just 3 days. We are now however, wresting with the postal service to get them delivered back to us. We've been tracking them and watching them get bounced back and forth between the same 2 post offices for the last 4 days now and because of the long holiday weekend along with a less than helpful customer service dept., are unable to get an answer as to why. I did receive a message from a friend who went through this last year and she said when she called the Colombian Consulate herself, they told her she could get her visa without the appostilles. If we don't get ours from the post office on Tuesday (they are closed Monday), I'll call the Consulate also and see what tell me about whether or not the apostilles are in fact still required. Hoping this is still an option like it was for her in case ours don't arrive in a timely manner!

Between the Federal holidays here and the Christmas break in Colombia, I'm thinking Nov/Dec just isn't the optimal time to get a referral if you're hoping to whip through your paperwork and travel in 6 weeks rather than 8. (the estimate they tell you to expect is anywhere between 6-8 weeks) Like I said though, we know we're in the homestretch and we're trying to stay positive and keep our eyes on the prize:) Mommy, daddy and big sissy are almost there sweet baby!!!

Update on the paper chase

Our paper chase is moving along. I've realized at this point that even though things are moving along we are going to be looking at the end of Janurary more so than the middle of January like we were hoping for when we were originaly told 'mid to late' January as our travel estimate.

All of our dossier updates, including updated FBI print clearances, are done and have been recieved by our representative in Bogota. Our I800 approval came last week Wednesday the 5th. The Article 5 is usually given by the US Embassy in Colombia about 1 week after the I800 is issued. All of the government agencies in Colombia take about a 3 week Christmas break though, so I'm not sure if our I800 was received by them last week when we received it, or if they won't begin processing it until this week, after the break. I guess we'll know if our Article 5 comes this week or not. We just need to 'wait it out' and see.

We had our conference call with the program coordinator from our agency last week Thursday and it's a good things we did. We could have done it either last week Thursday or this week Thursday and thank goodness we did it last week. We caught something that could have been a small catastrophe. With Athena's adoption, we were able to get our special visitor visas by sending our passports and applications to the Colombian Consulate via FedEx. This time, we need to drive to Chicago and get them in person. I assumed (wrongly) that the applications did not need to be notorized and apostilled this time since we were going in person and not doing it through the mail. I brought this up during our conference call and she told us that no, they still need to be apostilled! In Wisconsin, you can't go in person and have them done while you wait, it's a 2 week process through the mail. This is a problem since we were hoping to travel in 2 weeks. So we quickly put them in the mail on Friday and hope for the best. Better we caught it last week than this week!
I will certainly post once we get some confirmed travel dates and all of our ducks are in the final row:)

Busy Busy...

Well, we are at a waiting period right now as far as paperwork to bring Alton home. We're just waiting on our immigration petition to be approved before we can move forward with the next step. It was sent in on Dec. 13th and generally takes 3 weeks to recieve an approval back. I called today to check on its progress and was told our immigration officer is out until Monday due to the holiday and I should call back on Monday. Our FBI fingerprint clearance letters came ahead of schedule, so those along with our dossier updates have been apostilled and are currently en route to our agency representative in Bogota. I also included a little photo album of different pictures of us that we're hoping they will show to Alton so we are not complete strangers to him when he meets us for the first time. Since I'm generally the one behind the camera taking the pictures, I found several good ones of John and Athena and one really good family picture from Christmas at my parents house this year. I was having a hard time finding a decent, close up, recent photo of me. There were several good ones from my birthday, but being that my birthday is on Halloween, I am wearing a costume. That's not going to work. I ended up running out to work and grabbing one of my "school pictures" from having my picture taken on picture day at school:)

I am very grateful for the gift of time that I've been given with the timing of our referral and that I have winter break this week to get things done to get ready for Alton and for our trip. I got his room all set up. All of the baby stuff was roused out from hibernation in the basement and I've been clearing out the guest bedroom, setting his stuff up in the room, washing his clothes, unpacking all the baby toys, washing bottles, shopping for supplies, etc... His bedroom is going to be what was the guest bedroom. We left the queen size bed in there for now. There is plenty of room for it and still room for playing on the floor. We'll leave it there until we see how his sleeping routine goes his first few weeks home.
















This is the nursery decor we had for Athena when she was a baby. It's called Turtle Bay. Super cute coordinating wall hangings, curtains, crib bedding, etc... all with blue and green turtles:)

It's a Boy!!

With great excitement we introduce Alton Joseph Zuge! Born March 14, 2010 in Bogota Colombia.

Proud big sister:)

Seriously, could he be any CUTER!!!

Getting a kiss from sissy:)

We'll be sure to keep everyone posted when we get closer to a travel date:) We're hoping to get paperwork wrapped up and have a travel date of mid to late January.

Love,

Nic, John, Athena and Alton!