No news is good news I hope!

My paperwork was received at the Immigration office P.O Box on Saturday.
We included the form that will notify us via Text and E-mail when the form is received by someone in the office.
That has yet to happen and it's got me worried since that is what happened the last time I sent it in without proper postage.
This time I sent it via Priority Mail so I know it has the correct postage, but maybe I forgot to include something???
Yes, I'll be driving myself crazy until I hear something!

I also want to thank someone for my smile as I noted John's adoption fund rose by $15.00 today.
THANK YOU so much!

Clue and some news

Well the good news is that we are moving forward!
We finally received our notarized home study today and I turned around and sent it to Immigration for our I-800a approval.
The I-800a is an Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country.
This part of the process will take typically 30-80 days but we are going to walk in when we receive our fingerprinting appointments and we hope that will speed things up!

Now I promised you another clue the other day, the LAST ONE until John's fund hits $500.00
The final clue until the BIG announcement is........................................................................

Clues for you!

I get so excited when I see John's fund rise because it means you all are just as happy and excited for him to come home as we are and that means A LOT!
Thank you SO very much for caring about John and our family.

Today was a rainy, dreary day here.
Not many of those since we moved here 4 short months ago.
The kids were off of school for Veteran's Day so they enjoyed the extra time to sleep in and play games.
I have a little boy who finally has outgrown his 18 month clothes so I spent most of the day, taking photos, pricing and posting them on a Facebook virtual garage sale.
It's great because the money I make for the clothing sold went to a bulk lot of 2T clothing I bought on Ebay of gently used tops, bottoms and pajamas.
Winter wardrobe problem solved!

Ok , now for today's clues.
I apologize for the missing clue as I AM keeping track of all your heartfelt donations so there will be two clues today!

Since yet another donation was made today there will be one more clue tomorrow!
That will be the last clue for awhile unless the fund jumps again.
I love it when that happens!

Another clue and a sincere thank you!

I came online tonight to post the third clue and was so touched to see someone has yet again donated to John's fund.
I sincerely THANK YOU, whoever you are.
We are not able to see who donates to our fund so while I would normally send a thank you note, I apologize for this non personal, yet heartfelt thank you!

Along with tonight's clue I will share with you John's newest photos that we received today!
If you remember me telling you we sent him a cake to celebrate that he now has a family.

His smile is so precious in these photos and I hope that means he is thinking of us as we are thinking of him.

Ok, now that you have had your dose of sweetness for tonight onto the clue!

Your next clue is...................many celebrities!!!!

A clue! A clue!

So I promised to give a clue to the BIG secret for every $25.00 that was donated to John's adoption.
I figured little by little I would give out clues as it would take awhile for that to happen.
This evening however, John's adoption fund jumped by $100.00.
WOW!
Whoever you are that donated, we appreciate you!
To bring an orphan home is expensive and while it's our choice to do so, you have decided it's important to you as well and for that we will be forever grateful.

Ok, to make this extra suspenseful I will drop a clue one night for the next four nights or as long as the $25 donations come in until it reaches $500.00
If for some reason tomorrow I were to awake and his fund was at $500.00 then as promised I won't keep you in suspense any longer and I will tell the entire HUGE secret.
(No, it's not Steve from Blue's Clue's. He's just here to help with the first clue)

Tonight's clue about John's adoption is .........  International Movie Star!

Moving along and a surprise!

Yesterday we received the draft of our home study.
With only a few little fixes we gave it the OK and it is now at our adoption placing agency for their review.
Once they give their approval then it goes to the director of our home study agency to approve, sign and notarize and then it's done!

From there we take the home study and have state certified and then Chinese authenticated for our dossier.

We have one more step before we can send our dossier which is the I800a ~ Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country.
This brings me to the earlier slip up on my part.
I was trying to get an extension of our last I800a from our March adoption which would have saved us time and money right now.
However, since I didn't put the required postage on the letter we now have to start from scratch.
Please, please pray that it doesn't take the 3 months time that it has been taking.
We truly need to get things moving along in order to make our deadline for the dossier reuse.

We have a BIG, BIG surprise coming up that I will tell you all about regarding John's adoption.
This surprise will be as big a shock to you as it was to us.
Want to know more?
For each $25 that is donated towards John's adoption fund I will reveal a clue.
Once his fund gets to $500 I will give you all the exciting details!