All posts by Molly

Our House

Projects!

2 Comments

I am so glad that I asked you all for name suggestions– it’s a lot of fun reading everyone’s input. I think taste in names shows a lot about a person. Keep the names suggestions coming! I love hearing what you all have to say. BUT, I think we agreed on a name. Woohoo, I am so glad.

We’ve decided to share their names with you, but not in this post! Later today or tomorrow, I am going to share a project I am working on with you, which is also a hint about the names we picked out, and then you can all guess. Ha, I am mean, I know.

In the meantime, I am going to share the other fun projects I’ve been working on for Erika and Ilya…

We got so many towels for our wedding– some that we had registered for, and a bunch that we didn’t. There were a couple that still had the tags on them. Then, I saw the Prudent Baby Hamptons Hooded Towel Tutorial! I have been trying to improve my sewing skills and learn to work with different materials… this was so much fun to make. I just wish I had a cute model for it!

There are so many great tutorials on Prudent Baby, but I have only been sewing for a few months and had no experience with things like piping and bias tape. So, once I finished up the hooded towel, I decided to give bias tape a chance, and make Erika a cute little wrap skirt.

Someone asked awhile ago how their room is coming along– the answer is, it’s not. We have been housing our foster dog in there, and using it as a guest room, so I have not yet painted it, or moved out the bed that we aren’t going to keep in there. But, I saw this tutorial for pinwheels awhile ago.

I made a bunch of these! So easy. And we had all of the supplies around our house. All it takes is fabric, poster board, spray glue and hot glue. I also added buttons to finish it off. Actually, even the two other projects, I spent less than $10 between them.

We’ve also been hitting up garage sales for some clothing and toys for E&I. I found lots of girl’s clothes. I’ve also gotten a bunch off of the clearance rack at Target. But, boys clothes are a whole different story. At garage sales, there either aren’t any or they are over priced. Well, until yesterday. My sister in law called to say that she hit the toddler boy clothing jackpot! She got us a bunch of stuff… thanks, Rachel!

I was at Goodwill yesterday– working on my anniversary present for my husband… don’t worry, it’s not as weird as it sounds! And, I walked over by the little kid’s shoes. I saw these, a miniature version of something my husband would wear, for 50¢. Of course I HAD to buy them…

There are a few of the fun things I’ve been doing. I found myself getting frustrated with paperwork and fundraising, so I’ve been trying to enjoy some fun things too.

First Adoption

The Name Game

8 Comments

I thought I’d blog about something fun, after all of the other stuff I’ve blogged about lately.

As you may or may not know, Erika and Ilya are not their real, legal names. They’re names made up by Andrea at Reece’s Rainbow to list them on her website. We, Reece’s Rainbow included, legally cannot share their legal names publicly. But, we do know them.

We also decide that we were going to give them different names. Our plan for naming them is to chose a different first name, one that we love and agree on, for each of them, and make their legal first name their middle name. That gives them the option, if they’d ever want to, to go by their first first name. Our social worker agreed that this is a great way to give them a name special to us and keep their heritage.

The problem is… boys names. We picked out the name that we’ll give Erika without much trouble. It was one of my favorites and Aaron loved it. But Ilya’s name is so much harder for us. Our requirements are: the name is not completely obscure (like in the top 500 names), we both like it and it doesn’t sound stupid with our last name. We have a name that we agreed on, but there is another name that I LOVE and it has meaning. Aaron only thinks it’s okay.

Some of my favorite boy names which have been eliminated: Oscar, Asher, Jude, Peter, Oliver (I love names that end in an -er sound but they generally don’t sound great with our last name.)

Aaron’s favorite boy names which have been eliminated: Ryan, Luke, Adrian.

So, does anyone want to suggest some boy names?

Adoption

Monroe

Leave a comment

This sweet little boy is in serious danger of getting moved from the relatively decent, safe confines of the baby house orphanage to an older child internat, which is commonly described as a mental institution.

Today, Monroe received a $20,000 grant from an amazing benefactor! That is almost the entire cost of the adoption for one child. Not to mention the adoption tax refund.

Taken from Reece’s Rainbow:

BOY, Born February 4, 2005

SIGNIFICANT RISK, PLEASE ADOPT ME SOON!!
Monroe is a sunshine of a little boy!  He is already 5 and blessed to still be at the baby house.  He needs a family right away!  
From a missionary who visited with him in June 2010:  I met with the doctor in his Groupa House who brought me back to meet him. The Head Doctor wanted me to meet the children who needed equipment. While measuring him for a chair, she explained to me what was more important was that he get a family. He will be traferred in six months to the worst institution, restrained in a crib in a dark room. She broke into tears! Monroe has spastic  cerebral palsy in all four limbs and is globally delayed. He is able to recognize the voices of his careworkers and understand simple directions. However, due to his spacitiy he is unable to do much of anything. No speech.  With therapy he can improve but will always have limitations. I measured his head circumfeence and once home will check with a doctor regtarding whether ir not he is microcephalic as well. I will  try to gather more information on him today. His temperament was sweet and his eyes twinkled. He needs a family fast! 
  
From an adoptive family who visited with him in June 2009:   Monroe has CP.  It appears that he is unable to use his arms and legs and is not sitting up on his own.  He has the most beautiful smile and I don’t think there is much of a cognitive delay.  He loves to be held and his whole face lights up when you come near him.”
 If the cost has been preventing you from adoption, this just might be your opportunity! He looks like such a sweet little boy.

First Adoption

Dossier

1 Comment

First of all, Lu at Poppies Blooming was kind enough to put together this blog makeover for me! AND, she also made us a button that you can grab and put on your blog or website. Thanks, Lu!

We get a lot of questions about when we’re bring Erika and Ilya home and where exactly we are in the adoption process. I know that not everyone knows the ins and outs of the adoption process or the country that we’re working with. I am not allowed to name what country we’re adopting from and if you do know, please refrain from mentioning it in the comments. Instead of working with an agency, we’re working with a team of volunteers from Reece’s Rainbow and an independent facilitator to put together a dossier to send to Erika and Ilya’s country.

A dossier is a packet of papers that explains our hope to adopt them, how we can provide for him, exactly who we are and also has all of our police clearances and permission from the US for us to adopt. A big packet of papers. Each paper in the dossier must be carefully put together, signed, notarized and apostilled. An apostille is a silly piece of paper attached to a notarized document saying that the notary is really a notary, and confirms the details of the notary’s appointment. This is something that we get from the Secretary of State in Topeka.

Many of the papers in our dossier are papers that just Aaron and I needed to sign and have notarized. I think that we have all of these papers done, with the exception of one which will need to be redone. There are several more papers which we also need to include in our dossier, which we need to rely on others for. One such document is a letter from Aaron’s employer confirming his employment and salary. Other documents that we need to get from other people include our medical forms, Kansas Bureau of Investigation clearances, proof of home ownership, etc.

Once our dossier is completed, we will mail it to Erika and Ilya’s country. It will be translated into their language and submitted to the proper authorities. After a couple of weeks, we’ll get a travel date, which will be 10-30 days out.

I really haven’t answered anyone’s question about WHEN we might travel yet. The magical paper that will probably determine when we travel is our I-171H. This is the paper from immigration saying that we have their permission to bring two children into the country. To get the I-171H, we sent a form to immigration about a month ago. Once immigration gets our homestudy, they will give us a fingerprinting appointment. Then, we wait and wait for our I-171H. I’ve heard that this can take 2-3 months. I imagine we’re talking at least another month before our fingerprinting appointment. So this would put us in about October. Which is what we want.

We’re hoping to mail our dossier in October and travel in November. As much as I’d love to go sooner, Aaron has a very important exam on October 30th, that he has to be here for. There are a few other ways that we could work around that date, but we’ll just have to see…

First Adoption

Updates

Leave a comment

So, we decided not to have the fundraiser this weekend. We had two people signed up… one is a friend from KU with her sweet dog and the other was my SIL, who is actually out of town, but she wanted some photos of her dog. He is staying with us, right now. We are hoping to have the fundraiser in early August. I’ll let you know the date when I have one set.

We have FIVE dogs at our house right now. FIVE. I am going crazy. I should also mention that they’re all big dogs… the littlest is just over 60lbs, and the biggest is around 75lbs. Kind of funny, but the second lightest is also the tallest and the second heaviest is the shortest… so they look hilarious together. I think he could almost walk under her. I love dogs, but it’s hard having multiple dogs who are not your own, and don’t know your rules and routine.

I picked up the second copy of my medical form and the first copies of Aaron’s, the other day. Wrong. They obviously hadn’t read the instructions left with the forms or payed attention to my instructions when I dropped them off. Now I have to take them back and wait a few more days. Ugh. I hope that they’re done by next Wednesday… I have to take our foster dog to Topeka for a vet appointment, so it would be a great day to get a bunch of papers apostilled!

We were able to get a bunch of papers notarized yesterday. We went to AAA, and the notary there is so sweet. I am hoping that all of those papers are good, and we can have those apostilled next week.

The papers we still need for our dossier are:
1. the elusive I-171H
2. the frustrating medical forms
3. the proof of homeownership
4. the proof of mortgage
5. Homestudy paperwork
6. State police clearances

Our state police clearances were also WRONG. They had Aaron’s SSN wrong and the notary’s appointment expired in October… the notary’s appointment can’t expire for another 18 months or so, just in case. Our social worker said that she had told them about this many times before– it is standard with adoptions. Fortunately, she took care of it for us.

We’re waiting on our home study to proofread. I’ll be glad when that is done and in the mail to USCIS, so that will begin processing.