I just got the response back from Holt and we are now #14!!!
That's even better than I thought :-) Woohoo!
That's all!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
DTE!!!
Well folks, it turns out May 18th is a big day in our family. Today is Ted's annual anniversary of being cancer free, and it's a date that I will always remember as the day our "baby envelope" officially made it halfway around the world safely to adopt our next child.
I'm bad with birthdays... but I'm GOOD at adoption dates. Lucas papers were officially approved by the ladies at his orphanage on April 21st, 2008.. and my sweet boy was born the next day. I just didn't know it.
So DTE day is a big deal. The Lord answered our prayers for safety of our original documents to make it to their intended destination!
We were #26 on the wait list when our complete dossier was received 4/20 (originally received 4/16 but I had to fix something) and we have watched it creep down one or 3 steps at a time since then.
After some of our friends received referrals last week (I think 4) we should be someplace in the teens. I'll find out later today since I thought my DTE email was a good excuse to ask them nicely :-)
We are currently up in Minnesota (Lucas and I) visiting family and friends. It has helped pass the time while we wait! We will be returning next week in time for our immigration fingerprinting appointment on the 28th. Under the newest change, we can't be submitted for court with a referral until immigration has cleared, fees have been paid, and all papers returned signed. The immigration is the piece that we have no control over, so it's nice to have that printing appointment set up!
So.. on the non adoption front.. here are some highlights :-)
It was my 2nd mother's day, which was celebrated by some time away from my blessed boy.. and I was able to take a quiet walk with my husband down Grande Avenue and then enjoy some dinner and adult conversation!
That is my happy mommy face
Lucas has also been out being busy and keeping me busy as a result. Here are a few photos from his play time, trying out papa Sibley's motorcycle, and working on the baseball skills!
He is really into doing the "big wee"s now.. which is a little difficult on my stress level but I'm very proud of him :-)
Isn't he ridiculously cute? Here's to t-ball next year!!
The family moments help to keep me grounded during this time of waiting. I'm truly enjoying this wait.. not that I wouldn't be THRILLED to get a referral call right now.. but it's just about resting in God's timing rather than waiting for all my dreams to blow up (my outlook of 2008). I'm so thankful for this time of hopefulness. I know that my child has been born.. and they are over there.. and I just can't WAIT to have a specific little person to pray for.
I think about him/her every day and I'm just so excited for the opportunity to be a mother for the 2nd time. I am so blessed.
I'm bad with birthdays... but I'm GOOD at adoption dates. Lucas papers were officially approved by the ladies at his orphanage on April 21st, 2008.. and my sweet boy was born the next day. I just didn't know it.
So DTE day is a big deal. The Lord answered our prayers for safety of our original documents to make it to their intended destination!
We were #26 on the wait list when our complete dossier was received 4/20 (originally received 4/16 but I had to fix something) and we have watched it creep down one or 3 steps at a time since then.
After some of our friends received referrals last week (I think 4) we should be someplace in the teens. I'll find out later today since I thought my DTE email was a good excuse to ask them nicely :-)
We are currently up in Minnesota (Lucas and I) visiting family and friends. It has helped pass the time while we wait! We will be returning next week in time for our immigration fingerprinting appointment on the 28th. Under the newest change, we can't be submitted for court with a referral until immigration has cleared, fees have been paid, and all papers returned signed. The immigration is the piece that we have no control over, so it's nice to have that printing appointment set up!
So.. on the non adoption front.. here are some highlights :-)
It was my 2nd mother's day, which was celebrated by some time away from my blessed boy.. and I was able to take a quiet walk with my husband down Grande Avenue and then enjoy some dinner and adult conversation!
That is my happy mommy face
Lucas has also been out being busy and keeping me busy as a result. Here are a few photos from his play time, trying out papa Sibley's motorcycle, and working on the baseball skills!
He is really into doing the "big wee"s now.. which is a little difficult on my stress level but I'm very proud of him :-)
Isn't he ridiculously cute? Here's to t-ball next year!!
The family moments help to keep me grounded during this time of waiting. I'm truly enjoying this wait.. not that I wouldn't be THRILLED to get a referral call right now.. but it's just about resting in God's timing rather than waiting for all my dreams to blow up (my outlook of 2008). I'm so thankful for this time of hopefulness. I know that my child has been born.. and they are over there.. and I just can't WAIT to have a specific little person to pray for.
I think about him/her every day and I'm just so excited for the opportunity to be a mother for the 2nd time. I am so blessed.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
"RARS"- What Dinosaurs say
Ted finally finished pulmonary on Friday and began another round in the Emergency Dept on Saturday... but the beautiful thing about the ED is that it's shift work. This allows for some family time too!
To celebrate my one year anniversary of full time mommy-hood and Lucas 2nd Bday.. we decided to go to the dinosaur exhibit at Union Station. Lucas was so excited about the big dinosaur in front of Union Station.. that he was very upset that we were driving past it (to park!) without stopping.
He loved the exhibit.. but as you can see some of those big T-Rex "Rars" could not be looked at without holding on to Mommy or Daddy at the same time. For safety :-)
This is what his face looks like when he makes his dinosaur noises..
And then we went home for a big nap...
To celebrate my one year anniversary of full time mommy-hood and Lucas 2nd Bday.. we decided to go to the dinosaur exhibit at Union Station. Lucas was so excited about the big dinosaur in front of Union Station.. that he was very upset that we were driving past it (to park!) without stopping.
He loved the exhibit.. but as you can see some of those big T-Rex "Rars" could not be looked at without holding on to Mommy or Daddy at the same time. For safety :-)
This is what his face looks like when he makes his dinosaur noises..
And then we went home for a big nap...
More visitors to KC
During Lucas B-Day weekend.. we enjoyed a visit from Grandma and also Uncle Andy from Minnesota.
Here are some photos from Lucas' time with Grandma at Paradise Park. His two favorite things are the water discovery area and the Lucas size grocery store.. where he usually chooses to purchase unlimited syrup for waffles.. his favorite food.
Andy arrived on Friday night (when Ted had to be on call for pulmonary) so it was up to me to entertain him. We drove around to see the highlights of KC.. Power & Light, the Plaza... and Ted's ghetto hospital! We found ourselves back at Power and Light to catch up. One of Ted's childhood friends, Angie, was also in town so we met up with her and her friends also!
Two men enjoying waffles
Ted and Andy were finally able to get together on Saturday and enjoyed some good times at Kaufman stadium watching the Twin's play the Royals. I made them take pictures to prove it.
We look forward to more visitors in the near future :-)
Here are some photos from Lucas' time with Grandma at Paradise Park. His two favorite things are the water discovery area and the Lucas size grocery store.. where he usually chooses to purchase unlimited syrup for waffles.. his favorite food.
Andy arrived on Friday night (when Ted had to be on call for pulmonary) so it was up to me to entertain him. We drove around to see the highlights of KC.. Power & Light, the Plaza... and Ted's ghetto hospital! We found ourselves back at Power and Light to catch up. One of Ted's childhood friends, Angie, was also in town so we met up with her and her friends also!
Two men enjoying waffles
Ted and Andy were finally able to get together on Saturday and enjoyed some good times at Kaufman stadium watching the Twin's play the Royals. I made them take pictures to prove it.
We look forward to more visitors in the near future :-)
Lucas 2nd Birthday- Missouri
MY BABY TURNED 2 ON APRIL 22ND. I only cried a little..... :-)
Here are those cake pictures that I'm sure you expected. We celebrated with the Sibley 3 and my mom who came down from Iowa to help :-)
You will have to trust me that the end result of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was a bit intense.. and following this he was de-diapered and thrown into the tub for scrubbing!!
Here are those cake pictures that I'm sure you expected. We celebrated with the Sibley 3 and my mom who came down from Iowa to help :-)
You will have to trust me that the end result of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was a bit intense.. and following this he was de-diapered and thrown into the tub for scrubbing!!
Enjoying the Wait- adoption update ;-)
Well we have officially been "waiting" now for two weeks. It feels good! We had some time and decided to go ahead and put up the crib. Yes, it's a bit premature, but we wanted Lucas to get used to looking at it and it's much prettier assembled than in a big ugly box.
Here are a few photos of the assembly and our finished product.
This is the view of both of the cribs in the room.. but the lighting wasn't working out too awesome for me..
So here are some more details about where we are at with the Ethiopia process...
I spent the past two weeks working on grant applications. We have finished the last one and it is ready to go on its way to be reviewed. We are praying that the grant organizations we have applied for will prayerfully consider helping us in the financial aspects of this endeavor. PLEASE PRAY :-) We don't expect to hear anything from them for awhile.. because most grant organizations review these things quarterly.
We are currently in the mid 20's in terms of the wait for referral. There were over 50 referrals in the month of March! Because there were so many, we were told to not expect a whole bunch this month (April) and May as the children are "legally abandoned" in batches by the Ethiopian court. There have been 3 referrals in the past week or so. If I were to estimate.. I would think that we would have some news late in May or perhaps June... but in the world of adoption one never knows. Another giant batch might give us something to talk about sooner than we think!
It is different than when we were waiting for Lucas, in that this time we will be getting "the call" that so many adoptive families are referring to. Although we do not have an assigned "buddy couple" this time, the Wagners from our FANA group have remained faithful in their moral support from all the way up in Minnesota! With this adoption, we will receive a referral and will be prepared for court at that time. We expect there to be about 2 months from our referral to the first court date. At this time, we expect that we will both have to travel to Ethiopia for the first court date. Once we pass court, we will be assigned a visa appointment where I will return by myself to take custody and bring baby home. We expect that to happen sometime this fall.
As you can see, there are pros and cons to both situations. With Lucas we were able to travel right away.. we just had no idea when we would be coming back. Ethiopia trips are shorter, but the process from referral to bringing baby home is much longer. I suppose all siblings are different with different pregnancies... so here is my adoptive parent equivalent :-)
I am part of the Holt International Yahoo Group... which is where we crazy waiting moms get together and track each others processes. Very similar to what I was doing during happy hour with the ladies from the FANA waiting mom's group 2 years ago at this time! It's funny how things are different. Right now, I just need to train myself to not check my email 20 times a day because I want to see who is getting referrals!!!! Really, it's hard. Even right now I want to check it!
That is all the news I have for now.. that we've moved from #26 at least 3 spots in the past week or so.. anxiously.. but not too anxiously.. waiting to see what will happen in the next month. It's exciting :-)
Here are a few photos of the assembly and our finished product.
This is the view of both of the cribs in the room.. but the lighting wasn't working out too awesome for me..
So here are some more details about where we are at with the Ethiopia process...
I spent the past two weeks working on grant applications. We have finished the last one and it is ready to go on its way to be reviewed. We are praying that the grant organizations we have applied for will prayerfully consider helping us in the financial aspects of this endeavor. PLEASE PRAY :-) We don't expect to hear anything from them for awhile.. because most grant organizations review these things quarterly.
We are currently in the mid 20's in terms of the wait for referral. There were over 50 referrals in the month of March! Because there were so many, we were told to not expect a whole bunch this month (April) and May as the children are "legally abandoned" in batches by the Ethiopian court. There have been 3 referrals in the past week or so. If I were to estimate.. I would think that we would have some news late in May or perhaps June... but in the world of adoption one never knows. Another giant batch might give us something to talk about sooner than we think!
It is different than when we were waiting for Lucas, in that this time we will be getting "the call" that so many adoptive families are referring to. Although we do not have an assigned "buddy couple" this time, the Wagners from our FANA group have remained faithful in their moral support from all the way up in Minnesota! With this adoption, we will receive a referral and will be prepared for court at that time. We expect there to be about 2 months from our referral to the first court date. At this time, we expect that we will both have to travel to Ethiopia for the first court date. Once we pass court, we will be assigned a visa appointment where I will return by myself to take custody and bring baby home. We expect that to happen sometime this fall.
As you can see, there are pros and cons to both situations. With Lucas we were able to travel right away.. we just had no idea when we would be coming back. Ethiopia trips are shorter, but the process from referral to bringing baby home is much longer. I suppose all siblings are different with different pregnancies... so here is my adoptive parent equivalent :-)
I am part of the Holt International Yahoo Group... which is where we crazy waiting moms get together and track each others processes. Very similar to what I was doing during happy hour with the ladies from the FANA waiting mom's group 2 years ago at this time! It's funny how things are different. Right now, I just need to train myself to not check my email 20 times a day because I want to see who is getting referrals!!!! Really, it's hard. Even right now I want to check it!
That is all the news I have for now.. that we've moved from #26 at least 3 spots in the past week or so.. anxiously.. but not too anxiously.. waiting to see what will happen in the next month. It's exciting :-)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Baby Sibley #2 Dossier Complete and on its way!!
First of all, I would like to issue an apology to baby Sibley #2... BECAUSE... Baby Sibley #2 will someday reading Lucas' caring bridge updates that I wrote while we were preparing his paperwork, and say "Hey!! How come he has more than me!!" (during the initial paper process anyway).. and this will be my response:
"When I was working on the paperwork for your brother, all I had to do was get up, go to work, come home, change clothes, and sit there and stare at his paperwork and update the blog every night... when I would always have 3 or 4 hours of time to do that. With you, my sweet child, I had about one hour of time each day during Lucas' nap when I would hit the books WORKING ON your paperwork. At that time, updating the blog was way down on the list of things that needed to happen during the time I was working on YOU."
I'm sure he/she won't buy it, but that is my excuse.
So see? Baby Sibley #2's paperwork has not even been gone 24 hours, and here I am, UPDATING THE BLOG ;-) I shall continue to update this blog whenever I get a hint of any kind of information about adoption things going forward, on Mommy's honor.
So I don't have any pictures of the craziness of yesterday.. because it was crazy.. but I do have some photos of the results of such craziness.. which was a finished dossier ;-) Long story shorter, I wandered the downtown streets of Kansas City to find a big un-labeled government building that was not at all the address that it said it was to the naked eye. We finally found it, got in there, Lucas was freaking out... left for Lucas to finish freaking out... returned to find out one of my two only documents that had to be state certified was no valid. Super sadness. Wandered back to the car.
Super Daddy... out saving the world and the extremely sick people of the pulmonary floor of St Luke's hospital saved the day by tracking down a notary on the nursing staff and sneaking me into a closet to re-sign our power of attorney papers.
Lucas, with no nap.. and bordering on losing his mind entirely... did okay at the 2nd visit to the Sec of State office.. because I brought him an entire bag of popcorn as bribery which mostly worked.
We left the Sec of State office on our 2nd time, document in hand, and our last piece of the dossier.
Once Daddy got home, I left to take over the big table at Kinkos where I made a few milion copies of everything, reorganized it, tabbed it, quadruple checked it... you get the idea.
Here below, the fruits of our labors, and our very tired child.
We had to do some intermediate reading during the photo opportunity.. because somebody was super tired.. and couldn't figure out why post-bath pre-bed time was the time to be taking pictures...
So after our pictures, we were off to Fed Ex to send it off as a family. Lucas wasn't quite sure what the deal was and why he was taken someplace in his jammies with no shoes.. but whatever we weren't going for fashion we just wanted to do it as a family! I sent it expedited to be received on Friday and it is in FedEx hands until then!
So what do we do now you ask? GRANT APPLICATIONS. You can't apply for grants until your homestudy is completed, and I didn't have the files of mine until Saturday so I got to work! The sooner we get these important packets out to the organizations, the sooner we find if we will be receiving any aid in this endeavor.
So I bet you're wondering what comes next for the future baby. Well, Holt has to come through the giant 2lb packet I sent and make sure it looks good. There were a ton of referrals last month so the "list" is on the short side right now, but it's also possible that there won't be any referrals this month because there were so many. They tend to go in batches, because the kids are legally free for adoption in batches and we travel in batches. It is yet to be seen if we will receive a referral in the next "batch", but it could definitely happen based on the numbers I see.
Here is a picture of 2 men and a baby.
Here is a picture of the men taking apart the futon that was our "guest bed" in Lucas room to make room for the crib! We were able to donate the couch to the garage sale for one of our friends also fundraising for Ethhiopia.
I will leave you with a few pictures of our trip to the zoo on Sunday.. and I'll have lots more to say about the Ethiopia process in the next few days when I feel like telling you the long story about the new "2 trip process" that has freaked everyone in the Ethiopia adoption community in the past month.
Obviously with my son on the move, NO WALLABY IS SAFE
He loved the train.. but was a wee bit tired..
Big boys prefer big sticks. Obviously :-)
"When I was working on the paperwork for your brother, all I had to do was get up, go to work, come home, change clothes, and sit there and stare at his paperwork and update the blog every night... when I would always have 3 or 4 hours of time to do that. With you, my sweet child, I had about one hour of time each day during Lucas' nap when I would hit the books WORKING ON your paperwork. At that time, updating the blog was way down on the list of things that needed to happen during the time I was working on YOU."
I'm sure he/she won't buy it, but that is my excuse.
So see? Baby Sibley #2's paperwork has not even been gone 24 hours, and here I am, UPDATING THE BLOG ;-) I shall continue to update this blog whenever I get a hint of any kind of information about adoption things going forward, on Mommy's honor.
So I don't have any pictures of the craziness of yesterday.. because it was crazy.. but I do have some photos of the results of such craziness.. which was a finished dossier ;-) Long story shorter, I wandered the downtown streets of Kansas City to find a big un-labeled government building that was not at all the address that it said it was to the naked eye. We finally found it, got in there, Lucas was freaking out... left for Lucas to finish freaking out... returned to find out one of my two only documents that had to be state certified was no valid. Super sadness. Wandered back to the car.
Super Daddy... out saving the world and the extremely sick people of the pulmonary floor of St Luke's hospital saved the day by tracking down a notary on the nursing staff and sneaking me into a closet to re-sign our power of attorney papers.
Lucas, with no nap.. and bordering on losing his mind entirely... did okay at the 2nd visit to the Sec of State office.. because I brought him an entire bag of popcorn as bribery which mostly worked.
We left the Sec of State office on our 2nd time, document in hand, and our last piece of the dossier.
Once Daddy got home, I left to take over the big table at Kinkos where I made a few milion copies of everything, reorganized it, tabbed it, quadruple checked it... you get the idea.
Here below, the fruits of our labors, and our very tired child.
We had to do some intermediate reading during the photo opportunity.. because somebody was super tired.. and couldn't figure out why post-bath pre-bed time was the time to be taking pictures...
So after our pictures, we were off to Fed Ex to send it off as a family. Lucas wasn't quite sure what the deal was and why he was taken someplace in his jammies with no shoes.. but whatever we weren't going for fashion we just wanted to do it as a family! I sent it expedited to be received on Friday and it is in FedEx hands until then!
So what do we do now you ask? GRANT APPLICATIONS. You can't apply for grants until your homestudy is completed, and I didn't have the files of mine until Saturday so I got to work! The sooner we get these important packets out to the organizations, the sooner we find if we will be receiving any aid in this endeavor.
So I bet you're wondering what comes next for the future baby. Well, Holt has to come through the giant 2lb packet I sent and make sure it looks good. There were a ton of referrals last month so the "list" is on the short side right now, but it's also possible that there won't be any referrals this month because there were so many. They tend to go in batches, because the kids are legally free for adoption in batches and we travel in batches. It is yet to be seen if we will receive a referral in the next "batch", but it could definitely happen based on the numbers I see.
Here is a picture of 2 men and a baby.
Here is a picture of the men taking apart the futon that was our "guest bed" in Lucas room to make room for the crib! We were able to donate the couch to the garage sale for one of our friends also fundraising for Ethhiopia.
I will leave you with a few pictures of our trip to the zoo on Sunday.. and I'll have lots more to say about the Ethiopia process in the next few days when I feel like telling you the long story about the new "2 trip process" that has freaked everyone in the Ethiopia adoption community in the past month.
Obviously with my son on the move, NO WALLABY IS SAFE
He loved the train.. but was a wee bit tired..
Big boys prefer big sticks. Obviously :-)
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