Time to wait

Well I figure it's time for me to update you all on the latest. It's not really very exciting (it's all very exciting to us!) for you but if you are interested here it is. I also wanted to post the latest video we got of Anna, but I can't get the video to play. :(  Anyway, here's what been going on. So we sent off our I800a application, we got a confirmation letter in the mail saying they got it. It's called the receipt. So from the date of the receipt to when you get approval is about 50 days. It was 20 days a couple of months ago. So things have slowed down and it's hard because we were thinking of traveling Sept maybe even August but now it's looks more like Oct/Nov maybe even Dec if things slow down even more. So that has been a huge disappointment. I was pretty confident that we would have her here for her 3rd birthday (Oct.20) and now I'm so sure.  It's all out of our hands. This is the part that we can't make go faster.

The good news is that we have been busy and we are now on day 23. :)  After we got our receipt we got our fingerprint appointment (we got the notice in the mail while we were gone but thankfully the app. was not till the next week. ) which was yesterday. So I picked up Ryan from work yesterday morning and we drove down to Seattle. It was a nice little getaway. ;) Our app. was at noon and we got there at 11am, so we were out of there at 12 which was really nice. So now we wait some more. The next step is that we are assigned an officer, who reviews our application and then approves us or denies us. We also got an email from our agency that our Dossier (everything except the two thing we are waiting for) is out of critical review. Critical review is when they have 3 employees go over everything to make sure nothing is missing or wrong. So that is really good news!


We know that everything is in God's hands and that it's all in His timing, so we will remind ourselves of that everyday. It's over 90 degrees F where Anna lives right now. I think about her being too hot, her birthmark doesn't have any sweat glands so she is prone to over heat more easily. I worry that the nannies don't know this. I want her to be comfortable, I want her here. Dylan asked me the other night how she got to the orphanage. He asked whose tummy she grew in, her nannies? I told him that she grew in her first Mommy's tummy, and that after she was born that Mommy couldn't take care of her so Anna went to the orphanage. I told him that her first parents loved her but they just couldn't keep her and we don't know why.  Then after thinking for a bit, he said, I think that made her sad but I bet she will be happy to see us and live with us. And we're never going to leave her, right? We're  going to have her forever, right? Most definitely!! I told him that God will also never leave her. That even though she is far away right now and we can't be there yet, that God is there watching over her. We can take comfort in that.

While we wait, life goes on. And I don't want our boys to ever think that we ignored them or that they were at the bottom of the pile in all of this. They are at such great ages. They are a lot of fun! Joel just finished his spring soccer season. He did really well and he so enjoys it! He is a great player too (I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom) so it's fun to watch his games.  The boys will all (Dylan's first year!) play soccer this fall. Tyler is almost done piano, his recital is coming up. Dylan will be graduating from Kindergarten (pass the tissues! He grew up way too fast) in a few weeks. Summer will start and we will be busy with day trips and swimming lessons etc. So we are not twiddling our thumbs that is for sure! In March Dylan celebrated his 6th birthday. He has been into star wars lately so I though I would make something star wars for his cake. I'm not at all a cake decorater!! Anyway so after looking online I found these cupcakes and they looked like the easiest of all the star wars themed cakes I could find. So I gave it a whirl and this is what they looked like:

I almost peed my pants laughing so hard when I was done! Can you guess which star wars character this is?? I'm pretty sure these cupcakes should go on the "funniest looking cupcakes" post. haha!!