Time for Updates

The paperwork portion of our adoption continues to move at a snails pace. Our home study was submitted to USCIS on March 9th and on April 15th I went to pick up the mail and ran excitedly out of the post office with an envelope from USCIS in my hand. I got in the van and tore open the envelope only to find that it wasn't our 171H, but instead it was a letter telling us that they were contacting our home study agency to let them know that there was 'missing information' in our home study report. My shoulders dropped and I didn't know if I should be angry, frustrated, or just cry. I couldn't believe we had yet another hold up. I went home and contacted our social worker and told her what I had received. I'm glad I did, because she wasn't at the office and my email sent her to the office to check the mail. Sure enough, she had a letter from USCIS saying they needed more financial information. She told me this was a new requirement that she was not aware of and she would contact USCIS to see if she could email or fax the information to them. She assured me this was an easy fix. What a relief that it wasn't something major and that she was going to be able to get it taken care of immediately!!! Knowing that USCIS has actually looked at our file means we're getting close.

Fast forward a few days to April 21st and I get another email from our social worker wanting to know how many copies of our 'revised' home study we will need. What? What revised home study?!!! Apparently, emailing or faxing the additional financial information was not satisfactory. USCIS needed the information added to the home study, but since they no longer accept addendum's, the home study had to be revised, signed, notarized and mailed back to them. No call, no email letting us know about the revision beforehand. I thought USCIS had what they needed, but instead it was just being sent off.

USCIS should have a copy of the revised home study now and we have the copies we need for our dossier. Hopefully, since they have been reviewing our file and requested the information, it won't be much longer now.

So, that's where things stand on adoption #2. Someday we'll have Naomi in our arms and I'll have to go back to read through my blog posts to remember exactly what took place to bring her home.

Last night we met a few local Ethiopia adoptive families at a local pizza place for dinner, play and conversation. Okay, the kids played, the adults conversed and we all ate. One family just brought their daughter home 3 months ago and it was awesome seeing just how well she was adjusting to life with her new family in the U.S. She is 6 years old and full of personality. Lili absolutely loved her, as did the rest of us. Of course it makes me that much more anxious to get our little one home, but I love seeing children with their forever families.

The weather here has been very windy, but also very warm. I've been able to prop the screen door open so Lili can go in and out as she pleases (don't worry, we have a gated deck and a fenced yard). I've also been giving her some water to play with and it's been quite the hit. I think she's going to really enjoy the pool this year.

Outside time is a good time to take pictures, so I broke out the camera and started taking pictures. I probably took 20 photos over the last couple of days, but I'll only post a few here.

Water fun!

I did break out her little wading pool but I didn't manage to get any pictures of her playing in the pool.

Sitting on the deck enjoying the sun, sidewalk chalk and Easter candy!!

We've also had some visitors on our pool deck recently. Check out the cute little Doves.