Sorry for slacking!

First I have to say sorry I have't been keeping up with the blog.... The time has just slipped away from me because we had so much going on!

First my baby sissy is pregnant with another set of twins.... Twin little boys!!! Yes, she will have two sets of twins and then our big boy Dev. She said she is starting her own basketball team... Haa! I am really glad it is a set of two because adding our little one makes it an even number of kids on the Argue side! Mine mine never fear your little friend is near!

Then my middle sissy, we were able to stop by and see their new house. The kids showed us their big new rooms. They were so cute giving us the tour. Then her youngest demonstrated how to use the toy Auntie Key and I purchased him for his birthday. A Radio Flyer 500... I am surprised my sister didnt kill us, that things is a tad bit dangerous for a 2 year old.. Woopsies!

As for us, it has been a whirlwind of events. I will not go into details, but we accepted a different referral. We have returned from our first visit and it was beyond amazing. We cannot express how gracious we are to our agency, polish facilitator, Polish Central Authority, and the orphanage. Once everything is finalized I will revise this post with more details, but for now we will just leave it at that.

Meeting our child was awsome. We couldn't have asked for anything to go any better. What a little trooper! Now the wait to get back..... Let's pray I can stay strong.

We of course shared every picture and video with our family and friends. I don't think there was a dry eye anytime we showed them. It is also neat to hear the older cousins tell us what they are going to teach our child. I love that they are already thinking about this stuff! Everyone is just as vested in this process as we are. Our co-workers, our family and our dear friends. When I returned to work I found out that every morning they had a little huddle to see what update we had sent. Pretty cool when you think about it! The power of friends and family!

Not only did we meet our little one, but we met another great family while we were there. It was super nice to her their experience and meet their little girl! She was super cute with this AWESOME personality! Hopefully we can meet up with them once again!

As for keeping busy... The furniture was delivered on Christmas Eve, which was awesome! We love it so much more than we remembered. We put the bedding and some of the decorations up. Now we are just waiting for the artwork! I also did somes shopping with my mom... I left the house with good intentions to just let her use my coupons at Carters and Ralph Lauren... Then we got there and I ended up with a bunch of stuff. Oh well!

Well that is the update for now! Congrats to our adoption friends who are in Poland right now and to the others that are leaving soon. As for me and several others, I pray our second trips are here before we know it!

Oh us... Yep we are still waiting...

It has been almost a month since my last post and we still haven't heard a thing.. We emailed our agency and they just said they are working on it.. We have been praying it is soon. The first four weeks were a breeze... Then a friend of ours received their dates and are there right now!! All of a sudden I need that date today! Plus it is Christmas, I would love to just know that things are moving forward and this will be our last Christmas without a child.

The other thing that made me realize I really hope it is soon is watching our nieces and nephews. Our child is about the same age as my twin niece and nephew. This weekend is my other nephew's 2nd birthday. To celebrate the Argue girls and the kids went out for lunch. Seth grabbed Scarlette's hand and was walking around with her. It was so cute, but poor Carmine didnt have a partner.. Once our little one is here he can have a little friend to hold hands with!!! So for the sake of mine mine (his nick name) we need this to hurry up ;).. haaa haaa!

So you want to know how I have been dealing with my stress?? Shopping it off and we have to stop! So far we purchased the furniture, painted the bedroom or I mean had it painted, hung new lighting and new blinds. Then my mom purchased all of the bedding, but we changed our mind on the size of the bed so we had to exchange it...

Well I promise to post when we know more, but for now I say good night!

Am I nesting?

Well this weekend has been one of deep cleaning and organizing. We originally thought that we would be receiving two children, which meant I had been keeping the office and upstairs spare bedroom semi empty/ some junk. Yesterday I started by cleaning all of the main living areas.. Which led me to realize it is time I cave and get a cleaning lady... Well actually I have wanted one for a while... It is Mr K who doesn't want someone in the house. I just haven't pushed the subject, but I now realize I REALLLLYY need help. I am trying to finish my MBA, adopt, work an active full time job and oh sleep somewhere in all that. I dont know how I am going to to keep up with everything.. Hence the cleaning help. It takes a full day to clean this house... Having someone take that over would really help me! So I have to make my sales pitch and give it to Mr K.

Anyway, then today.. Pulled everything out of both rooms started throwing stuff out and rearranging. Everything is now spotless and organized. We are going to leave the office an office and possible slash an upstairs play room. That means we are turning the upstairs bedroom into little Wentz's room. We decided not to go full fledged decorating overload until we get back from our first trip. Our strategy is one of it will give us something to do while we wait for that second trip and we are trying not to jinx anything...

I have to laugh at that second thought a bit.... Because we are buying other things all ready... It is like Christmas, the packages just keep showing up! We are slowing down a bit on the shopping as an unexpected additional charge dropped into the mix last week.... That was a bummer, but what do you do? It is just tough when you are cash flowing this process to get slapped with things like this. While it was in the contract (as a possible additional cost), we hadn't heard anything about it until a couple weeks after the referral... So I was spending it ;) lesson learned....Wont do that again! Any who, Daddy picked up a learning dog (it is super cute), baby monitor and a couple of SUPER CUTE outfits. We figured we can leave the clothes at the orphanage and they can keep them for the other children. We are so excited and anxiously awaiting for our trip...

Officially Accepted!

Today we officially accepted our referral! Of course, there were more tears of joy!!!

I want to thank everyone who has traveled this journey with us! I want to especially thank Children's Hospital. I cannot put into words how grateful we are to have had them helping us along the way. We highly recommend them to anyone going through the international adoption process. They were able help us understand what things meant and what we as parents can do to help our child flourish! They are a wonderful resource!

The next time you hear from us we will hopefully have travel dates!!!!!


We are so in love and extremely happy!!!

How can you love someone this much without ever holding them?

I am writing this way before many of you will ever see it. We are happy yet scared to say we received a referral at 6pm on Thursday October 11, 2012... Our child is just so beautiful...

I can't even begin to express the emotions in all of this. How can you fall so in love with someone just by looking at them?

While we were hoping for two, we just love our child to pieces and feel this is where we are supposed to be.

As you can tell, I am being evasive with gender, age and name. Poland has asked us to keep discretion in order to respect the child. We are respecting their wishes.. However, we were able to share with our close family... With that being said we have to ask our family that does know the details to please keep those themselves.. Until everything is official!!

We will be sending our acceptance letter to our agency on Monday... Next we wait for our travel dates.. To meet our angel from God!

God works in mysterious ways....

Today was our weekend to greet at church.. Which by the way is truly invigorating ! I love seeing all the smiling faces, especially the little kid-o's!

I won't get into details now, but Kenton and I have had a pretty tough couple of days. We have been praying a lot, mainly asking for guidance and peace.  I'm not going to lie, I went into church today with hopes God would give us some resolution to our situation. I often find that when in this predicament (lots of questions/ reservations and in need of guidance) the pastor's message some how seem to be directed right at me/us. While that wasn't the case today... There was actually a guest speaker... It is funny the people God puts into your life at certain times..

Back when Kenton and I were deciding to adopt, God put the Ott's back into our life.They helped us with a lot of questions regarding international adoption. Today it felt the same way... While greeting at church, I ran into someone I worked with 7-8 years ago. Back when I worked with him, he and his wife were adopting a little girl from China. I told him we were in the process of adopting from Poland and he was so excited for us. We exchanged numbers and called him this afternoon. He was great to talk to and we also found out they recently adopted a child from Ethiopia. We plan to stay in touch with them and they are willing to help us with any questions we may have. It was so nice to hear what programs they used to help "bring the kids up to speed". They are the same ones we have found and it is reassuring to know they worked wonderfully for their children!

THEN..... Another person who went through a lot of heartache with us.. Our nurse from the fertility treatments. She was also super excited to hear we were adopting from Poland. It is just funny how we have all been going to the same church at the same time for several years and we just bumped into them today... God's will....

The quilts are here!

Here are the awesome quilts my Aunt made for the kids! She even made matching pillow cases! We can't wait to give them to our kids!

Czesc.... Rzeczpospolita Polska.. Or HELLLLOO Poland!

We heard from our Agency today! Our paperwork is on its way to Poland... It feels really weird to know we have done everything we can... It is now up to God and the Polish Central Authority to complete this journey. While I know it is out of our hands, I pray that it isn't too long before we hear from them... I thought about making a bet with Kenton on how long before I lose my mind over "waiting".. Ooops too late I might be there! Just kidding!

It is kind of exciting to think we may be in Poland around Christmas... That is if our timeline takes the average I've seen for 1st trips. Lena stated our paperwork looked good and Poland should like us. I hope so! They hold the fate of our children in their hands.

I am learning more and more Polish. My Uncle bought us a new language software. I like it and its seems to be more conversational than Rosetta Stone. I can now speak three full sentences and a bunch of random words! Maybe one day it will all click. Then I will be quad-lingual... A little Swiss (very little), Espanol, Po Polsku, and Po Angielski (English).

Oh Uncle Bob if you are reading this...Excuse me is Prezpraszam (shapreshum). Uncle Bob told me that would be the first word I would learn and I would be asked to repeat it several times throughout lesson 1. Well I could remember every stinking word, but that one... I've got it now! Now the one I am hung up on is rozumie (do you understand).. I cant get my mouth to spit it out correctly!

Any whoooo. Good night everyone! I am praying for our friends who have court in the morning, our friends that are going back to keep a family together, our friends who are taking their first trip, and our friends who are anxiously waiting to get back to their children! May God watch over you and keep you all safe!

Good Bye Dossier......

We have sent off our dossier... Here is a picture of the paperwork. It took us nine months to gather, obtain approvals and give two sets of fingerprints. It feels really good to have it all completed and will be looking forward to our call.....





This weekend I took one of my friends back to the farm for a little R&R. I wanted to take a sneak peak at the quilts my Aunt is making for the kids, but she took them back to Naples to work on them.. Darn it!! However, she did have another gift for the kids. Farm UNO!!! I can't wait to play it. Since I love the farm, I have been kicking around the idea of putting different farm pictures in the playroom. I started snapping them this weekend! I love the pics!! I hope they print out OK.

A day of reflecting.....

Today Kenton and I sat down to ensure we were only missing the 797 from our dossier.  We printed of two check lists, grabbed dossier #1 and then we grabbed dossier #2. Sure enough everything was there. It just doesn't seem like these two good sized stacks should be all we have after nine months of chasing papers.

While there were days I didn't think we would make it through this process, those memories seem so far away. I know the next phase will be even harder and at times seem unbearable. We will just continue to to push through knowing it will happen... We just have to be patient! It is also kind of cool to know the next time we have to write out a check for the adoption is once we have our children's bios. I dont know why I feel comfort in that, maybe its knowing that is our end point.

Well, that is all for today....

The final piece of our nine month puzzle!

Today we receive the official USCIS approval form! Thank you Krista for telling me where to find my name on the approval form. I would have never seen that there!!

We are sooo excited!

I was also naughty and probably just jinxed us. I purchased a navy blue preppy gator duvet set from Pottery Barn Kids. It went on clearance and I want to do our son's room (if we have a son) in it. I LOVE GATORS and they remind me of my awesome Aunties who live ( Well some lived) in Florida! If we end up with girls I will give it to Carmine. So either way I'm not too worried!

Mission Accomplished!

Well we have been finger printed! It was an easy and painless process except, she kept telling me to relax. How do you relax your fingers? I finally realized she meant don't push down.

We are now waiting for our approval form and then we wait for a referral!

We weren't allowed to have our phones with us, but I snapped a pic as we drove by... We are now celebrating at five guys. Do not judge it was close, I'm starving and I love a good burger!

Is this really happening tomorrow?

Today was my day in the toddler room at church. We had more kids than normal and a couple of them were new. Being new, they did not want to be put down. Well...There is one little girl who is pretty clingy to me every week that did not like the fact that I was holding a new little boy. So I sat on the floor with both kids on my lap and thought.. When will it be my turn to have children that I don't have to leave behind once service is over. Then I remembered tomorrow is the last step that stands between us and being matched with our children in Poland. We have been trying to get this appointment since March. So many obstacles popped up that kept us from reaching this final stage. While I am a firm believer in his grander plan and you have to let it happen, I will admit it has been a tough tough road lately. I am just praying all goes well tomorrow and then a week from tomorrow we get notice that our fingerprints have been received. After that we will have official approval to bring two children back to the US and have them recognized as our children.

I am told we cant bring ANYTHING and I mean ANYTHING into the building with us. My purse and phone have to stay in the car. We are bringing in our I797 forms and passports.

Getting Dirty for a GREAT CAUSE!

Today, I am running in the Dirty Girl Mud Run with my cousin Jennah and some of my friends . It is a great event for breast cancer! My lovely husband seems to think I am going to break something today... So supportive :). I love to run in things like this and noticed that a 10K run I normally do has a 5K walk with children. I am super excited to think that maybe next year I can take the kid-o's with me! I thought about taking Devon with me this year (he seems to be really interested in running). However, it falls on the weekend we will be out of town. I am sad, but maybe next year!

Speaking of Devon... I know you are reading this you cute little thing! You don't know how much that means to Auntie. You are becoming so grown up (maybe even a little bit more than you should) and the fact that you have been tracking this on your own is truly amazing. I think he is just as excited as we are for the kids. He will be a great big brother influence on our children! Now we just have to get your parents to move closer!!!

Well I will leave for now and post a pictures/update after the race. We have almost a two hour drive a head of us :( ... Glad Cathy is driving, Thanks Cathy!!!



UPDATE******* I didn't break anything! We had such a good time and I cant wait for next year!

Polish workshop morning!!

Today we attended a Polish workshop! It was awesome, we learned so much about Poland's history and what we have in our area! We have a lot which is awesome. We even found classed that encourage our children to continue speaking polish. We met some really great people and won some great door prizes.

It's time to brush up on my baking! This is a Polish cookie calledKolaczki!!

It's been a while since I have baked so I figured I had better start brushing up! My good friend's parent are in town and they are coming over for a fire. I thought what a good time to introduce my Polish cooking skills! I told her this afternoon and she is really excited to try them! Let's hope they meet her expectations!!

I made Apricot and Lemon Kolaczki. For those of you who are wondering... Yea I made the lemon filling by hand. However, the apricot is pie filling :)

Oh and Toby supervised!

Lots of great things today!!

Today has just been a day of good news! Thankfully because work is CRAZY and I need some sanity!

It started off last night to be honest. I have a couple of Aunt's whom I am very close to. They are the Aunt's I have modled my "Auntieness" from. They mean so much to me and I hope to mean that much to my "kids" (nieces and nephews). Well one of them makes quilts for all the new babies in the family. I wanted to ask her to make two quilts for me that I could leave with our children once we get to Poland. However, we have an over abundance of new babies in our family and she has been busy making theirs. I just didnt feel right asking when ours weren't here yet. Well she emailed me last night making sure she stays updated on the adoption so she could make our quilts. I decided to just tell her that we plan on leaving two blankets with the children during our first visit and I would really like them to be her blankets. She emailed me back and asked what kind I would like... Of course I wanted farm ones! The farm is our heart and where our family started. It is where Aunt Isla and I cook and cook and cook. Where Rhett slid sideways on Jackson (our old pony) and now where I am watching our nieces and nephews do the exact same things we did as kids. I love the farm!!

Then at 1:37 I received a text from Kenton. I was in a meeting until 2:30 so it took me a while to get it. He told me a fib so I called to check in with him... Then he said clear your calendar on August 27... We are headed to USCIS.. FINALLY the appointment I have been waiting for. The final fingerprints and immigration approval for two children to be adopted!

Dear Rosetta Stone......

I am not liking Rosetta Stone.... I get the whole repetition thing, but I need the alphabet as a base.. This is driving me crazy. They flash some words and you match them up or repeat them. I dont want to do just memorization, I need an understanding.

Any way now that I have aired that laundry, we are happy to be signed up for a Polish Workshop on Saturday!! It sounds like it will be a language, cultural and food overview. Just a little brushing up and taking in all we can!!

Well off to lesson 4....

Today was absolutely wonderful...

Today we were all at the farm for our grandma's birthday! I brought my camera with in order to get pictures of us and the kids. It was such a great day, but we just couldn't get all of the kids to look at the camera at the same time!

The family asked a lot of questions about the adoption today. They can't wait for us to have our little ones running around the farm with our niece, nephews, and our cousins kids! Watching all of the kids today reminded me of how us girls and Rhett (our cousin) would run around the farm! My heart is and always will be at the farm. The farm is time for family, love and laughs. Oh and food, lots of food. Aunt Isla and I do a lot of cooking when we are at the farm. Our children will eat well from family traditions passed down from Aunt Isla. I am so grateful for her!! Her patience and passion for keeping the family traditions going is awesome. I hope to take on her role and have my kids say the same thing about me. Our Argue family traditions will soon encompass our children's heritage.. Polish recipes! Aunt Isla and I love beets so that may be a good dish to start with. My cousin Hal's wife also pretty knowledgeable with Polish traditions and I think she will be a great help to get some transitioned into this side of the family!

When we returned home this evening, we found a letter from immigration. I ripped the letter out of Kenton's hands and we eagerly opened it. It was the I797, but as we read it, the disappointment set in.... It was just the notice of action. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we thought it was our appointment date and time.... According to the letter we have to wait another 10-14 days... So for now I am left with dreams of Devon playing baseball with the kids, Hannah teaching them how to ride the ponies, Seth, the twins and our cousins kids running through the fields....knowing one day this dream will come true!

Home Study Apostille.... Check!

We finally have it. The Appostilled home study!

Now we just wait for fingerprinting (yes for a second time) and the U.S. part will be completed until we are matched with our children!

Oh will how these next couple of weeks will drag! At least we will be going to the farm this weekend for some much needed farm time! I don't know why I love the farm so much, but I do!

We LOOOVVVEEE FedEx Tracking!!!

I don't know what it is with today, but I feel very blessed. It started off when I got to the office...  Today the brand champion of my brand (not my supervisor, but I kind of report to him) wrote a very nice email to my boss on what an asset I am to the team. That just made my day! It is so great to have Sr level acknowledge your hard work!

I was able to score awesome Jason Mraz concert tickets for our 10th anniversary.Then I had dinner with some great friends. After dinner Rachael came over to our house. Kenton, Rachael and I sat by the fire and looked for shooting stars.

Then we all came in to go to bed (well Rachael went home)... I decided to look at the tracking number for the Apostilled documents coming from North Carolina..... The second to the last piece of our puzzle is now on its way back to us!!! That means we are just waiting for our I800a approval (hopefully in the next two weeks) and we are officially done with our dossier......Oh these next couple of weeks are going to drag!

Finally off to USCIS, for real this time

I dont have much to update other than it has finally happened. Our paperwork is on its way to USCIS (immigration)... Now we wait for our appointment.....

It feels like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders! Now I get to sit and watch the FedEx tracking number to see when it arrives :)... Gotta love tracking!

Oh and we sent our last piece of information to be Apostilled..... We are almost there...

What to do while we are waiting for corrections....

We heard from our social worker on Thursday and our corrected paperwork is now on its way to our international agency.... Our international agency is booming with people waiting or taking their second trips to bring their children home. I am assuming that will delay our paperwork a little bit... Once we have that they will forward the approved docs for USCIS...

Kenton and I have been studying our Polish... I must say we are getting pretty good with it. We have made flash cards that we can take with us, just in case we end up forgetting something. We have also started to pick out "options" for children's rooms. We have picked out three for a girl and three for a boy. I cant wait  to really pick stuff out. That part is getting harder and harder. We found some really good deals on the battery powered cars... However, we dont know if the kids will be too small or too big for them... YIKES..

We have also started asking questions like... I wonder what are some things people wished they had when they went over for their second trip... That leads us to ask our friends who are over or have gone over..

1. What items do you wish you would have taken with you?
2. What items are an absolute must have?
3. What items can stay at home?
4. What items can we take with to give or benefit the orphanage?
5. How hard is it to grocery shop? Did you find yourself eating out the majority of the time?

Any tips or hints would be great! We are really praying for two children, if any one has adopted two are there any watch outs?

Ok the I800A has been pulled back...

Well as we were on our way to FedEx I started to read the paper work and we think we found an error.... That means the I800A is not on its way to Texas... I cannot believe this.I called our agency to find out what we do now... WI already has the documents and they have approved them.I have a feeling we are out of luck....

There are days in this process when you really think you can't take any more and you are going to just cry. Today was one of those days. I didnt sleep at all last night because I was so sick over this. On top of that I had to be in the crawlers room at church by 7:30am... I laid in bed at 2:45am just talking to God and trying to understand why Kenton and I have to fight to get what we want. Then we had a guest speaker at church from our Lima partnership. I was actually pretty happy that I could understand his sermon (it did get a little weird hearing it twice, the translator was a little bit behind). It was almost like it was aimed right at me.... So I wiped away the tears and realized our kids may not be ready yet. God is making sure our paperwork gets to Poland at just the right time.... Funny how when you feel absolutely hopeless something comes in and gives you a small piece of hope to hold onto.

I800a is out the door!!! The last step!

As you can probably tell by the date on today's post, we didn't get the paperwork until 7/7/2012... I was so anxious for the mail lady to get here and of course she was an hour later than normal.... Total killer. To make sure we didn't miss her Toby stood watch. What a good big brother


Kenton and I were so excited we ripped open the package and started reviewing and completing the forms. Wellllll they are done and we are dropping them off at FedEx! This is the last thing we need before Poland will start the process of matching us with our children!

For our family and friends who have no idea what an I800A is well.. It is a form requesting that immigration allows us to adopt in Poland and have the children recognized as US citizens once we are back in the US. Once Poland matches us with our children we then send the I800 and that changes the approval from any two children to the specific names of our children.... Yep that means more immigration paperwork once we know our children!

This process should take 4-6 weeks. I will make another entry at our next fingerprint appointment. After the fingerprints it should take two weeks for the I797 (approval from immigration) and then we send all that to Poland.

Today it feels super official, we will have children soon!

Waiting so very impatiently......

We are expecting our "USCIS" package from Saint Mary's.. We spoke with them on Monday and they stated they were mailing it out. With Wednesday being a holiday we expected it yesterday....

My wonderful husband surprised me with an awesome massage yesterday. When I returned home he had a package hid... We were so excited and both giggling like kids.... We opened it up together and realized.... It was his shoes we left at the cabin.... You should have seen the disappointment on  our face.... So Auntie Beeters..... you fooled us yesterday :)!!! Needless to say, I am stalking the mail lady praying for that package to be in the mail... I have the I800A filled out, money transferred from savings, WI approval, and our copies ready to go.... Let us pray it comes today!

Wisconsin Approved the Adoption!!!!

The past three weeks have been a lot of back and forth trying to get things out the door and approved. We returned from the cabin this weekend to find the approval letter from Wisconsin...

I am not going to lie, we teared up.... I just can't explain the emotions that go into this process. One day you think things are approved and the next day they find SOMETHING else wrong.... This paperwork means WI finally had everything they needed. Now if we can just get the immigration approval I can start  worrying about when we are going to be matched with our children....

While we still have a ways to go, this is a MAJOR milestone and we are so happy to be here!!

We are moving along again....

It has been a while since I posted regarding the adoption. The last two weeks have been absolutely nerve-wracking! Trying to get the home study all squared away had its ups and downs. We are just so ready to be moving on! Well yesterday we received word from Nick and Lina that everything is good to go! Our social worker is printing of all of our copies to send to Nick.... We are moving again!

It felt even more real tonight as I wrote the check out to the Dept of Children and Family Services.... We are hoping to have everything sent into USCIS by the end of next week!! It feels like we are making progress again. I think that is one of the hardest things about this process... At times you feel like you are spinning your wheels and no one can help you!! However, we know in the long run it will all be oh so worth it. We are praying for a quick approval and a quick match (hopefully two).... We are ready to be parents!

The good and encouraging part of this is being able to see all of your new friends matched with their children. There are a bunch of you heading back to Poland or are waiting for your dates to travel back, we are praying for safe travels and lots of enjoyment with your new families!

Kid filled weekend...

This weekend K and I went back to visit the family. My sister had classes on Friday,Saturday and Sunday so we took the twins and buddy Friday and Saturday. We got down there late on Friday night and relieved my mom.. At first everything was going super smooth.. They went down to bed at 8:30 then K and I played with buddy... Then the three of us decided to go to bed... As K and I laid down we heard the famous scream..... C had been cutting teeth and woke up screaming. Since the twins share a room I ran to the room to get him. My sister had arrived home and followed me in.. We wanted to get him out before he woke up S.... We could not get him to stop screaming. Then I had to do the worst thing ever... Hold his arms down and his face still as my sister put ora jel in his mouth.. OH MY WAS THAT AWFUL... I FELT SO MEAN AND AWFUL... My sister laughed at me and told me to get used to it... Well S woke up so I grabbed her and gave her to Uncle K as Carrie and I tried to get C to calm down. Poor kid, he just screamed... We finally got C calmed down so I went to grab S from K and they were sooo cute. He had her on the bed just playing with her. She was giggling and snuggling into him. It was so darn cute.

The next morning my sister left super early (I think 6am). K and I got up before the kids, which gave us time to come up with a game plan. C got up first so I went up to get him. There is just something about that look on his face that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. His arms in the air, the smile on his face and his cute bed head... I picked him up and brought him down stairs and started warming up his bottle. About a half an hour later princess woke up. I gave C to my hubby and went to get S. She had the same look on her face and again my heart melted. Our big and first baby heard us up and he came up stairs. It felt good to be playing family.

Me n the kids dropped K off at his parents and then the kids and I went to my other sisters house to see my  other niece and nephew. My mom ended up being there it was so nice to see the kids playing together. UNTIL NAP TIME the kids were so tired and needed to go home and sleep.. NNN sleep they did, they were out for 2.5-3hours... Oh I forgot to mention my older niece H came back to my other sisters house. So I had 4 kids.... We had such a good time. I put the kids down, did the dishes and cut up fruit for all of us. Then we played board games!!  It was fun... Then the kids woke up. Since H hadnt seen K we all  drove over to K's parents house where we had our other two nephews... The kids and K went out to play baseball while I tended to the twins... Then we ordered dinner... and then I realized..... We didnt have the SUV (with the third row) we had the car... How was I going to get 4 kids (2 in car seats) and a husband back to my sisters in the car.... MOM TO THE RESCUE.... I called my mom and asked her to come get K and follow me back to C's house... C and my mom live 5 minutes apart and 30 minutes from my in-laws.... What a life saver.... Because neither one of the older kids wanted to be taken home by anyone other than me... Which makes me feel soo great! I love being an aunt!!!

I dropped H off at her house and headed to my other sisters to drop the last of the kids off. We had cake to celebrate my birthday, my mom's birthday, my sisters birthday and the twins... I know that's a lot of birthday's!! Then we headed home and arrived home around 11pm...

Ohhh I forgot to mention there are a couple of foods that I love and you can only get back home... My sister was sooo nice... She had them there when I arrived on Friday.. Cannolis and Cake from Roma (the best bakery in the world) and Mrs Fisher chips.. Salt and oil heaven! I think I packed on 20 lbs just from all the junk food!!

Anywhoo the moral of this story is it was a crazy weekend, but we loved it and can't wait to put our kids in the mix!! Praying that it is soon!!!

WI all apostilled!!!!

We are super excited to have our WI documents apostilled! Almost there!

Picking up some things here and there...

Now that we are waiting on the next step we needed something to keep our minds off the process. We hit a couple of garage sales and then hit up Toys R Us. We are starting to build the playroom up. We removed the Dvd's and put up the toy organizer. Next month I want to add the matching book organizer and toy box....

I know we don't know the age yet, but we have little nieces and nephews who come up to visit. Now my sisters don't have to lug their toys (I am sure they will be so happy). Of course, Toby had to make sure everything was perfect for his new siblings!

I also witnessed a milestone with my twin niece an nephew. While we were skyping they waved to me, which was their first time waving!!! I took a picture, it is so awesome to be able to share these moments with him. Both kids came flying towards the computer when they heard me. You see them drop to the ground and I couldn't see them. Then all of a sudden I had two little noses up in the screen screaming. They are soooo precious.

We are FBI Apostilled... Come on USCIS Approval!!!

Today we received one of the several most important piece to our process, the FBI Apostille!!!

It feels good to have this piece, now we wait for USCIS.....

We just can't wait.

This weekend we had our oldest nephew on my husband's side of the family up. I met my sister in law half way for the "exchange". The ride was about an hour and half there and an hour and half back to our house. B (that's what we call our nephew) sat in the back seat smiling from ear to ear. Toby, our dog, sat right next to B with his head on his leg and a paw on B's leg. I loved it, I can't wait to have our one or two (praying for two) children back there with Toby in the middle!

Once we got home B wanted to start up the popcorn machine and watch a movie. That was great, it was late and we were wore out! He picked out this documentary on Crocodiles and Alligators, which was another score! I love that kind of stuff. We all snuggled up in the theater seating and watched the documentary. Then it was time for bed. B is allergic to Toby so we slept in the spare room down stairs. Toby isn't allowed in that room down there.

The next morning we woke up and started with breakfast! B, loves to be outside and playing sports (just like us) we started off with basketball, then started up the pitching machine, hit some golf balls into the field and then realized it was lunch time. B wanted to go to this place for pizza and games. K and I were playing games with B. It was fun.... Then we ran out of tokens.

Once we got back all the neighbors were out tending to their yards and their kids were out playing. Our one little girl next door took a liking to B. They played and played and played in the back yard. Once the girls had to go in side we were back to hitting golf balls into the field.

All in all we had a lot of fun and realized....We are really ready for our kids!

Hurry and Get to FEDEX Before they Close!!!

All I have to say is that I am so impressed with our FBI department! Last time I posted the FBI sent the approval, but forgot to put the seals on them. They received them on Monday and we received them back today!!! Now that is some customer service!!

So we raced to get all of the paperwork, forms and prepaid FedEx envelope together. Then we raced to the FedEx facility and got it out to the State Department for apostilling !!!! Yeah, it feels so good!!

Now come on USCIS let's get this immigration approved and the I797 in our hands!!!

Sooooo Close....

Wellll I am happy to report we received our FBI Clearance with "No Records", but I am unhappy to report they had to be shipped back to the FBI. They forgot to put the seals on there!! Oh well, a little hiccup! We sent the back via Fed Ex, hopefully that will speed things up a little bit!

Happy Easter everyone!

How weird.......

Today we received a copy of our home study to read before they send it to St. Mary's. It was the strangest feeling to read "us" through someone else's eyes.  I had to giggle at a couple of things.. The first one being how many times they state you will be a good parent. I often wonder, does anyone actually put on there they wouldn't be a good parent. Would they even make it to this stage if they weren't fit? Just stupid little things I think of....

This makes me even more anxious to get the FBI fingerprints back. That is the one thing standing between us and USCIS (immigration) approval!!! Speaking of FBI fingerprinting... I had to contact them earlier this week and they were so nice. The gal I spoke with was so helpful and took the time to look things up for us. She could have just said.. "It's taking 10-11 weeks for paperwork", but nope she went in and found where we are in the process. She said we should see the documents back around April 13....Once we have that back we will be on the look out for USCIS fingerprinting... I keep saying I will feel better once the paperwork is in Poland. However, once that is done I am sure I will starting saying "I just want to see our referral". Oh the viscous cycle of wanting and waiting ;)

I haven't heard much from many of our adoptive buddies regarding referral and/or travel. We are praying that they keeping moving through the process and they are united with their children soon! Also, if anyone has any stories regarding their travels we would love to hear them!

Finished the last of the notarizing....

This morning we woke up early so we could be the first ones at the bank... The last time we were there the lady informed us that we would get in right away if we were there right when they opened. We were the first ones in line and had the last of our documents for our dossier notarized.

That may lead to many of our friends and family to ask...What's the next step. Well, we are waiting for our FBI clearance to come back. Rumor has it that can take up to 4 months and we have been waiting officially 3 weeks. We are also waiting for the approval of our home study so we can get our USCIS (immigration) fingerprints and approval. Traci is supposed to have our home study to Saint Mary's sometime this week. I am trying really hard not to "check" on it. I really want to let the process roll on it's own, but I am close to calling...

That means this is now out of our hands. We have all of our documents, education and pictures ready. Time flew by when we had things to do, but I am worried now that we don't have anything to do the time is going to drag. Hopefully the trip to Punta Cana will help :).

There may not be any more posts for a while... It seems like the next steps for us wont be for several more weeks! Good luck to all of friends who are still waiting. We are praying that you receive your referrals soon! And for those who received their referrals and are waiting for their trips, we pray for safe travels!

Last Home Visit Completed- Now we wait!

I know I stated last week we were going to have our last home study, but our social worker got sick! That means we had to move it to today and she just left our house. It was a pretty easy visit, we just had to go over the expectations for follow-up . We also went over some of the rules. A lot of them I had no idea existed, but the majority of them made me sad. You know that something somewhere at sometime happened for these "rules" to be printed out on paper.

Now that the home study visit is completed we have to wait for her to write it. Once that is done she will send it to Saint Mary's for approval and then we get to move on to the next step. The next step is USCIS fingerprinting, then we get to send our dossier to Saint Mary's! Hopefully we will have this all wrapped up by June. When I say all of this I mean the dossier.

That is all I have for now...We are moving right along...

I've been bad, I bought books for the kids...

When we started the adoption process I swore I wouldn't buy anything until we had a referral. This is primarily due to what happened to us during the years of fertility tries.

During our attempt to have children of our own, Kenton and I purchased everything and I mean everything. We had two car seats with four bases and over a hundred bottles. We ended up putting everything on Craigslist. We had everything but the baby. I didn't want to get that emotionally attached until I knew it was ok.

Then today I totally broke my rule. We were at the post office and they had a half priced book store next door. I decided to go in.. I picked up several of the classics, nothing gender specific. Kenton came in to find me and I had that smile... Kenton had busted me with that smile before, mainly reading the blogs. It's the minute I let my guard down and let myself believe it will happen. Oh well, it will happen this time. We just don't know when!

My fingers look like I have been playing in Kool-Aid!!

Today I went down and have my finger prints done for the FBI check! The officer told me it will take a couple of days for the red to wash off my fingers. I have to say with all of the technological advances I am shocked that they don't have a better system! The hubby will hopefully have his done tomorrow! They have pretty restrictive hours at the Police Department so we found a retired officer who does this for the county. He only charges $15 so we are just going to pay the fee to get them done.

We also had our "this is real" moment yesterday. We had to give our local agency the name of the pediatrician we plan on using. After lots of call to our friends we had 4 people recommend the same Dr. I called her up asked a couple of questions and we named her as our pediatrician! Wow that is way too real, it feels good to finally feel like we are going to have children. You start to think it is never going to happen after so many years of "I think I feel something" only to find out the procedure didn't take. We can't wait to be parents!

Now we are onto the last home study!! Wednesday night is it, the final visit.....

Today was a busy day for us!

Today was a busy day for the our family. It started off with an 8am meeting with the attorney and ended with an 2.5 hour long home study. Oh and Toby had a great day at daycare!

The meeting with the attorney was pretty simple, a lot of signing. We are all updated and ready to go. I still think it is weird to hear "our children and our children's children". I do feel better knowing that is all done!

We completed the individual home study tonight. It was pretty easy, the questions were focused on how I felt about my childhood and what morals I want to instill in our children. She said Kenton and I had the same answer on the what morals we want to instill. Ha, that is one question we didn't think about and we still had the same answer. We only have one more and this one will be at the house. We are scheduled to wrap the home study visit up next Wednesday. We are so excited to be moving to the dossier, our home study will hopefully be signed sealed and delivered in April. It is nice to get things completed.

I also have to say that we are extremely touched by what our friends have written about us. You guys mean so much to us and we will never be able to thank you enough for the kind words! There are several people who have gone above an beyond to help us in this process. Especially one angel, you know who you are and we thank you so much for everything! This process is humbling in so many ways.

Anticipation.....It is even worse when you have two analysts in the house!

We have our second home study tomorrow. Kenton and I have been playing "what questions do you think they will ask tomorrow". Why oh why can't we just go with the flow? It is too funny how you start to over analyze everything. You don't want to sound rehearsed, but you also want to make sure you are both on the same page. The good news is we are, which means we have turned into each other :). I suppose after 10 years of marriage that happens.

It is also funny to see how we answer some of these question now versus if we were in our early 20's. We just put so much more thought into what we are going to do. It is funny how you start to think about the bigger picture and it's not just you and your husband any more.

Caregiver Approval - Check..Criminal Back Ground - Check... Outagamie County Police Letter...Oopsies forgot about that ticket....

I am happy to report our Caregiver and Criminal Back Ground reports came back and we are good to go! We knew we hadn't done anything, but always hear those stories. Things seem to be moving right along!

Today we went to the Outagamie County Sheriffs Department to get our seal of approval for upstanding citizens. Kenton and I were sitting there and she came back and said "that will be $0.25". We looked at each other with this puzzled look, we were told it was free. Then she stated there was a ticket, I thought huh did I get a speeding ticket and forgot? NOPE it wasn't me it was Kenton. Then our minds flashed back to 2001... Our first year in Appleton... Being from the Chicago area yellow lights mean...Go faster! Well not here in Appleton, that means you get a ticket! We forgot all about it! We are learning lots on this journey...and being reminded of how long ago some things were!

Through this process we have learned that some of our governmental departments are useless! We spent a couple of hours on the phone trying to figure out where to take the Human Services clearance forms. After being transferred a million times we just drove it down there. No one seems to know what to do with the form... Really, we can't be the pioneers of adoption (that is super sarcastic, we have several friends that just went through this process). We left the form with the woman and she says she will call us once they know what to do..Crazy! We are just praying they find it into the right hands!!

Home Study #1 Complete!!

We just wrapped up our first home study! It was pretty informal and we have lots of home work! We have our next one Tuesday of next week! Now more paper chasing.

Flashback from IVF days...

Today I had my physical for the adoption. For some reason we still can't figure out why they cant get me to bleed. I drink tons of water and still they have beg my veins to open up. During the IVF process I had one nurse I almost smacked. After months and months of blood draws you start to understand where your best shot of getting blood is. To save myself the blown out veins and pain I would very nicely tell the nurse "left arm, butterfly needle and my veins roll. The best shot is in the side of the arm". During IVF I actually had a nurse tell me she had been doing this a long time and she knew what to do... Well she blew out both arms and they had to go through my hand. I just sat there with the I told you so look, I never had that nurse again!

Today when I sat down in the room I saw the nurse had a big needle. I very nicely said " I know this is going to sound weird, but you will need a butterfly needle and you'll have to go through the side of my arm" she looked at me funny and I said "I went through a very long fertility process that involved a lot of pokes". She smiled, I don't think she believed me. She did grab the butterfly needle and then put on her gloves. She kept moving her fingers around and then she pulled the finger off the glove so she could feel better. Then she said to me "you are a tough one". She finally got a vein and then it would stop flowing. I would start pumping my hand it would flow a little more, then stop. So we started moving my wrist around to get the three vials filled. She told me I had small veins... I just smiled and said I will never understand why I don't bleed! We didn't even need a band aid on the needle spot!

The tuberculosis test is interesting, they inject something under the skin and I have to go get it checked out on Monday. Since I was vaccinated as a child, they think it may pop as a positive. That is hilarious!

So any who, my physical is done. Now Mr K get on it!

Moving Right Along........

Things are moving right along. I will be visiting the Dr. tomorrow for my adoption physical. Annnddd drum roll please..........We have our first home study visit next Thursday! Now it is starting to feel very real. We are taking a half day to prepare and then meet. We are so happy with our local adoption agency. I am not surprised, my co-worker gave them a great recommendation.It is exciting to finally be on the road to having our children. I told Kenton tonight I feel like we are pregnant waiting to find out the sex of the baby.

On another note, we have met the most wonderful people through Saint Mary's. The built in support system is beyond words. Everyone is so willing to share their experience and give you tips. We are praying safe travels for those over there, on their way over there or on their way back. We are also praying for those who are waiting for their referrals!

Well that's it for now, we shall write on 2/2/2012 around 11.... I am sure everyone will want to hear about our first home study!

Three down....8 more to go in this series of classes!

Well, I may have bitten off more than I can chew with the classes. I am trying to finish my MBA, taking the parenting classes, trying to chase down documents, and work. I was ready to drop my MBA classes tonight and Kenton talked me out of it. I told him he definitely has to keep me motivated with the MBA... The parenting classes, I love those! It is getting us one step closer to our children.

I will have to say, there is some pretty good information in these classes. I loved the tips on how to help them bond/attach.We are just super excited to keep this train moving!

Here we come next step.....

Today we received the next steps from Nick at Saint Mary's!! We have to make our Dr's appointments, get three of our friends to write a little bit about us and start the parenting classes!

We also gave Nick the name of our home study place. He is going to contact them to make sure they have all of Poland's requirements. We also received my birth certificates and marriage licenses from Illinois. I have to say I am a little impressed with Winnebago County Clerk. She assumed we were adopting based on the request for 5 copies of each document and sent an instruction form for apostilling IL documents. That was really nice of her and our documents are now on their way to be apostilled (at least the IL ones are).

We are happy to be moving right a long, but it still seems so far away! You probably wont hear any more from me until we start the home study at the end of the month...I will be busy preparing for my April's baby shower!! I have known April for over 20 years. We grew up with each other and have continued to be friends through out all of the moves! I still cant believe she is going to Texas.. We have always been about one state apart. Now she is going to be all the way across the country... With a new baby.. She is killing me!! Now how are our kids supposed to play school together? That is what we used to play all the time. I am sure we will figure it out.

And we thought signing for the house was bad.....The poor Chase bank girl!

Today we took the first stack of paperwork to our bank for notarizing. BOY WAS THAT CRAZY! We don't think that poor girl knew what she was getting into. She was extremely nice and understanding, but we were there for over an hour!There were over 60 pages to notarize and our hands were cramping. Right after we had it notarized we had some awful lunch and then mailed it out...Now we are waiting for round two of the paperwork...This is going to be a long and tedious process, but we are ready for it.

We met with the attorney yesterday, boy was that weird... To be changing everything to our child or children and then to think about who would take him, her or them if something happened to us. It felt like they were our first real  "parental" decisions....So many decisions, hopefully we made the right ones. I think we spelled everything out pretty clearly, but it is still a lot to consider.

Officially Approved!!!

Today we received the approval letter and contract (that sounds weird, a contract for a child). Now we are going to read all the legal jargon. It's times like this I'm glad I didn't become a lawyer!

After the legal stuff it's onto the home study questionnaire.. They ask about your childhood, teenage and adult years with your family. Some of the questions are crazy!

We also meet with our attorney Wednesday to talk about our trust and other what not..

Here's the start of the paper chase!

WE ARE APPROVED--- Am I supposed to be this nervous???

We received the approval from St Mary's today and I was so excited... AND THEN... fear hit me, this process is grueling and is going to be a lot of work. However, we made it through the up and downs of the fertility treatments so I am sure we will be fine!!!

Now we start the paper chase, classes, and home study... Plus I am trying to finish my MBA before the kids are here next year... Yes, I signed up for one CRAZY year! Kenton is here to keep me saine... I hope....

Now we are waiting for directions and what documents we need first.... Yeah, we are moving right along!

Thank you Uncle Kenno!!!!

I have to give a big THANK YOU to Kenton's Uncle Kenno! When we told the family at Christmas, Kenno shared some of their genealogy with us.Kenton's Loewecke heritage can be linked back to Poland.



Thanks again Kenno!!