Tax Return Shopping and a Social Worker Visit

Yesterday Brent and I spent much of the day shopping and getting almost everything we need for A's visit. We got a bunch of clothes, some shoes, a pillow, a backpack and suitcase, cute kid towels, a toothbrush, some crayons and paper and 2 new smoke alarms and a carbon monoxide detector.

We still need winter coat, hat and mittens - but this we're waiting until the last minute to see what the weather will be like. We need a car seat, but my parents said they'd buy that for us. And we need curtians, but picky me could only find ones that I liked at Ikea, and my parents are going to visit my sister and will pick these up for us on their way down there.

A's room looks so nice. I can't wait to post pics, but I want to wait until the curtains are in. It seems so weird that this room is actually functional now and has kids stuff in it instead of just junk storage.

Now the junk storage room is Brent's office, which we were conveniently putting off cleaning until we got a phone call yesterday from our mini-homestudy lady saying that Wisconsin is requiring her to make a home visit. Eek!
There is soo much that I wanted to get done before we had to deal with this home visit. Really the only things I need to do are put up the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detector - she's not looking for June Cleaver's home. But I still want to make a good impression - and our home is far from that. It's one thing when guests come over and just stay in the living room and kitchen, but this is going to be a full house inspection - including basement ~shudder~

Ok, I'm done panicking. I have a room by room list of all the things to do. And actually this is a blessing because we haven't even applied for our real homestudy yet and this home visit is just something we won't have to do later. So anything that speeds up the process is a good thing.

Excuse me while I get to work. :)

Little Brag

I entered my first Worth1000.com contest and got 9th place out of 31. :) Way better than I thought I would do.

One month and one day

I can't believe that this hosting thing is all happening so fast! One month from tommorrow!

On Saturday we had a meeting with all the other families - outlining the schedule and talking about what to expect. The adoption coordinator was there too so we got to talk to her and she gave us more paperwork and things to do.

So now we are applying for our homestudy, applying for our I-600A (Govt. form for adopting an orphan), and getting our pre-lims together (telling Russian govt. that we are interested in adopting A). All that means is a lot of paperwork, a lot of apostiles, and a lot of filling out the same information over and over again.

Yesterday Brent applied for his passport, which put us over the $1000 mark for spending on this adoption. It seems like a lot, but in the whole process, it's just a drop in the bucket.

A cool money story though - we plan to apply for financing and grants and such to help pay for the process, but we can't really do that until our homestudy is finished, and that in itself costs $3K. If we had to save that all up it might take us a couple of months, and we sure didn't want to wait. We also did our taxes right hoping we'd get an extra hundred that would help. Nope - we're getting enough back this year that it will pay for our homestudy, plus all that extra stuff I listed before (almost another thousand). That was completely unexpected! Previous years we've had to pay in thousands, or come out exactly even. So we're very very thankful for that, obviously - and now we have a little more reprieve before the big expenses come.

That's it for now. :)

Blood Draw take two

I forgot to update that when I went for my re-blood draw at the clinic, they had me lie down and all that so I wouldn't get sick again and all that.
But she was in and done so fast that I didn't even notice! It went great! I pointed out all the places the nurse guy tried to draw and she called him a few not so nice names.
I'm never going anywhere else for a blood draw again.

Diagnosis

I feel better finally. I took off of work on Thursday because I still felt so sick. But Friday I was fine again.

Our car is also fine. Apparantly some valve got frozen open and it flooded the engine. Ask Brent if you really want to know, because I have no idea what was wrong. But it's back and running great again.

So everything is happy in the Homer home once again. :)

What a craptacular day!

I have to complain, so you have to listen.

This morning, at the bank, the car battery died. It had died on Sunday evening but then we jumped it and thought it was fine. Then I got out of the bank and it wouldn't start. Yech. So I called Brent and he brought his work's van over and jumped it. We immediately drove to the battery place and got it replaced.

Then, around noon a guy was supposed to come around and take my blood for life insurance application. He was late so I was getting very cranky and hungry (had to fast for the blood draw). He finally got there a half hour late and I told him he had better be good at what he does because my veins kind of suck. First try, no go. Second try, no go. Third try, finally got it - but it was going so slow, he said. Like barely anything at all. I started to feel a little light headed (no big deal - it happens almost every time I bleed for whatever reason). Next thing I know, Brent and this nurse guy were yelling at me and I was staring at the celieng. Yeah, I fainted. I asked if he had gotten enough and he showed me his little vial with about 3 drops in it. So now I have to make an appointment to have the clinic do it all over again. Sigh.

So, thankfully I had really nothing else to do that afternoon, and I was feeling kind of sick from the fainting episode, so I settled in for a long nap and afternoon of relaxation. Ha! Right! Brent calls a few hours later - he was bringing a friend home and the engine light went on in the car and it went into 'limp home' mode (when all the extra stuff shuts down and the car just puts all its power into getting you back home). I called the car place and they said they'd take it Friday, but Brent wanted to take it and leave it there tonight. So he picked me up and we went to my MIL's house to borrow her car and take our car to the shop.

Now I am sitting home while Brent is at church - still feel kind of sick, and sad that it's Wednesday because Brent won't be home until after I'm asleep.

What a sucky, sucky day.

First Homestudy appointment

We had our mini-homestudy appointment this past Monday. It went great. The lady was really nice, and she said she was looking forward to working with us. She said she normally counseled unwed pregnant mothers, so it was a nice change to be talking to a couple who was excited to adopt and become parents.

This appointment was mainly a criminal background check, and then she gave us the application packet for a real homestudy. I plan to crack that open this weekend, and I'll make Brent and I work on the autobiography part on Monday maybe. It's long, but doesn't seem near as bad as the other application we were working on.

After the appointment we met the facilitator of the hosting program - we had to sign some paperwork her, and she gave us a DVD of A (boy we're hosting). We went to Fazoli's for dinner and Brent had brought his laptop so we could watch the movie right away. My heart melted all over the floor when we watched it for the first (and second) time. Since then we have both watched it a couple times a day and showed it to all family and friends. (We're working on getting it online to show our non-Sheboygan family). He is the cutest in the entire world. I am not at all bias - he actually is the cutest. ;)

We also got his medical history and there are no concerns with that. We found out he has some siblings, but have no idea if they are orphaned or still with their parents or what. All it said was that his mother had birthed 3 children before him.

That's all we know for sure. I can't believe it is next month already. We both are getting so excited.

Oh yeah, the facilitator also said she adopted through this program 2 years ago and the whole process only took her about 6 months. So if we can have A home by Christmas (and his December birthday) it would be so awesome!