Haven't Updated In A While...

Here are the girls last week sharing the "favorite" rocker. It's finally gotten cool enough for long sleeves. We are busy making costumes for our local fair...It will be a first for the girls. I'm sure they will be overwhelmed. They are adjusting very well and have blended right into our large family. The love structure in their days and each one has a love of books being read to them or reading to themselves (looking at pictures). They have already blessed our lives tremendously and we are thankful to have them here with us. I'll post pics of the costumes once they are done.

Package Arrived...

We received the updated BC's today. Yea! Now we can proceed with doing the readoption in TX along with name change. We are hoping to do it ourselves and save some. It's so nice to get advice from those who done it before us.

The girls are doing so well. They have begun to come to us and hug us, now, unsolicited. We are so blessed that the adjustment has gone so smoothly. They love going swimming with us and playing in the backyard. They are trying to say more and more English words every day. Too cute!

Interesting...

Went to the Social Security office last Friday to get the girls' cards. I presented all the papers for the girls. The agent noticed that the date entered on McKelle's BC for having been logged into "the book" in MIXCO was dated before her birth. Oops! Thankfully, I had other documentation that verified her birth that the Social Security office could use. I came home and checked the original documents and they were in error as well. I was shocked that this was not found with all the checking of documents over the past two years. To miss this error...

My coordinator in country is looking into it and will try to straighten it out and get us a new BC with the correct log date. I hope it doesn't take too long as we would like to file for change of name and readoption in TX before Christmas.

Any how, the SS#'s should be here in a couple of weeks. Another interesting thing is that they said they couldn't issue the numbers back to back so one would have to wait a day before it could be submitted into the computer.

Very Interesting...

Just received our youngest girl's information from the USCIS. Discovered she has 3 siblings that all still reside with their mother. They are a 15 year old brother and a 11 year old sister and brother.
We thought that she likely did have siblings just because her mother was in her 30's.

McKelle had no siblings when she was born. Nice to have more history on both girls.

Now we can apply for their SS#'s. They said they need birth certificates, Certificate of Citizenship and the adoption decree. We hope to have their names officially changed by the first of the year. The paperwork never ends.

Life is Good...

The girls are adjusting very well to their much bigger family. McKelle understands most everything we tell her in English and is speaking more and more each day. She really enjoys using the sign language to communicate her wants. McCaule is picking up the English as well but I can tell has some holes yet in understanding a few things. She can imitate many of our words.

It has been a real blessing that they have been such good eaters (even salad) and sleepers. They really have thrived being on a schedule. They love going outside on the playground and using the cozy coup. We're not seeing very much play together yet, but that's normal for 2 y.o.'s. The other kids keep trying to get them to hold hands...funny. The cutest day of the week is dress up. The older girls (age 10 and 8) dress them up all morning in little princess dresses. This is a highlight of everyone's week. :D

McCaule Turns Two!

Pooh Party

"Winky" the elephant and quilt made by sister, McCrae

First bite of cake

HOME...

We finally have both our girls home with us. McCaule landed at DFW airport around 11:20 this morning. We are so excited to begin this part of the journey and leave the past behind to some degree but also reap the spiritual blessings the Lord has brought out of it.

Getting on a Jet Plane...

But I know where it's headed...Guatemala! My husband should make landfall 7:05 GT time and then tomorrow is the Visa Appt. with the embassy for McCaule. I made sure he had a sign Power of Attorney from me so he could process alone and my passport to prove that I visited prior as well to get the R3 visa which will allow for McCaule to have full citizenship upon arrival in the U.S. on Wednesday.

Please pray for him as he will be her sole caregiver and her as she makes the adjustment. Hope she remembers him since it's only been a month that we were there together.

We have three family members (including myself) suffering from some kind of terrible flu (lasts a week with 1/2 of the time having a high fever). Please pray that we are all fever free by the time she arrives home.

We Are Pink Again!!!!

Received notice from the consulate that we have our pink (pick up) notice. It is currently scheduled for Monday, June 8, but we are needing to push the date forward due to other responsibilities for June 15th. Needless to say, we are thrilled with this development.

Thanks to all who have continued to pray on our behalf. You have been a blessing to us and I know the Lord has been glorified.

Rod will be making the trip alone this time. We have a few details to work out...flights, lodging etc.

Currently...

This morning, my husband, 18 yo dtr and myself left the house at 6:30 to journey to Ft. Worth and beat traffic to redo our fingerprints with the USCIS. All went well there. Glad to have that done.

This afternoon, we received confirmation from our attorney that the I-72 paperwork requested by the embassy was submitted on Tuesday morning. Glad that was taken care of as well. Now we will wait to hear from them as to what they are doing with our file.

Our facilitator here in the states indicated that we could travel next week to get McCaule, but as of today we have received no word from the embassy. I know they have the correct email address so that's not a factor for us. We'll see what the Lord has planned and then we'll adjust ours. It's not like we don't have plenty to do.

McKelle continues to do well and her adjustment has been good. What a blessing that has been.

Another email from dhs

The DHS is not requesting yet another authorized copy of McCaule's passport. We already gave them one when we were there. Maybe they lost it?

The also stated "the USCIS Office of Field Operations has re-submitted your fingerprints and they have been processed by the FBI system" Interesting...we are still going to get our prints done this next week to cover all our bases. To say that I do not trust what they tell me is an understatement.

We are hopeful that this can be resolved quickly and we will be able to go get our little one soon. Pray that the details of that trip can be smoothed as we have tons going on during the month of June. I just thought May was busy...mostly trips by hubby and family reunion. I know the timing of the Lord will be perfect.

I can rejoice truly in all that has happened and know that getting the girls one at a time was best, difficult, but best. So glad to serve a Lord that knows better than me. :)

We have an appt. for prints...

We got our appt. for re-fingerprinting but it's not until the 28th. A year ago when we had this done, you could make your own appt., but this time they set the date and time. We'll go with it as at this point Rod does not have a conflict for that date. If we don't make the appt., they will consider the adoption abandoned. Scary!

We are eagerly watching to see how the Lord plays all this drama out. At this point, all we can do is watch and wait.

Nice to Be Home

McKelle appears to be adjusting well to life with 8 siblings. She is the center of attention. I can tell it's been a while since we've had a little one in the house as everyone is so concerned when she cries. She is sleeping through the night with only one waking, usually around 5 a.m. and then she goes back to sleep until 7. We've been putting her to bed at 8 p.m. and hope to work at turning that to 7 with only one nap per day instead of two. I think she was allowed to sleep whenever she wanted in GT and not on any time of schedule. She is a typical two year old, tantrums and all. She's throwing less of those as we deal with them. So thankful for having gone through this with the other kids.

We placed her on a regimen of yogurt, Primadophilus, oat bran, B-vitamins and iron to address her digestive issues. Thankfully, we are seeing great improvement. The Lord is good. We also switched her to soy milk as I think that may have been part of her problem.

Cake Face... Welcome Home Party

The Lord's Sovereign Will...

It is with sadness that I write, we will not be coming home with our little McCaule. The dhs portion of the embassy not only did not pass our file over to the visa division once the I-72 was corrected, but they have now notified us that our file is under investigation. Please pray that they Lord would soften the heart of the one in charge who is calling the shots. She is not an American but a Guatemalan placed in this place of power and she wields it. My heart hurts for her.

We are also now forced to renew our fingerprints once again. The good news is that we began the process before we left and now wait to get the go ahead.

The wonderful news is that we are bringing home our little McKelle. Of the two, we can see the Lord's blessing in granting her release as she is the needier of the two. We were blessed to celebrate her 2nd birthday here and share some special memories with both girls. Today we journeyed to a market to purchased special paper mache' dolls that are dressed in clothing reflective of the area from which they were born. The Lord also gave us special new friends who have cared for us. It is wonderful to see the body of Christ working together even abroad.

The Lord has stretched us in ways we would never have dreamed and been faithful to us and showing us that He indeed is in control of all things and for His glory and our good. It has helped us be even more Christ focused and may God be forever praised for that. I would have never personally chosen this outcome, but then I am not sovereign or all-knowing.

We are looking forward to our trip home and the graduation of our daughter from home school on Friday evening. His timing is perfect.

Today's News...

We did not receive a pink notice yesterday and were very disappointed. After a trip to the Guatemalan zoo, we decided to go eat dinner. One of the girls was not in a good humor and was screaming. After we felt like she'd eaten all she wanted, Rod took her back to the room. A gal who is also adopting asked whether we'd gotten the second appt. There was a gentleman at another table who interjected and asked if we were adopting and about our progress. He couldn't believe how we were being treated. Her is a very prominant figure in international adoptions. He told us he would inquire to see if he could help us out but couldn't give any guarantees. We are encouraged to see what the Lord is doing on our behalf and are waiting see what the final outcome becomes. Please pray for the Lord's will to be done.

What's Happening....

We arrived here in Guatemala on Friday evening after a 45 minute delay in our flight. We were met with folks wearing masks and asking us to fill out swine flu sheets. Our driver met us and got us to LaCasa Grande where we got an early to bed time of 9:30 pm.

Saturday we were awoken by the phone. It was our facilitator calling to tell us that our I-72 was never re-entered into the embassy. Thursday, the embassy would not take the file from our attorney because her name was not on the original file(remember we switched attorneys last summer). The next day, the legal aid who has always worked the case tried to submit the file and they would not take it from her either. These are new conditions they decided to implement. So it was up to us on Monday to get the file re-entered.

Saturday, we took a tour of Antigua with a guide from Victor's tour offices named Luis. He was wonderful. We toured a coffe plantation, a jade factory where I purchased an adoption ring, Santa Domingo, a refurbished convent that was destroyed in a horrible earthquake and now was made into a lovely hotel and museum. We also visited the market for goodies.

We got the girls on Sunday, but because it was Mother's Day here as well, the foster mother's did not want to bring the girls until later. It ended up being 7 pm before we got both girls and it was a very emotional thing as both fosters were crying and not wanting to leave. Once they finally left around 8 pm, we ate dinner with the girls and they ate everything in sight. We met briefly with our coordinator for the next day's plan of action.

The girls slept between us in a King size bed, but Rod and I got little sleep. The girls slept great but are active sleepers. Monday we got happy campers for them to sleep in. They are very busy little 2 year olds and are kind to one another.

Monday we went to the embassy to turn in the I-72. We were #1 on the list. While we waited to see Angela, the top dog, we walked down the block to get the girl's visa pictures made. That was the easiest thing we did all day. We then waited for our meeting. We also spoke with the consular section to let them know we were there and wanted a quick appt. They were very understanding but said they couldn't do anything about speeding up the dhs portion of the embassy. We had our meeting with Angela requesting a quick resolution and she was not moved. Just said she would do no special favors and things would proceed an usual and she could promise nothing. We did get a pink slip for McKelle for Tuesday morning. At least one of them is coming home with us.

Monday evening we had dinner with missionary friends. McCaule threw up in there car on the way over (I got car sick as well but no mess on my part :) We had a wonderful time and the girls were entertained by the Conners children. We got them to bed early for we had to be at the embassy at 7:15.

The appt went well and we are to get our final secret packet tomorrow at 3:30. We are still hoping to get an appt. for McCaule tomorrow morning . That would push our home coming forward a day, but if it works, that would be the best result in our opinion.

The girls are doing quite well and we all seem to be adjusting to one another. Some bowel issues with McKelle, but that has always been the case when we visited. I believe she may be lactose intolerant, but they've never had that documented. It's somewhat easier to deal with since she's older and we can feed her alternate foods.

More later...

Here We GO....

Our facilitator who is now in GT told us to make our flight plans for the weekend. She said we should have an appt. for Monday. It has been quite a battle with the passport office and embassy over the past few weeks. We don't know the details yet, but please pray for an uneventful trip.

The only date to return is Thursday as Wednesday is booked...cutting it very close to graduation on Friday. Whew!

Still waiting...

Found out today that a new BC was requested by the Visa Center in order to produce a corrected Visa. It was to be delivered today and then a new Visa Requested. At that point, all is to be taken to the embassy, hopefully tomorrow, and a request made for them to process the file since the error was with the Visa process which is an American entity. We shall see if they grant the request.

The embassy is closed on Friday for Labor Day. We really don't have any idea when we will be traveling. We do know that the consulate portion of the embassy has both girls DNA results and McKelle's file. They are just waiting on McCaule's. Be in prayer that our desires will be aligned with the Lord's.

Soon to be Home...