Been A While

I think was May when I posted last. Life has happened since then...We've got two college students now, taken a trip to Disney World (once in a lifetime, all expenses paid type), had a great time at the XL and Sola Conferences. Not all has been wonderful but all has been totally orchestrated by our Lord. Thankful.

Public Speaking in 4-H

Birthday Party Guests

Summer Fun!

Latest Doin's : Pics Taken

Playing Chess
Truths learned at home and in the toddler nursery at church... a gift from them.

Lovin' that Christmas Eve snow.
Our girls just a swingin'
Doesn't that food look yummy? Ready for the 4-H food show.
Now here's some bad dudes!
Pretty girls showing off dresses made by their Granna.

Merry Christmas 2009

Wishing all who read this blog a very Merry Christmas. We are blessed beyond measure and thankful that we have this special opportunity each year to remember what our Savior did for us on our behalf. To become like us, experience life as we do with all the trials and sufferings and to do it perfectly without sin even once. I am so thankful He provided a way to reconcile my sinful life in exchange for His righteous one in God's sight. How humbling it is to think on these truths as we remember the sacrifice he ultimately made. Hallelujah what a Savior!

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