There's good news and bad news...

Checking Horsey's temperature

Last week I had hoped to get news that our homestudy had passed review and was ready to send off with the I-800A application. Not so. Instead there were about 15 points outlined that needed to be added or changed. Ugghh! I felt frustrated and bummed for 2 days then pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I spent a couple of hours late Thursday evening getting my information and sent it out on Friday morning. I'm not sure if I had enough documentation or not.
And now for the good news. Every one of our dossier documents has been certified and authenticated-including Steve's Ohio birth certificate. After sending it to the Chinese Consulate in New York, I was informed it would take at least 4 weeks to be completed. What a nice surprise for it to arrive today! We will, of course, need to have our homestudy and the I-800A approval certified and authenticated eventually before our dossier can be sent, but God is proving to me that I cannot speed up His timing. {Wouldn't you think I'd have learned that lesson by now?!}

Jacob at the spelling bee

Another real praise in this whole process came a little over a week ago. We have been planning to take all of the kids with us when we go to China again this time. Maimie, however, didn't have a birth certificate or a passport. After taking all of her documents to Springfield and hand delivering them, we eventually were issued a birth certificate for her. Early in December we applied for a passport for Maimie. We were notified that they wanted to see the original certificate of citizenship. I wasn't excited to let that out of my possession. But about a week or so ago we received the original certificate along with Maimie's passport. Yippee! Maimie was excited that she would get to travel with us to get her baby sister.

Disgusting looking "groundhog loaf"...and, yes, we ate it!