New Addition to the Family!

I'd like to announce that we have a new addition to our family. I have been whining about this for months. I finally broke my husband down! I did everything but throw myself on the floor and scream and kick. That was coming next! So, without further delay...meet our new kitty...?????(he doesn't have a name yet!)

So, no news on children, but here is my new "baby" for right now.

Update...there is no update!

OK, so I thought I would post to say that we got an update from the agency telling us that there is no update. For me, I guess it's nice to just hear something instead of wondering. Although, it's a little frustrating because there is no good reason that the re-accreditation is not being signed. Here is what was written and I'll let everyone else decide and/or make an opinion:

"As the holidays approach I understand that your concerns mount about when will you adoption occur. Adoptions are still occurring in Russia. We will have 6 families complete their adoptions this month, 11 waiting with children chosen to complete their adoptions, 4 families waiting to travel for the first time to meet their children and 3 families reviewing children.

While this is positive the referrals are not coming as quickly as any of us would like. We are still restricted due to the re-accreditation issue. With re-accreditation all adoption agencies are waiting for the ministry to issue re-accreditation certificates. We see no definitive obstacles preventing this so we think it is only a matter of their bureaucracy initiating this process. I do not have a prediction as to when this will happen accept to say that we are expecting this at anytime. How this affects you is in several ways. Usually we operate in over 30 regions but without this accreditation we need to process your adoption as an independent adoption and only a few of our usual regions have an independent legal process to move forward with adoptions. I believe that our current number of regions operating with an independent process is 11. You can see how that restricts referrals just by the number of regions. Being forced to operate currently under an independent process also affects how referrals are given and how we can present referrals to you, thus over half of the independent process regions require blind trips. This delay in adoptions is creating problems within Russia with a backlog of children in the regions filling the orphanages, shelters, and hospitals to overflowing. I heard that several recent child deaths in Russia have been attributed to this overcrowding. While there is internal awareness of the urgent need to open the adoptions up this delay highlights a reality of all adoptions in that they are political processed that can be insensitive to the needs of the children and more responsive to political whims or delays."

The kicker in there for me was that children are dying because of this. I know that Steve and I are not the only people sitting here waiting to be parents! There are children there that need parents and paperwork is NOT being signed because WHY? That's what's a lot frustrating. Perhaps I'm just a bit more irritated due to the holidays. Well that and I went to a party last night, oh forget the comment I was going to make. I wont' have a pity party here.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I have finally gotten in the spirit this year and I think our house looks great! We'll be having a house full on Christmas Eve. That should be fun!

It's beginning to look a lot like.....CHRISTMAS!

OK, so I haven't been bit by the scrooge bug yet so I have been busy decorating for the holidays. It will be so much more fun next year when there are 2 little ones running around. I thought I would post some pictures of the house all decorated! I have spent the past 3 days doing this. Steve stepped in today and hung the icicle lights on the top part of the roof. We weren't going to and then the next door neighbor said we could use his ladder. Needless to say, I was off to Costco to buy more lights. I was a woman on a mission! Here are some pictures of the house. We couldn't have timed it better for Buddy to look right at the camera. I think he was wondering what the beeping noise was from the self timer. Too funny! Well, the pizza is just about here. Another gourmet dinner by Teresa.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I spent it with Steve at the fire station with the other families. Of course we ate plenty and I left with a very full belly.

No new news. Got an email from the director stating that there was no update. It was nice to be kept in the loop. Still hoping that all of the paperwork will be signed by the end of this month. Things are going to start slowing down with the holidays coming.

Hope everyone is well!

Back to #3!

Well, I just got confirmation the other day via email that we are now back at #3. This is good news. Nothing new on the reaccreditation signing though. Still hoping that it will get signed by the end of this month. I was worried that Russia would shut down for the month of December. I thought I had read that somewhere. I was wrong. They basically shut down for the first 2 weeks of January. I just really don't see how we could be traveling by the end of January like the director told us could happen but I won't entirely rule it out. So, still playing the waiting game. However, the days seem to just be flying by. I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week. Yikes. That's good and bad news. It means the kids will be here before you know it. Bad news is, I have to start Christmas shopping . Oh how I dislike the holiday hussle and bussle. Just call me scrooge. That's it for now.

Girl's Room Pictures

OK, so both of these rooms are still a work in progress. I just wanted everyone to see how they are starting to look. I mentioned before I believe that we are going to have a mural painter come in and paint both of the rooms. I am also adding a picture of the signs I made with their names for their doors. Thanks to Steve, both of the rooms got finished on this lovely 3 day weekend. It was actually nice to stay home and get some of this done instead of running around in the motorhome. Also, thanks to my VP @ work who lent me all of his power tools! I could NOT have imagined hammering in all of those nails one by one! Plus, that nail gun is now my new favorite power tool. I could have put 3 million of those nails in the wall! Just call me tool belt diva! That's it for now.

Pictures of our boy's room!

OK, I mentioned that I would post some pictures of the rooms as we progressed. Well, here is the boy's room. We are pretty much done in there. We are going to have a mural painter come in and paint some cute stuff on the walls. Not too much though, I dont' want it to over power the room plus I still have to have room on the wall for some cute trinkets.

That's pretty much it. I don't have any updates. We're still #4 on the list and waiting. I'm still hoping that we're home with the kids before summer. Actually now I hope it's sooner seeing as we signed up for a motorhome rally in South Carolina in May. It would be a lot of fun to take them to Mrytle Beach. I just love that place! I don't know how much I'm going to love being in the motorhome with TWO kids who are bored to death!

Hope everyone is doing good. Enjoy the weekend!