Where we are

Oh I feel so behind!! I still need to post about my grandma and aunt's visit, our garage sale, Mother's Day, what my girl's have been up to - finger painting! and recovering from croup/virus'.... yikes! But I'm so encouraged to know that people are out there praying and wondering where we are in our process these days. So thought I'd do a quick post before heading to bed =)

Let's see - we are almost done with all of our home study paperwork. It's been taking a lot longer than I thought. We have to prepare an autobiography, marriage reflection sheet and parenting reflection sheet along with all the other stacks of documentation. I will say writing everything has been hard. I worked almost 3 hours just on the Parenting worksheet last night (of course yall know how wordy I can get)! Mind you, we can't work on things till about 7:45-8 p.m. so we have been moving slow and steady. We had the goal to get it sent back to Lutheran Social Services by the end of the week but I'm seeing that we will have to get it out at the beginning of this week. Once we get it in, we should have our first home visit in about 2-3 weeks. Just writing that made my tummy turn!

We haven't sent in all of our notarized, signed, filled out orientation paperwork to AGCI yet. Still working on gathering some funds =) Looking into some loans but also planning another garage sale at our house on June 12th since our first was so successful! We have until mid-July to get that all sent in. Of course that delays things because we can't start our dossier until we get the contract and orientation paperwork sent in. We are still selling coffee through our virtual coffee shop www.justlovecoffee.com/Lewisfamily and hoping that will pick up some. We've had 3 customers! (It'd be a great Father's Day present if you're interested in helping us and other orphans in Ethiopia!)

We got our first round of fingerprints done last week and sent off for our FBI request for our records. Our paperwork said the wait is only 2-3 weeks for adoption but the word on the street is that this clearance and response takes a lot longer. We have to have the response and clearance to complete our home study. Here are some pics of our trip to the Helotes Police Dept.

Pictures taken by Claire (except the last one!)
Our sweet girl
Taking a picture of mommy (can't wait to tell yall about the necklace I'm wearing in this picture!! It was a gift from Neil for Mother's Day!)

I love this man!!

So that's where we are. Still gathering paperwork, slowly progressing, wishing we were moving a little faster.... We continue to be blessed by so many and humbled by the love and support we have gotten.

Hope to write again soon! With so much going on here with fundraising, parties, recitals, meetings, life - it just takes awhile to get around to it!