Happy 2nd Birthday James!

Our little guy is turning 2 today! While he is in an orphanage in Haiti, not knowing that today is any different from any other, we are wishing he was here with us. We celebrated by having a bunch of friends over to watch the Cowboys game. We hope and pray that by this time next year, we can have a REAL birthday party with the birthday boy home to celebrate with us!! Happy birthday James!! And may you get through the terrible two's super fast.........

Waiting on the Haitian Consulate

We are SO so so close to be done with all of this paperwork! Yesterday we received our translated dossier back from the lady in France. Today, Brandon mailed off the four documents that need authentication from the Haitian Consulate in Miami. Once we receive those back, we will be ready to send everything off to Haiti!!!! A friend from church is leaving October 6th to go to the orphanage and is on standby to deliver our dossier to Dr. Bernard. Please please please pray we have our documents back in time. Otherwise we will have to mail everything there. That will not only be very costly, but also not as reliable. I would feel much better knowing it is being hand delivered, rather than sitting in a mailbox.

I will be so relieved once this part is done. It has been very stressful going through the home study process and gathering all the documents, going from appointment to appointment and writing letter after letter. Making sure documents get to the right place and that you send the right amount of money. Getting things notarized and having friends write letters on your behalf. UGH! I, for one, never knew there were so many governmental agencies with so many different purposes. Or that one agency could have several different addresses in the same city... really?!

Secretary of State

On Friday, Brandon drove down to Austin and got some of the documents authenticated by the Secretary of State. 3 hours there, 20 minutes getting the documents stamped, and 3 hours back.

Yesterday, we mailed off our I-600 A application, along with a hefty check to the USCIS office in Dallas. We will wait to hear if we are approved by them to adopt.

In the next couple of days, we will be scanning all of our documents and emailing them to Isabelle in France to translate everything into French. She will email them back, we will print them off, and then we have to mail some of them to the Haitian consulate in Miami to approve them. Then once we get that back, we will send the documents (known as the dossier in adoption lingo) to Haiti!!

After the dossier gets to Haiti, we will wait patiently and pray that the powers to be will do their job quickly so we can get the kiddos home :)

Something to look forward to... in 4 months, I will be on a plane to see my babies in Haiti!! SO. VERY. EXCITED!!!!

August update from NLL

I had anxiously been awaiting our August update on the kids. It finally came in my email. I got the following email:

Good morning Lori and Family,

We are happy to send you update of your children for the month of August. First, they doing well, Jovanika have one's hair cut because she was sick, but now everything is ok.

Jovanika's weight is 30 pound and height is 36 cm
James's weight is 26 pound and height is 32 cm

James was some capricious this month but they are well by grace of the Lord.

Best Regards

Nore /NLL

What?! First of all, I had to look up what "capricious" meant. As Brandon said, it sounds like we may have a house full of attitudes! But more importantly, I am worried about Jovanika. As any moms know, it is a bit alarming to get an email that says your child is sick and we had to cut off all her hair!! Immediately I want to know what was she sick with? Did she get lice? This is the hardest part of all of this.... you have no idea what is going on. I am very thankful however that whatever it is, they took care of it and she is ok now.

Here is the picture we got. Looks like James is still being "some capricious" and Jovanika is still beautiful even without her hair.