A little adoption blah, blah, blah

I've been kind of antsy about accreditation the last week or so. I wouldn't so much call it "down" or "discouraged." Antsy is the only word I can think to describe it. I had SO hoped we'd hear something around Valentines day.

There has been a report on FRUA that an agency has contacted their families to let them know that everything is signed and they're in the next accreditation certification group. They won't know anything official until next week (the 28th again???) Here's the post:

Posted on Saturday, February 23, 2008 - 09:18 am:

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OMG, we got an email from our agency sent yesterday that said that they got word (call) that they were in the group that was just reaccredited this week!!!!!!!!!!!!! However, it won't be OFFICIAL until next week! I sooooo hope it's true, our agency has always been very cautious about this, so it should really be true!!! Here's to ALL our agencies being in this group!!!

P.S. Ulymama, I know what you mean, we first started trying to adopt from Russia back in 2005, we went back to it last summer, it's just been forever....

May next week bring the news we've all been waiting for.....

Oh my goodness how I hope and pray with all my might that our agency is in this group! It has just got to happen soon!!!

So many people ask us why we have stuck it out with our agency this long. It is just not financially feasible for us to switch. We investigated a month or so back on switching and it would be another $30,000 for us and we just cannot do it. We are completely paid at our agency and all we'll need to pay from here on out is for travel and the "in Russia" stuff such as the Visa, doctor's visit, orphanage donation and consulate registration. Plus we really love our agency. They really have our best interest at heart and they are hurting too. Russia is their biggest program.

So, I guess we'll find out next week if we're in or out this month. What's done is most likely already done, now we just have to wait it out - again.

Edited Wednesday night 2/27: Still no word on accreditation. Our casemanager has been out of the office and I've been chicken to call the director. I've still got the 28th in my mind, so if we don't hear anything tomorrow, I'll call the director on the 29th.

Thursday Things

Not much to update. The house is just sitting for the last two days - ugh. I don't like these nothing days. They delivered the sheetrock on Monday and the plumber finished up his work for now. Got the Shower and D's tub plumbing "roughed in." We woke up to huge rain this morning and hubby stopped by the house after dropping D off at school. There were 4 leaks! I'm so glad we learned of them now, though, instead of after sheetrock had been hung. The hugest leak is coming from the chimney and then the others are around vent things. The contractor came out and hubby showed him everything. Hopefully they'll get that taken care of and this rain will leave! It's supposed to be pretty tomorrow (clear and low 60's).

Our lighting plan has changed a bit. We ended up about $750 over our lighting budget after our shopping spree at the Light Gallery. So we went to Lowe's to compare. We ended up getting about 75% of our lighting on Saturday! It was so fun. They were so much less expensive and very comparative in quality. Our biggest find was the hall lights and toilet room lights that were about $30 each at the Gallery were available for virtually the same exact light in a 2 pack at Lowes for $16.50 per two pack! We also went ahead and got our blinds for the whole house and our mirror/medicine cabinets for the Master Bath. It all fit into our van, believe it or not! We drove home in a torrential downpour, though, so we didn't unload it that night and I had to drive to church with my van loaded down LOL!

Here is D in the van on the way to church Sunday morning surrounded by lights!

This is the two-pack of hall/toilet room lights from Lowes
that is comparative to that at the gallery.

This is the light from the Gallery which is comparative to the Lowes two-pack.

Still nothing new adoption-wise either, not a peep about pending accreditation. I did read an update in ITAR-TASS about a flu epidemic that is in our region. So pray for those kids and caretakers and especially for our little one!

Countertops and Paint Colors

On Monday, we also took our first look-see at countertops.

We were planning to go with Granite in the kitchen, but the consultant said since I kept tending toward the "tighter" patterns, he suggested we look at this DuPont Zodiaq Quartz. I really liked the Autumn Light color. But if you click on the Zodiaq link, the color doesn't show very true, the Toasted Almond looks more like the Autumn Light does in real life.

In the Laundry Room; Media Room and the "charging station" counter we will have a laminate countertop in Sedona Trail.

Our paint color selections are:

• D's room will have white beadboard halfway up and then the top parts of the walls are PINK PANTHER (13 across and 3 down on the color chart).
  
• The main wall in the dining room will be FLOWER POT (16 across on the bottom row on the color chart.)
• The remaining walls of the house will be ONION (4 down and 9 across on the color chart.)
  

I'm still here

It's been a while since I've posted, I know. I've not had time to do anything but read a few e-mails when I've stopped by hubby's office and I don't think I've even been online since Monday.

Still nothing new with the adoption. The dossier is off and now we just wait for the additional documents to be translated and wait for accreditation. I really thought Accreditation would happen yesterday, on Valentines day. Maybe the end of the month afterall?

On the new house topic. I don't have many new pictures of the house because nothing new has been done to the outside. They have been working all week on the inside, but it's been plumbing work and getting things ready for insulation. Not much to take a picture of there. Today they set the insulation so we can't walk through walls anymore - Yay! The sheetrock will be delivered Monday which I take to mean that they'll begin working on that Monday!

We had to pick out paint colors and texture for the walls. So Monday morning we went and chose our flooring because I didn't want to choose paint before I chose flooring. So we picked out our laminate wood flooring, carpet and tile-like vinyl.

Here is everything together to show how they all blend together.

Here's up close of the carpet with the wood.

After we left the carpet place we decided to go to the Lighting Gallery and get started on our lighting choices. Wow, that was overwhelming! So many choices! But we took it one room at a time and it was fun. Here are a few of the lights we've chosen:

There will be two of these on each end of the kitchen along with 3 pendant (hanging) lights over the island. We still need to choose those elsewhere, they didn't have any we just loved.

This is the Chandelier in the Dining Room

This will be the Ceiling Fan/light in both the Family Room and Master Bedroom

This is the ceiling fan/light for the girls' rooms (click to enlarge and see detail)

This is the lighting fixture for the girls' bathroom (2 of these)

This is the front porch lighting, one on either side of the front door.

Heritage Day

D and our Casemanager, Irina

Last weekend we attended the Heritage Day event at our agency, Buckner International Adoptions in Dallas. You can click here to read an article and see a pic of D!

It was a really neat day. This is the first year they've combined all the countries together, we usually have our Russian Culture Day event and the other countries and domestic adoption do their own thing. It was at our Russian Culture Day on February 4, 2006 that we learned Viktoria's referral was on its way. We didn't attend last year, we just didn't have the heart.

D in "Ethiopia" making a bracelet and coloring a picture of the Ethiopian flag.

We had a little "passport" and we visited Russia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, the US and China. In each "country" we had a snack of that country's food and did a craft.

I was surprised how much emotion (aka tears) I would shed on this day. It started while we were visiting "Russia" when they turned on the Russian music, it just brought me right back to that playroom in Ulyanovsk. The tears threatened, but they didn't come. But during the last segment of the day, a Christian recording artist named Susan Gray gave a little mini-concert. She herself was a foster child and she grew up to adopt a daughter domestically only to have the birth-mother decide she wanted her child back after 4 months of the baby living with them. Finally about a year later everything was signed, sealed and the daughter was fully theirs. But they had a lot of emotional turmoil before it was finished. {I understand this was a private adoption about 12 years ago, so I'm sure this probably wouldn't happen today} Anyhow, during her second song my tears just began to pour. The next song too. While I had been taking D to the bathroom before the concert, Hubby had spoken to her a bit and told her a little of our story. When she saw me with my fountain of tears during the concert, I'm sure she could see more of what we'd been through. Afterward, she pulled me aside and gave me so much encouragement. The main point was that "God does not make a promise He does not intend to keep! The baby that did not come home was not your child. But that doesn't mean that your child is not ready now or soon." The child we will bring home to be our daughter was most likely not even born yet when we received Vika's referral in February of 2006.

The song that made me tear up so much is Hold On. The first half of the song I could picture our child waiting in the orphanage for us. The second half of the song was speaking to me as a waiting mommy.

Here are the lyrics:

HOLD ON
"I've seen the way you cry at night
in the silence of your room. Seen you hold your pillow tight
when no one's watching you.
Heard you cry out for protection
like an orphan left alone.
Well your cries have reached heaven
and I want you to

Hold on
I can hear you
You're not alone, no, no, no,
And through the storm
I'll be with you
Keep the faith and hold on.

You've heard me called the great defender
to those who feel afraid
You've heard that I will never leave you
But you feel I'm far away
You've been waiting for your answer
And believing in my name
Well I've spoken to the Father
And your answer's on its way
But until that day . . .

Hold on
I can hear you
You're not alone, no, no, no,
And through the storm
I'll be with you
Keep the faith and hold on.

I was with you through the fire
I'll be with you in the rain
And I know that you are tired
But you've come so far so please
Don't turn away

Hold on
I can hear you
You're not alone, no, no, no,
And through the storm
I'll be with you
Keep the faith and hold on.

It wasn't all tears and emotions. There was lots of fun too. I was so excited to see my friend KK from Kansas who has been waiting for a referral from St. Pete for as long as we've been waiting for Vika's court date and now this new adoption. It was awesome to see all the little ones who came home from China this past summer. LiLi's mom was also very encouraging to me, so if you're reading this, M - thanks for your words as we were leaving.

One of the really neat things was the Chinese dragon dance. D also had her picture made with Mr. President in the US adoption zone.

Weekly Home Building Report

• We now have a chimney!
• We have the wood on the front porch (called Hardie-board)!
• 

• And ta-da . . . we have shingles!

Here is the back view of the house. I don't know if I've
ever posted a back view before.

• Tune in next week for Bricks and Soffits!!

My Fed Ex Man is back in my life!

I know, it's sad. But whenever I see a Fed-Ex truck my heart skips a little beat. It's been a long dry spell with no Fed-Ex man. He's back in my life and I'm just so happy.

We've got our dossier paperwork back and I've got it all copied and I'll send it to the agency tomorrow. Then off to Russia to be translated and hopefully accreditation will come within the next two weeks. Just in time for my hot off the presses dossier to be registered and then we'll be officially waiting for our referral - again.

I'm ready!

When you come to my blog, do you ever think to yourself . . .

"Ummm, I thought this blog was supposed to have something to do with adoption, but it just always seems to be Bob the Builder gone awry."

Well, my friends there has been very little going on adoption wise for us. We did finally send our dossier documents off to Austin last Friday and I 'got to' check the Fed-ex website for a tracking number again. The Secretary of State received it this morning.

Other than these documents, our dossier is ready to go as soon as accreditation comes. Our agency has only one more signature left and then the final sign off from the Ministry of Education. It should be any day (((any day))) (((any day))) .

I've pretty much been in adoption detox for the last 6 months. It's almost as if we're beginning a whole new adoption instead of just continuing this one forever and ever and ever. D and I were at WalMart the other day and I bought a new journal. It's red. D's adoption journal was just like it but pink. Viktoria's journal was just like it but rainbow colors. D knew immediately why I was buying it. She said, "is that my baby sister's new book?" So, she knows.

I haven't written anything in it yet.

I think I'm scared.

I AM beginning to have a fresh wave of excitement and anticipation. I think it is imminent now. Kind of like nesting. Ummm, we're building this baby a whole brand new nest LOL!

I am so glad we've had the house building to keep us occupied these last months. It has been a sanity saver for me. I figure the new home and the bringing of the new child into it all fit under the category of the Long and Winding Road to Home. It's all about Home.

So, hopefully you'll have some exciting things to read from us in the next months to come and I hope you don't get tired of looking at paint previews and carpet colors until the Adoption gets in full gear again.

I can feel it in my Mommy bones - we're about to begin again.