Updates

I'm pretty much just posting because I haven't in almost a week. Tomorrow are the kids' physicals for their paperwork. That's the last stop in our current paperwork train! We'll send that off to the agency and wait to be contacted to begin our home study. So I'll continue my breakdown of our steps:

We've already covered these:
1) Open House
2) Initial Consultation
3) Adoption Application
4) The Gathering of the Data

So to expand on number 5 (The Homestudy-$2,550):
We will have three meetings, at least 1 at our home and the other two at the agency in Skokie. We will have a new paper train to chug along on (oh my gosh, that was SO cheesy--delete that from your brain!), biographical information to fill out, adoption training to complete and more documentation to give the agency. The adoption training is required by DCFS. Since we are open to a trans-racial adoption (adopting outside our race) we will have to complete a minimum of 10 hours of training and education. Thankfully a lot of this can be done online and our agency will just review the material with us. We have to complete three separate videos BEFORE our first meeting with our adoption counselor.

Then we have to get birth certificates, our marriage license, tax returns, driver's license and auto insurance, proof of health insurance and proof of life insurance.

Then we'll write our "dear birthmother" letter but I'll explain that more when we get to it :)

We are also currently securing donations to have a big online auction on May 4th. Another family in our church did this to raise money for their international adoption (their little boy is coming home FRIDAY!!!) and they raised a TON of money through it so we're going to give it a try too! The donations are coming in and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll bring in a good chunk of money.

The clutch purse fundraiser and the wreath fundraiser are both going strong still!!

Sorry for the boring post!