Next Top Model?

Just wanted to share some candid shots of the wonderful Miss Samantha as she does a little turn on the cat walk! She turns into a total ham and poses as soon as the camera comes out. Everyone says to put her into modeling, but our biggest fear would be the minute the photographer took out his camera, she'd turn shy and not cooperate. So for now, mom and dad will be her audience! Hope you enjoy the photos!

Thanksful

It's never to late to be thankful. Thanksgiving 2008 has come and gone but it is never too late to say what we are thankful for. I for one am thankful for my husband and my beautiful daughter, our families, my parents, our special friends, Robin, Roger, Keira & Kristi Maupin and all our other extended family and friends. I am thankful for our health, our good jobs, our home and the wonderful live we have. I am also very thankful to Samantha's birth mom and dad for if they had not made the ultimate sacrafice, she would not be a part of our family and some how I know her birth family and God knew that she belonged with us. I too am thankful for China letting us adopt a second child. We hope and pray that it will happen soon.

So, even though I was not able to post before now, I am truly thankful for everyone who has touched my life! God Bless each one of you.

Denise

Visiting Santa

Today we took Samantha to the Mall of America to see Santa. For those familiar with Santa at the Mall of America this year he is in a different location (by Lego Land) and it was a different Santa. Not sure if the "old" Santa is just there during the week and has weekends off or not, but the "new" Santa was great too! This is the first year Samantha has not been afraid of him. She walked right up to him and crawled up onto his lap. She was very chatty with him too. She told him she wants a Computer Cool School. In early December we to to the local VFW and have breakfast with Santa too. Looking forward to that, as well as making Christmas cookies and doing some other fun holiday festivities.

Hope you enjoy the photos!

Lost (No Not the TV Show)

Where or where has our I-800A gone? Oh where, oh where can it be? That is the question of the day! It's official, we consider our first I-800A package that was sent to the National Benefit Center's lock box on 10/14/08 as being lost! No one can locate it and the NBC has diligently looked for it and it has not surfaced. Thus, we are back to square one with filing our paperwork for USCIS/Hague Approval.

At this point, I'm looking at it as another bump in the road to our daughter and for whatever reason, maybe at some point in the future, we will understand why this bump happened. All we can do at this point, is move forward and resubmit our I-800A for processing and hope that the NBC/USCIS has a pickup in their approval time and/or keeps it right at 90 days. We've already lost precious time, but there is nothing we can do about it.

Like I said, just another bump in our journey to Madison! Hang on sweet pea, your family is trying very hard and diligently to get approval so that when we are matched with your referral, we will be ready to go!

Hugs from your mom, dad and big sister!

Start of a New Week

Tomorrow is the start of a new work week and we are hoping and praying for good news from the USCIS/NBC that our long lost I-800A has been found and will be entered into the system accordingly! Come on NBC you can do it!


UPDATE: Not a damn thing today and I even re-sent the email the the lock box support people asking them to send an acknowledgment that they had received our emails. If I do not hear from them by Wednesday, I'm going to call back and try and get to the bottom of this! Stay tuned . . .

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!

I guess this headline says it all, huh?

I-800A Troubles?

Tomorrow it will be our 26 month LID anniversary and one month to the day that our agency sent our I-800A to the USCIS lock box in Chicago. As of today, the NBC still says they have not received it and when I checked with our credit union they indicate that our cashier's check HAS NOT been cashed yet. So, where in the HELL is our I-800A package? I fear it may have gotten lost in the mail. The NBC center contact (via email) was going to send an email to the local office here in Minnesota to inquire about the application. She indicated she'd let me know as soon as she hears back. If I do not hear from them tomorrow morning, this momma is going to make a call to the NBC personally to try and find out what the heck is going on! Come on, one month and NOTHING! This friggin process takes 90+ days as it is to get approval, and one months of nothing is for the bird! Sorry for the vent, but simply eating chocolate is not cutting it!

I'll let you know what I find out.

Where We Stand Today

We are now officially just 11 days shy of our 26 month LID anniversary. The CCAA continues to refer very few days each month, thereby an ever increasing back log continues in the referral department.

As many of your know, back in February 2008 we met with our agency about discussing what other options we had due to the ever increasing wait times in the China Non-Special Needs (NSN) Program. One option to explore was our agency’s Special Needs (SN) Pilot Program, United in Hope. After our meeting on February 28, 2008, we decided to proceed with a possible SN adoption. As we previously indicated a new list of children who would be available for adoption through the United In Hope Program was due to our agency on March 1, 2008. With the many changes to the United In Hope Program since that time and in order to bring these adoption into compliance with the Hague Treaty, the United In Hope Program was once again restructured.

On July 30, 2008 we had a meeting with one of our agency’s social workers so she could obtain the necessary information from us in order to complete our home study update. We also both had to have another adoption physical so our family physicians could complete yet another updated medical form. During the months of August and September our home study update was written, sent around for signatures and then sent off to the USCIS for processing, along with our I-800A form. We are currently awaiting fingerprint appointments.

We are also awaiting news of our referral. As I indicated above, our agency’s United In Hope Special Needs Program was recently restructured. We know that our agency’s contacts in China are diligently working on findings us a possible match. Just recently we had a little bit of movement and I consider it a step in the right direction. Our agency had us complete a new Letter of Intent / Motivation to Adopt Letter, along with two other forms. We are hopeful and take this as a positive sign that our referral may be "just around the corner". Any and all prayers would be most welcome! Thanks and we'll keep you updated should anything arise.

Basically, we are in a state of flux with regard to the adoption. We need the USCIS to speed up some, as we understand it is taking a minimum of 90 days to process the I-800A forms, we are hoping we will be on the short end of the wait time! We also need our local USCIS Office to send us our biometrics appointment date(s), i.e., fingerprint dates and last but not least, we need our referral! So that is where things stand as of today!