Floorplans

Shannon had to draw out the floorplan of our house for the home study. Thank goodness for graph paper!

Adoption Education cont. again

3 1/2 more hours logged. Almost done! Tonight we did a session on Becoming Your Child's Best Advocate which was just common sense stuff and a session on Conspicous Families.

FedEx...or DHL

Now we know why the FedEx location Rob and Nancy used in Missouri had trouble using our FedEx account number....they were at DHL. LOL! We don't know who paid for our package to be overnighted but we did receive it!

Adoption Education cont.

We logged about 1 1/2 more hours of adoption education tonight. We're trying to get it finished quickly because our home study cannot be completed until we finish. Tonight was on Life Books which is kinda like a scrapbook only it contains more information.

State Police

We were both electronically fingerprinted today (no more ink!) for a background check with the Texas State Police. They'll send us back a notarized letter saying we're clear...we hope. :)

Notary Time

Trudy from Jason's office notarized our documents for us today. Thanks Trudy!

FedEx Missouri Docs

Rob and Nancy, Shannon's parents, were on their way to Branson, MO so Shannon looked up a FedEx location for them to use to FedEx our Missiouri documents. They had a hard time finding it and had a little trouble getting them to use our FedEx account number to ship it.

Adoption Education

We are required to complete 10 credit hours of adoption education. We started it tonight using an online provider. We got in about 1 hour. :( It was on the adoption tax credit. Fun stuff.

Documents To Be Notarized

We prepared our name affidavits, witness statements, and the Article 24 statement to be notarized tomorrow. The name affidavits are lists of all the different names and combination of names that we might go by or be referenced by in other documents. The Article 24 statement basically says that we will treat our adopted child as our own. The witness statements are signed by someone we've known for at least 5 years basically stating that we are good people and love kids. Shane and Jon from Jason's office have agreed to be our witnesses. Thanks guys!

FBI Fingerprints In The Mail

Shannon picked up money orders to send with our fingerprints to the FBI and FedExed them to West Virginia for processing.

Missouri Documents

Nancy, Shannon's mom, went and picked up Shannon's birth certificate and our marriage license in Missouri today (that's where she lives). Thanks Mom!

FBI Fingerprints and Passports

Today we went to our local law enforcement center to be fingerprinted for the FBI. We have to mail a letter with our fingerprints to the FBI requesting a certified clearance letter.

We also applied for our passports at the post office. The wait time is 14 weeks so we used their expidite services which may still take up to 6 weeks. We're hoping and praying that they come through faster!

Home Study Visit

We met with our social worker, Jenna, for our home study earlier this evening. We think it went well. :) She was at our house for about 2 1/2 hours interviewing us together and then each of us seperately. It will take about 2 more weeks before her report is finished. We're really relieved to have this over with!!

I-600A - Immigration paperwork

We mailed our I-600A application to the Department of Homeland Security Immigration Services today. We sent it to the USCIS office in Dallas. They will start processing our application and set up an appointment for us to go to Dallas to be fingerprinted.

Guardianship

We realized late Thursday night that for our home study we needed a signed statement about the guardianship of our kids (bio and adopted) in the event that we both should die. We had already asked Shannon's parents to be the guardians for Joel but we didn't have anything in writing. We wrote up a document and emailed it to Shannon's mom on Friday and she tried to fax it back but it wouldn't go through. Shannon's mom finally just put in the mail on Saturday. It actually arrived today! All the way from Missouri! It usually takes at least 3-4 days for mail to get here from Missouri. What a blessing! We needed that document for our home study tonight and we we're still trying to figure out how to get it.

Home Study Prep

We finished all of our preperation for the home study tomorrow night. We both had to write autobiographies (answering about 50 questions each), fill out an 11 page questionaire about our family, get signed statements from our doctor about our health, get a signed guardianship statement, and get copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, driver's licenses, insurance card, and income tax return. We also had to have 3 different people complete reference forms and mail them in. We asked 3 of our good friends (Patrick & Mauricia, Becky, and Jon) to do this for us and they all did it really quickly. Many, many thanks!

Money Order

Shannon picked up the money order to send with our I-600A application. There goes $685!

Jason's Birth Certificate

We discovered late last night that we need a different copy of Jason's birth certificate. His brother, Andy, is going to pick it up for us in Lubbock and FedEx it here so we can get our I-600A in the mail on Monday and apply for our passports. Andy picking it up is saving us the time of having to request it by mail or drive to Lubbock (approx. 150 miles) and get it ourselves. Thanks Andy!

FedEx

We setup an online account with FedEx for shipping our documents to various agencies. It's faster and more secure since we're dealing with sensitive information. Now we can print out our labels and pay for shipping from home. :)

Dossier Information Packet

We received our 23 page dossier information packet from For This Child. It outlines all the steps we need to go through to prepare our dossier to submit to Guatemala for the adoption. A dossier includes birth certificates, marriage license, medical letters, criminal checks, home study, etc. It's pretty overwhelming to look at the list of all the documents we have to collect and the process of notarizing, certifying, and authenticating all of them.

I-600A Application

We filled out our I-600A application to get pre-approval to adopt an orphan from a foreign country. We filled the form out on Homeland Security's website but we're waiting on Jason's birth certificate to get here and we need to pick up a money order before we can mail it off.

Shannon's Physical

Today was Shannon's turn. She's healthy!

Joel's Physical

Joel had his checkup today with his doctor (actually it was the nurse practitioner). We have to have forms signed for him too!

Contract In The Mail

We mailed off our signed contract today to For This Child.

Accepted!

We were approved by For This Child to move forward with our adoption from Guatemala! They have emailed us our contact that we will sign and mail back to them with our first payment of $2500.

Jason's Physical

Jason went to our doctor for a physical today. We have to get forms signed stating that we are in good health. Everything checked out fine!

Application Filed

Today we faxed our application to For This Child (http://www.forthischild.com/) to adopt a baby from Guatemala. We're really excited and are hoping to get the ball rolling quickly!