5 Referrals last week at our adoption agency

I was so excited to hear from my caseworker that there were 5 referrals last week. So I have a feeling our referral will be coming very soon. She said to me again she is working on some children right now and getting all their paperwork processed. I am hoping by the end of April we will have a name of a child and their picture. Keeping my fingers crossed.

After referral it gets kind of scary because we need to come up with $8000 cash to send to the Congo for them to start the paperwork process on our child. I hope we can come up with the money for this. I know we raised $4400 to date but we also spent almost half of that already on other fees....YIKES. I don't like all this stress thinking about money. I am thinking about a rummage sale. I will work on that over spring break. Thanks for reading hugs to you all XOXOX

We bought a bigger house for our family so we have room for everyone. We are very excited. We plan on moving in April!!!! We want it to happen NOW!!!!

Not much going on with the adoption. It seems like the waiting for a referral is taking forever but that is to be expected.  We are all anxious and everyone keeps asking because they are as excited as we are about a referral. Again we have so many people supporting us it is unbelievable. I also have students ordering t-shirts. I adore all my students. I have so many special students that have touched my life. Some I didn't even have in my class that touch my heart in so many ways. I love my job and this is why I teach.

So much going on with us and our adoption but I can't express how sad I am for my sister. Who ever reads this please pray for my sister. As most of us know she is in stage 3 kidney failure but now she is having more medical issues. Last week she missed work for 4 days (not like her so you know it is not good). She is going to see a neurologist in Marshfield in April. She is so dizzy she can't walk and she shakes/trembles all the time. She is so young and beuatiful. I love her more than anything. I would give up everything to make her better. She needs everyones prayers.

Our homestudy is complete and ok'd. YIPEEEEEEE
We are so excited about our homestudy completetion. Now we can apply for grants. But first we have to pay $2300 to our adoption agency. $300 goes to a translation fee for all of our paperwork and homestudy and $2000 to our agency for fees....wow what fees??? I also spoke with our caseworker and she said we should have a referral in the next month or so. They are working on lots of kids and processing their paperwork. Thanks for reading and supporting us through this process. Hugs Heidi

Sorry about not posting lately. The reason I haven't posted is that there is not much happening. I wish I could say something exciting but we still are waiting and waiting. I'm hearing horror stories about the Congo and the city that we will be staying at that makes me very nervous but no one has ever been hurt just lots of coruption. I see lots or people wearing our shirts and that makes me want to cry. Our homestudy should be completed this week so we can start applying for some grants. That will be our next step. I pray we get grants. I am sooooo worried about the money. I just have to pray that things will work out. I also did a power point for my kids at school about the kids in the Congo. They loved it. They can't believe how poor they are there. It was also interesting to me and sad to see how they live. Well hopefully my next post you will find out more. We are waiting too.....

We have sold so many t-shirts. We still have orders coming in. I can't believe the support from all of our friends and family. I feel so blessed that so many people care. We had our 2nd meeting with our homestudy agency in Milwaukee and got lots of papers notarized. The same day of our appt with our homestudy agency Sommer had an appt at Childrens and it was her best one yet. She finally has stopped growing so she doesn't need her brace any longer. They just want to monitor her curve every 6 months, What a great feeling to be done with that.
Dan got his passport and we got our immigration form stating they are setting up finerprint appts for Dan and I. When they send us the appt we have to go that day and time. No negotiating. I feel bad for people that don't have a flexible schedule. It feels like it is all coming together. We have had so many criminal background checks. We had a local one completed and also our fingerprints ran through the FBI now we need a state one completed. This all costs money too. Hugs to everyone!!!!