Thank you!

It's been awhile since we've received a donation, so I couldn't help to notice that it appears someone has donated $120 (or so?) to Evan's Reece's Rainbow fund!  I am so thrilled!  I want to say thank-you to whoever felt compelled to give and did so! 

James and I both have changed our W-4's tax withholdings to exempt, so we hope to save the extra income from our paychecks to go towards the adoption.  We are doing this because the adoption tax credit for 2012 is non-refundable which means you have to owe money to utilize it.  So I am doing my best to try to access the credit in the meantime!

Any day I should be receiving our updated homestudy in the mail. Once I receive it I will be applying for grants, most of which cost money to even apply for!  Hopefully we can receive a grant, even if it is for a little amount.

Adoption is very expensive, but I'm certain we will come up with the needed funds to do this!  Thank you to everyone who had helped us thus far.  I can't believe how long everything is taking... but it is only a matter of months now before we will be Evan's parents!

More of David Walking

Here is David today, he is walking a lot more now! What a difference a little over a week can make. We made a point to practice walking a lot, and I think the extra practice has shown! Hope you like!

Hanging with David in the Playroom

Here is a little video of David being a little cutie pie as usual! Thought my family would like to see him!!

David is 2 Years Old!

My oh my!  I can not believe that it's been 2 years since I gave birth to my son, David!  We are so blessed to know that God chose us to raise him. We feel privileged to have a son with Down syndrome!  I can not wait to have 2 sons; the time is surely coming near for the adoption to take place!

Currently we are finishing up our dossier.  We have a new biometrics date of Jan. 26th. We have our police background checks in, an apostilled marriage license in the mail as I type, and our Doctor forms should be signed off and notarized early next week.  We will meet with the landlord on Feb. 1st to sign and our monthly lease and receive a notarized adoption home verification form.  My accountant is on standby waiting to sign James' work verification, as we are waiting until the last minute for this one. Lots of other papers to get notarized and everything needs to be apostilled, but I hope to have my dossier completed by mid Feb. depending on when we receive our USCIS approval.  Then we'll just be in wait mode for our court date!

I am so excited that we are finally wrapping up our adoption.  There has been a lot of "hiccups"- my agency said our adoption has been one of the most trickiest ones for them!  So if you're reading our blog wondering how the timeline works for adopting- consider my case not the norm.  I do have lots of words of wisdom to offer as far as looking back on everything and knowing what stalled the process.  There was a lot of misunderstanding, lack of communication, assumptions, etc. 

For example, one of the most silliest misunderstandings was that initially I was going off the Reeces' Rainbow webpage of the required documents needed.  I ordered 3 copies of birth certificates and marriage certificates right away last February.  Had I waited until the appropriate time, my adoption agency would have told me that all they need is 2 copies of the marriage certificate and I need to make sure the date stamped on the back by the county registrar needs to be within 6 months of my court date, so do this close to the end!  I'm sure there are lots of adoption agencies that require 3 copies of each certificate, but my misunderstanding could have delayed the adoption even longer had I not realized this ahead of time.

I wanted to mention David's milestones as well since he is a 2 year old!

-He can walk 7 feet out (back and forth between our two couches) with the right motivation (daddy).  I'm seeing that he prefers bare feet to orthotics/shoes when walking.
-In sitting position he can now get on all 4's and push off his hands to standing position to start walking.
-He can stand in place for 30 seconds now.
-He is super busy into EVERYTHING!  This is so good!
-He is not talking yet. At certain times of day he gets into his babble, which is cute, but he hasn't named anything a particular babble or anything.
-His sign language vocabulary has not grown yet.  He's only added "help". He knows that mama is the thumb to the chin, but to do this sign he will grab my thumb and move it back and forth on my chin. He also does that when I ask him where his nose is. He will grab my finger and touch my nose with it.  He's been doing the nose thing for over 6 months now.  I bet if I had more mirrors around he could learn faster. It's just a little tricky with baseboard heaters everywhere, we have to have his play room lined with furniture blocking the walls... ..sigh..
-We have recently been using a babysitter, whom he loves!  I am so glad he has taken to another person. He loves his routines and gets upset with new people and places. The best part about the sitter she watches him at her house- I'm glad David has adjusted to this.
-I do have to admit that there is a positive to his slower development. We have a lot of friends and family that only get to see David every 6 months or so, and it is really cool that even so they still get to see him grow up and take part of that with our family. So everytime they see him he's onto the next stage of development and we can all celebrate it!

More to come, the adoption is wrapping up so there will be a lot more frequent posts from me because of this. (Sorry for the long stretches of inactivity before!) 

Blessings to all!