And Now We Wait...

The adoption process is a bunch of hurry up and wait.  You work feverishly on something, send it off, and then wait on others to do their part.  Waiting is hard and can be frustrating especially when not everyone feels your sense of urgency.
Our Homestudy is complete and we have received a copy.  A copy will be sent to South Korea soon.  Then, we wait to be matched with a child.  That process can take up to 8 months.  It all depends on if there's a child available that meets our list of disabilities.  There are many children who need homes.  We were pretty open with what we would accept.  However, there are also some disabilities that we know would not be a good fit with our family. Because of the high need for adoptive families, referrals have been happening quicker than normal.  We will not get our hopes up, though.  
While we wait, there are some things we need to work on.  
- The first is the I600a, which is a petition to the US Government to be cleared to adopt an orphan from another country.  We will have to get fingerprinted again for this stage.  We mailed the packet this week , so we should hear back in the next couple weeks about our fingerprinting appointment.  We need to be cleared by USCIS to accept a referral.
- The other thing we can do is apply for grants.  We put our grant applications in the mail this week.  We are really praying we get selected for one or more of the grants we applied for.
- We need to start fundraising.  We will most likely have our fundraisers after school gets out, but we need to get those scheduled so we can start planning specifics.

April 2018

Because we are going to San Francisco with the Thrivent trip later this month, we decided not to go anywhere for Spring Break.  The weather was cold and gross, so we spent a lot of time inside.  We cleaned the closets in the house.  We did take a day trip to Science Central, though.

Liam wanted to go to Build A Bear as an early birthday present.  He is trying to collect all the Pokemon stuffed animals.

Bed Forts & Adventures

Mars Glamour Shots

Liam took a field trip to the Botanical Gardens.  He loves the butterfly exhibit!

Lilly at her Young Authors conference

Central's Auction - we wanted to get a picture of our members of the Kenya Mission Team who were there.

Our Homestudy FINALLY arrived!

We have baby bunnies in our yard.

Liam's 8th Birthday

This year Liam had two parties.  His first party was with his friends at LazerX.  The kids had a great time playing laser tag, playing in the arcade, eating cupcakes, and watching Liam open his gifts.
Liam's second party was at home, with family.  It was a Minecraft themed party.  Liam helped come up the ideas for food and decorated the counter with his Minecraft figurines.

Can't believe this kid is 8!  We take a selfie together every year on his birthday.

Liam decided it would be fun to make a mustache on his face with a highlighter, so it would show up under the black lights.  The workers at LazerX got a kick out of it.

Jillian, Lorelei & Lucy came to the party! They had fun playing the games too.

After LazerX, we had lunch at Olive Garden with the Shively's.

Central Lutheran has a rock outside school that parents can paint with a message for a fee.  Grandma Kusch and I painted the rock for Liam's birthday.  He was so happy to see the big, gold nugget!

Liam's big gift from us was the Saturn V rocket Lego set.  Dave and Liam had fun putting it together.

Liam got a robot from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Brady. He had fun putting it together too.