Another Step Closer...

This morning, we received our approval of the I-171 Visa Petition form. Yea! Our agency said that this would take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. The shortest amount of time they have ever had anyone receive this notice was in 12 days. We received ours in 10 days. Thank you to the USCIS offic in Kansas City for processing our visa application form so quickly. We will now follow up with NVC which is the office that receives our file from the USCIS field office. They will be forwarding our information to the appropriate embassies.

To anyone, who has been to this stage before...how long was your wait from this point until you were given permission to travel?


If only they knew how exciting is was to be holding this piece of paper. They are really having a hard time understanding why every time we hop in to the car to go get groceries, etc. that we just can't pick up their brother on the way.


For part of the library summer reading program, Jaidyn had to draw a picture of our family.

I just have to share pictures of our Day Lilies. Last summer, I bought several starts to Day Lilies from a garage sale. This lady had a photo album with all the different varieties she had. She was insanely organized with her Day Lilies. We are completely enjoying all of them this summer. Here is a view of the flowers from our deck. Too bad they only last for a day and I can't really bring them inside to put in a vase.

Back from STL

The girls and I are back from our 2 1/2 day mini vacation to St. Louis. Yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted and took a 2 1/2 hour nap trying to recover from our activity filled trip. Addy had been given money for her birthday to use towards "doing" things this summer as a family. We went to Big Surf last weekend and used the remainder of her activity b-day money to visit the STL Science Center and The Magic House (Children's Museum).

Thank you Jill for letting us stay at your home. Thank you to everyone who spent time with us over the weekend...Papa, Nana, Jill, Jessica, Aunt Charlene, Aunt Cheryl and Uncle John.

Thursday:
Spent afternoon at St. Louis Science Center & watched Jill play a sand volleyball game that night. Addy and Jaidyn spent the entire time in the sand box. Good thing we rode in Papa and Nana's car. :)
Friday:
Jill and I took Jaidyn and Addy during the morning hours to the Waplehorse Aquatic Center. I can't think of a better place to be on a 95 degree day. I think Addy must have slid down the slide at least 25 times. She would slide down and then run back up the stairs as fast as she could to go again. That afternoon we watched the movie, "He's Really Not Into You" and made the girls lie down for some rest time. The evening was spent with relatives eating and drinking refreshing drinks.
Saturday:
We spent all morning at the Magic House (3 hours was plenty of time although we only probably made it through 1/4 of building). It is such a neat place and I think it might be someplace that we try to visit every year. So many things to creatively explore.

Pictures from The Magic House, Children's Museum


Addy sliding down Jack's beanstalk.


Dressed as Cinderella's and taking a ride in the carriage hoping to meet their handsome prince.


Climbing up vine leaves to the next floor. For some reason Jaidyn freaked out almost to the top and had to make her way back down. Addy climbed up all the way. This was surprising to us as usually it is the other way around.


Jessica and Addy trying to make a bubble around their bodies.


" A little big of MAGIC"


No, this isn't Addy and Levi, but hopefully soon we will have some pictures similair to this. I saw this little boy beside Addy and I couldn't help but think that soon all of my pictures will be including another little one.


Addy at the water table.


Jaidyn using the dryer to dry out her shoes. The floor was one big puddle and she wisened up a little when she stuck her foot up on the wall to keep dry while she dried out her shoe.

These are all pictures from the pre-tend play store. There was an entire section of a building set up like a mini-town.





Trying to catch a magnetic fish in the stream.


You can tell Papa is having a blast and wouldn't rather be anywhere else. At least he found a chair and is in the air conditioning...could be worse.


Addy serving it up in the Pizza Cafe. We were really hungry at this point and this pretend pizza didn't help our cravings.


Hmmmm, I am thinking that our family contributes to this statistic several times weekly.



According to Jaidyn for Kids TV News, the upcoming weather forecast is "wet and stormy, so you will need an umbrella".



Addy didn't like the feeling of her hair standing straight up because of the electrostatic ball and was trying to hold it all down. She has thin straight hair, so her hair was perfect for this.

These are some pictures from the STL Science Center. The Discovery Room was our favorite. It was geared towards Jaidyn and Addy's age as much of the Science Center is geared toward older children and adults.

~ Hot~

The last couple of days, it has been sticky hot. We have been spending most of our time inside until the evening hours so the girls can ride their bikes, play with the dogs and catch lightening bugs before going to bed.

Lots of art projects and books have been read this week.

We are headed to St. Louis this morning to visit my sister for a few days. We have a busy weekend ahead...STL Science Center, The Magic House, and probably a day at the pool. We had originally planned to go to Grant's Farm, but traded that idea with another activity indoors.

Yesterday, I received a receipt from the USCIS office showing that they had received our I-600 application documents on the 19th. Hopefully, they will continue to process the documents and not place them at the bottom of the pile. :)

~ Open House ~

No, this isn't our house (unfortunately). But as of last Friday we have placed a For Sale By Owner sign in our front yard.

I've been up since about 5:30 this morning and I think I about have our house "sparkling" for our open house tomorrow afternoon. Wes has the yard looking great (I stayed inside in the air conditioning) as we have had lots of rain and didn't have a chance to mow the past few days. I have been washing the baseboards, cleaning fan blades, and things like that, that I rarely ever do. I am so thankful for my mom taking the girls for the weekend. It is soooo nice to actually clean something and have it stay that way. However, the house is awfully quite today. :(

The fair has been in town this week and today is the last day of the festivities. Small town fairs are the best! It is my favorite week of the year, but we really didn't get enjoy it as much as we would have liked. The past 2 nights Jaidyn had tball games so we didn't go to any of the evening festivities. We did get to participate in the kids day at the park, watch the crowning of the fair queen, and watch Jaidyn's friend show her lamb earlier in the week. We didn't however, make it over to get a funnel cake. It is the one time of the year, that I would actually eat one of those.













Just a quick story about getting our legal documents sent off to the USCIS office:
I received the call from our Agency on Thursday afternoon about 1:30 giving us instructions on how to print our legal documents. They used to have us send the original copies to USCIS, but since some people weren't getting them returned they have started having adoptive couples send copies. The copies need to be in color. For some reason, the color ink isn't working on my home printer and in our small town their isn't a place that makes color copies. Wes had to work until 4:00 and Jaidyn had her tball game at 6:00. Determined to get the paperwork overnighted that day to the USCIS office, I got all of the documents that I could ready, packed up everything for Jaidyn's tball game so that all Wes would need to do is quickly change clothes and download the legal documents to his zip drive. By 4:15 we were out the door and had to drive to Lebanon (20 minutes away...at Wes's speed). We pulled up to the UPS store about 20 til 5:00 thinking that I could make color copies and have the document overnighted there. The manager that knows how to download from a zip drive had already gone home for the day. So we drove across the street to a Minute Man Press store and believe it or not, their color copier was down. Ugh! With about 15 til 5, we had to drive to the downtown portion to another printing shop. As we approached downtown, we realized that they were having the first night of Hilbilly Days and had the streets blocked off. We drove the long way around and I ran down the sidewalk to get in to the store to get the copies made. Luckily, they could do color copies (as we didn't have any other options) and I made it out of that store with about 5 minutes til 5. We drove to the post office with about 3 minutes until 5:00. As I was running up the steps of the post office I saw the work hours...open til 4:30. At this point, I should have known that it would be closed for the day. We headed back to the UPS store to overnight the documents and the 2nd trip went without delays. Seriously, who knew it would be such a fiasco getting a few color copies. Oh well, mission accomplished. I didn't delay the documents one more day than they needed to be and we still managed to eat dinner and get to Jaidyn's tball game on time. In fact, we were the first ones there.

Legals Received!!

Today we received Levi's legal documents (Birth Certificate, Placement Authority, and Deed of Voluntary Commitment). These are needed to proceed with the filing of his visa. I am hoping to get these overnighted to our USCIS office today. I need to print off our attached documents in color and of course my color ink cartridge on my printer isn't working and in our small town, there isn't anyone that I know if that makes color copies. So hopefully we will have time to get color copies made and the paperwork overnighted between the time Wes gets home and Jaidyn has her tball game.

Oh, and I promised Jaidyn and Addy that they could watch their friend show her lamb at the fair today, so we are walking over to the sale barn to watch the lamb show in the 90+ degree weather.

So much to do...so little time!!!

~ Summer in Full Swing ~

Last Friday evening Jaidyn had her first t-ball game. It was crazy chaos, but she had a great time. She is quite competitive and will rumble with the boys if they even think about snagging a ball that she is close to. Don't let her pink bat and purple glove fool you. At practice, they hit five balls before they run to first base, so in the game after she hit her first ball, she just stood there thinking she had 4 more hits and the coaches had to yell, "run". Once she made her way to third base, instead of running to home plate, she ran right on over to the dugout. She also knew we were taking pictures and running the video camera everytime she was up to bat, so she would take some time to pose in front of the fence before walking up to bat. She is too funny!












Wes turned the big 3-0 on Friday so we had lots to celebrate this weekend. We all spent the weekend at the Lake with my parents, Grandma Penny, Jared, and Cyndia. Jaidyn and Addy helped Grandma Penny make him a Strawberry Jello cake and my mom made him a Pineapple upside down cake. Yummy! I don't think we have eaten this much cake in several months time. Definitely a treat!


Uncle Jared is always a trooper when it comes to getting in the lake water. Jaidyn has been in the water the past 2 weekends with him. Addy joined in this weekend. I personally like the lake to feel like bath water before I spend much time in it.

The girls are in their 2nd week of swim lessons. Jaidyn told me that she got to jump off the diving board today. The swim lessons have been great and they have gained so much confidence in swimming in the lake water, especially Addy.

We are still waiting to receive Levi's legal papers so we can apply for his visa. Hopefully, we will receive them this week. I can't believe it has already been 1 month since we received our referral. Honestly, we have been so busy that this past month has flown by. If our summer life pace keeps up this way, we will be on a plane to the Philippines before we know it.

Wes and I are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary today. Actually we celebrated it this past weekend along with our birthdays. Today has been catch-up day...laundry, catching up on online work, and tending to the garden that had lettuce that needed to be cut several days ago. Happy Anniversary Honey! :)

~ Sweet Surprise ~

Yesterday we received a wonderful surprise. A Holt staff member recently visited the Philippines and took pictures and short digital camera videos of Levi. In the video his caretaker is calling him by Levi Jax...too cute! Receiving this was a great surprise and gift as Wes (his 30th) and I celebrate our birthdays today and tomorrow. Here are some of the pictures.