We had our second "Gold Party" fundraiser yesterday! From both parties, we were able to raise a total of $650!! Thank You to everyone that brought their gold and sold it so that we could make commission on your sale! If anyone is interested in having your own party and make your own commission...Trinity Metals is a great company to work with and they will come to your home and buy you and your friends jewelry for top money and you make the commission! Just let me know and I will give you the information. If you book a party and use our name....we will get $50 to go towards our adoption.

Shawn and I went to the US Immigration Building today to get our fingerprints done! This is our last thing we needed before our approval from the government. Once we get the approval letter, we can send over our whole package of documents and get a date for travel to pick up our daughter!

Please pray that God will continue to provide for us financially since now we will be traveling sooner which means less time to fund raise. Also, Allison has her back surgery on Tuesday, April 26th so please keep her in your prayers as well.

Update!

Okay, so I am not the best at updating this blog....I know so many of you have been asking so here is where we are at now. If you think I have been a slacker in updating...just wait because in 2 weeks I have my back surgery and it may get worse!!
Our first set of documents were sent to the Ukraine last week and they received them on Friday. I spoke with our contact in the Ukraine and she will be delivering them tomorrow (Thursday) to get our dossier date (the date our whole application needs to be submitted). She already knows that it should be in October but that we wouldn't be able to travel until late November, early December. I really don't like that time line since that is during so many birthdays and Christmas but it will be fine. Shawn and I have been praying about things and made our decision last night that we are going to change our age bracket to 6-8 so we can travel sooner and since there is a bigger need for adoptive families for that age group. We will have to update our home study and go from there!
The next update is with our fund-raising. I was able to complete the grant application for Life Song for Orphans matching funds grant and sent that last week. We did receive a confirmation email from them that they received our application and were starting their process. Please pray for us that we get chosen so that we can get help in raising more money to bring our princess home! They said it could take up to 8 weeks for the process to be complete.
Our documents to USCIS were also sent and received last week. I was hoping that we could get our fingerprinting dates before my surgery but it doesn't look like that will work out.
So I think that is about it....our prayer requests right now are for Allison's surgery on April 26th, our USCIS documents to be processed and approved as soon as possible, and that we get accepted for the Life Song for Orphans Fund-raising Grant!

So we had our first fundraiser on Saturday. We had a yard sale and started to sell all of our baby items. It was emotional as I saw some of my favorite outfits go but I know its for a good cause! We made $330 during the sale and I had sold some stuff during the week for a total of $420!! Yay! This Thursday I am having another fundraiser. I am having a Gold Party where people can bring their unwanted gold and sell it for cash. Then the company will give me a percentage of what they buy to go towards our adoption. I hope a lot of people come!

Also on Saturday we received our home study reports! This morning I went to the post office and over-nighted some of our paper work to Tallahassee to be apostilled to then be able to send to the Ukraine. This paper work, once sent to the Ukraine, will give us a date to send our whole packet over to be approved to adopt. I also then over-nighted our paper work to the USCIS to be approved through them. Lets hope they don't take the normal 8 weeks to finish our paper work so that we can be fingerprinted as soon as possible.

Today my goal was to finish the paper work for the LifeSong grant I am applying for. I finished most of it and hope that tomorrow I can put it in the mail. If approved, LifeSong will match our funds that we raise up to a certain amount. That would be a huge help for us if we get picked. Pray that they see our financial needs and will help us meet them!

So tomorrow is our first fundraiser. We are having a yard sale to sell all of our baby clothes and baby items. It has been a sad week going through everything and remembering the times we had with our boys when they were so little. Seeing all their baby clothes and how little they all are makes me sad to think how time has gone by so fast. I just hope that time goes by fast until we bring home our daughter and then let it go by slow so we can treasure every moment from then on with her!
Our home study report was finished and we should be receiving the actually document tomorrow as well. On Monday I can then send it to Tallahassee to get apostilled to then be able to send it to Ukraine to get a date for our dossier to be sent over. I am so thankful that everything seems to be going smoothly.