Painting Anyone

To help keep my mind off of waiting for the phone to ring with our referral, I decided to redecorate Tessa' room. She and her little sister will be sharing a room, so we have to make sure it is something that will work for both of them.

I selected pink and green for the walls - and Tessa approved. We are going to accent with lady bugs and flowers. I found a great crib set at Target a few weeks ago that matched perfectly.

Terry is working a lot of hours lately, so I am in charge of the "remodel". I had some help today, as you can see from the pictures.

Please continue to pray we receive our referral this week. All of our documents have arrived and they will be going off to the Chinese Consulate to be authenticated. This is just another step in the process. After this - our dossier will be on it's way to CHINA!!! It seems like it has taken a long time to get to this point.


Till later.....

WOW!!!!

That is all I can say today - WOW!!! So, why all the excitement you ask... Well, I decided to contact the USCIS regarding our approval from their agency. As you may remember from a past post, the average length of time for approvals was quoted at 90 days. Our documents were received by their agency on January 14, so I had accepted the fact that our approval would more than likely arrive in late March to early April. I contacted the office, just to make sure they had everything they needed for our application. Much to my delight, the phone was answered by a woman named Debbie. Debbie is one of the officers for the USCIS. She is a charming and wonderful woman. She said that our approval is complete and we will receive our notification this week!!!!



Yes, you read that correctly. We received our approval within 30 days. This is such a huge blessing. I had been praying that it would arrive in 6 weeks, but God had different plans. He exceeded my expectations!!! This was a great Valentine's gift.

We are now praying for our referral. Our hope is that Tia will be on the next CCAA Shared Special Needs list. Rumor has it that the list is due out this week. Please keep us in your prayers.

Till later...

Adoption Fundraiser

I wanted to take a moment to share some information about our adoption fundraiser. During the month of March - we have A LOT of adoption fundraising going on. The primary one is our raffle and online auction, which will take place March 15 - 25. It has been absolutely amazing how God has orchestrated all of this. We have received raffle donation from so many people. We will have custom jewelry, electronics, vacation packages and more. By the way, if you have an item or service that your would like to donate - please contact us. Our online auction will take place during the same time and be featured on eBay. The auction will have designer luggage, monogrammed children's clothing, customer adoption/birth announcements, etc. Once again, we have received some wonderful donation from our family and friends.

We are not relying on this event alone to fund our adoption. Each weekend in the month of March, we will be participating in a craft show. The largest will be March 7 at the St Charles Convention Center ( St Charles, Missouri) It is the Baby and Kids Expo . This is an annual event that highlights goods and services designed with kids in mind. I think this should be a great event for us. We will be stitching monogrammed children's backpacks. With an estimated attendance of over 3,000 - I think we should sell quite a few.

Our other events will be in Affton and St Peters, Missouri. The are local craft shows, sponsored by area schools.

If you would like more details about our adoption fundraiser you can visit our site at http://www.harlowadoption.blogspot.com/ . If you would like, please post our announcement bug on your blog, and you will receive and extra entry into the raffle. More details are listed on our site.

Our primary goal through these fund raising activities is to help bring our daughter home - but it is also to spread the word about adoption. Our lives have been forever changed through this experience.

Till later....