home inspection.....check!

my hubby and i are in the middle of a hectic week. brandon is leading worship for willow's shift conference and we are in crunch time as far as the adoption goes. we have completed 5 lengthy interviews for the home study in the last week and a half. did i mention that most of these interviews were held in rockford? that's about an hour drive from us. it's been a great process but very time consuming. today was the final home inspection and parenting interview!!!! our social worker was here for almost 4 hours and completed a ton! now we wait.......for her to type it up and for the proper authorities to approve it. it may be july before we have the certified/final copy. i'm praying it happens quickly:) childrens home and aid has been wonderful to work with. i have been very pleased with the process of completing the home study and our social worker was amazing. she has been doing her job for almost 10 years and is a pro! stella enjoyed having her over today and really liked talking about getting a baby sister! btw, she has started to call most people her brother and sister. so sweet:) OH-one funny thing happened today. at the very end of the meeting our lovely social worker asked to use the restroom. as she was walking away, stella looked up from her coloring book and said "mommy, she's gotta go poop". i hope she didn't hear her say this!

we also have to complete all adoption training this week so that the home study can be finished. i kind of dropped the ball on this for a while. somehow this little piece of paper got lost in my very organized folders of information! so, we've been watching videos on a wide variety of topics and taking some good ole quizzes. we've done 7 hours worth of training so far (in person and via the web) and have 5 more to go before brandon leaves the country soon. it's actually been really interesting to spend more time learning about ethiopia and adoption.

we have 2 more important items to complete this week. a document that goes to immigration for approval (I600A) and fingerprinting so that we can get fbi approval. it's a little overwhelming:) the lingo is confusing sometimes too! i am constantly doing, re-doing, emailing, faxing, and fed-exing forms somewhere. i feel like i'm a pretty organized person and i'm struggling these days. the last time i took stella to fed-ex/kinkos with me, she somehow got 2 packages of candy open (in like 3 seconds) at the counter while i was talking to the employee. so i had to buy them! and i was so stressed by the time we left that i had to eat them:)

we have been plugging along since early november (nearly 6 months) and i am finally starting to feel like things are getting done! yah!! i can't wait until i can fly to ethiopia and meet my new daughter. i'm praying for a smooth process............and a quick one. a girl can dream.