sweet letter.

i have been working hard on our adoption paperwork lately. just when i think i have a project done, there is something else requested or sent back to be re-done. after lots of interviews, trips to the notary, emails, and faxes our homestudy is finally being typed up! i sent over a couple more things yesterday via fax to our social worker at childrens home and aid and she said that it's almost done! yes!!! she has to get it approved by a couple of people and then she will send it to DCFS and immigration/whatever department has to approve it next. there is so much info flying around this head of mine-i can't keep it all strait. then we wait for the certified/official copy of our homestudy to arrive in the mail! i'm not sure exactly how long that will take but i'm hoping to have it back by july. i have been told that is a realistic time frame.

i also went to fedex yesterday, my home away from home these days, and mailed out our fingerprints and payment to the fbi.

last night i got home and planned to complete our last big form........our I600A!!!! I was feeling pretty good about myself and my progress lately...........and then i realized that i didn't have any copies of our birth certificates to send in with our I600A paperwork! what!!!!!?!?!?! this is a BIG mistake. almost 7 months ago i requested birth certificates and a marriage license specifically for this paperwork!!!! and i've used them all up with out realizing it!!!!! i started to tear up big time. brandon must have realized this was a big deal because he actually paused the 24 Season Finale and offered to help me. what a good husband:)

after a few minutes of imagining the worst and visiting the vital check website to order more certificates, i realized that the kind woman who is helping us with our dossier has originals of these certificates and would probably make copies for me and fedex them back. she is the bomb so she emailed them to me first thing this morning! she. is. the. bomb!!! KBS Dossiers is amazing. seriously. i'm so glad that Gladney suggested her to us to help us complete our dossier. she has been so helpful over the last few months. luckily the chicago cis field office will allow copies of these certificates now! heck yea! this will be sent out asap. i'm hoping to head to the bank and back to fedex after stellas nap time today.

all that to say, i've been working hard on this adoption lately. and just when i thought that no one was appreciating all of this hard work-i received a little note in the mail from my daughter. my ethiopian daughter! one of my friends, i have a good idea who this person is, mailed me a sweet little note from my daughter in ethiopia. it thanked me for all of my hard work and said that she couldn't wait to be home with me:) how sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whoever wrote this tried to make it look like a child wrote it, so it was scribbled on, but it was stinkin' adorable. i wanted to take a picture of it for you guys and post it but brandon accidentally threw it away. i went out to dig thru the trash but it had already been hauled away. crap! i wanted to keep this forever!

whoever did this, thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you for making something as mundane as paperwork special. thank you for noticing and for taking the time to be sweet...and sneaky. and to my little one in ethiopia, i can't wait to have you home. you will never know how much much i haved missed you. even before i saw your face.