Snow!

We had a little snow here in NWA. The kids love it when it snows, so we got out to make a snowman. Enjoy the pictures...

The kids were in awe of the snow coming down outside.

So we bundled everyone up...



And made a snow man. We took a picture with Erin too, but she threatened to kill me if I posted it.

Funny story: We made the mouth out of fruit snacks, which just happen to be Sophie's favorite things on the planet. So... She stole them while we were distracted making snow angels.


You should have seen the fit she threw when the snacks were all gone! No wonder she is so "healthy."

On the list!!!

That is right folks! The Kennedy crew is officially waiting! We got word today that our dossier is on it's way to DC. It might be the quickest time from application to waiting list in the history of adoptions, considering we requested an application on October 22nd. That is only 3 months!

We are more excited than ever to bring our little boy home. We are going to name him Addis, after the capitol city of Ethiopia. The twins pray for him every night... "Dear Jesus, help baby Addis come home to us soon."

Now, we just sit and patiently wait. God has obviously had His hand in this from the beginning, and we are trusting Him with our baby in the meantime. They say this is the hard part, but we have 3 things that should keep our mind occupied; Easton, Catherine, and Sophie.

Thank you all for your prayers and support along the way. Please pray for our baby boy when you think of us. There is a good chance he might have already been born.

CIS Approval!

That might be the quickest CIS approval in the history of adoptions. The CIS office in Fort Smith received our Home Study on the Tuesday, January 15th and we got our I-171H in the mail today!!!!!

This news is only slightly dampened by the fact that the FBI left out the "letter of procedure" from our clearance packets. I had to call them on Thursday and get them to mail it out to us. It should be here sometime next week, and our dossier will be complete. Kate at KBS actually already has quite a bit of the dossier authenticated (we sent most of it to her a month ago), so the waiting list is almost here!!!!

Approved!

We got our approval email from Gladney today! They are sending us copies of our home study, as well as FedEx-ing a copy to CIS. We have all of our Dossier paperwork completed, and most of it has already been mailed to Kate at KBS. Once we get our home study here, we will mail the remainder of the papers and then wait for CIS approval. Kate will then send all of the Dossier paperwork to the state and federal government for authentication. Once authenticated, we will be on the wait list for a referral.

Hopefully CIS will be quick!

Marshmallows

We were given some money for Christmas so we bought a handy dandy fire pit. The kids love roasting marshmallows. By the way, I had no idea marshmallow was spelled with an "a." It looks strange. I would think marshmEllow, but no one asked me apparently.

Here are some marshmallow pictures.

Easton wouldn't get it close enough to the fire...
Catherine wasn't fond of the smoke...
They both loved the end result.
And Sophie ran away with the marshmallows.

In adoption news, our Home Study is complete and has been sent to Gladney. We haven't heard from Gladney that they received it yet, but it should be any day. They will turn around and mail a copy of it to CIS (Citizen and Immigration Services), and the word around here is that the Arkansas CIS office takes less than a week to send out the approval once they have the Home Study. The waiting list is coming closer every day.

As you go, here is a picture of our crazy kids in their product RED stuff they got for Christmas. They wouldn't stay still, and Sophie kept trying to get away. Makes for a funny picture though.

More Papers!

We have some good news. It seems as if we haven't abused our children, at least not that the government knows about! Our child abuse clearance letters came in a few days ago. Anne from Gladney sent an email to let us know that they had come in and that our home study could now be completed. Andrea, our home study gal, just has to make copies of it and send it to the appropriate places.

It will go to CIS, and then we have to wait for approval from them. We have just now had to begin to endure the waiting, as we have had paperwork to fill out until recently. It has Erin a little worried that all of this waiting for approval will push our babies court date into the rainy season (AUG-SEP). Ethiopia shuts down EVERYTHING during the rainy season, including the court. If our referral comes to late, it could cause us to have to wait until October before we can pick him up.

Please pray for the final paperwork to come in quickly so we can have our baby home before the rainy season starts.

In non adoption news, Sophia put two words together tonight for the first time. At dinner she said mo caca, meaning more cracker. We thought she would never talk!