Where we are in our adoption...

Well...this is a post that has been long coming...more details about our adoption. I am sorry it has taken so long...I wouldn't even know where to start to share with you how busy and crazy our last month and a half have been!!

So... We are adopting from Ethiopia through Holt International. (some time when I have more time I might get a chance to explain why we chose them). Our total process should be around a year from the start (last month) but may go faster or may go slower...the nature of International Adoption. We do not know who our child is yet. (This will differ from our adoption from Guatemala- in Guatemala you would be "referred" a child toward the beginning of your process, but in Ethiopia it will be later in the process) Though we do know who our child is, they will likely be younger than Noah to try to keep the birth order (for now :)).

The process looks basically like this. Homestudy, Immigration Approval, and preparation of Dossier (formal packet of information for Ethiopian government) are the first things that happen after you have picked an agency. We are right in the middle of all of these (paperwork galore, but the children- our child is worth it!) and my tentative goal is to have all of these put together and ready to send to our agency by mid October. Then after our agency has checked everything and it looks good to go, they will send it to a place in Washington DC to get a special stamp, then it will go to Ethiopia to be translated and filed. Also, once they have approved it, they will put us on their waiting list for a referral (adoption language for your child). As of when we were interviewing Holt they were saying the wait is 6-9 months for a referral once you are placed on the waiting list. But since then, I have seen their client's wait to be more like 2-4 months! Which could make this all go quite faster than we originally thought. But things could change again before we get to that point in the process...so we'll see! :) Once they call us and give us our referral (probably pictures of a child with medical reports) we are given a couple of weeks to decide if we will accept this child as the one we will adopt. (During these couple of weeks we are encouraged to take this medical information to a international adoption specialist doctor and have them review it with us. We would have to have a very good reason for not wanting to adopt this child to be able to say no...it can't be for superficial reasons). Once we officially accept this child we would then have to wait on average 4 months before we can go pick them up from Ethiopia and bring them home. During this time there is a court appointment in Ethiopia where a judge reviews this child's case and all the paperwork about our family and then passes us or asks for more information...(so there is a chance that we wouldn't pass the first time and then we would be scheduled for another court date). After we pass, the child is officially ours, but Holts staff is still very busy over in Ethiopia getting new birth certificates, medicals, visas and forms ready for our Embassy appointment which will happen when Josh and I are there picking up our child. Then we travel over there to meet our child and bring them home. The trip will probably be close to 2 weeks by the time you add the 2 days of travel time on both ends of the trip. We will bring our child home officially a part of our family, but we will have to "readopt" here in the US to get all the citizenship stuff in order.

Adopting from Ethiopia is not as expensive as some International Adoptions, and though we have quite a big chunk saved/designated for this (Praise God!), we will still need to fundraise about a third of the costs. People keep asking us what some of our other plans are for fundraising other than the garage sales. Good question! We are still brainstorming this...we have a couple of ideas like a raffle event with dessert (Yes it would be Josh's gourmet desserts again!) and a really neat fundraiser involving coffee that will help us adopt from Ethiopia but also go to help an orphanage in Ethiopia. We are very encouraged that our friends, family, and church people are asking about ways to help! So thank you all! And thank you all who donated stuff for us to sell at our garage sale! It was amazing to see that at the end of the garage sale we had pretty much the exact amount we needed 2 days later for filing our Immigration approval! And since then we have sold some of the left over big items on craigslist and now we have the exact amount needed for the second payment of our homestudy! Isn't God amazing! He is providing to bring this special child home! Please let us know if you all have any other great ideas! We are open to suggestions, or if anyone wants to help with anything we already brainstormed, we would love the help!

Well that is all for now. I would just ask for your prayers for our family! Not just for our adoption process, but for our unknown child in Ethiopia and their birthfamily, for Mateo and Maria's health right now as we and the doctors are trying to figure out what is going on with both of them, and for our extended family!

Love
The Cross Family

Hodge Podge...(more Noah Birthday to come when I get more pics)

Noah's Birthday Family Party...definitely more to come...Aunt Mindy took most of the pictures and life has been so crazy recently I haven't had a chance to pick them up from her yet...so here is a preview. (Trying for a black bear theme...this is all I could find decorative wise that kind of matched.)

Playing at the park one sunny evening with Grandma and Grandpa (Cross). What fun!

A long weekend trip to Valdez to visit Papaw and Granny and to fish with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. It was a wild and crazy weekend completely different than planned due to a family emergency. But Praise God everyone is safe and recovering! And we still got to sneak in a little time with loved ones.

Daddy caught the one and only fish (of the two hour quick trip out to fish) and this is the best picture I could take because I was driving the boat and it was pretty busy out there. If you look very closely the splashing in the water is Josh's fish playing hard to get.

Great Grandpa unhooking it from the net.

Mateo and Mommy on the ride back...the rocking kept lulling Mateo to sleep.

Back at Granny and Papaw's Apartment we barrowed Papaw's clippers and gave Noah is first full hair cut (before this he had just gotten a few trims around his ears)

Talk about squirmy! It took 5 or 6 shots to get them all holding still together to get this shot!!

And FINALLY...with a little tackle help from Daddy we managed to get the clear picture!

Noah trying to stand without help...and having a blast with his hat (that he tried to put on himself-so we helped him)

Our Noah is such a character!!! :) He is so much fun (when he isn't teething :) and he is feeling good)

Daddy and Mateo building with the blocks...can you tell who is the handsome engineer in the picture and who is the handsome engineer-to-be?

The last of our garden this year...

Here are some pictures I stole off of my sister's blog of our time together this summer. Melissa and John came up from Washington to be in Sterling for my Grandma's 80th birthday party. They are expecting their first child, so we through them a shower too, while they were up here. It was a good time and fun to all be together again for a little bit.

This is our mom and all three girls, Mary, Melissa, Maria, and Mindy!

Melissa and John


Aunt Mindy and all of us at the Wild Life Refuge!

One of my all time favorite photos!! This picture speaks a thousand words! And just incase you don't hear them :) It is so fun and such a warm fuzzy blessing to see my Grandpa and Mateo be such great buds! Mateo adores him and they are always heading off somewhere to feed the chickens or some other cool country thing!

Grandma and I in a Chicken Croquet Duel...and of course Grandma won!

My handsome and funny boys!