Good News, Bad News

just a quick update regarding our FBI fingerprint background checks...first, the good news. my background check came back on saturday and i am not a criminal! yay! the bad news: heath's fingerprints were rejected due to a 'glitch' (that's what i'm calling it - my frustration with the individual that fingerprinted him is finally starting to subside!) with one of his prints. so back to woodbury public safety went heath on monday afternoon. fingerprints have been re-done and they are being overnighted to the FBI this morning. now we just need to cross our fingers that our process is expedited and it doesn't take another 11.5 weeks to get his back!

now that i am moving past the frustration, anger and disappointment, i am trying to focus on the fact that maybe this happened for a reason. baby reedy wasn't quite ready for us yet and this extra waiting time is necessary for our family to become complete.

think warm thoughts....
ang

Baby Wish List...

i have to admit...this baby thing is starting to feel very real! we decided that it was time to start getting a little more serious about things just so we can feel at least somewhat prepared before our lives are turned upside down! being that the only baby items we currently own are a crib and few miscelleneous items that have been loaned to us by friends, we decided that it was time to register for some baby products and goodies. so....off to babies-r-us we went! heath and i made an initial visit earlier last week to check some things out. we actually agreed on most of the big items so that made things much easier. on saturday the two of us grabbed our checklist from cyndi (thank you!) and our "baby bargains" book and dove into the chaos of a crazy, busy babies-r-us! we managed to pick out most of the big things (heath's favorite part was zapping the gun!) and then decided to call it a day as the chaos became a bit too much for one of us (i'll let you guess who that was). my sister had plans to meet some friends in the cities today so she gladly offered to join me on a return trip this afternoon. we spent a quality two hours in the store and managed to get a LOT done. thank you mel! one more trip with an actual mom (i may be calling on one of you reading this!) and i think i should be able to finish up. i've decided i definitely need some qualified help on picking out bottles, pacifiers, spoons, sippy cups, etc!

don't laugh...i ended up registering for both a boys and a girls bedding set because i really didn't want to go with gender neutral. i figure we will know the gender once we have our referral so i can always remove whichever one we don't need!

no updates on the fbi fingerprint reports though i am feeling hopeful that it will be very soon as another family that sent their's in on 11.30 (same date as us) just received their reports last week. yay! i started filling out our visa paperwork so that will be ready to go once we get our travel dates. by the way, we initially thought we would be traveling as quickly as two weeks after our referral, but now it sounds like it will be 4-6 weeks after based on approvals of our visas (you can't officially apply for them until you know your travel dates). i think this is actually a good thing as it will give us a little time to tie up loose ends at home and at work before we head out on our colombian adventure!

happy valentine's day to everyone!

love,
ang

Hola Shaker Beige!

after a few short hours of painting, here are the results:

i chose shaker beige as a neutral color that we will coordinate with either boy or girl bedding...i've decided that i've waited so long for our baby that i am not going with neutral bedding! now the search begins for the perfect set (and one that we can both agree on).

special thanks to the mcintyres...elle's shaker beige bedroom was my inspiration!

good night!

Bye Bye Blue!

by proclaiming this on the blog i know there is no backing out, so here goes....

I AM PAINTING TODAY! say bye-bye to the crazy blue walls in the nursery! everything is taped and prepped, i'm just waiting for hirshfields to open at 11:00.

in case you forgot, here is a before pic:

stay tuned for the after!

ang

Moving Forward!

just a quick update...i received an email from bettina today telling me that all of our dossier documents are ready to be apostilled (a step above a notary) and that as soon as our fingerprint reports are back from the fbi, we are ready to send our dossier to los pisingos! the best part of her email was this statement:

"I’m excited for you to send your dossier to Colombia as you are one of the next families to be submitted to Los Pisingos, VERY exciting!"

yay!!! things are definitely moving forward. we are now at almost 9 months of officially waiting. someone at my uncle's funeral made the comment that i "look good for being 8 1/2 months along"! :)

stay tuned for further updates. time to get back to work!

ang

Bienvenidos 2010!

2010 has arrived! our year has started off with a bang. we rang in the new year with some great friends at our annual new year's eve party. following the fun and celebrations of the holidays, we had to go through some tough days...first off my mom had a bit of a health scare and had to spend a night in the hospital! she fainted at church and they took her to the emergency room and wanted to do some observations on her to make sure nothing was wrong with her heart. she passed all of their tests with flying colors and found out that she just has an inflamed muscle in her back. (i say just, but she is having quite a bit of pain with it and is now going to physical therapy - we can share PT stories now! i was just relieved everything with her heart was ok.) last saturday my uncle darrell (my mom's brother) passed away after a long battle with several illnesses. it was sad to hear the news, but we all know he is in a much better place now - walking and talking again and hanging out with his brothers and family that have gone before him. funerals are never fun, but it was wonderful being able to see so much of my mom's extended family again. we were able to reconnect with many of our cousins and reminisce about lots of fun memories. we were also able to share details of our adoption journey with family members that hadn't heard about it. and, even better, we found out that my cousin jeff's daughter kelly and her husband drew live very close to us and would be interested in babysitting for our baby someday! yay! we're looking forward to meeting up with them soon.

i am preparing to email bettina all of our dossier information next week (we're still waiting on the fbi fingerprint report, but i've heard that this process is now taking around 10 weeks...it's been about 7 weeks since i sent our's in) so she can begin the review process. ginger, my 'office mom', just renewed her notary license so i can have her help me finalize a couple of our documents. what a process to have complete!

time for me to sign off and start cleaning. cheers to 2010!

ang

Merry Christmas!

can you believe it? the holidays are here! where has 2009 gone? seems like just yesterday we were attending our first adoption information meeting at lss... it's crazy to think that was more than 11 months ago already! there's not much new to report on the adoption front...we've now been officially waiting almost 8 months and we are both hoping that this is our last christmas as a couple of DINKS! hopefully next year we'll have a little one to spoil and to celebrate the holidays with! i can't imagine a more perfect gift! :)

let's see...regarding our dossier, we're still waiting on our fingerprint report from the fbi, we're getting our financial statement notarized by our bank tomorrow (tried to do this last friday on our way out of town, but found out that only a spanish speaking notary could sign it! nothing is ever easy you know!) and we have to take one more psychological test through lss next week (another new requirement for colombian adoptions). once we have all that, i will send it in to bettina for review and then finally we will have everything apostilled and forwarded on to colombia and the orphanage. no one said this would be easy, but it's all part of the fun, right?

i had my 12-week post-surgery appointment for my knee down at mayo today and everything checked out fairly well. i need to continue to strengthen my quad (my right quad is still 2 inches smaller in diameter than my left one!) and work on walking without a limp. believe me when i tell you that i am MORE than ready for my knee to be back to 'normal'. i haven't worked out since july 29th and all of the christmas goodies look and taste so good...it's hard to resist. perhaps some one-legged jumping jacks will be in order?

everyone in minnesota is bracing for the big snow storm that is supposed to hit just in time for christmas. we're planning on heading to owatonna on friday morning...we'll see if that happens or not. if we're stuck here, i guess heath and i will get to spend lots of quality couple time together. i am really hoping we can get out! ha ha.

wishing all of our friends and family a very merry christmas and a healthy & happy 2010!

love,
ang & heath