fundraiser!!!!!

One of my favorite blogger friends, Shannon, is assisting us with a Scentsy fundraiser!  A portion of the dollar amount sold will be going towards our adoption.  I am very excited about this and have had good results so far!  If you are interested in browsing &/or making a purchase please check out this website http://shannonmc.scentsy.us and then click on my party, Kristen Dilka.  If you have friends or family that may need to refill their scents please forward them this link!  We'll be closing the party out the end of the month.  I thank you in advance!  Also, if you have any creative ideas for ways that we could continue to raise money, please share!

THANK YOU for helping us in our journey to bring Haylie home!

Update!!!!

Sorry that I haven't really posted a whole lot here, I feel like all I can tell anyone is that we're still working on paperwork.  Paperwork, paperwork, and a little bit more paperwork!  At this point though I do have more interesting news.  Are you ready for it?  Drum roll please.....

WE HAVE A MATCH! 

Yes!  We are matched with an absolutely beautiful little girl!  I cannot reveal much information at this point but as soon as I can, rest assured that I will flood this blog with as many details and pictures as I can! 

Our homestudy is in the final phase, it's off with a typist.  That's a HUGE releif!  I absolutely cannot wait to go get my little princess and bring her home where we can spoil the heck out of her! :-)

"deadline" came and went

Well folks, March 1st has come and gone! When Sage and I started this journey we had set a goal of shipping our paperwork off to China on March 1st.  This is also the date of our 5-year anniversary, so, Happy Anniversary to us!  Needless to say, um yeah, we missed the deadline.  Hopefully by the end of this week all of our paperwork will at least be turned into our home study agency, which will then mean our application can be sent to China  in about six weeks.  So, end of April is the new goal!  If you're following along on this journey, be patient, keep checking in.... we definitely understand that the patience isn't an easy task! :-)  Hope everyone has a great week!

trucking on...

This past week was pretty productive for us!  Logan and Riley needed to have TB tests done so we were able to get that done.  Now I just need to drop off the forms and proof of neg. TB tests to our pediatricians so that they can fill out that our kids are up to date on immunizations etc etc.... Then Sage and I need to go to the doctor's and have our papers filled out stating that we are over-all healthy people.  I sent off all of our paperwork to our employers to fill out employer verifications and also information on our health insurance, so just waiting to get that back.  Also waiting on a few reference letters to get sent back to us.  To you it may sound like a lot of stuff left to do, to us, holy crow it seems like we've come a really long way! We are definitely not going to make the March 1st deadline that we had given ourselves... maybe April 1st?  Fingers crossed!!!!!!

If you're new to this blog, family..... welcome!!!! :-)

Along with getting so much accomplished this week we also got nailed with a winter storm.... nearly 10 inches later...... and now they're talking about another wave hitting us on Monday with yet ANOTHER 10 inches! Yikes!

still here!

Well we are slowly trucking on!  Last week we chose a home study agency, this week we went and had our first meeting.  We have TONS of paperwork to fill out!  We now have two large packets to complete between the agencies.  I dove in head first to try and be as quick as we could but it's kind of like chasing our tail.  Can't complete this until we finish this, but can't finish that until we complete this. Ugh!  Big thing right now will be completing our home study, which is quite the process and can take a couple of months!  At this point we have done everything we can, now we're just waiting on others.  We need reference letters, doctor's forms, etc.... it's all very exciting! I'll be honest though, I'm wishing I could find a money tree!!!! :-)  Here's how I feel right now.....

The kiddos here are keeping me busy.  Poor Hunter (our 8 month old) has had an ear infection since just before Christmas.  This week he started his 3rd antibiotic and received a referral to an ENT.  Poor guy, though all of my guys have a history of angry ears.... between the older two we have had FIVE sets of tubes!  A couple of weeks ago Logan (our 9 year old) got the flu, and then to top it off he had a nasty ear infection.  The following week Riley (our 4 year old) got the flu and added an ear infection to his too.  Wow.... we might as well rent a room in the doctor's office and open a tab at the pharmacy! ha!  Good thing these kids just keep smiling through it all!

Wouldn't even guess they were sick huh? At this moment the little guy was running 104 temp and Riley's ear drum was on the verge of rupturing!

In addition to being a stay at home mom (my favorite gig!) I'm also an RN.  I work the night shift, 7pm - 7:30am, so that I can be home with my kiddos during the day.  Yeah, I don't get a lot of sleep! lol  I love it though, love both of my jobs.... I'm lucky that I can pick up extra shifts to help pay for the costs of our adoption.  But all this work = one tired momma!  But SOOOO worth it! :-)

Sooo impatient!!!!

So, this waiting game and I are not gonna do well together! I mailed off our agency contract on Friday, along with our first big check. Finally today I emailed to see if they haf received it. Yup, it's there, they advised me I would be hearing from our consultant and we'd get our next steps given to us. Um ok, WHEN?!?! I did my part, now hurry up and call me!!!! I just gotta keep telling myself, I'm not their only client. Today a friend of ours got to meet their new son, I am so excited for them! It's gonna be an amazing day when we get to meet our little girl! In the meantime, my boys are keeping me busy while we wait! Between the 3 of them, we are "enjoying" the flu, the stomach bug, and double ear infection. They are troopers though, everyone is still smiling!

my angels

Tonight I submitted the paperwork off to our agency and sent off some money!  It's really happening people!  We also came across a beautiful little girl that is looking for a home, she is located in Africa.  We have the option to place a hold on her which will give us first dibs on her medical history and then if it seems she will fit into our family then we can go ahead and proceed with our adoption through Africa.  Basically we have to decide whether we want to go through China or Africa now!  So many decisions and none to be taken lightly!  For now I think we will proceed with China as planned but keep Africa in the back of our minds.  So today was officially "day 1" of our adoption process.... WOW!  :-)

I'll leave you with this photo of my precious kiddos from Christmas...... I love how they keep talking about their little sister and what fun things we'll do when she comes home!  Butterflies are just about nonstop these days!