Making some progress!

Small steps...but any forward movement is encouraging! Yesterday we received Scott's employer reference in the mail, so now we can mail it back to CA to be apostilled. Then we also got our appointment from the USCIS to have our biometrics taken. This is the final step for USCIS clearance, which is one of the more lengthy steps. We are still waiting on fingerprint clearance from the FBI, so please pray that we will get that soon. After we get all of the clearances we can take all our paperwork to the state department in GA to have it apostilled, and then get it sent off for translation. We are praying to get that done before Christmas, but that deadline is quickly approaching.

Also, we have been doing well in our fundraisers. The tshirts have been ordered, so if you haven't paid we would appreciate a check anytime. You can message me on Facebook for our address. We should be able to get those distributed before Christmas (hopefully)! We have about $2000 left to raise before we can submit our dossier to Bethany, so we are also praying that we can get that raised so it doesn't hinder our progress. After that payment we will begin raising funds for travel, which we estimate to be around $10,000. We are planning a fundraiser for January, so I will post more info on that in the coming weeks.

We have been very blessed by personal donations thus far. We are hoping to get a matching grant, which people can donate to for our travel costs. We will post more info about donations after December 15th.

Thank you for your support and prayers!

My latest project...

For months since we started the adoption I looked forward to the day when we would know the child that we were adopting. Ever since we got approved for our little girl I have been envisioning the projects I wanted to do before she came home. One was to create a special "lovey" to send to her in Colombia. It is recommended to send the child a soft toy that they can bond with in the orphanage. Then when your child leaves she will always have that "lovey" that smells like the place she has always called home. It is a good way to bridge the gap.

My sweet friend Joy suggested I make a rag doll. My great-grandmother made me a rag doll that I still have, and our sweet girl shares a name with my great-grandma. I knew it would be perfect to sew my girl a similar doll. I ended up hand stitching and embroidering the doll, so it was a sweet time to focus on our daughter, and pray her her.

I finally finished sewing her dress today. It was made from a night gown that was made by my great-grandma, and I had enough material to make a matching dress for our girl. I can't wait to see her in it!

 The finished dolly!

 My rag doll, the new doll, and matching dress. 

I'm hoping maybe we can send the doll for Christmas, but we are still trying to figure out how to make that happen.

Other good news is that our check has cleared the USCIS, so we should be getting our fingerprint appointment soon. We are waiting on USCIS clearance, FBI fingerprint clearance, and our employer reference. Then we will get everything apostilled. Getting closer to the end of the paperwork! Hooray!

Nursery Projects!

This week I decided to start on some of the nursery projects I have been planning. We are very fortunate that the only furniture we have to buy is a crib. A while back I painted my great-grandmother's sewing cabinet, and that will work as a changing station. This week I decided to paint our glider, a book shelf, and a mini rocking chair. They are not completely finished but here are some pictures of the progress. The glider is mine from when I was a baby! It's in great shape, but I wanted to update it.

I will post completed pictures soon! We are almost ready to order shirts, so please let me know if you would still like one. You can comment on the blog, or message me on Facebook. Thanks for your support!

Nursery Time!

Ever since we started on this journey I have dreamed of what our sweet child's room would look like. Would it need a crib or a bed? Will it be boy or girl or neutral?

Well it is time for the fun to begin! Now that we know we will have a little girl, who will still need a crib I can start planning in earnest. Coming up with ideas is so much easier with Pinterest, and I have fallen in love with a grey/bright color nursery on there. Sadly we cannot paint (rental house), so we are trying to incorporate lots of color any other way. I have officially made my first purchase for the room, and this is what we are going to center the decor around...

It came yesterday, and I love it! Now off to IKEA to find some matching accessories. 

Will the paperwork ever end?

We are in the midst of the "paperwork" stage of the dossier now! Plus we are applying for as many grants as possible, and it seems that each application requires the same questions with just enough variation that I have to rewrite them all! But we are excited to be making progress each day, and hope to get several grant applications mailed off today. We did our FBI fingerprints last week, and have our doctor's visits next week. Please keep praying that our clearances will go quickly, and smoothly.

Some exciting news is that our Bethany representative is visiting the orphanage where our little girl is today. We are going to get some updated pictures and videos, and we got the chance to send some questions for the representative to ask. I wanted to know what size she is wearing, so I can start looking at all those cute girl clothes! In case you are wondering we are not allowed to post any pictures of our little girl until she is legally adopted, which will happen in Colombia.

I mentioned on Facebook that our goal for selling shirts is 200, which will bring in over $1000 for the adoption. Please keep spreading the word!

Thanks for all your support and prayers!

Shop on Amazon and help us earn adoption money!!

We are doing a new fundraiser where we advertise products for Amazon. The more products we successfully adversities the more we make for promoting them. So use the links we provide to purchase items and you will be helping fund our adoption! If you have specific items you want to buy just email me, and I will put up a link. My email is allyson.hamilton88@gmail.com The item is the same price, we just get paid for the advertisement.

Right now Amazon has a promotion where we can earn $6 for anyone who tries out a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. If you have not used this feature yet it is awesome! Just use this link : Amazon Prime Trial. If you don't want to pay for the membership just cancel at the end of the month. Thanks for your support, and let us know any special requests!
You get:

• FREE Two-Day Shipping on millions of items
• No minimum order size
• Unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library

The best news yet!

Well this past week has been a roller coaster in many ways. We traveled up to Virginia for me to take a Master's course at Liberty. We were able to see Scott's family, and stay with his brother and sister-in-law. We got to celebrate our niece's first birthday, and his grandma's 90th birthday. The course that I took was my first "live" counseling course. I had to be a counselor and client throughout the week, which was very emotionally draining. Wednesday and Thursday I was at the school for 13 hours total because we had to videotape counseling after class. I got home Thursday night only to find out that my hard drive was full, and none of the videos had recorded. We redid the the videos Friday, and I finally was done around 4:00pm. When I got home I got an email that said "Good news for the weekend!".

Our Colombian worker had been in Haiti all week, so I did not expect to hear from her. We were waiting to hear back from the orphanage about a letter of intent that we had submitted for a 2.5 year old girl. On Friday we found out we had been accepted!!! At this time we are not going to share lots of personal information about her because we are still working to get government clearance, etc. We are super excited though because we can really start making concrete plans. I can start on her nursery, and possibly sew her some clothes. All of the fun mommy stuff! :) We already have her first hair clip, made by my sweet friend Joy. Our timeline is not definite yet, but we hope to travel in 2014 to pick her up.

Other than our paperwork we still have a lot of fundraising to do, so we are still praying for the Lord's provision. We have been blessed by some donations in the past weeks, and picked up our sample shirts from Black Ink today. We will be taking orders this week, so I will put all the specifics about sizes and prices on the blog soon. We also hope to have our website up soon, and we will have online ordering available there.

Don't forget about our coffee fundraiser as well: Just Love Coffee

Thank you for all your support! Let's bring our little girl home!