The Paperwork is Complete!

God is so good! My prayer since we started this journey in March was to finish the paperwork by the end of 2013, and God has proved faithful. We received our I-797 (clearance from US Customs & Immigration) today! Many of you know that the government shut down delayed our process a bit, but I should have known that God's timing will always prevail. Thank you for all your prayers and support; they have helped us reach our goal for 2013.

Now we will get all of the paperwork certified and send it off for translation, and then to the Colombian government. We have two big prayer requests as far as the paperwork goes in Colombia. Our doctor's clearance will expire Jan 29th, and our employer reference will expire Feb 19th. Please pray that the Colombian government will process our paperwork before those dates. The other request is that the Colombian government will approve all our documents the first time. There are times that paperwork has to be redone or clarified, and that extends the process considerably.

Our final news is that our website is up and running! Check it out at www.ouradoptionadventure.org. Wishing everyone a Happy New Years!
Allyson & Scott

Your Prayers are Working!

We received two important documents in this mail this week! God is so good to get these in before the holidays! First we received Scott's employer reference with the apostille (government certification). We've heard that CA can be picky about apostilling documents, so we feel very fortunate that ours worked the first time. Also, I've mentioned many times that we've been waiting for FBI clearance. I've been trying not to get my hopes up about getting the clearances before Christmas. When the government shut down they stopped processing fingerprints, so we knew they would be backed up. Normally the clearances take 6-8 weeks, and we just received ours today (only about 7 weeks)! So now we send those off to Washington, D.C. to get them apostilled by the federal government. Your prayers have been surely helping us!

The final document that we need prayers for is our I-797. We got more fingerprints done with the USCIS, and that is the last step before getting the I-797 clearance. We are hoping to get the document by the beginning of January.

Please also pray for our girl during this Christmas season. We have no idea if they do any type of celebration at the orphanage (it is a Catholic orphanage). Our main prayer is that she would have a full belly and know that her mommy and daddy love her. I won't be able to send anything to her until she is officially referred to us by the Colombian government.

My last bit of news is to save the date for February 8th. We are going to have an awesome Valentines Dinner fundraiser at our church (Momentum Eagles Landing). We are hosting a pick-a-prize auction, and will have childcare as well. The proceeds from this fundraiser will go towards our cost of travel to Colombia. Hopefully this will be our last fundraiser before going to get our girl! Please plan on coming to support us!

Merry Christmas from the Hamilton!

Pictures & Fundraising

No forward progress to report in the paperwork department, but we are praying for FBI fingerprint clearance before December. We appreciate any prayers to speed that us!

Last Saturday we took pictures with our friend, Jordyn, who is an awesome photographer. She took some pictures for us to help us document this important part of our lives. Then she and Scott did portraits for several different families. She is especially awesome because she is donating half of the proceeds to the adoption! Here are some of our pictures:

Scott and I were looking through our funds after a convicting sermon on Sunday, and we just have to glorify God for all He has done in our adoption process. As of September 18th we had completely drained our funds that we had saved because we had to pay for our homestudy. Our next big payment will be when we submit our dossier, and we are praying that will be before the end of 2013. At times I felt like we would never be able to raise that money before Christmas, but God's timing is always right. We have currently raised all of the funds that we need for the dossier payment!!!! Next we will work on raising money for our attorney fees in Colombia, all our travel costs, and the cost of our post-adoption visits. I finally feel like our trip is in sight, still in the distance, but at least in sight. We cannot wait to meet our little girl! I can't wait to spend Christmas 2014 as a family of 3!

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.