More Perfect Provision

It's a big day in Perfect Provisionland. Not only are we the proud new owners of a beautiful 2000 Chrysler Town & Country (thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Fullton),

we also are in possession of our children's birth certificates and official referral documents.

Not to mention a decree from CEJA officially granting us permission to adopt our four children.

This is really happening!

Making Room

The USCIS approval that arrived a week ago has become quite well-travelled.  It went from our hands to the Secretary of the State of CT's hands in Hartford, down to the Brasilian Consulate in NYC, and back to us in less than a week's time.  Now it is in Oregon being translated before it heads down to Brasil.  The court in Brasil will apparently accept an emailed copy of the document in order to keep things rolling while the original hard copy travels down.  I figure it's around 9,921 miles from start to finish.

In the meantime, we're proceeding to get things ready around here.  

Our little house has 3 bedrooms--2 small and one large.  We moved out of a small one and rearranged the large one which had been a family room with futon, TV and desk.  We painted it a soothing blue called Ocean Kiss.  Ahhhh relaxing.  James also built us a "cloffice" which is an office in a closet.  Quite nice, though.  Away went the desk to make room for a cozy little couch where we will almost surely flop to read bedtime stories.

 

 

The other two bedrooms are works in progress, but there are beds for both (two are currently being refinished, and the other bunkbeds are traveling to us from a dear friend of my mother in Virginia.)  One room is tidy and set up as a guest room with one double bed at the moment.  The other room is currently known as the "garbage room" (I won't horrify you with a picture).  It caught all the bits and pieces that that didn't have a home when we rearranged everything.  I have plans to tackle that project this week.

 

Downstairs we moved a big shelf out of the living room into the dining room.  We will buy baskets to hold the kids' toys and backpacks inside the cubbies of the shelf. 

We also replaced the old carpet (thanks, Oscar) with some delightfully easy-to-clean FLOR carpet tiles.  We got a new (old) coffee table from The English Country Building, a fantastic modernish antique shop downtown.

 

The new desk was from a yard sale at our neighbors' house.  They sold us this sweet 50's vintage desk and chair for $20.  We're hoping to mount the TV on the wall to save space.  

We still have a pretty long list of chores to accomplish before we feel like the house is ready for children.  Our hearts are ready, and I suppose that's all that matters.  

This weekend we celebrated birthdays, anniversaries and Mother's Day with both of our families.  Our parents are SO excited to be grandparents.  They are being so helpful and encouraging.  We came home with hand-made pillows from my mother and a carful of bed pillows and mattress pads from James' mom.  They can hardly contain themselves.  We all had lunch together on Sunday and I got my name on my first Mother's Day Cake.  There is so much joy in our family right now... and so much anticipation of the joy to come.

 

Okay, I'll show you pictures of the Garbage Room.  Just some little ones:

 

A+ for the translator

Ines is our Brazilian translator based in Oregon.  USPS got our express-mail package to her (containing our homestudy addendum) on Tuesday before noon.  I'm told Ines got it translated in record time and express-mailed it to Brazil TODAY!  It should be in Brazil in less than a week!

In Luciana's words:  "All is looking good."  Her goal is for us to travel in mid-June or early July.  

So soon!!  

My mind is already trying to figure out details like car seats (in CT the law is 6 years and 60 pounds), bedtime routines (I've got a plan), household jobs (thank you Supernanny!), plane fare (Delta's right at $500 right now and James may have enough miles to upgrade our seats for the way home!!!), getting from place to place (we have a couple options), clothes (saw some sweet deals at H&M today!), quilts (thank you grandmas!), bedroom furniture (found the sweetest little set of twin beds at English Market on Chapel St.; for the rest, IKEA here we come!) and what I will say to my children the first time I look into their eyes (I still have no idea.  I'll probably be sobbing or giggling or something else that is very unprofessional-looking like that).

Here is the cute bed we found.  We may indulge in 99% 

bliss and go buy it this weekend while James' parents 

are visiting!

Traduzido

We've gotten word that our dossier has been traduzido (to Portuguese) and was shipped to Brazil yesterday.  It is now traveling and in no one's hands but God's.  

Hopefully we'll here when it gets there and when it's submitted to the courts.  

Translation

The stack of papers we call our dossier is about ⅜ of an inch thick, 81 pages long, took 6 months, 19 days to complete, feels like it carries the weight of our hopes and dreams for our family and our future, but in actuality it weighs 13 ¾ ounces.  We sent it to our agency along with three duplicates (that's 2.67 inches thick, 324 pages and 3.44 pounds of of paper!) on December 19.  It is being translated this week in Oregon, it's final stop before Brazil.  Luciana (of LIMIAR) has spoken with the translator who is aiming to complete it by Friday.

Will we follow behind it soon?  Will we finally embrace our children this year?  Oh, we pray we will!