Summer Preview

Today felt like summer....or at least a beautiful spring day.  It was amazing.  It's ridiculous how much a beautiful day out soaking up the sun can re-energize me.  I'm convinced I'm solar powered....and after 3 months basically cooped up inside I was nearly dead.  I'm glad we at least had that month in Mexico, or I might not have survived!

Roman is thrilled to have his bike out again.  The kids have been playing outside until bedtime the last couple days.  I love it!   

Roman couldn't be happier.  He barely survives winter.  Seriously...by the end of winter he is depressed, sullen, and generally miserable to be around.  We even installed a bar in the basement to try to help him...not THAT kind of bar, although after a winter cooped up with this kid it doesn't sound like a bad idea either.....a chin up bar.  He spends a crazy amount of time on there.  The other day he was struggling through school work and we ended up, kind of by accident, practicing his multiplication tables orally while he did chin ups.  Instantly he could focus.   Something about extreme physical exertion, it's like the on switch to his brain. 

 He's elated that he can now climb his trees, build his forts, jump his bike...

and best of all dig his trenches.   

This boy LOVES to dig.  He could do it all day.  

It was such a gorgeous day,  that I decided to wash and put away all the winter gear.  

I had a very cute little helper.

This week has been paper work crunch with our home study.  We had the first of our 4 required visits last weekend and our IP gave us the personal questionnaire forms to fill out and get back to her by the end of the week.   She needs them before our next visit.  Our 4th and final home study visit will be May 5th. 

{how awesome is this guy?..he HATES filling out forms.  That's a Baba's love right there.}

We've also been working on gathering the other letters, forms, and documents that we'll need for our Dossier (the information package we send to China).  We have also sent away our forms to the CIC (Canadian immigration).  Hopefully it doesn't take too long to hear back from them.  The cool thing is that our child will have Canadian citizenship before he/she ever sets foot in Canada.   It will be nice to have all that done in China.  

So this month is home study crunch.  Hopefully we'll have most of what we need for our Dossier by our final home study visit.   After that  it's sent to our Provincial office for approval, then it's sent to our agency for translation and other such things.  About a month later it gets sent to China (DTA...Dossier to China) for their approval.  

The child proposal or matching process is  a bit different for kids on "wait lists"...hard to place children, older children, and children with special needs (especially boys) so we're not sure when we will receive our child referral but we assume it's after our Dossier is logged in in China.   We're wide open with our age range, gender, and special needs so we're excited to see who we'll be matched with.  The wondering and anticipation is both a little nerve wracking and exciting.   It could go pretty quick if everything goes as planned....which it never does.   So I'm trying not to give this thing a timeline.  It's all in God's hands and in his timing.  

One step at a time,  one fee at a time...

I can't make the steps move fast enough.  I'd make them a sprint if I could.