Check out this etsy site

Okay, you know I'm selling soap to raise money for our adoption, but I just want to share about another etsy seller who makes beautiful jewelry and donates part of the profits to others who are adopting. (Gotta get her on board with our adoption! :) )
Here is her website.
Check out some of her handiwork:

Received a referral for Abraham and we accepted!

As most of you already know, we received a referral for a 5 week-old boy named Abraham on November 3, 2009. I've shown pictures to almost everyone, but I can't post his picture on here until he is officially ours. We accepted the referral on November 6th.
We will keep Abraham's name since his birth mother named him AND I had it in my heart that he would have a Biblical name. His middle name will be Benjamin, soooo.... Abraham Benjamin Dreher was born on Sept. 29, 2009 in Addis Ababa. His mother relinquished him to an orphanage at birth and he has been in the caring hands of the staff at Hannah's Hope Orphanage since he was one month old.

Right now, our paperwork is being reviewed by the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) in Addis Ababa. If they approve us to be Abraham's parents, they will send a letter of recommendation to the Ethiopian Court. From there, a court date is set to make us Abraham's legal parents. AGCI has staff workers who will testify on our behalf. After everything is made legal in court, we will be given an Embassy date. That date is usually a couple of weeks after the court date. It's for the Embassy meeting that we travel to Ethiopia to get Abraham's birth certificate and visa and to bring him home. Right now, we're anticipating traveling within the next 2 - 4 months. We are anxious to have him, but we've learned that everything works out so much better when God goes before us.

We bought a couple of items to mail to Abraham; a baby photo album that he can chew on and see pictures of himself with his new family and a stuffed elephant that plays lullabye music.

C.I.S. paperwork complete!

Great news! Our CIS paperwork was processed months earlier than anticipated and there is nothing more for us to do except wait for that referral. I'm expecting it any day now. We still have a lot of money to raise, so I'm making as much soap as I can and telling everyone about my etsy shop (www.topazbathgems.etsy.com). We're also have a scrapbooking fundraiser next month. I can't believe how far we've come!

Moving on up

We're now up to #4 for a boy and #17 for a girl on the waiting list. We just had our fingerprints taken on Sept. 30 and expect it to take almost 3 months for our CIS paperwork to be processed. We won't receive a referral until our paperwork comes in, so we're hoping for a referral by the end of this year.

I plan on opening up my soap shop next month and will have some old favorites, such as Oatmeal, Milk and Honey, along with a variety of Christmas soaps.

On the waiting list at last!!

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. I figured it would get redundant to read "we're still filling out paperwork." Well, the paperwork is all complete and we are officially on the waiting list for a referral of a boy or girl infant from Ethiopia. Woo hoo!! As of this week, we are number 10 on the waiting list for an infant boy and number 31 on the waiting list for an infant girl. The appx. time frame is 3-4 months for a boy referral and 8-9 months for a girl. We are happy to have either one! After we accept a referral, it would be 2-4 months to travel. We are hoping to bring home our son or daughter (most likely a son) by next spring!

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. We plan to have more fundraisers between now and spring, so we'll keep you posted.

So, so close...

Our home study is complete with the exception of three background checks that have not come in from several states. Surprise, surprise that two of them are VA and MD. I called VA and they claim to have never received my form and when I called MD, they acknowledged that they had received my form on March 16th, but haven't processed it, yet. They're getting to it right away...now. See what a little squeaky-wheelin' can do. ;)
We have everything else ready for our dossier...just waiting for our home study to finish being reviewed by our adoption agency and for these states to get off their you-know-whats and get our information sent.
Then...it's more "hurry up and wait". At least our part will be done for a while. :)

First Home Study Visit

We had our first home study visit this week and, for not knowing what to expect, I think it went pretty well. We have a really nice and helpful social worker. We have a lot of paperwork to complete and forms to fill out, sign and notarize, but hopefully we'll have our dossier completed within the next couple of months. It's becoming more of a reality as we move forward.