Adoption Update and Superhero in finals!

Hello,

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. We have a few more weeks although some schools here started back today! I am not quite ready so a few more weeks are good for us!!

My new favorite pic of Kwame I edited after taking a free online photo editing class!!


After consulting with our local USCIS office and adoption agency, we have decided to file our I600 here in Arizona. For Ghana adoptions, most people choose to take a trip to Ghana to file it there because it usually goes faster. Due to a recent change in that the approval can now be sent via email instead of snail mail, processing times are going faster and families are now considering filing stateside instead of traveling.

I am very hopeful that our timeline will be very similar to if we had traveled to Ghana. I plan to file it this week in our local office. I am just waiting to get the scanned copy or our adoption decree and to hear back from the office letting me know when I can come in.

I have mixed feelings about filing stateside. I really was looking forward to going back to Ghana. I wanted to see our son and I also wanted to get to be in Ghana for a week. I miss Ghana. I really do and if I had needed to go back, I was excited to go. Getting to be in Ghana with our son would have been wonderful. I know I will always miss that I did not have the opportunity to know him and interact with him in Ghana- to see how he was and to experience his birth country with him.

It will be easier financially to file here as a trip to Ghana to file would have cost about $2500 and would have been very hard on Selina and Cater to have me leave. Especially Selina. We think she would have a setback in her attaching if I left her for a week. She is really a mommy's girl and we are so happy with how she is doing in her attachment that it would be hard to risk hurting that at this point.

Instead, our plan is to have TR and Kman go to pick Kwame up and bring him home when his paperwork is all done. TR has not been to Ghana and we feel it is important he experience being in his children's birth country. If we can work it out, we plan to have Kman go.

Since the day he found out last year that we were adopting a girl first and planned to go back for his brother, Kman has wanted to go along to get him. I think it will be such a wonderful experience for these brothers to be together from the beginning and for Kman to know what Kwame's life was like in Ghana. I think it is important for them to travel here together and for them to walk off the plane as Kwame enters his new life with his brother by his side to encourage him and be there for him. Kman is the kind of boy that will be a great support and friend to his brother.

Right now the "wild card" in the adoption is the passport. Ghana passports are coming our really slow right now and are really unpredictable. They don't come out in the order they go in and seem to get lost along the way. His passport was submitted and came out in May but was missing a signature so it had to be turned back in. From that point, it went into an abyss and was never to be heard from again so it was filed all over again in June. So basically this passport could come in tomorrow or in months.

So for our timeline- I will file the I600 here this week, hopefully it will be approved and sent off to the National Visa Center within one week. It will be processed there and hopefully sent off to Ghana a week or so after that. I would feel blessed if we had I600 approval and the paperwork was back in Ghana in one month. That is about how long it would have taken for me to go to Ghana and file and get the approval.

Once we have that approval AND the passport, we can plan to go to Ghana about three weeks to a month later to bring Kwame home. So I think a best case scenerio if I try to protect my heart is to hope to have Kwame home by sometime in October at the latest. If it is before then, I am happy and thankful.

I never thought when starting this process, that I would be thankful for him to come home in October. I thought he would have been home by now but it is what it is and I am focused on how blessed we are to have him as our son.

At this time, we are working on saving for our airfare. With two adoptions in two years and looking at traveling at the most expensive time of the year to fly to Ghana, we find ourselves short on travel funds. For those that have not traveled to Africa, we are looking at ticket prices of between $2000 and $2500 per ticket for TR and Kman and about $1500 for Kwame to come home one way.


So on that note...


What started out as a fun thing for the kids to do this summer has kind of blossomed into an opportunity for us to win some money in a radio station contest.

A local rock radio station is having a Top Pet contest and we entered our guinea pig Batman. We found out today that he is in the finals. The contest started off with 900 pets entered and Batman is now in the final 50 pets. If he wins, we get $1500 which would basically cover our ticket to get Kwame home or a good portion of TR or Kman's airfare. It would relieve some pressure on us financially.

In order to win, Batman must have the most votes. You can vote one time per computer and email a day. So each computer can place a vote each day as long as the email entered is different for each computer.

Please click here and vote for Batman. Once on the page, Click on the link below Batman that says "Vote For Me" and then enter your email. It takes less than one minute. If you can do that everyday this week (Contest ends August 3) it would be awesome. If you would pass this on to your contacts and ask them to vote, it would be appreciated. You never know who will hear about Batman and run with this. I had a friend of my neighbor hear about Batman and read our story and she has passed this on a few times on her FB and Twitter accounts. She has been so sweet and she doesn't even know us!

Here is the http addy: http://www.mix969.com/pages/arizonas-top-pet/vote-entrants.php

It seems kind of silly to me that there is a company out there willing to give away $1500 for having a "Top Pet" but hey, if they are willing to do it and I just have to pass on the word and click to win- I figure that I have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. I never would have thought in a million years that our little black piggie with the wild hair could possibly help us raise adoption funds. I think it is pretty cool that he has the chance to help bring a family member home. What an awesome accomplishment for a guinea pig!! :-) Thank you for all those that have voted, I have received some really thoughtful emails and comments and it is so appreciated.

I have several updates to post but my laptop harddrive has died and I am waiting for a new one (thankfully it was under warrenty). I look forward to catching up on that as I have a few cool pictures I have taken recently that I look foward to sharing!

I hope you all are enjoying your summer and get to have some more fun before it is over!!

Help Batman make a difference...

You may think he is just a guinea pig and he does nothing but sit in his cage and eat veggies but not Batman. Batman is a superhero and he is on a mission to be the Mix 96.9 Top Pet...

Ok, my adoption fundraising has gotten a little creative here lately. We recently entered our guinea pig Batman in a local radio station contest to be named the "Top Pet"

I am not really sure what a "TOP PET" is but if he wins, we get $1500. There were originally over 900 applicants and Batman has made the first cut to the top 200.

Please consider voting for Batman. You can vote for him once a day. Just click here and then click the Vote for Me under his name and enter your email. They only allow one vote per email and computer each day. It is really very simple. So if you could do this everyday until the 27th, that would be awesome!!

If we win, the money will help pay for our airfare which we are still short on funds for.

BTW- Batman has been promised upgraded veggies and fruits and new sleeping quarters if he wins. He already lives a pretty charmed life as we have redone his cage and done a few things to help him live more comfortably since getting him in March. He is actually very happy although unfortunately his little buddy/roomie Cookie had to be euthanized (yes they have guinea pig vets) a few weeks ago as he had a tumor and was getting really sick quickly.

TIA for taking a moment to vote for Batman. The kids begged me to enter him in the contest so I figured, it would be fun to do. We enjoyed making his cage sign and taking pics of him. When you click on the link, you will see the scrapbooking page I created to show of his "TOP PETiness"!! I did not think with 900 entries, he would make it this far but since he did, I thought I would ask for your vote! LOL

Feel free to pass this on... The link straight to his page is here if you need it.

http://www.mix969.com/pages/arizonas-top-pet/vote-entrants.php?gid=1&id=8

Batman eating an orange- his favorite fruit.


Kman with his superhero...

The Attack of the Pizookie...

I have to laugh as the girl's consuming this pizookie is similar to a baby bird or a newborn baby opening and closing it's mouth to indicate hunger. They grab their spoons and attack so desperately only coming up for air when given a cue to breath and relax for a moment. I couldn't help myself, I had to grab my camera!

A pizookie (also known by many other names) is a yummy fresh from the oven kinda raw cookie with ice cream on it. While we usually never get dessert when we go out, if they have a pizookie, we often can't help ourselves. They are great for sharing so we get one and all dig in.

So the other day, we had only the girls and took them out to BJ's for lunch and splurged on a Pizookie. It was slightly more civilized without Kman present as there was less competition for every last bite. No one got hurt and their headbands stayed in place. Gotta love the Pizookie!

A little summer baseball...

We love going to DBacks games. We have not gone to as many this year but the entire family got to one last week as it was a bobblehead giveaway night and Kman loves to collect them.

We had a blast at the game.

The girls dancing in their seats prior to the game.



The girls posing with cardboard Chris Snyder.



Kman in his element. I can't express enough how into baseball he is. I had to laugh as the other day he printed up a list of DBack free agents from last year to look into where each of them ended up and to plan for who will be free agents this year. Who does that? I guess my son does!LOL



The girls were more into the food and entertainment during the game. During the 4th inning, grandma and I took them to get an autograph and picture with Baxter. Selina was actually okay with him which was better than her response to Santa and the Red Robin. Maybe she is over her fear of costumed characters which would be great as we are headed to Disneyland ASAP once Kwame is settled in and we can swing it!



I couldn't help but think back to a year ago when our entire family went to the game and Selina had just come home. She stayed attached to me in her carrier and did not walk around at all. She would not have been able to walk that much physically and would have been very scared and overwhelmed with all the people. Cater was having a tough time getting used to having a new sister and getting over the fact that her mom had just been gone a month in Africa to bring Selina home. Oh how needy both girls were for attention as they got to know each other and figure out their place in the family...

Now here we are a year later. Everyone is doing so well and we are getting ready to welcome a new brother and Selina loves ice cream- alot! Life is good!

I did it!!!

I finally did it! Oh my goodness am I technically challenged or what? It took me forever to figure out how to customize my blog.

I am so excited as my goal was to create my own header and background with one of the hundred or so digital scrapbook kits I own! For this one, I used Stacey's Kit Sk8 or Die which is available at the store Scrap that Idea.

I created the header and background on my Creative Memories Storybook Creator program but then could not get it to be the right size so I moved it over to Photoshop Elements to get the right pixels and resolution. I had to then host is on a site so I could get an html code for it so I now have an account on Scrapbook Flair. It was a lot to learn but now that I have, I hope to change my backgrounds and header more often as it was fun to create them.

On that note, if it looks weird or the size is off on your computer, let me know as I know I already have to make some adjustments for next time. If there is a problem, let me know what it is in the comments and let me know your monitor size.

I feel like Selina who does something on her own and then looks over and says, "I did it!"

I hope everyone has a fabulous Fourth of July! TR is working extra for some airline ticket money so we can go to Africa to get our little guy, so the kids and I are hanging out. I think we will go swimming for awhile at the pool at our club house and then relax a bit so Selina can stay up late for fireworks without having a no nap meltdown!LOL We are hoping to catch up with Chalene and her fam to watch them together somewhere.

And because I can post his picture now... here is another one of our son. Riding scooters is one of his favorite things to do (along with playing soccer).



Have a great day!!

In a small courtroom in Ghana, Africa....

We finally became the legal parents of Kwame! We are so excited! With this long wait to pass court, Kman and Cater really understood the importance and how this means that Kwame is our son and brother. We now really have four children... as of today!

So I have been waiting forever it seems to finally post some pictures!!







And because we were so excited and wanted to share this special day with his friends from Eban House in Ghana- we threw a party!!!
My good friend Chalene who also adopted from Eban House in Ghana, brought her family and her nephew Akwesi who is adopted from Ghana. We have our own little community of kiddos from Ghana and we love it!!

Cater made a sign for the front door...


We had pizza
Rita

Selina


And ate cake...


Racheal






The kids played foosball

And the Wii


Akwesi showed Rita pictures of Kwame. Akwesi and Kwame were friends at Eban House (the children's home where the kids wait to come to America). Only Akwesi has met Kwame.


Next in the process, we work towards bringing Kwame home. We need to file the I600 which is the paperwork needed to bring him to America. Most people file that in Ghana as it has been easier and quicker in the past although due to some changes in the process, I have the opportunity to file it here. I will be making calls and talking to people to decide which will be best. If we file in Africa, I will leave for Ghana in about four weeks when the adoption decree from court today is given to our adoption agency. If we do file in Ghana, I will go alone and stay about a week to meet Kwame and file before returning here. TR would go get him about a month to two months later when that paperwork is processed and we get Kwame's visa.

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us. It has been a long and difficult few weeks. I am sorry I have neglected my blog. I was kind of in a funk and did not know what to say- the process of trying to go to court and getting delayed a week each time started to wear on me mentally. I knew I would get over it when we passed and am glad to report, I actually started doing better the last few days...

So before signing off, some more pictures of OUR SON... Woo hoo, I love the way that sounds! I am so happy to be a mama of four!!



I love the picture below... I look at it and wonder what Kwame is thinking. I am so excited to meet him and get to know him... To help him discover his dreams and help him to make them come true...

I know we have never met, but I already love you son...

One Year

It has been one year since I brought Selina home from Ghana. In some respects, it seems like she has been here and has been a part of the family forever but at the same time, I can remember meeting her and bringing her home like it was yesterday.

She has come so far this year...
Medically: she spent most of the first nine months battling respiratory infections and allergies. We tried several medicines with no lasting relief. In January, she started having increased difficulty with her breathing and what they thought were asthma symptoms. Finally in March we took her to the emergency room in desperation and she ended up having her tonsils and adenoids removed. Since then we have been able to stop the five medicines she was on. She is a different child. Just recently we are starting to see more congestion but thankfully it is nothing like we dealt with before.

Developmentally: Selina qualified for speech, developmental and physical therapy when she first arrived home. At the age of 24 months she was more like a 16-19 month old in all areas tested. She immediately made gains and was dismissed from PT. She has continued her developmental and speech therapy to address her cognitive and language delays.
We are happy to report that she was just tested again to see if she would continue to need services. The gains she has made in language and her cognitive abilities now put her in the average range and she no longer qualifies in these areas. She did end up qualifying for a little assistance with her articulation but that was very borderline and we don't anticipate she will qualify for long.

Socially: Selina has been in a day care situation that we consider to be a "school" for her. I toured many centers and chose a wonderful school for her. The school has a small class size (12 kids and two teacher). The approach they take with the kids is to let them play, get dirty, use their imaginations and have fun.
Selina started off a shy and quiet child- she did not say much and just followed along. She then started learning and imitating the other children. We called her "Echo" as she would do what they did and say what they said. Thankfully she has been with the same kids and teachers all year and the kids are well behaved and served as excellent role models. Well, hold on to your hat because that shy and quiet child has blossomed. She is now a social butterfly! She is a talker and will lead and initiate play with the other students. She will be assertive and is not afraid to let anyone know that she won't be pushed around. The funny thing is that she does it in a sweet and endearing way.
TR and I credit so much of her gains to this environment. She has been loved and nurtured by her teachers. I had her speech and developmental therapist do her therapy at school so that her teachers could see what they were working on and carry it over into their interactions with her. I have degrees in speech and special ed and so it just made more sense to have therapy at school. This has worked beautifully as they were happy to learn how to help her catch up developmentally. Her peers have been wonderful role models that have taught he so much. She has had this safe place to learn and explore and she has taken full opportunity of it!
This confidence she has carries over into everyday life in that she does much better in social situations when we go out. We still have to be careful and watch her so she doesn't get overwhelmed but we find that she is doing better all the time.


Attachment: Selina loves her family. I think in the area of attachment, she is doing very well. She loves us all and prefers us over others. She gravitates to certain people but not to every one. She is more of a momma's girl when she is tired but whenever dad comes through the door she runs to him like she hasn't seen him in a year. She loves her brother and sister. It is cute because if she wakes up in the middle of the night or before everyone else, she will go and find someone to crawl into bed with. At first it used to be me only but now, everyone in the house is fair game. One night I couldn't find her at all and then finally discovered her on the floor next to Cater's bed! Don't know what happened on that one!
Another night I went to go to bed and was checking on the kids and I found Selina must have gotten up and went to Kman's bed but didn't make it quite into his bed before falling asleep again.


Sometimes we will let her lay down with a sibling to fall asleep if it is a weekend night and she is extra tired and we know she will pass out quickly.

Size: Selina has gained over 10 pounds has grown four inches and three shoe sizes since bringing her home. She used to be about the same size as her classmates but she now is taller than all of them! She stands tall and straight with great posture which makes her seem all that much taller! I have not had her measured recently and compared to her peers percentagewise but am interested to see what percentages she is in when she goes back as I expect they have jumped up tremendously!

Today I am a little emotional. I am so thankful as I celebrate the year we have had and how far Selina has come. She has added so much to our family and has blessed our lives so much, I wish more families would consider adoption and get to experience the joy and love that an adopted child can bring to your lives. I wish more orphans would have the opportunity to be a part of a family and to be loved and be able to give love. It is amazing how God can bring together a family and how it really does not matter if a child has come from you- you love them just the same and their siblings accept them just the same. I love how we celebrate Cater and the how she came from my tummy and is a part of me and how we celebrate Selina who God placed with us from thousands of miles away- she has come to be with our family- in our home. We are all so blessed.

Thank you God for our little girl! Happy one year Selina....