SQUARE #1!!!!

"May you always be surrounded by a circle of love."


We are so excited!

We just received our very first square for our 100 wishes quilt! Actually I should say "squares" as they sent us two identical ones in case we do get twins! We want to send out a great big thanks to Donna and Jim Aho. The fabric is so bright and cheerful and we love how you tied your wish in to the fabric pattern. Thank you sooooooo much!!!!!

Thanks!

We want to thank all of you who have been checking out our blog and leaving posts!

It has been great hearing from you all and knowing you support us on our journey!

-lot's of love, Jenni and Scott

USCIS

Saturday in the mail we received our receipt from the USCIS (United States Citizenship & Immigration Services). We were told the first letter we would get from them would contain our receipt and the next would be our invitation to go get fingerprinted.

For those not in the know this is a crucial part of the whole process. The USCIS has to review our home study, application to adopt a foreign child, and basically give us permission to move forward with the adoption. We filed an "application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition (I-600A)" So now we have the receipt proving they have received our application and are reviewing it. According to the letter we received approx 2-4 weeks after receiving our application we are supposed to be scheduled for fingerprinting. On the front of the letter it said to contact them if it passes 90 days and we haven't been notified. UUUGGGHHHH! I hope we don't have to wait that long!!!

100 WISHES QUILT

There is a tradition in China to make a "Bai Jia Bei" or "100 Good Wishes Quilt."

This may sound crazy as I have never made a quilt in my life, but I would love to work on this project while we are waiting for our baby/babies.

The tradition is that 100 people contribute a square patch of cloth. The patches are sewn together into a quilt that contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric. A good luck wish is also included which will be put into a scrapbook. We would love to have our friends and family help create such a special quilt for our new baby.

To sum it up here's what we would need from you:

1 8x8 piece of cotton fabric
1 additional matching piece of material any size to go in a "wish scrapbook" along with a "wish note" - basically whatever wish or prayer you have for our child to have in their lifetime.

*** any advice on how to make a quilt!!!!
I'm just learning how to sew, so advice is definitely needed!!!


ps. I listed a link in my favorite links area of a 100 wishes site so you can see the idea.

Just Beginning

Scott and I are still in "the early stages", but are hoping to complete our dossier soon .

We have had our home studies, have tracked down all our marriage and birth certificate information, and our right now waiting for our invitation to go get fingerprinted. Every step brings us just a little bit closer! We know the wait will be long even after we get our dossier completed and get officially "logged in", but each little thing we get completed makes it more real. We are currently having our deck enlarged and it was a great thing when doing the planning to talk about making sure we had a secure gate for the dog and THE BABY!!!!

OR MAYBE BABIES!!!!

Yes, that's right! I did just say babies. Scott and I have put in a request for twins. That is not a guarantee that we'll get them however. What we have been told is that when it is our time to be matched if there are twins available then we can be matched to them. If there are not any twins at that point the CCAA (the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) will not delay the match to try to set us up with twins. In order to increase our chances we have asked them to expand the age range that we are eligible for. Because of our ages we are officially only eligible to adopt 0-12 months. They do take special requests sometimes if the social worker also agrees. Our social worker did put our request in our home study asking to expand the age range to 18 months. Our thought is what if there is a set of twins that are 14mths old or 16 mnths that have been overlooked? Why not match them to us!

So that is where we are in the process. We are working through the last steps of completing our dossier. All the people with CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International) the agency we are going with have been a great help. One of the best things was how they introduced us to the "First Friday's." For those of you who haven't yet heard us talk about them the First Friday's are when families who have been through the process and families who are mid-process get together for support and sharing of information. We haven't been able to attend every month due to my (Jennifer's) work schedule, but it's great when we get to go. Thanks to all of you who have been there! It's meant alot to us that you allowed us to come when we were still making up our minds about doing it!

That's enough rambling for one day. I just wanted to get our blog started- like I've said, it makes me feel like we are a little bit closer with every small thing we do in our journey to China!