Yay! Homestudy is done! by Mary

Good news! Our homestudy is complete and was sent to the Holt USA office on Friday. They will review it and then send it on to Holt Korea. Once that happens, we will officially be "waiting." In the meantime, James and I have to complete the USCIS immigration paperwork. Apparently this can be a lengthy, annoying process. On the Holt discussion boards there have been several postings complaining about the Dallas USCIS office. Hopefully things will go smoothly for us! Another bit of good news is that our Heart and Seoul holiday bake sales earned us enough money to pay to file for the USCIS paperwork, plus more that will go towards paying for our homestudy.

Right now James is in the kitchen making 8 dozen homemade cinnamon rolls that were purchased by my school's PTA president to give to the teachers at my school tomorrow. Have I mentioned that the PTA president, James Atwood, is a really awesome guy? His adorable wife, Michelle, who teaches kindergarten at my school is also really great. Not only have they helped us out by generously supporting our Heart and Seoul baking efforts, but they also are sponsoring our Heart and Seoul website. Plus, they are having us over for dinner tomorrow night, too!

One last thing: I'm trying not to get my hopes up or dwell upon it, but yesterday we spotted a couple of new additions to the Holt waiting child photo listing that we are very interested in. Both are baby boys who have some correctable special needs. I won't go into details at this time about them, but my heart was racing as I studied their profiles yesterday. They are SOOO cute! Since they are on the photo listing and have not been referred to us, the process is a little different. We have to let Holt know that we would like to be considered to adopt them, and then it goes to a committee that selects the couple they think is the best match for the baby. I'm sure there will be many families who are interested in those precious boys (which is good). James and I are praying that if one of them is meant to be ours that it will work out. It's a little funny to think about getting a boy b/c in our minds somehow we have been stuck on adopting a girl. However, one look at the WC photolisting and it's clear that more boys are in need of adoption, so that comforts us.