Country Life

As I write this post, I'm sitting outside watching my son play and the temperature is 75 degrees (perfect)! There really has been the good, bad and ugly since moving out here 1 year ago. Luckily, there is much more good than bad. And when the temperature is perfect like it is right now, we are ALWAYS outside.

Jackson and I have recently started a new tradition of going on afternoon walks together. I let him explore, lead the way and we close our eyes and listen to the sounds around us.

 

Do we have livestock or animals, you may ask. We are starting with chickens and plan to add a goat or a pig in the future. Just yesterday, we added some baby chicks! We already have 3 laying hens (breeds: Barred rock, black austrolorp, Sicilian buttercup). We attempted to raise 4 chicks (all barred rock's) last year and none of them made it (remember that bad and ugly I mentioned above?). This time we are troubleshooting and trying to fix mistakes we made last year. Our 4 new chicks are adorable and the kids have been so "helpful"! Their breeds include rhode island red, naked neck (yup), white brahma, and Ameraucana. Right now we have brown and white eggs from our current chickens and these will lay different shades of brown and one blue!

More to come on country life!

Adoption timeline

For those wondering where we are in the adoption process, here is your post! This will also provide some guidance for those looking to adopt from China and curious how long the process may take. For those adopting from other programs, your timeline will look very different.

We are adopting a little girl from China with special needs. We are unsure of the special needs she will have at this point until we are matched. This type of adoption, on average takes 18 months. We started October 2014 so we are 4 months in. There is a ton of paperwork and Jake and I have started to call it a labor of love!

10/6/14 application faxed to CCAI and medical checklist completed
10/10/14 initial application approved
10/11/14 home study application sent
10/15/14 notarized and mailed fee/ service agreement
10/20/14 dossier and home study packets sent
11/8/14 first social worker visit
11/30/14 home visit in our home

12/23/14 Home study approved

01/14/15 USCIS (1800A) application sent in

02/14/15 FBI Fingerprinting appointment

 

And there we are! We are waiting for our USCIS approval. Once this is complete, it has to be notarized/ certified and then we compile our dossier documents. The last step before our dossier is sent to China, is a trip to the Chinese Embassy in Houston TX. Documents have to be hand delivered there and hand picked up in Houston...so a road trip is in our future! It would be close to a miracle to have her home by the end of this year so we are looking at early 2016.

 

 Here are some wonderful gifts we received at Christmas

 Paperwork upon paperwork

 See how excited Jake is?!

 Claire helping in the process!

 Waiting on police reports, its a team effort

And the USCIS documents mailed

Chinese New Year!

So, it's recommended in the adoption world to celebrate the culture you are adopting your child from. I love this idea and I find the Chinese culture fascinating even though I don't know much about it. We decided to start with the Chinese New Year and although we don't have our daughter yet, this was a wonderful time to immerse ourselves in a little bit of Chinese culture and join in this celebration!

 

The Chinese New Year marks the turn of the Chinese calendar (Lunar) and is also known as the Spring Festival. Customs and traditions circling this holiday include festivals, food, gift exchanges/ red envelopes, fireworks, music and the Dragon Dance! The dragon is a symbol in China that represents good luck.

 

So tonight we ordered Chinese (I plan to master Chinese food but tonight I needed easy), made dragon masks, crafted homemade fortune cookies, practiced using chopsticks, watched Dragon Dance videos and listened to Jake tell us about his trip to China in 2010. It was a wonderful evening, we all really enjoyed learning about the culture and talking about the country our daughter is born in.

 

 

Fortune cookie craft

Introductions

Hey there! I'm Michelle and this is my new blog, Welcome!

I can promise right off the bat, I am not a writer...nor would I consider myself a blogger. Just a woman, documenting her journey. I'd like to think of this blog as "real life".

Here's a little about me:

I just turned 30 and it feels like I'm finally settling into my life. Sounds weird, I know. My husband and I have moved 4 times since we have been married (8 years) and we aren't even military! But I feel like we have arrived. We are in what some would consider the "country", which is really 4 acres outside of the city. But its our 4 acres and it's home. We moved out here to simplify what seemed like a life of keeping up with the Jones's and we haven't looked back. We are more content here.

 

Jesus is the Lord of my life and I came to know him personally at the age of 21! What a fun rollercoaster it has been ever since.

 

I'm a nurse practitioner and work part-time in Cardiology. I like to cook, bake, garden, craft and now I'm learning how to sew!

 

My family:

I married my wonderful husband, Jake, in 2007. Life with him is never boring :)

We had our first child in 2010, Claire Madison. She is now 4. I'd describer her as spunky, kind, stubborn, smart and truly a beautiful soul. Our son, Jackson Ray is 2 and I swear he came in to this world running! He is so hard to keep up with! He's busy, independent, a lover, all boy and such a joy to be around!

We recently started the wonderful adventure of adoption. We have chosen to adopt a little girl from China and we started this process in October 2014. The average wait time for China can take 18 months. You can follow our journey with this blog!

 

 Picture by Sohostory

 

Picture by Michele Sauer