HURRY UP!!! So we can start the wait!

We received our USCIS I-171H Orphan Petition approval on Tuesday (yeah!) which was a whole month faster than I was expecting!!!  I was super excited to get it but then quickly realized that I am now behind on writing two letters (one to the Ethiopian Government and one to the board of SOS EE, the people at the Le Toukoul Orphanage who will make our match) plus we need to take one more on-line adoption class, get about ten documents notarized, and make about 20 photo copies before our dossier is complete and ready to be submitted!  So, for the past two and a half days I have been in HURRY UP!!! mode.  But I am now taking a breather to update and enjoy the quite, since at least one of three is taking a nap :)

Today, as soon as Kindergarten let out, the kids and I took a field trip to the Oregon State Capitol (just a 45 minute drive from our home).  This was my first time there (even though we have lived in the Portland area for over 8 years now) and it was actually quite fun.  We more specifically went to get our Power of Attorney and Homeland Security forms authenticated with a State Seal.  These are the last two forms we need to get in order to submit our dossier to the adoption agency and then sent it to Ethiopia!!

I have the BEST helpers!

We even got a little learning about our State in!

We will submit our dossier as early as we can next week and once that is has been done....we get to sit back and wait.... to be matched with our children :)  We officially become a "waiting family" as soon as all of our paper work arrives at the orphanage in Ethiopia and I hope to be posting an update about that very soon!!! 

♥ Katie               

P.S.  Since my last post our daughter (our oldest) started Kindergarten!  Our "BIG" boy (second oldest) turned four!  And I bought myself a rice cooker/steamer :) can you guess what's for dinner!?!